CAIRO: Alexandria judge Abdel Fattah Mourad, who will arbitrate the appeal of jailed Alexandria blogger Kareem Amer, filed a lawsuit to shut down 21 human rights advocacy websites and popular blogs. The move raises concern about freedom of expression in Egypt and has caused alarm among human rights activists and bloggers. But far from a simple act of repression, rights activists say that Mourad's move stems from "wounded pride. One of the targeted organizations has accused him of plagiarizing their work in a recent book he authored and threatened a court case against him for copy-right violation. According to a report published on March 2 in the local Rose Al-Youssef daily, Mourad filed a case before the State Council Court to shut down the websites, which he says include reports and photographs that "tarnish the reputation of Egypt and insult the Egyptian president. At the end of his complaint, he also accused the groups of libel, with reference to the plagiarism allegations hurled against him. The list of websites Mourad singled out includes those of a number of opposition newspapers and human rights organizations: Nahdat Misr newspaper; the Arabic Network for Human Rights Information (HRinfo); Al-Ghad party's newspaper; the Kefaya National Movement for Change; Good News company; the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights; and the Iraqi News Agency. In addition, the judge seeks to block access to several popular personal blogs, such as bentmasreya.blogspot.com and others. According to an HRinfo statement, the judge is lashing out to deter them from filing a lawsuit against him and to punish others for their support of the suit. HRinfo claims that Mourad lifted 50 pages from their report on internet freedom for his book, publishing the work as his own without citing them as a source. "The judge has re-published large parts of HRinfo's report on freedom to use the Internet in the Arab world in his book without referring to the source, said HRinfo head Gamal Eid in a statement. "In addition, he distorted the content of the report. His attempts to threaten and instill fear in us will fail as well. We defend the right to freedom of expression and our rights despite who is violating such rights. Eid says his organization has demanded that the Judges Club step in to address their plagiarism concerns. If the Club fails to find a solution, he says, HRinfo will request that the public prosecutor and the Supreme Council for Judges lift Mourad's immunity and prosecute him for violation of copyright. "The crime is worse when the violator is a judge, who should supposedly be the first to defend such rights, said Eid. "We gave the judge a long time to own up to his crime, said Eid. "However, he preferred to take the path of threats by raising this case to dissuade us from demanding our rights. Mourad's suit also seeks to block the sites of groups allied with HRinfo to punish them for supporting a court case against him. One such group is the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights, led by Hossam Bahgat. According to Bahgat, this is a case of abuse of power. When judges use the law to settle personal scores, it only highlights the need for legal reform. "Rather than apologize for what he did, he decided to turn his public humiliation into a court case utilizing the arsenal of repressive laws on insulting the president, damaging the country s reputation and threatening national security, Bahgat to The Daily Star Egypt. "This is just another reminder of the need to bring outdated provisions of the penal code in line with human rights norms. "Obviously the judge went to the HRinfo website and just copied the list of organizations linked there, said Bahgat. "He says we all threaten national security and the president, but at the end of his complaint he says he is also suing for libel because while we all insulted Egypt, we insulted him in the process. His motivations are very clear.
