Student court martialled for blogging about army human rights violations

Reporters Without Borders condemns university student Ahmed Abdel Fattah Mustafa’s trial by court martial for blogging about army human rights violations. Held incommunicado since his arrest by state security agents on 25 February, he appeared today before a Cairo military court on charges of “publishing false news” and trying to “undermine people's confidence in the armed forces.” The trial was adjourned. “Mustafa is a civilian and there are no grounds for trying him before a military court,” Reporters Without Borders said. “These extraordinary judicial proceedings are designed to intimidate anyone who dares to criticise the army. This is further proof of the government’s inability to tolerate sensitive subjects being tackled by bloggers.” A student at the University of Kafr El Sheikh’s engineering faculty and a member of the “6 April Movement,” Mustafa wrote in his blog (http://hazel2eyes.jeeran.com/archive/2009/2/805460.html) in early 2009 about army human rights violations. It was his lawyer who told his family that he had been arrested. The last entry in his blog was an anonymous comment warning him that he would be punished within two days because he “knew nothing about the army.” His lawyers have not been allowed access to the findings of the investigation. The military forced Mustafa to delete the blog entry about the army. Another blogger, Kareem Amer, has been jailed since 2006 for criticising religious authoritarianism and gender discrimination.