CAIRO: On Friday, Egyptian blogger Demagh Mak and his brother were stopped in Tanta – a town an hour north of Cairo and home to a major workers' strike – where police demanded their ID's. According to the blogger, the police officer, allegedly named Mohamed el-Dahrawy, inexplicably hit the blogger. When Mak asked the officer to calm down, a group of soldiers and plainclothes security forces, commonly referred to as “thugs” in the blogosphere and activist circles, “beat them badly.” Mak and his brother were then taken to a police station before they were released upon arrival. Police had confiscated their mobile phones at the checkpoint, but not before Mak was able to send a message to his Twitter account saying “I got arrested and beaten in tanata right now.” His use of the Internet is nothing new for Egypt, or the region as a whole, and neither is the security crackdown against bloggers and activists for their anti-government sentiments. In 2004, Egypt had a mere 40 registered blogs. Today, that number has risen to thousands, which is creating a new medium for the diffusion of ideas. This transmission has been beneficial to the growing opposition in the country, creating modes in which activists communicate the message of dissent. According to a report published by the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), “blogging has flourished in the Middle East, propelled by the region’s unusually high growth rate in Internet use, and the exceedingly restrictive landscape for traditional media.” With the growth, however, has been government crackdowns on bloggers from Iran to Morocco. “This nexus of demography and repression has led activists, journalists, lawyers, and others online, where they express dissent and report information in previously unimaginable ways. Internet World Statistics, a market research company that compiles online data, reports that the number of Internet users in the region grew 13-fold from 2000 to 2008, far surpassing the two-fold increase worldwide,” the report stated. In Egypt, prominent blogger Wael Abbas, was highlighted as receiving the brunt of the government crackdown, being detained and harassed by security forces at the Cairo International Airport and even in his home. This stems from his forceful entry into the blogosphere in 2006, after republishing a video that revealed massive sexual harassment in downtown Cairo. The blogger has won numerous international awards for his coverage of events, but his high profile has not kept the hands of the government away from him, “but he has still been detained, searched and harassed twice at the Cairo airport. On one occasion, his laptop computer was confiscated,” CPJ reported. In an interview with CPJ, Abbas said he has been taken from the street and held for hours without charge. This, CPJ reports, “has left him unable to secure regular employment.” Abbas is not alone in Egypt, where bloggers have been increasingly targeted. Mohamed Khaled, who has also posted a number of torture videos, believes the risks are worth th harassment. He told CPJ that when he first discovered the torture images, “I could not believe my eyes. People had to see this barbarity.” Abbas, who has written op-ed's in major international publications such as The Washington Post, is arguably the leader in the Egyptian blogosphere. Egypt is not alone in its repression of bloggers. CPJ reports that in Syria, the emergency law has been used extensively to crack down on online activities. It “allows authorities to try offenders in military court for ambiguous offenses such as ‘crimes that constitute an overall hazard.' At least 11 Syrian bloggers have been convicted under the emergency law, and many have served prison time.” Egyptian blogger Kareem Amer also sits in prison, serving a four-year prison term for his online writing. This is the first case in Egypt of a person being convicted and imprisoned for their blog writing. Iran has received the most attention for its government crackdown on Internet dissidents. CPJ writes that “Iran is at the forefront of online repression in the Middle East.” Most undoubtedly know the massive security effort to stall information from leaving the country earlier this year during the uprising that occurred following the controversial presidential elections. The country is “combining old-school tactics such as detention and harassment with newer techniques such as online blocking and monitoring. It has also moved assertively to extend – and even expand – longstanding legal restrictions on print and broadcast journalism to online media.” These tactics, CPJ argues, “are being employed to various degrees throughout the region, from Egypt to Saudi Arabia, Tunisia to Syria.” Not thorough Some activists are not convinced the CPJ went far enough in its criticism and, according to one Egyptian blogger who asked not to be named, “left out a number of important cases that should have been discussed, at least in passing.” The blogger points to a number of Muslim Brotherhood bloggers, such as Abdelrahman Ayyash and Magdy Saad, who were arrested and detained for days this summer upon returning from a trip to Turkey. “Are we simply dealing with secular-minded bloggers, or will the international community step up and discuss the entire community on an equal footing,” the blogger added. For the Egyptian blogger, it is about media coverage of the blogger themselves, arguing that “it is about getting others to see you as important. The West loves to support Wael Abbas, but he is not the only one doing this kind of thing, and he certainly was not the first.” Despite this, the blogger says that the CPJ report reveals a great deal about what occurs in Egypt and around the region, “so even though we can ask for more, at least they are doing something.” In Egypt, for example, a number of former foreign ministry officials told Bikya Masr that the interior ministry has long had an Internet division. They said that it consists of row upon row of monitoring stations, which read blog posting upon posting in order to make lists for the security forces to then investigate. Even comments are now being monitored, they said. Iran, the former officials revealed, took the lead from Egypt, not the other way around. The crackdown that followed the Iranian election, the officials argued, would not have been possible without the Iranians taking a page from Egypt's book. Politics of dissent Ironically, the report has received little fanfare in Egypt as bloggers are more concerned with the almost daily detentions, arrests and violence against their fellow Internet users. CPJ asserts at the end of their extremely detailed report that “technical measures must be accompanied by professional solidarity. To combat government repression, bloggers and their advocates must object in chorus against excessive laws, speak forcefully on behalf of colleagues who are harassed and jailed, educate their readers and enlist their support.” This is the crux of the matter, one prominent blogger said, asking they too remain anonymous due to the overall politicking that occurs within the Egyptian blogosphere. “Lots of times, each blogger or activist attempts to one-up the other and this results in contention and distrust,” she begins. “Take Wael Abbas as an example. If someone calls him out for an error that he writes; if he is late on something or doesn't give credit where it is due, he goes into personal attacks against that individual. Swearing and often insulting them through his writing. This has left much of the Egyptian blogosphere full of hatred and it is turning into the competition that persists in traditional media.” The blogger argues that if Egyptian and regional bloggers are to create a system that truly combats the government's attacks on Internet activism, “they must come together and understand the importance of working as a team; a team that creates a conversation and truly supports one another through their work. It is important and if we continue to fail to do so, we will end up just as fractured as other movements that have come and gone in the past few years in all parts of the region.” In the end, CPJ argues that bloggers must “set a steep political price for any government that resorts to harsh, repressive measures.” But with competition brewing as a result of ongoing attacks and politics that spur frustration and anger within the blogosphere, there is still much to work for. “The point is people must choose who to follow and respect, but those who have garnered a massive following, like Wael, must be ready to understand the responsibility that comes with it and help foster more bloggers to join the fray,” the blogger says. BM
