Sarah Carr reports:

Egypt is among 12 countries which systematically repress internet users, says rights groups Reporters Without Borders (RSF).
“The vitality of the Egyptian blogosphere on the international scene is far from being an advantage for the bloggers involved, who are the most hounded in the world,” RSF says in its report “Internet Enemies” which, in addition to Egypt, describes restrictions placed on internet users in Saudi Arabia, Burma, China, Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Syria, Tunisia, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Vietnam.
Roughly 10 million of Egypt’s population of over 75 million are internet users. “Despite the government’s efforts to make computers more affordable, the internet penetration rate remains low at 12.9 percent,” the report says, while nonetheless pointing out that there were twice as many ADSL users in 2008 as there were in 2007.
A 2008 report by the governmental Information and Decision Support Center estimated that Egyptian blogs form 30.7 percent of the world’s total 450,000 Arabic-language blogs.
RSF points to the vital role played by blogs and social networking sites in information-sharing and activism: “More than a space for expression, the Web has become a space for action, particularly through social networks.”
The report points to the Facebook group which in 2008 called for a general strike on April 6 which “contributed to a general strike and one of the largest expressions of unrest in several years”.
Internet users are pitted against slowly encroaching repression of internet freedom, the report says.
“Officials monitor information exchanged online and cybercafés have to obtain a license from the telecommunications ministry under threat of closure,” the report reads.
“Some cybercafés owners have said that they had been ordered to note and file all their customers’ identity card numbers,” reads the report. “The authorities have since last summer applied regulations to the WiFi network, which is having direct impact on freedom of expression.
“To connect to the wireless network, a customer has to provide a mobile phone number and some personal data such as identity card number, address and so on, which gives rise to concerns about freedom of speech.”
The report makes reference to what it terms as “cyber-dissidents” Diaa Eddin Gad and Karim Amer, who are currently behind bars.
Gad and Amer were amongst six bloggers mentioned last week in a letter sent by the New-York based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) to Egyptian president Hosny Mubarak calling on him to halt the “campaign” against bloggers.
CPJ describes this campaign as “only one element of an overall decline in press freedom in Egypt in recent years”.
“Egypt’s security services and judiciary … pursue independent journalists and bloggers through legal and extralegal harassment. … Bloggers, who lack the relative institutional protections provided to some — though not all — journalists who work in traditional print and broadcast media, have been targeted with particular ruthlessness.”

In a reflection of the digital age, more online journalists are jailed around the world than journalists from any other medium, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) reported on Thursday.
The New York-based media watchdog group, in its annual census of imprisoned journalists, said that as of Dec. 1, a total of 125 journalists were behind bars, two fewer than at the same point in 2007.
It said 56 of the imprisoned journalists were considered online journalists — bloggers, Web-based reporters, or online editors — surpassing the number of print journalists for the first time.
Print reporters, editors, and photographers are the next largest category of jailed journalists, with 53 cases, the CPJ said, adding that television and radio journalists and documentary filmmakers constitute the rest.

Another blogger (and documentary films producer) El-Baraa Ashraf was also picked up and is currently undergoing interrogation by State Security agents in El-‘Ayyat Police Station.

On December 8, the Administrative Court will issue its verdict regarding Judge Murad’s demand to ban 51 blogs and websites, deemed “harmful for national security and insulting to the president.” The list includes my blog.

More details in the following HRINFO statement.

UPDATE: Here’s an English translation (Thanks Aida)

Coordinating Committee for Trade Union and Workers Rights and Liberties
Statement No. 6
Workers Anger escalates in Mahalla; trade union chair changed; wide international solidarity with Mahalla workers, security forces mobilized around factory and surrounding streets; Gamila Ismail, Amir Salem and Bothaina Kamel prevented from entering the company and attempts at their arrest; for the first time closure of factory gates and concern regarding possible police attack tonight.
While the prosecution had ordered the release of the 8 trade union activists since yesterday at 2 p.m., yet they were not released until 12 midnight and after they were summoned t the state security intelligence, which asked them to “calm” the workers and try to convince them to accept the 50 days bonus in exchange for the resignation of El Gebali from the company management. Next Saturday, the prosecution will continue to listen to the officers who carried out the investigations.
On the fourth day of the strike, the workers’ anger continues to escalate. They continue to chant their slogans and beat their drums, refusing to compromise their demands under any pretext, insisting on the 150 days bonus, the incentives and the execution of their plan. Local and Arab media channels have been continuously visiting the company to monitor the strike and take the testimonies of the strikers. International solidarity messages have started reaching the workers, among which is a message from the General Federation for Public Sector Workers of South Africa representing 170 thousand workers. The Brazilian caricaturist Carlos Latuff also sent the Mahalla striking workers a caricature displaying “the strike challenging neo-imperialism represented by Mubarak”. Those acts of solidarity and the release of the trade union leaders have positively inspired the workers. Also news reached the factory of a change in the bureau of the trade union committee and change of its chair.
On the other hand security forces have started to move from the peripheries of the city to the city center and the streets surrounding the company. Also, Bothaina Kamel, Gamila Ismail and human rights activist and lawyer Amir Salem and a delegation from El Ghad party have been prevented from entering the company and taken to Mahalla police station where Gamila, wife of Ayman Nour, was accused of breaking through a police check point, although she was not driving the car. Furthermore, for the first time, the gates to the company have been closed in an attempt to control entry of supporters . The gate is at present surrounded by anti riot police and there is concern regarding a possible police raid of the company tonight.

Bloggers heading up north please print out the cartoon and distribute it among the strikers. Tell them their struggle is inspiring people in other continents as far as Latin America. Thanks Latuff!

UPDATE: From Al-Jazeera:

A soldier from the 13th Sustainment Command was killed and two were wounded when a blast struck their vehicle on Saturday near the city Diwaniyah, the command said.