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Another Crackdown in Egypt
For quite some time I’ve been getting daily updates from a tiny little Cairo-based outfit called The Arabic Network for Human Rights Information, sponsored by the Hisham Mubarak Law Center, which was at the forefront of the effort to document what was happening to Egyptian bloggers and democracy activists in the wake of protests by the Egyptian Movemen
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For quite some time I’ve been getting daily updates from a tiny little Cairo-based outfit called The Arabic Network for Human Rights Information, sponsored by the Hisham Mubarak Law Center, which was at the forefront of the effort to document what was happening to Egyptian bloggers and democracy activists in the wake of protests by the Egyptian Movement for Change last year. This week, I got the saddest e-mail from the group:
"Blogs and websites under threat Bloggers in danger of imprisonment HRinfo attacked and its executive director in danger of imprisonment."Apparently, because of the ongoing crackdown on dissenting voices in Egyptian politics, those who merely documented human rights abuses may now be sent to prison. The back story they tell: The Arabic Network for Human Rights Information (HRinfo) announced today that it will not be terrorised into giving up its right to sue Judge Abdel Fattah Mourad for violating HRinfo’s copyrights. [GFR: They have charged the judge with plagiarizing 50 pages from a report.]That’s infidelity as in "being an infidel," rather than as in being unfaithful. "The judge violated our copyrights and when we exposed this he filed a lawsuit to block HRinfo’s website and 20 others," Gamal Eid, HRinfo Executive Director, said.Those who follow the Arab English-language blogs will recall that young blogger Alaa Abd el-Fatah was imprisoned around this time last year in the wake of a protest, leading to the international Free Alaa! movement, which became a cause celebre in the conservative blogosphere. Abd el-Fatah was the proprietor of Manaala.net along with Manal Hassan, the same blog and co-proprietor HRInfo points to, so it looks like it’s the same two people who had problems with the authorities last year now being accused of defamation, even though the name above is different. The plagiarism dispute that kicked off the present conflict is, ironically, over Eid’s book Implacable Adversaries: Arab Governments and the Internet. See also their release: "Who Is Going To Defend Us? To Silence Its Voice Hisham Mubarak Law Center Is Under Attack."
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