The sentencing of a blogger to jail for criticizing Egypt's army has drawn a chorus of objections from rights groups, who say the country's ruling military council is drawing red lines around free speech. Maikel Nabil, 26, was taken from his home in Cairo by five military officers early on March 28 and charged with insulting the military establishment and "spreading false information," New York-based Human Rights Watch (HRW) said.
Nabil's lawyers were told the judge would rule on Tuesday but discovered he had already been sentenced in their absence on Sunday, HRW cited defense lawyer Adel Ramadan as saying.
"Maikel Nabil's three-year sentence may be the worst strike against free expression in Egypt since the Mubarak government jailed the first blogger for four years in 2007," said Joe Stork, deputy Middle East director at HRW. He urged the army to drop all the charges and release Nabil immediately.
Activists suspect anything from hundreds to thousands of Egyptians are being held and tried before military courts behind closed doors after President Hosni Mubarak's ousting on February 11.
"The methods used by the Egyptian military do not seem to have evolved since Hosni Mubarak's fall," said Reporters Without Borders secretary-general Jean-Francois Julliard.
"A civilian should not be tried by a military court. This is not the way things are done in the democratic society to which Egyptians aspire," he added. (read more)
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