Sad Day for the Arab Blogosphere [UPDATED]
ALEXANDRIA, Egypt — An Egyptian blogger was convicted of insulting Islam and President Hosni Mubarak and sentenced to four years in prison on Thursday in Egypt’s first prosecution of a blogger. The judge issued the verdict in a brief, five-minute session in a court in the Mediterranean city of Alexandria. He sentenced Nabil to three years in prison for insulting Islam and inciting sedition and another year for insulting Mubarak. Nabil had faced a possible maximum sentence of up to nine years in prison.
On a more local front, I got this email a few hours ago:
Hey Roba,
Just wanted to draw your attention to that my blog is now removed from JB based on my request; after contacting administration they told me that Khader‘s blog isn’t to be re-enlisted, apparently they allowed Abu Shreek to be back, nevertheless, once Abu Shreek realized that Khader isn’t with him he refused to be re-enlisted, I asked administration to remove me from JB and so they did. I also asked them to at least announce that but they refused saying that “they see no benefit from doing so!”, therefore, I started contacting people that I appreciate and those who showed concern in the matter of censorship to share the last updates with.
best,
Omar
http://me-in-jordan.blogspot.com/
Elaboration: The most beautiful thing about blogging is that it empowers voices, and the reason I have decided to blog Omar’s email is because I believe that people have the right to know whats happening, and because the bloggers mentioned above also deserve to have their readers aware of the fact that they are no longer on the aggregator.
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