Egypt targets Web-savvy opponents

Activists say Abdel Moneim Mahmoud was arrested because he's a member of the Muslim Brotherhood and has a popular blog.

from the May 2, 2007 edition

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That analysis is close to the Bush administration's freedom agenda for the Middle East, which singled out past US coddling of Arab dictators as helping to inspire terrorists. And Mahmoud, his Islamist political orientation aside, espouses for Egypt what the US says it wants for the whole region.

"Freedom is more important than the [food] you distributed during Ramadan," he wrote at the end of the fasting month in 2006, when food is typically given to the poor. "Freedom is more important than sticking posters on walls. Please, freedom is the ultimate priority."

But, in practice, the US has backed off from pushing Egypt and other Arab states to change since the Muslim Brotherhood's success in parliamentary elections here in 2005 and the rise to political power of Hamas, a Brotherhood offshoot, in the Palestinian territories.

The US has so far made no comments on Mahmoud's detention or on the pending military trials of 40 other Muslim Brotherhood members for their political activities.

"In 2005, there was pressure from the US for democracy in the region, and that gave us more space," says Ghuzlan. "But since the result of this pressure was big successes for the Islamists, they changed course again. It may serve their interests in the short term, but America's longstanding support for totalitarian regimes has created enormous pent up anger and people like [Al Qaeda No. 2 Aymen] al-Zawahiri and [Osama] Bin Laden."

The US government, which provides about $2 billion in aid to Egypt a year, did remark on the prison sentence handed to Abdel Karem Suleiman, a secular blogger, on Feb. 22. State Department deputy spokesman Tom Casey said in regard to Mr. Suleiman, who was sentenced for his criticism of Islam, that "freedom of expression is critical in the development of a democratic and prosperous society."

Islam Shalaby, another Brotherhood member involved in the campaign to free Mahmoud, says, "I think the sentencing of Kareem [Suleiman] was to provide political cover for their attack on the Brothers.

"I don't like anything he stands for, but he has the right to speak for himself. The regime is just trying to set the precedent that it can silence anyone."

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