CAIRO: Egyptian Coptic Christian activist Maikel Nabil, who is known internationally as the first prisoner of conscience in the post-Hosni Mubarak Egypt after the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) jailed him for “insulting the military” now faces charges of insulting Islam, he reported on Saturday while in Germany. The Egyptian government have requested that the German government return Nabil as soon as possible so he can stand on the charges, Egypt's Youm al-Saba'a newspaper reported. He is being accused of “contempt of the Islamic religion and abuse of the divine.” Also among the charges, the newspaper reported are “insulting the Prophet and his followers.” The lawsuit against Nabil says that he “consistently” insults Islam through his online activities, including his Twitter account. It is unclear if Germany will respond to the request or if Nabil will return to the country in the near future as he now faces charges that could see him return to prison. Nabil was jailed by the military junta in early 2011, but was freed ahead of the one-year anniversary of the January 25 revolution that ousted the Mubarak government from power. The Egyptian government and military council had received fierce criticism domestically and abroad for their detention and sentencing of Nabil, who was jailed for comments he made in a blog post entitled “The army and the people are not one hand." On April 10, 2011, in a case widely seen as the first of its kind in the post-Mubarak Egypt, Nabil was sentenced to three years in jail by a military court. The young blogger spent most of his time in jail on a prison hunger strike to protest his treatment in Egypt's judicial and prison systems. Last fall, authorities sent Nabil to a psychiatric hospital after he refused to eat. Doctors and observers said it was a move by the government to distance themselves from the potential death that has faced the young blogger during their care.
