Posted on 11/07/2006 11:14:23 AM PST by radar101
In this day of easy internet access, we take for granted our ability to just click and get what ever news we are looking for. In Places where Islam holds sway, simple blogging can get you thrown in jail. How long until my newsletter, already declared hate speech by Google because it does not support homosexual marriage, will get me tossed in jail?
We need to be aware of what is happening in places where Islam has taken control. In every bloody conflict around the globe, how many involve Islamics? Asia, Africa, Europe... on and on. This war, it is not a war with the normal political boundaries. This country and government against that one. The left here in America had better get their heads out of their **** and finally realize this. Islam has already spread and now controls a HUGE amount of this planet. Guess What? Where Islam has gained influence, this is where people are dying.
Egypt arrests student blogger for defaming Islam CAIRO – Egyptian security forces have arrested a student blogger whose writing was critical of Islam and the government, security sources and rights activists said on Tuesday.
Arabic blogger Abdel Kareem Nabil Suleiman, a 22-year-old aspiring human rights lawyer, was arrested in the coastal city of Alexandria on Monday.
His detention was the latest crackdown on political opposition by Egyptian authorities following arrests and beatings at street protests earlier this year, despite calls from Egypt’s U.S. ally for political reform. ’The accusations directed against him are that he published opinions aimed at disturbing public order, insulted the head of state and defamed Islam,’ said Sally Sami, programme officer at the Arabic Network for Human Rights Information (HRInfo), which is representing him.
’It is becoming more and more obvious that the government is not keen to reform or allow true democracy where differing opinions can be voiced.’
Security sources did not detail exactly which comments prompted authorities to hold Suleiman, who his lawyers said was expelled this year from al-Azhar University, Egypt’s most prestigious seat of Islamic learning.
Suleiman has criticised al-Azhar’s dominance in religious thought and said Muslim clerics were partly responsible for sectarian strife that followed a knife attack on Christian worshippers in Alexandria in April, according to Gamal Eid, executive director of HRInfo.
INTERNET FREEDOM
Suleiman was the latest of several bloggers to be arrested in Egypt, where news of his detention came shortly after rights group Reporters Without Borders added Egypt to a list of worst suppressors of freedom of expression on the Internet.
Egypt joins 12 other countries on the list including Cuba, Myanmar, Iran and Turkmenistan. RSF said it was also concerned at an Egyptian court ruling that an Internet site could be shut down if it posed a threat to national security.
Suleiman was due to appear before prosecutors on Wednesday.
His arrest was unusual in that he was arrested solely because of comments made on the Internet, activists said. Other bloggers were mostly picked up during anti-government protests earlier in the year.Several have spent weeks or months in jail.
Separately on Tuesday, security forces arrested two more members of the Muslim Brotherhood, Egypt’s largest opposition group, in a widening clampdown on the Islamist movement, security sources and the Brotherhood said.
The two members had sought to run in trade union elections. On Sunday, Egypt had detained 29 people, all but seven of them Muslim Brotherhood members involved in contesting trade and student union elections.
The arrests followed protests by Brotherhood members and sympathisers last week inside Egyptian universities against decisions by university administrations to block Islamist candidates from running for student union .
Didn't one of our founding fathers say,
"Give me the internet or give my death?"
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