Egypt Arrests More Bloggers

2think writes "The BBC is reporting that after bloggers highlighted recent public sexual harassment within view of Egyptian police, the government of Egypt has been arresting bloggers." From the article: "The most recently detained blogger, Abdel Kareem Nabil, was detained in Alexandria on 6 November and was charged with disrupting public order, inciting religious hatred and defaming the president. Amnesty International says Mr Amer appeared to have been detained for expressing critical views about Islam and Egypt's al-Azhar religious authorities."

Comments

Re:Seems like a trend

[TubeSteak]

First: not everyone in the world has a government that allows them the same free speech rights as [your wonderful country here]

Second: I imagine that the blogger knew that criticizing government officials &/or Islam was a bad career move.

As usual, TFA isn't that informative.
Google News will usually lead you to a much better (Reuters) article

Here's the essentials:
Egyptian police detained an opposition blogger in a chance security check on Sunday, a human rights group said.

Blogger Rami Siyam, ..., was detained with three other bloggers leaving a friend's house... The four had been visiting Mohamed el-Sharkawi, himself a blogger who was detained in late July and held for almost three months.

The area is home to the opposition Ghad (Tomorrow) party's headquarters, and security was especially tight in preparation for President Hosni Mubarak's speech to parliament on Sunday.

Police asked the four for identification.... They told Siyam their records showed he faced a court case in Sharkia province, and he would be transferred there for further checks. The other three were released.

It doesn't seem to me that the Egyptian Gov't went out of its way to nab this guy

Why bloggers are being arrested...

[bluesangria]

Simple. They witnessed an incident of rioting and mass sexual assaults occurring just after Ramadan during the festival of Eid. The bloggers were witnesses to the police standing by idly while gangs of frenzied men randomly attacked countless women. It was not just "harassment" (such a polite term). It was physical and sexual assaults, beatings, clothes tearing, and rape. It was so bad that shopkeepers and taxi drivers were having to hide women in their shops and cars to protect them from the mobs. The bloggers (many of them men themselves) were outraged.
The Egyptian government was embarrassed, but its response was to completely deny the incident and censor its press from reporting it. Hence, the outrage came out in the blogs. Note that this happened almost 4 weeks ago on Oct 24 and it's just NOW starting to come out. The government has also taken the stance that the bloggers are trying to "humiliate" Egypt and Islam by talking about the incidence and that's why they are persecuted. Please read these articles for more information

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/15/world/africa/15c airo.html

http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=56301& SelectRegion=Middle_East

http://www.sandmonkey.org/2006/10/30/the-eid-sexua l-harassment-incident/