Free Kareem

If you're reading this blog, you're probably already familiar with the recent arrest of the Egyptian blogger calling himself Kareem Amer. Failing that, here's a brief recap:

Egypt is an authoritarian republic with tokenistic elections and restrictions on the press and freedom of association stop Egyptian authorities have arrested or threatened a number of bloggers in Egypt from various sides of politics stop Kareem Amer was arrested and sentenced for four years in prison for ‘contempt of religion’ and ‘defaming the President of Egypt’ stop Bloggers from all sorts of backgrounds have stepped forward to support Kareem stop contact the Free Kareem website to see if you can help in any way.

Check out Marc Lynch's "Brotherhood of the Blog" in the Guardian's almost-useless Comment is Free section (which really ought to be retitled Opinions Are Like Assholes) - he makes the excellent point that, whether you like the Bro's or not, they are entitled to the same transparency, justice and freedom of expression as the rest of us.

In this context you may also like to consider signing up for Amnesty International's irrepressible.info campaign, where you agree to post blocked text on your site. This may not be too useful for people using Blogspot, which is a seriously blocked domain, but if you have a university or private website it could be valuable.