Blogger Imprisoned

"There are things that one should not talk about, like religion and politics."

So says an Egyptian lawyer quoted in today's Independent, reporting on the Egyptian blogger jailed for four years for hatred of Islam and insulting the President, Hosni Mubarak. Kareem Amer (real name: Abdel Kareem Nabil Soliman) had referred in his blog to companions of the Prophet Mohamed as "terrorists", to al-Azhar as "the university of terrorism" and to President Mubarak as the "symbol of dictatorship". In his Blogger profile, he states his main goal "is to defend the rights of Muslim and Arabic women against all form of discrimination and to stop violent crimes committed on a daily basis in these countries."

As elsewhere, bloggers are on the frontline of Egypt's pro-democracy movement, publishing calls for reform and exposing human rights abuses.