This has been blogged on by many, the poor man:Earlier this month, Abdel-Karim Suleiman, a 22-year-old former law student at al-Azhar Islamic university, became the first Egyptian jailed for his blogging when he was handed a four-year prison sentence. The case against Suleiman, a Muslim and a liberal who uses the name Kareem Amer on his blog, was based on a complaint by al-Azhar University about eight articles written since 2004.
Suleiman accused the conservative Sunni institution of promoting extremist thought and described some companions of the Prophet Mohammed as "terrorists". He also compared President Hosni Mubarak to the dictatorial Pharaohs of ancient Egypt.
Could it have been otherwise for Suleiman in such a regime? But before we start to congratulate ourselves that it could not be so in our own increasingly oppressive regime, it only takes one click and you're blocked, mate. Or something more draconian - Blogger gets shut down in one blow. What have we left? The telephone? The e-mail?
I always operate on the basis that each time I go to my site, it's just not going to be there. Of course, that's a completely different thing to being thrown into prison for having an opinion.
Egypt, the censorship, I need no explanation. However, I thought besides the law that would forbid people to offend each other's religions that Britain had freedom of expression and speech still going strong. It looks like I'm mistaken.
ReplyDeleteYes, I read about that Egyptian case. Like you, I am always fearful that my blog will have disappeared - and worse, that I will have done something stupid technically and made it happen myself!!
ReplyDeleteConsidering how many things can be and are feared in life; your blog being gone really shouldn't be one of them :)
ReplyDeleteNot like it is real hard to start a new one or anything.
One of my biggest fears is waking up to find that Europe and England have finally given up and instituted Sharia Law.
Lord Nazh and Matt - it will be indeed so. Welshcakes - I think there's always the chance they'll shut us down.
ReplyDeleteThis solution is to buy your own domain and get an independent hosting company to host your own scripts, such as wordpress. The hosting company can be in any country and regular self-backups ensure you can never loose your history. Currently my blog is hosted in the US but I think I'll be moving it somewhere else soon as their terms and conditions seem to be getting quite convoluted and I don't like the direction this is going; Switzerland might be high on the list.
ReplyDeleteIf you are concerned about the hosting company taking offence to anything you may post a good choice might be one which hosts pornography as their understanding of freedom of communication tends to be more "liberal".