While many of us want to read about the latest news on open standards, semantic markup, social networks, acquisitions,… on our favourite blogs, we easily forget about bloggers who are imprisoned because they were just voicing their opinion. One of those bloggers is Abdul Kareem from Egypt. He got sentenced to four years of imprisonment for insulting Islam and Egypt president Mubarak
. I have mentioned Abdul’s case on thhis blog before already.
For April 7th to 21st the support group FreeKareem.org and the Committee to Protect Bloggers are launching a campaign to further support Abdul Kareem. The campaign is called Flood the Jail with Mail. People are encouraged to send letters or postcards in support of Abdul Kareem. Letters are important to him:
First, we’ve organized demonstrations and public outreach events all over the world but nothing that targets Kareem directly. It is time for a campaign that focuses on him in personal way! He really enjoys letters and they make a difference to him, as he has stated before. Second, a sufficient amount of such mail will remind Egyptian authorities that Kareem, bloggers in general and prisoners of conscience over all, are not alone. Remember, when Kareem was being tortured several months ago, the focus of international media was instrumental in stopping it. And finally, this campaign means an opportunity for us to really do something directly for Kareem.
If you want to support the campaign mark April 7th in your calendar and write a letter. Make sure you also add the address in Arabic. Also spread the word about the campaign, please.
[via Marshall Kirkpatrick who has repeatedly written about those topics. Thanks!]
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