I’m expecting a crackdown on bloggers and anyone who speaks about torture in Egypt soon:
Case of Al-Jazeera journalist accused of endangering Egypt’s national interest to go to trial
By NADIA ABOU EL-MAGD
Associated Press Writer
CAIRO _ Egypt has launched trial proceedings against a journalist for the pan-Arab Al-Jazeera Television accused of harming the country’s national interest, the state prosecutor’s office and the channel said Sunday.
The case is that of Howaida Taha, 43, Egyptian documentary producer for Al-Jazeera who was detained earlier this month after 50 videotapes were confiscated by police from her luggage at the Cairo airport.
Taha was held for over a day and interrogated about the footage which authorities said contained fabricated scenes of torture by Egyptian police.
Egyptian prosecutors accused Taha of “practicing activities that harm the national interest of the country” and of “possessing and giving false pictures about the internal situation in Egypt that could undermine the dignity of the country.”
Taha was later released on bail pending trial.
At the time, Taha told The Associated Press the footage she produced was created with actors for the purpose of a documentary film about police torture in Egypt and that she had “filmed with the authorities’ permission.”
Taha subsequently left for Qatar and is currently back in Doha, Hussein Abdel Ghani, the Al-Jazeera bureau chief in Cairo, said on Sunday.
No trial date has been set yet in Taha’s case, an official with the prosecutor’s office said, speaking on condition of anonymity as he was not authorized to talk to media. Taha, who will likely be tried in absentia unless she returns to Egypt for the proceedings, faces up to three years in prison if convicted.
Abdel Ghani has publicly defended Taha, saying that reconstructing scenes with actors _ such as in Taha’s footage _ is a well-known method in the production of documentaries.
Al-Jazeera is “not the only network to talk about (police) torture,” said Abdel Ghani, himself briefly detained by police for his coverage of terrorist attacks in Egypt last April.
Egyptian authorities have been increasingly sensitive about leaked videos showing citizens, both men and women, tortured in police stations. Rights groups say torture, including sexual abuse, is routinely conducted in Egyptian police stations.
The government denies systematic torture, but has investigated several officers on allegations of abuse. Some were convicted and sentenced to prison.
In November, several Egyptian bloggers posted a video depicting a man, naked from the waist down, being sodomized at a police station. The man was later identified as Imad el-Kabir, 21, a bus driver.
The case sparked a public uproar, and two police officers were jailed pending investigation into sexual assault allegations. However, el-Kabir was also imprisoned last week, for resisting authorities.
Egyptian Interior Minister Habib el-Adly told Egyptian state television on Friday that many in the country are “upset about … some videos, newspapers and some critics who were trying to increase the view of police hostility.”
“I consider this to be an intended unpatriotic campaign,” el-Adly said.
Several leading Egyptian human rights groups have said that Taha’s case was part of “an ongoing policy of terrorizing the voices that are revealing torture” in Egypt.
Al-Jazeera, watched by millions of Arab viewers, has extensively covered anti-government demonstrations and the activities of opposition groups in Egypt, as well as terrorist attacks against the U.S. ally.
But the channel has also been accused of bias by Washington and encountered problems in several Arab countries. Its reporters have been barred by Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia and Tunisia.
Accusations that Egypt is imposing severe freedom of speech restrictions have mounted recently.
The New York-based Human Rights Watch on Saturday demanded that authorities drop all charges against blogger Abdel Kareem Nabil, on trial since earlier this month. Nabil, 22, was arrested in November for denouncing Islamic authorities and criticizing President Hosni Mubarak on his Arabic-language blog. He faces up to nine years in prison if convicted.
And here’s an AP report, also by Nadia Abou El-Magd, on blogger Kareem’s trial:
Egyptian court refuses to release on bail a blogger accused of sectarian strife and insulting Islam
CAIRO (AP) _ An Egyptian court refused Thursday to release on bail a blogger who is on trial on charges of insulting Islam and causing sectarian strife for his Internet writings in Egypt’s first prosecution of a blogger.
Abdel Kareem Nabil, 22, who has been in detention since his arrest in early November, often denounced Islamic authorities and criticized Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak on his Arabic-language blog. He faces up to nine years in prison if convicted on the charges.
In a statement Thursday, the Egyptian Organization for Human Rights, called on human rights groups to “pressure the government to drop charges against (Nabil) as a prisoner of conscience.”
Two U.S. congressmen also expressed deep concern about the arrest of Nabil _ who also goes by the blogger name of Kareem Amer _ and called for the charges to be dropped.
“The Egyptian government’s arrest of Mr. Amer simply for displeasure over writings on the personal weblog raises serious concern about the level of respect for freedoms in Egypt,” Trent Franks, an Arizona Republican, and Massachusetts Democrat Barney Frank wrote in a letter to Egypt’s U.S. ambassador, Nabil Fahmy.
The Bush administration has not commented on Nabil’s trial, unlike its criticisms of other arrests of Egyptian rights activists in past years.
In 2005, the Bush administration made Egypt _ which Mubarak has ruled unquestioned for a quarter century _ the centerpiece of what it called a policy priority of promoting democratic change in the Arab world.
But Egyptian reformists say Washington has all but dropped its pressure on Mubarak amid a need for his support on Iraq and in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The United States was also spooked when Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood made big gains in 2005 parliamentary elections and the radical Hamas movement won 2006 Palestinian elections _ raising fears that greater democracy would increase fundamentalists’ power, activists say.
Nabil, whose trial began Jan. 18, has been charged with inciting sedition, insulting Islam, harming national unity and insulting the president.
In Thursday’s session, his lawyers requested he be released on bail during the trial, but the court rejected the motion, Nabil’s lawyer Ahmad Seif el-Islam said.
In his blog, Nabil was a fierce critic of conservative Muslims and in particularly of al-Azhar, one of the most prestigious religious institutions in the Sunni Muslim world.
Nabil was a law student at al-Azhar University, but denounced it as “the university of terrorism,” accusing it of promoting radical ideas and suppressing free thought. Al-Azhar “stuffs its students’ brains and turns them into human beasts … teaching them that there is not place for differences in this life,” he wrote. He was thrown out of the university in March.
In other posts, Nabil described Mubarak’s regime as a “symbol of dictatorship.”