Sharansky slams Egypt for jailing dissident blogger

Former prisoner in Soviet gulag Says Egypt's imprisonment of blogger a "brazen assault on human liberty."

By HAVIV RETTIG GUR
sharansky 88 (photo credit: )
sharansky 88
(photo credit: )
Famous Soviet dissident and democracy advocate Natan Sharansky lashed out at Egyptian authorities Thursday over the continued incarceration of 24-year-old Abdul Kareem Nabil Soliman, an Egyptian blogger who criticized Islam and the Egyptian government. Sharansky's statement coincided with a string of demonstrations held at Egyptian embassies worldwide also on Thursday in support of the blogger. Advocates for Soliman, or as he is more popularly known, Kareem Amer, said he was being mistreated in the Borg Alarab prison, where he has served half of a four-year sentence for insulting Islam and "defaming" Egypt's President Hosni Mubarak. Soliman's trial in 2006 marked the first time a blogger was tried in Egypt. His conviction was described as "a slap in the face of freedom of expression in Egypt" by Amnesty International. Sharansky expressed "full support" for the demonstrations, and affirmed "that freedom of speech is an inalienable right. Suppressing that right contravenes human decency and makes a mockery of the democratic ideal. "We strongly condemn Egypt's brazen assault on human liberty. Repression and autocracy must be castigated in no uncertain terms. Aid to a regime which denies its citizens basic rights is both counter-productive and immoral. We call on the Egyptian government to immediately release Kareem Amer and the many dissidents who bravely speak out in the name of freedom," read the statement. Sharansky's coordinator for democracy programs, David Keyes, was quick to echo his boss's concerns. "Cyber dissidents throughout the Arab world and Iran are imprisoned for nothing more than speaking their minds," said Keyes, who also organized the Israeli demonstration in front of the Egyptian Embassy in Tel Aviv to coincide with the worldwide protests. "It remains an unassailable truth that no one is free when others are oppressed. It is unconscionable that an autocratic regime which receives billions of dollars of American aid every year can throw bloggers in prison simply for speaking out," he said. Sharansky is a former deputy prime minister and spent nine years in the Soviet gulag for his dissident activities. He is also chairman of the Adelson Institute for Strategic Studies at Jerusalem's Shalem Center.