FREE ALAA AHMED SEIF AL-ISLAM

Jameel at the Muqata posts about an Egyptian who is being held in prison for something so mundane as blogging. Well, that is to say, blogging in a way that the Egyptian authorities do not like. [Note: Jameel is at this address: http://muqata.blogspot.com/]


You and I have the right to say whatever we darn well want, in almost any way we want - it's called freedom of speech, and is apparently something we're trying to teach the Iraqis (quite successfully, I might add) - but in Egypt the authorities have a hard time understanding the concept. Even more so when literate people try it.


So of course Alaa Ahmed Seif Al-Islam is in the klink.


Now, why should I care? Why should you care?

1. Well, he's pretty much on our side, and has not tried to blow any of us sky-high. Which is very refreshing, and we might as well admit that we like that.
2. He's in jail for speaking out, and we like people who speak out. Societies that allow loudmouths to point out that the emperor has no clothes will have far fewer naked ugly fat men walking around - you know what I mean.
3. I've never had any limitation on my freedom of speech, and neither have you. But, in a general sense, when freedom of speech is limited somewhere, it affects freedom of speech everywhere. So we are obligated to speak out.


HOW CAN YOU SPEAK OUT?


A good place to start is here:
http://freealaa.blogspot.com/

Or here:

Freedom of Speech Starts With Freeing the Speaker
http://abbagav.blogspot.com/2006/05/freedom-of-speech-starts-with-freeing.html

Or here:

Let the blogger go
http://ontheface.blogware.com/blog/_archives/2006/5/10/1944991.html


Sign petitions, or organize one and have others sign. Write pointed (yet polite) letters to politicians and of course to the Egyptian embassy and consulates. Wake up your congressman.

On a related note, there are blogs written by people in the Arab world wich are very well worth reading. Here's a few to get you started:


http://www.bigpharaoh.com/
[Educated broadminded Egyptian, probably gonna end up in the klink too.]

http://mahmood.tv/
[Bahraini with a business bent, but more education than your typical American suburbanite bidniz drone. Witty.]

http://www.sandmonkey.org/
[Snarky, secular, and passionate. All-round decent fellow, great list of other Middle-Eastern bloggers on his blog roll, and an icon of Johnny Bravo (!) in his blog title bar.]

http://muttawa.blogspot.com/
[One of the best reads ever. An Arab Jonathan Swift. ]


And if you want to know what it's like to be in an Egyptian jail, go to Alaa's site itself, right here:
http://www.manalaa.net/alaa_blogs_from_prison


Oh, and visit Jameel (here: http://muqata.blogspot.com/).