Great News from Egypt about Abdolkarim

The following post has been copied from the Committee to Protect Bloggers. They are a very dedicated group of people that work tirelessly to protect the freedom of speech for all peoples. If you know of anyone who is receiving threats due to their blogging or writing in general, please contact them so we may all know and get the word out. We are all a part of team to ensure our God-given rights are protected.

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Abdolkarim Freed
by Curt at 08:47AM (PST) on November 14, 2005 Permanent Link

From Abdolkarim:
"(I have been released) after 18 days, six of them spent at Alexandria State Securit office of AlFarana, and 12 in Tora Farm Prison in Cairo. I am fine now and cannot but thank everyone who stood next to me, either friends or people who have never known me, but are my brothers in humanity even though we may not necessarily agree intellectually. I am deeply thankful for them and wish them the best. I promise to write soon about my stay at the Tora Farm Prison and the people I met there."

This is fantastic news and a triumph, however qualified, for free speech in general and in Egypt specifically. It may not have happened without the efforts of Manal and Alaa (who recently won the Deutsche Welle Best of the Blogs Award) and Amr.

The experiences of the last year, this included, indicate that bloggers mobilizing for something as defensible as freedom of expression frequently produces some kind of positive result. (I'm assigning this to the BlogAlert category because every once in a while we need to know what we're doing is not utterly in vain.)

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I am ending our petition to free Abdolkarim and am writing to the target of the drive, Egyptian Minister of the Interior General Habib Ibrahim Habib El Adly (moi1@idsc.gov.eg) to thank him for freeing Abdolkarim.

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From Amr: We have confirmed Abdolkarim's release from his family, and not from Abdolkarim himself. Due thanks goes to the three bloggers in Alxeandria, Mohammed Morsi, Haitham, and especially Malek Mostafa, Malek, whom I may label an Islamist, and therefore may be most offended by Abdolkarim's post, was the most dedicated amongst us all. While we were writing emails, he went to see lawyers and talked to the family, probably moved by his own convictions that Freedom of Speech is inherent in Islam, in addition to what moved us all.

Technorati Tags: threatened_bloggers, Egypt, Abdolkarim

Remember, it could be your speech they come after next. As long as we remain together, we are a force to reckon with! Have a good day everyone.