EGYPTIAN BLOGGER Abdolkarim Nabil Seliman is going on trial for his blogging:

Accused Egyptian Blogger Stands Trial


Friday January 19, 2007 2:16 AM

By NADIA ABOU EL-MAGD

Associated Press Writer

CAIRO, Egypt (AP) - An Egyptian blogger went on trial Thursday on charges of insulting Islam and causing sectarian strife with his Internet writings. Egypt's first prosecution of a blogger came as Washington has backed away from pressuring its Mideast ally to improve its human rights record and bring democratic reform.

Abdel Kareem Nabil often denounced Islamic authorities and criticized Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak on his Arabic-language blog. He has been in detention since November and faces up to nine years in prison if convicted.

Egypt has arrested a string of pro-democracy bloggers over the past year, sparking condemnation from human rights groups.

[...]

Nabil is the first blogger Egypt has put on trial for his writings. Other bloggers have been released without charges. But unlike the other detained bloggers, who concentrated on politics, Nabil wrote often on religion - and Seif al-Islam said the government was likely prosecuting him as part of its ``competition with the Muslim Brotherhood to show its Islamic credentials.''

In his blog - where he uses the name Kareem Amer - 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 no place for differences in this life,'' he wrote.

He was thrown out of the university in March, and in his last blog entry before his arrest blamed al-Azhar for pushing the government to investigate him.

In other postings, Nabil described Mubarak's regime as a ``symbol of dictatorship.''

[...]

This is very bad news. The only positive thing about the story is that the A.P. is finally taking notice of it. For updates on the situation see the Free Kareem! blog.