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April 01, 2009

Blogging in the Arab/Islamic Fear Society

For anyone who loves freedom, and the expression thereof, the blog phenomenon is a grand and thrilling development. It's the ultimate vehicle for free exploration and exchange of ideas (not to mention dissent), and it's the ultimate crucible of peer-review to test ones honesty and credibility. This is why autocratic, theocratic, and other totalitarian regimes are deathly afraid of the blog. It's a powerful tool for freedom. Libya Reportedly Puts Blogger in Prison

CAIRO, Egypt - Libya has sent to prison for 18 months a blogger who criticized the government on the Internet, Human Rights Watch says in a report that inspired a series of Web tributes to the dissident Friday.

A Tripoli court convicted Abdel Raziq al-Mansuri of illegal possession of a handgun and sentenced him to 18 months' imprisonment on Oct. 19, the New York-based rights group said in an e-mail to The Associated Press in Cairo.

"The gun charges are a ruse," said the Middle Eastern director of HRW, Sarah Leah Whitson. "The authorities went after al-Mansuri because they did not like what he wrote." [A keyboard is a handgun to these tyrannical cowards. —ed.]

Al-Mansuri, 52, was detained in Tobruk, his hometown, in January after publishing about 50 articles critical of Libyan society and government on a dissident Web site based in Britain, http://www.akhbar-libya.com/, the rights group said Thursday.

Meanwhile, next door in Egypt: Egypt arrests blogger

Cairo - Egyptian police have detained a blogger for his anti-Islamic and anti-government writings and confiscated his books and copies of his articles, his family and other bloggers said on Thursday.

Abdolkarim Nabil Seliman, a 21-year-old law student at Al-Azhar University, was arrested on October 26. His whereabouts are not known.

"A group of seven police officers knocked at the door at 03:00. and asked about Abdolkarim," said his mother, who identified herself as Yousseria. She said the police searched the house, confiscated Seliman books and copies of his articles, which he posts to his blog.

"Since then, I didn't see him," she said, adding that his brother learned from police that Seliman was taken to a detention cell on Wednesday.

Police declined to comment when asked about Seliman's detention.

"He is stubborn, he has ideas that contradict the true religion and he posts that on the internet, serving no one but himself," said his mother when asked about his writings.

He's actually serving millions, and billions.

Appreciate freedom every day, infidels. It's precious.
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originally posted at Clarity & Resolve

Posted by Patrick at April 1, 2009 12:00 AM

Copyright © 2007 by author. May not be copied, published, or otherwise used (except for brief quotes) without express permission of author. Articles published with permission by Pardon My English.

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