Egyptian Blogger Sentenced to 15 Years For Organizing Protest

The Guardian reports that Alaa Abd El Fattah, "one of the activists most associated with the 2011 uprising that briefly ended 60 years of autocratic rule, was sentenced to 15 years in jail for allegedly organising a protest – an act banned under a law implemented last November, and used to jail several revolutionary leaders. ... Abd El Fattah was also jailed under Mubarak, the military junta that succeeded him, and Adly Mansour, the interim president installed after the overthrow of Mohamed Morsi last summer. Under Morsi, Abd El Fattah escaped prison, but was placed under investigation." The EFF points ou that Abd El Fattah "is one of many caught up in the Egyptian government’s attempt to assert powers. Alaa set an example for how the Internet could be used to organize and exercise free speech: Egypt's leaders should not be permitted to make an example of him to silence others." Update: 06/12 20:02 GMT by T : Reader Mostafa Hussein points out that Abd El Fattah took part in a Slashdot interview more than 10 years ago, too; it gives some insight into the tech scene (and a bit of the politics) of Egypt at that time.

Comments

Re:Note to EFF

[cpghost]

How you get from a military theocracy to some sort of representative and stable government is a question that has yet to be answered.

Well, for Egypt, the question is rather to choose between an autocratic military regime on one side, and an autocratic theocracy on the other side.

Re:Note to EFF

[bill_mcgonigle]

How you get from a military theocracy to some sort of representative and stable government is a question that has yet to be answered.

If the US is any guide, you need a couple hundred years of near-anarchy conditions to get the people used to self-determination, self-ownership, and self-responsibility. Then, if they accept a govenment, they'll put strong restrictions on it (whether those are honored is another matter). Colonial America wasn't pure anarchy, but compared to most of the regions of the world today, it was pretty close.

Given modern communications, that couple hundred years might not be necessary, though there are limits to generations' flexibility and those generations have lengthened, not shortened.

Colonial America wasn't perfect, but the oppression of a strong military certainly isn't better.