April 12th, 2011
Maikel Nabil, a 26-year old blogger, has been
sentenced to three years in jail for writing a negative article about the
Egyptian armed forces. Mr. Nabil was arrested last month after publishing a blog in which he criticised the army’s role during anti-government protests in February. Mr Nabil’s lawyer has
criticised the conduct of the military court after they allegedly chose not to consider the content of the blogs. An appeal is set to be launched later this year.
October 7th, 2010
Paramilitary personnel
ransacked the Balochistan offices of private television channel VSH News TV on 4 October. VSH staff were told by members of the Frontier Corps (FC) to put their hands up, and were then frisked and told to leave the office. Computers and other office equipment were searched and damaged. Reporter for VSH, Jabbar Baloch, was told by an FC spokesman that the raid was carried out due to a misunderstanding. Baloch believes the incident may be in connection to recently aired VSH footage which showed Balochistan journalists’ critical comments about FC activities.
March 2nd, 2010
Ahmed Mostafa, an engineering student at the University of Kafr el-Sheikh,
faced a military court on 27 February, accused of “publishing false information about a military institution”. Mostafa, 20, was arrested on orders from the military prosecutor’s office in the Nile Delta city of
Kafr el-Sheikh on 25 February.
In February 2009, Mostafa reported on his blog
Matha Assabak ya Watan (“What’s Wrong with my Homeland?”) on a student that had been forced to leave a military school in order to make room for another applicant.
“This isn’t the first time for Mostafa’s blog to fall under scrutiny,” said Rawda Ahmed, a lawyer following the case for the Cairo-based
Arabic Network for Human Rights Information. “Last year, he was summoned by officials of the Armed Forces on a friendly basis, who explained the problem to him.”
