CAIRO: Cairo's Misdemeanor Cassation Court rejected on Tuesday Egyptian blogger Kareem Amer's last appeal and upheld the previous four-year sentence he had received for insulting Islam and defaming Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak on his internet blog. "This decision shows the Egyptian judicial system's lack of independence, Reporters Without Borders said in a press statement. "The authorities decided to make an example of Kareem Amer in order to intimidate Egyptians who use the internet to express their views freely and criticize the government. We hope the court will at least give a detailed explanation to justify this arbitrary decision, it added. Twenty-four-year-old Amer, who was expelled from Al-Azhar University, was arrested on Nov. 6, 2006, in his hometown of Alexandria. He was sentenced to three years in prison on Feb. 22, 2007 for his blog entries, which the court considered to be insulting to Islam. He was also sentenced to one year for defaming President Mubarak on his blog. At the time, Amnesty International described his arrest as "a slap in the face of freedom of expression in Egypt. He is currently serving his sentence at Borg El-Arab prison on the North Coast in Alexandria. The Arabic Network for Human Rights Information (ANHRI) has petitioned a Cairo administrative court for his release under an Egyptian law that allows authorities to free prisoners for "good conduct when they have completed three quarters of their sentence, as Amer has. ANHRI director Gamal Eid visited Amer and was reportedly appalled by the conditions of the prison, saying that detainees are harassed by police officers. In November 2008, which marked the second anniversary of Amer's arrest, human rights activists and democracy advocates around the world protested and criticized the imprisonment of Amer. They held demonstrations in several world capitals calling for the blogger's release and criticizing Egypt's violation of the citizen's right to freedom of expression. The demonstrations were organized by the Free Kareem Coalition, an online "campaign to free the brave Egyptian blogger, according to the website. Standing in front of Egyptian embassies and consulates in New York, San Francisco, Tel Aviv, Rome and Brussels, among others, demonstrators held up banners and posters with phrases such as "Shame on Egypt and "Respect Human Rights.
