Kareem is IN PRISON!

Follow up from this article.

I just got this very bad news from Dalia:

I am so sorry to tell you that our colleague Kareem is in prison now. My colleague lawyer who accompanied Kareem during investigations have just called me from Alexndria to tell me that Kareem is held in custody for four days bending investigations! It is 3:25 p.m. now in Cairo.

The lawyer told me that the clerics in the Mohram Bek prosecution (where Kareem is held now) laughed at her and at human rights and said that human rights activists are naive!!!! So my colleague quarreled with them.

I do not know what to say. I am expecting my organization HRinfo (which sent the lawyer) to take some action, I do not know what exactly we can do. Any way, I am extremely sorry for such bad news. I fear that they may torture him while staying in custody. Moreover, Kareem have no experience to deal with other criminals existing in prison.

Something must be done about this. Anything. I hope Tom Palmer helps us take action.

The only thing I can come up with is a Free Kareem campaign. I hate feeling like I can’t do anything productive about this, the least we can do is spread awareness. So please, if you have any influential contacts, let them know. I will ask other bloggers to alert their readers about this.

Knowing Kareem, he will surely stay strong, but I can’t think of him in prison, and I can’t bare to even consider the fact that he might be tortured. This is horrible.

UPDATE: Free Kareem campaign is LAUNCHED!

We are now working on setting up a petition.

UPDATE II: An interview with Dalia Ziada working on Kareem’s case from HRINFO:

Q. Kareem made it clear that he is not a fan of Islam and is in fact highly critical of the religion. Why do you, a devout Muslim, feel the need to support him?

A. Above all, it is Kareem’s absolute choice to be a Muslim, a Christian, a Jewish or even an atheist. Freedom of belief is one of the basic rights given to all humans. Prophet Mohammed himself never treated some one upon his/her religion. As an anti-extremism moderate Muslim I believe in human rights. Thereupon, I support Kareem’s right to express his own views the way he likes and to believe in whatever he wants.

Q. Why should other Muslims support him if he openly criticizes their religion?

A. I think we talk here about moderate Muslims who believe in the freedom of belief. If Kareem criticized Islam that does not mean that he hates us personally. He only expresses his own point of view. As Muslim civilized humans all what we should do is to respond to his criticism by clarifying the falseness of his criticism from our point of view. It does not mean that we –the holders of power – should silence the minority who contradicts our beliefs. That is the Islam I always knew before some political movements such as Muslim Brotherhood Group appears to allow the shedding of the blood of Bahaists only because they have another religion and to silence some atheists like Kareem just because he has a different view. Listen up Muslim brothers and sisters, we came to life only to worship Allah and to fill universe with life, love, and prosperity. We should not waste our time in fighting with non-Muslims only because they are non-Muslims. Only Allah has the right to do this, not us.

Q. Why did Kareem get arrested immediately for at least 4 days until the investigations proceed?

A. Kareem was too brave to the extent that he said it out loud to the prosecutor: “Yes sir, it is me the person who wrote these anti-Islam articles”. That is why he was detained for renewable four days until the investigations proceed.

Dalia ends by encouraging us to act upon this further through this statement:

I want to add something: people in the prosecutor office kept laughing at human rights and human rights activists. They believe that we are naïve enough to believe that there is something called human rights and that we can do something. Hey guys, let’s show them what we are able to do!

Let’s! The petition should be launched shortly and will hopefully circulate all over the web.

Tomorrow morning, an article about Kareem will be released on HRINFO.

As moderate Muslims, it is very important that we allow other Muslims (or ex-Muslims, as the case may be) to question or doubt their own beliefs. For the sake of knowledge and tolerance, we need to give others the opportunity to openly and constructively criticize our faith. It’s only natural. Even in our minds, Kareem did nothing wrong. We stand with him. Not just as Muslims, or as members of any other belief system, but as humans.

Update III: PETITION IS NOW UP!

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