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."

Wah' dijah get?

[djupedal]

"...and was charged with disrupting public order, inciting religious hatred and defaming the president."

All we need now is a set of 8 X 10 glossies, some turkey stuffing and a gang of father-rapers.

Face it - if a pair of handcuffs have your name on them, you're going downtown and the charges only have to stick for as long as it takes to throw you in the back of the paddy wagon. Once they find out how this all works, they'll put this guy, or someone like him, on their payroll with those otherwise shady tactics working for their own purposes.

Re:Seems like a trend

[Josh Lindenmuth]

Great point. It's unfortunate, but global corporations need to abide by their host country's rules, or they need to pull out. Case in point is Microsoft, who has been forced to hand over information to the Chinese government and ban Chinese Bloggers [scobleizer.com]. In the end though, both sides lose ... Microsoft may end up leaving China altogether, and other companies may follow suit in China and elsewhere.

Re:Seems like a trend

[Anonymous Coward]

but global corporations need to abide by their host country's rules, or they need to pull out.

Funny. If I go to, say, Thailand to have sex with a teenager, upon my return I'll be arrested for having violated an American law. When a corporation goes to another country and fucks over its residents, that's just profit.

Youtube to the rescue

[heli0]

Here is the type of incident they have been blogging about.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B2SGamUeMec [youtube.com]

Re:Seems like a trend

[Steve B]

a Conservative Member of Parliament (Garth Turner [garth.ca]) was kicked out of his party for allegedly revealing confidential caucus information on his widely read blog

Even by absolutist American standards of free speech, that's not a problem -- the party gets to make rules for what members are allowed to do, and kick out people who don't comply.

Re:Constitutional engineering

[myowntrueself]

There's the theoretical world and the real world- and in the real world arresting people for speech the government doesn't like is actually a pretty measured and modern response

Of course in the UK they don't even go so far as to arrest people for speech the government doesn't like; they only have to declare it 'antisocial behavior' and they can make up a new law just for that one person, without it even going through parliament.

As Tony Blair would say; "of course criticising the government is antisocial behavior. I mean you can't get much more antisocial than attacking the government, now can you?"

Undermine the authority of the government? I hope you can live without raising your right hand above your waist in a public place!

Now *thats* civilised! ;)

Re:From what I've seen

[rossz]

In Pakistan, they finally changed the law that required four male witnesses to convict a rapist. Without those four witnesses, a women stood a good chance of being punished for infidelity. The religious community is up in arms about this legal change, denouncing it because it will result in sexual promiscuity.

In Saudi Arabia, a 17 year old girl was recently sentenced to death for killing one of the three men who attempted to rape her and her cousin. The remaining two men were not charged with any crime.

Don't pretend for one moment that women have any legal rights in an Islamic country. The laws do a better job of protecting horses than women. I'm not being sarcastic. That is an honest fact. Horses have a higher rank in Islamic societies.

Islam is a religion of oppression and hate. We can all sit in a happy circle and sing kumbaya wishing for peace, but that is a fantasy. The stated goal of Islam is to convert the entire world, by the sword if necessary.

I will hold this stance against Islam until the major leaders of that sick religion denounce all forms of violence to obtain their goals.

Re:How apppropriate

[CapitalT]

WHAT? you just called Egypt islamic??

HAHAHAHAHAHA.... what? you don't get the joke? oh nevermind

And what's with the beheading crap, that's for murderers (with full intent, not accident or self-defense).

On other note the Egyptian government is FUBAR, and you should take any Islam (or any religion for that matter) related stuff from them with a whole sack of salt.

Example: A 'fatwa' from them said smoking is OK for the rich but prohibited for the poor.

See, a government full of shit.

P.S: Smoking is prohibited in Islam under the don't-hurt-yourselves debt. (more accurately don't-kill-yourselves debt.) but governments don't enforce anything on that matter (at least where I am).

Re:Seems like a trend

[Richard_at_work]

As for your comment about frees speech zones... have you ever been to Cairo? Or talked to anyone who has? Their security measures are nothing like "Free Speech Zones" in the U.S. Both the police and army regularly go around armed with automatic weapons because Egypt has very legitimate concerns over political and terrorist/religious fundamentalist violence. Cairo has, quite possibly, the most police per thousand citizens of any major city.

I visited Cairo in 2003 as part of a day package tour from Cyprus, and what follows is a short description of the security given to our tour group.

Landed in Cairo on 737, aircraft met on the runway by two armed jeeps and escorted to a remote stand. Passengers deplaned and bussed to a deserted terminal area with the busses escorted by the jeeps, cordon of armed guards around the plane. Passing through passport control, I could count at least a dozen uniformed security personel armed with AK-47 class weapons.

4 tour busses awaited us in a secure compound outside the airport, three designated for the passengers, one for 'Tourism Police' armed guards. Four armed guards also on each bus.

Driving through Cairo, you can spot armed guards positioned about 500 meters apart on each side of the road for the entire route.

At the Pyramids, the tourism police are more than welcome to deal with the locals that try to sell you anything and everything they can. By the way, dont take a camel ride - they charge you to get on, and then charge you extortionate rates to allow you to get off again. Lots of armed guards around.

Midday meal - secure top class hotel, no armed guards within the building but noticable presence outside the building.

Local market visit - what I assume are military guards stationed outside nearly every shop, with shotguns, head protection, and what looked like full length half inch thick steel riot shields.

Evening meal on the Nile - the boat is followed by two small launches with what looked like twin .50 cal machine guns mounted on the front.

The protection level for just our small group of tourists was phenominal, and just a little bit scary on its own - I didnt get that easy sense of safety but the sight was welcome.