Last Thursday I found myself very cold. Need you ask why? I was fighting for freedom, protesting the arrest and confinement of an Egyptian blogger. What can I say, it's what I do.
Generally, I was fighting for freedom of speech. Specifically, it was to free Kareem. Abdelkareem Nabil Soliman, better known by his blog alias Kareem Amer, has been in solitary confinement in Egypt since his arrest in November, and this isn't the first time he has been persecuted for his secular views.
Kareem has been paying a heavy price for his ideas since October of 2005, when he was arrested for writings critical of Muslim violence against Coptic Christians during the Maharram Beh Riot. He was never actually charged; the authorities just confiscated his books and writing, and kept him in jail for 14 days. Did I mention he was never actually charged?
Upon his release, Kareem was not discouraged. He continued to blog. His next run-in with authority came in March of 2006, this time from his university. Kareem was expelled from Al-Azhar University for his "secular thoughts."
Yeah, a university expelled a student for thinking outside of the box. As if this weren't outrageous enough, the university then filed a government communiqu? against him. This eventually led to his arrest and current charges. According to the Arabic Network for Human Rights Information, Kareem is specifically accused of spreading data and malicious rumors that disrupt public security, defaming the President of Egypt, incitement to overthrow the regime upon hatred and contempt, incitement to hate "Islam" and breach of the public peace standards and highlighting inappropriate aspects that harm the reputation of Egypt and spreading them to the public.
Kareem is pleading innocent, stating, "I expressed my opinion ... the intention was not anything like these [charges]." His experience with the Egyptian judicial system thus far has been quite unpleasant. He is in solitary confinement, was only recently permitted to see his family and the trial has been pushed back many times. Furthermore, Kareem's "interrogation" was anything but judicial. Three interrogators laughed at Kareem as they spiced up the more traditional questions with pointed, illegal questions. Do you pray? Do you fast at Ramadan? These are clearly questions that will prove his innocence or guilt. That was sarcasm, by the way.
So what horrible things did Kareem actually say to earn the honor of being jailed in his own country? Well, he voiced radical, extreme views. He wrote things that are clearly dangerous and simply cannot be tolerated in polite society. Men and women . . . equal? Violence against Christians from extreme Islamic mobs is bad? Individual rights should be respected regardless of religion? These are clearly the ideas of a man who belongs in jail.
Actually, it wouldn't be fair to ignore the fact that, in Egypt, these views truly are outrageous. Egypt is an Islamic nation and a blog criticizing their faith is very offensive. It is not surprising that Egypt found Kareem's blog insulting. However, feeling insulted by someone's words does not validate a decision to come to his house, handcuff him and lock him up.
The liberal values that Kareem stands for are widely appealing to the Western world, but there is more to this story than a heroic man speaking out against injustice. This story is meant as a reminder. It is easy to be a champion of free speech when you agree with someone, but that means nothing. The true test of our respect for each other and for an individual's freedom of speech is how we treat people we don't agree with. Egypt has failed this test.
Kareem's struggle comes at an interesting time because this lesson can be applied to AU, right now. As many of you probably know, a senior, Rick Kamdar was recently expelled for using the word "fag" in a derogatory fashion. A recent piece in The Eagle about his situation was met with letters to the editor denouncing the piece as biased. Why weren't the right questions asked? Why wasn't the other student quoted? He was the one insulted. Kamdar is the criminal, look he was even convicted! These writers clearly missed the point of the piece. Thankfully, one student, Gavin Skal, saw Kamdar's expulsion as an issue of free speech. However, one person is not enough. If even students here, at an American, liberal university, only care about free speech when they agree with it, what hope do people like Kareem have?
