Kareem court case postponed until January 25th

Abd al Kareem Nabil Soliman, the Egyptian blogger, was in court this morning in the Muharam Beq court of misdemeanour. The case was postponed upon request from his laywers. He has been in State security custody since 7 November. Were he has been held in solitary confinement . He has not been allowed to meet his family during this time and he was not allowed to counsel with his layers during the breif session, according to one of his three laywers, Rawda Ahmed, he was looking very fragile.

He was represented by Rawda Ahmed from the Arabic Network for Human Rights Information , Ahmed Seif al Islam from Hisham Mubarak Law Center, and Muhammed Bayoumi from the Association for Human Rights Legal Aid.

The first time Kareem was taken into state security custody on 26 October 2005, was in the wake of the first Muslim-Coptic clashes in his neibourhood Muharam Beq in Alexandria. He wrote a post describing what he saw and what he felt, so basically this is a question of him expressing his thoughts - a prisoner of conscience. He´s thoughts may not be the thoughts of the average Egyptian, but he has an equal right to express them just the same. After 18 days he was released and this was the first Egyptian blogger faced with such an ordeal, and also the first campaign asking for a blogger´s release. I wish this would have been the end of the story,but Kareem was kicked out of the al Ahzar univerity faculty of law in Damanhour in March, and then taken into the state security warm arms once again, just 51 weeks after he got out, why? the al Azhar had filed a complaint, and what was the charges they filed? “spreading information disruptive of public order”, “incitement to hate Muslims” and “defaming the President of the Republic” among others. He could face up to nine years in prison if convicted.

Hopefully the court session next thursday will aquitt Kareem

The HRinfo calls upon local and international community to protect the opinion prisoner Kareem Amer, and demand the elimination of his trial and releasing him.


Award winning blogger Jar el Kamar and his fellow Alexandrian blogger benhoz atended the court session and their accounts in arabic can be read by clicking on their names they also took photos of Kareem that can be found here

The photo is taken by Jar al Kamar.

The best place to go to find additional material is HR-Info
You could also go to the free Kareem site . Here is AP reporter Nadia Abou el Magd´s take on it.

Abdolkarim,Kareem, Abd al Karim Nabil Soliman, Kareem Amer, human rights, Egypt, freedom of expression, Prisoner of conscience, blogger, internet freedom , al Azhar, Azhar