More depressing news:

The trial of student blogger Abdel Kareem Soliman, about whom I've written here, was concluded, as reported on "Pajama Media":

The four-year jail sentence of student blogger Abdel Kareem Soliman for the crimes of “contempt for religion” and “insulting the president” has dealt a harsh blow to the Egyptian blogosphere and free speech in the Middle East in the Internet age.

The popular blogger known as Sandmonkey reports from Cairo on Abdel Kareem’s story and the grave consequences of his case.


Egyptian blogger Abdel Kareem Soliman was sentenced to four years in prison yesterday in a Cairo court. He will sit in jail for three years for the crime of “contempt for religion” and one year for “insulting the president”.

For those of you who haven’t been following the case, welcome to the Middle East. They do indeed have crimes like that around here.

Almost as disturbing as the sentence was the public reaction. As the court hearing ended, the media moved to the street in front of the courthouse and started interviewing people about what they thought of the trial. With the exception of human rights activists and bloggers, the Egyptian public seemed satisfied with the verdict, if not disappointed it wasn’t longer.
Many people expressed the view that Abdel Kareem should be killed for what he wrote, and each of them shared their preferred way to kill him: stabbing, hanging, and of course, the classic beheading. One actually asked a lawyer if it was legal to now kill him, since this verdict clearly brands him as an apostate, and the Sharia punishment for an apostasy is death. People were talking about killing him in the most casual manner, as if he was no longer a human being to them.

(Via: Mick Hartley)