Word: egypts
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...chill has just gone through the collective spine of the bloggers of the Middle East. On Thursday, Egypt sentenced Abdel Kareem Suleiman (a.k.a. "Kareem Amer" online) to four years in prison - three years for blog posts that insulted Islam and one year for similar writings that defamed President Hosni Mubarak. While bloggers have been harrassed and a couple arrested by Mideast governments in the past, this is the first time one has been sentenced to prison. Before Kareem's arrest and conviction, internet writing was considered a safe and open venue for many young men and women in the region...
...Muslim and Arabic women." But his blog also condemned sacred Muslim rituals like fasting during the holy month of Ramadan. He mocked Islamic liturgies by saying "there is no God but the human being." He also posted his opinions on Coptic blogs - set up by the remnant of Egypt's pre-Islamic Christian community - which made him a target for accusations of heresy and apostasy. In November Kareem was detained, interrogated and held in an Alexandria jail without trial for two months before he was charged with spreading information disruptive of public order, incitement to hate Islam and defaming...
...Sunnis and Shi'ites and reanimating long-dormant ones. In Lebanon, some Hizballah supporters seeking to topple the government in Beirut chant the name of radical Iraqi cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, whose militia is blamed for thousands of Sunni deaths. In Sunni Arab countries like Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Egypt, sympathy for Sunnis in Iraq is spiked with the fear, notably in official circles, of a Shi'ite tide rising across the Middle East, instigated and underwritten by an ancient enemy of the Arabs: Iran...
...main target of the effort. "In effect," Cordesman says, "both the U.K. and the U.S. may end up acting to expand Shi'ite influence in very different ways." That, of course, would expand the influence of Shi'ite Iran in Iraq, and unsettle majority-Sunni states like Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia...
...Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Egypt have been expecting the U.S. and Israel to make some significant positive moves. In talks with U.S. diplomats, they argue that the Saudi-brokered accord that helped forge the unity government gives Abbas some room to negotiate on behalf of all Palestinians - including Hamas - and the Israelis and Americans should take him up on that. The Arab diplomats also stress that if Olmert is prepared to make major concessions, such as a withdrawal from Jewish settlements in the West Bank, it could lay the groundwork for a lasting peace between Israel and its Arab...