Egypt: Karim Amer sentence makes bloggers new target of the authorities
Press Release
February 22, 2007
"Amnesty International condemns the four-year sentence handed down by an Egyptian court today against blogger Karim Amer, and calls for his immediate and unconditional release."
"Karim Amer is the first Egyptian blogger to be tried for writing blogs criticizing Egypt's al-Azhar religious authorities, President Husni Mubarak and Islam. Charges against him included 'spreading information disruptive of public order and damaging to the country’s reputation,' 'incitement to hate Islam' and 'defaming the President of the Republic.'"
See also The Herald, Scotland
A less extreme curtailment of free speech may be occuring here in the USA. The Department of Defense, supposedly worried about national security issues, has shut down blogs written by soldiers about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. A lawsuit against the Department of Defense is pending.
Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF): Defending Freedom in the Digital World
Surveillance of Soldiers' Blogs Sparks EFF Lawsuit: Defense Department Withholds Records About Army Blog Monitoring Program
January 31, 2007
Washington, D.C. - "The FLAG Project at the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) filed suit against the Department of Defense today, demanding expedited information on how the Army monitors soldiers' blogs.
"According to news reports, an Army unit called the Army Web Risk Assessment Cell (AWRAC) reviews hundreds of thousands of websites every month, notifying webmasters and bloggers when it sees information it finds inappropriate. Some bloggers have told reporters that they have cut back on their posts or shut down their sites altogether because of the activities of the AWRAC. EFF filed its suit after the Department of Defense and Army failed to respond to Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests about the blog monitoring program.
"Soldiers should be free to blog their thoughts at this critical point in the national debate on the war in Iraq," said EFF Staff Attorney Marcia Hofmann. "If the Army is coloring or curtailing soldiers' published opinions, Americans need to know about that interference."
The book, The Blog of War by Matthew Currier Burden, former Major US Army is the work of over 50 American military bloggers "who tell their stories about the experiences around the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan."
The Washington Post wrote of the book, The Blog of War, "...nonpartisan patriotism is the common thread tying together these reflections, love letters and stories of combat. They make for riveting reading."
Vanity Fair suggested, "Grab it before the Pentagon orders it burned..."
The Blog of War blog mentions the DoD's blog "shut down" and "after the Jump" by the military.
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