Mi blog lah!

Alaa is a young prom­in­ent Egyp­tian blog­ger that was arres­ted and jailed among 47 act­iv­ists on 7th May 2006 during a peace­ful demon­stra­tion in Cairo.
His per­sonal web­site and blog, shared with his wife Manal, is http://​www.​man​a​laa.net/ has the latest news about his condition.

There is a peti­tion by Hands Across the Mideast Sup­port Alli­ance (HAMSA) to free Alaa, which I copy:

Demand Egyptian Regime Release Alaa from Tora Prison

Alaa Abd El-​Fatah is one of Egypt’s most prom­in­ent blog­gers and free speech advoc­ates. He and his wife Manal run the pop­u­lar blog Bit­Bucket, which col­lects posts from dozens of Egyp­tian blogs and which won a “Best of the Blogs” award in Decem­ber from Report­ers Without Borders.

On Sat­urday (May 7), Alaa was arres­ted with a group of act­iv­ists during a peace­ful demon­stra­tion out­side a Cairo court­house. The rally denounced dis­cip­lin­ary hear­ings for two reform judges and arrests of protest­ors at pre­vi­ous demon­stra­tions. Alaa and a group of other demon­strat­ors were cornered by Egyp­tian police, and secur­ity agents then appar­ently hand­picked indi­vidual protest­ors for arrest.

Alaa seems to have been tar­geted because of his high pro­file: he helps organ­izes the protests and spread the inform­a­tion through the blog aggreg­ator he runs. He is now being held in notori­ous Tora Prison — and his arrest seems designed to both shut down his blog aggreg­ator and scare other Egyp­tian blog­gers. But you can send a mes­sage to the Egyp­tian gov­ern­ment through the peti­tion below (you can edit the peti­tion text), which will gen­er­ate an email to polit­ical lead­ers who can secure Alaa’s release.

The peti­tion will be sent to:

• Egypt’s Ambas­sador to the US Nabil Fahmy
• Egyp­tian Prime Min­is­ter Ahmed Nazif
• Egypt’s Interior Min­is­ter Habib El Adly
• US Ambas­sador to Egypt Fran­cis Ricciardone
• US Assist­ant Sec­ret­ary of State David Welch

This cam­paign has been signed 1047[check page for latest figure] times. Click here to see who’s signed.

Join the Campaign

Alaa is speak­ing (has the mic) at an event about Open-​Source soft­ware for NGOs in Africa.

Tags: general //