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Egyptian blogger alleges prison beating

• Richard Colebourn
• 3 Dec 07, 10:23 AM

BEIRUT - I was passed a pretty miserable letter this week from a young Egyptian man called Abdel Kareem Suleiman. He’s currently serving time in a prison in the northern city of Alexandria.

His letter alleges abuse by the prison’s guards. “I have been subjected to cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment,” he writes.

For anyone who knows anything about Egypt, that's not very surprising, except for this: Abdel Kareem is 23 and behind bars for blogging.

In the first sentence of its kind, in for four years. Three years of his term are for “inciting hatred of Islam” and another is for insulting the Egyptian President, Hosni Mubarak. criticised Egypt’s government and leading religious institutions including the Sunni university of Al-Azhar, where he studied law.

Now he says that he’s being beaten, left handcuffed and in leg shackles and kept in an isolation cell, where he was given insufficient food and water. The Egyptian authorities won’t comment on his allegations.

A friend of mine, another Egyptian blogger called , tells me that sometimes she’s afraid of suffering a similar fate. “But most of us believe that being afraid shouldn’t stop us from doing more - unveiling all the violations we see and increasing the awareness of our people,” she says. “Blogging in Egypt is still going on and we have more bloggers – it is increasing.”

Egypt’s young bloggers present a new challenge to the country’s powerful political and religious elite. They’re increasingly prepared to investigate stories too hot for Egypt’s off-line media.

Earlier this month two Egyptian policemen were jailed for torturing and sexually abusing a bus driver they were holding in custody. They filmed the assault of the 22 year old man on their mobile phone. Much to the embarrassment of the Egyptian police, the footage then appeared on a blog. The pictures shocked many Egyptians and the government was forced to respond.

But despite this victory, Egyptian bloggers like Shahinaz worry that the government may still clamp down further. “I don’t know if there will be another case like Abdel Kareem’s, but there may well be,” she tells me. “The regime is getting more aggressive regarding freedom of speech.” The group agrees, placing Egypt on its list of ”.

The Guardian’s investigative writer David Leigh recently challenged the paper’s media columnist, , over the impact blogging will have on traditional media. (AKA blogging and user-supplied photos and video) will mean old-fashioned newspapers and broadcasters will end up primarily ‘processing’ the work of many individuals, rather than an elite group of professional journalists. Leigh .

As Abdel Kareem and Shahinaz survey the media landscape of Egypt, the Guardian’s debate would amuse them.