Military police detained Kareem Amer and Samir Eshra

Military police detained Abdul Kareem Suleiman Amer, a prominent blogger better known as Kareem Amer, together with the film-maker Samir Eshra on Cairo’s Kasr El-Nil bridge as they were leaving Tahrir Square in the evening. He was freed three days later. Kareem Amer owes his prominence to his virulent criticism of the Mubarak regime in his blog (www.karam903.blogspot.com) and the appalling conditions in which he was held for four years. He was arrested on 6 November 2006 for criticizing the government’s religious and authoritarian excesses, the Sunni University of Al-Azhar, where he had studied law, and discrimination against women. He was previously arrested for similar reasons on 2005. He was sentenced on 22 February 2007 to three years in prison on a charge of inciting hatred of Islam and another year in prison on a charge of insulting the president. Reporters Without Borders awarded him its “Cyber-Freedom” prize in December 2007. He was finally freed on 15 November 2010.