YouTube restores human rights blogger's account

Reporters Without Borders hails YouTube's decision yesterday to restore human rights blogger Wael Abbas's account and to allow him to upload videos “with sufficient context so that users can understand his important message.” When it closed Abbas's account on 21 November, YouTube said the move had “no link with the Egyptian government.” Abbas's Yahoo! instant messenger account meanwhile continues to be inaccessible. He has not been able to use it since 29 November. -------------------------------- 30.11 - Journalist/blogger Hossam el-Hendy freed, Wael Abbas still restricted Reporters Without Borders today welcomed yesterday's release of journalist and blogger Hossam El-Hendy, a day after he was arrested while covering a demonstration at Helwan University for the website Eshreen (www.20at.com) and called on the government to stop such unjustified detentions. “However,” it said, “the debate continues about the government's repression of bloggers, who are just as threatened as journalists.” El-Hendy, 22, who also works for the daily paper al-Dustour, told the Reporters Without Borders correspondent in Egypt that he had not been mistreated in prison. Meanwhile the Yahoo! e-mail account of blogger Wael Abbas, as well as his YouTube account, were still blocked. He had posted a video in January showing Egyptian police brutality against a youth which was used by the authorities as evidence to send two policemen to jail for three years. ---------------------------- 29.11 - Journalists and bloggers arrested and censored Reporters Without Borders today strongly condemned the arrest of journalist Hossam el-Hendy at Helwan University, south of Cairo, as “an attempt to intimate all bloggers in Egypt” after officials there reported him to police for taking photos and sending messages about a demonstration on his mobile phone. El-Hendy, 22, who works for the daily paper Al-Dustour and the website Eshreen (www.20at.com), was covering a 28 November protest that erupted when a speaker at a university conference on information technology said it was important to regulate online activity in Egypt. The press freedom organisation also deplored the suspension on 21 November of the YouTube account of journalist and blogger Wael Abbas, who had posted scenes of police brutality towards suspects, and of his Yahoo! E-mail account on 29 November. "Abbas is seen by the country's bloggers as a key figure who alerts Egyptians to acts of torture,” it said. “If some of his clips are too shocking, YouTube can ask him to remove them, but suspending his account is excessive.” Egypt is on the Reporters Without Borders list of “enemies of Internet freedom.” One blogger, Kareem Amer, 22, is in prison for posting material online and has become a symbol of repression towards the country's bloggers.