By Barry Rubin
The group that began the Egyptian revolution had just two important priorities before setting to overthrow the Mubarak regime earlier this year. One of them, to end all Egyptian sanctions against the Hamas regime in the Gaza Strip, is well on its way to success. The other, to protect bloggers from being arrested by the authorities, has now failed.
An Egyptian military tribunal just found guilty the 26-year-old Maikel Nabil Sanad. What is his alleged crime? Insulting the army. How did he do it? Reported about misbehavior by the army. What is his sentence? Three years in prison.
Sanad, a civilian, was sentenced by a military court without the presence of a lawyer. One of the governing military officers explained, it’s one thing to criticize with good intentions, it’s another thing entirely to question the army’s actions.
I don’t know Sanad but people speak well of him. This is one more step to the rolling back of freedom in Egypt and the defeat of the “Facebook liberals.” Egypt will probably go radical nationalist, it might go Islamist, but it isn’t seeming to go in the direction of moderate and open democracy. Free Maikel Sanad if you want to convince us otherwise.
Did you simply make up that first paragraph out of boredom or what?
http://shiftingsandsofegypt.tumblr.com/post/4545231781/day-59-april-11-2011-a-court-decision-that
In this post, Maikel shared with his readers beliefs and perspectives that he explicitly said were entirely his own personal opinion. He wrote (my rough translation):
In truth, the revolution until now has succeeded in getting rid of the Dictator Mubarak, but the dictatorship continues to exist. I am not the only one who has this opinion – even groups of the political elite and of the Egyptian protesters share this same view. For example, Al Baradei said in his article that “the Military is leading the Transition period in an obscure and monopolistic way and many of them continue to protest..asking for a civilian government instead of the Supreme council of the armed forces.
He went on to support his argument with what he called “his own research of evidence, documents, and records proving that the Military never stood on the front with the Egyptian people.” In his analysis, he divided the 18 days of protest into three periods where he observed different and conflicting behaviors on the part of the military. He complemented his analysis with videos and images of events in Tahrir Square as well as mistreatment of protesters in detention centers.
The blog goes on to report Maikel’s own detention during the revolt and his run ins with state security over his liberal political activities.
As the tweeps keep asking, how do murderous regime officials get asked to come before the civil authorities for interrogation and every investigation must go slowly, slowly in order to insure a “fair trial”, but a blogger criticizing the military gets railroaded through a quick military tribunal and secretly sentenced after his attorneys leave the building? Then spirited away to Tora prison, the notorious prison for political prisoners that used to hold the Islamists and other dangerous political criminals, for a three year sentence?
For reporting on things that were being reported on human rights watch sites and news organizations around the globe? Or was it because he openly defied conscription on the grounds of pacifism? Or he supported Israel?
What makes Maikel more dangerous than any of the others? He’s a warning to the others. He’s the test. Will the liberal bloggers, anti-zionist leftists and Islamists support his freedom of speech or is there room for censorship? Will they stand against the last remains of the regime?
Free Maikel Nabil Sadoon!
Opening the doors to Hamas is very foolish for the Egyptians. Those missiles can hit an Egyptian target as easily as an Israeli one.
Reminds me of a certain frog who forgot that a scorpion is still a scorpion.
My God, who could have seen this coming?
There is more to it than that. I suspect the real reason lies here:
Mr. Nabil has the unusual political position in Egypt of being a pacifist as well as a champion of Israel, often praising its democracy, educational standards and innovations.
Mona Seif, a rights advocate, said Mr. Nabil may have been singled out as an easy target, partly because of previous run-ins with the military and partly because of his pro-Israel views. Mr. Nabil, who is Christian, refused to fulfill his obligatory military service in 2010 on pacifist grounds and has campaigned against forced conscription ever since, Ms. Seif said.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/12/world/middleeast/12egypt.html?_r=1&partner=rss&emc=rss
Well, Michael Moore did claim in self-congratulation that “*we* won in Egypt”, let him explain what happened.
This sort of thing will simply be fuel on the fire for those who say that Arabs are incapable of democracy. Sad.
I gotta favorite this site it seems very helpful very helpful