CAIRO: As activists and international civil rights groups condemn the deteriorating state of press freedom in Egypt, more Egyptians seem to drink their morning coffee reading the Egyptian blogs instead of flipping through the newspaper. It would never occur to me to buy the morning paper to find out what is going on in this country. The blogs provide me with the most honest and accurate news at the moment, in my opinion, a journalist who asked not to be identified told The Daily Star Egypt. A quick google search on the Egyptian blogosphere yields a plethora of sites dedicated to a diversity of topics, ranging from politics, human rights, and culture, to religion, music, and technology. Arabist.net , moderated by Egyptian journalist Issandr El-Amrani, recently featured a disturbing story about two policemen currently under investigation for attempting to rape a woman at the Sadat underground metro station last Wednesday. According to Arabist, the woman reportedly withdrew the complaint she filed at the police station due to pressure from the families of the policemen Popular blog Sandmonkey , authored by the self-proclaimed extremely cynical, snarky, pro-US, secular, libertarian,' highlights a new twist in the case of student blogger Kareem Amer who is currently standing trial for defaming Islam and President Mubarak on his blog. Apparently, a member of Egypt s blogging community, Ahmad Gharbeia has found an pinned down a blog belonging to the head judge of the Court of Appeals in Alexandria, the court Amer s case will be transferred to if he is found guilty. The judge Dr Mourad , allegedly has a personal blog, (www.drmourad.net/) available in both Arabic, French, and English, where curious readers can access large amounts of his personal views on issues related to the Egyptian legal system. Moreover, Dr Mourad has supposedly written a book on the legal basis and definitions of blogging, a fact Sandmonkey ridicules considering Mourad s profession and potential future connection to the Amer case. One wonders how this will affect the verdict on Kareem Amer. This is, after all, the boss of all the judges in the Court of Appeals, Sandmonkey wrote. In another development on Amer's trial, human rights activist Dalia Ziada has posted a video called Free Kareem Amer on her blog daliaziada.blogspot.com. 'Manal and Alaa s bit bucket,' a blog moderated by husband and wife duo, advertises the third SOS Music Festival on Feb. 9 at the Chinese Garden at Cairo s International Convention Center. Hossam El-Hamalawy, a journalist running the popular blog arabawy.net, features a large amount of compelling reports, including the recent story of an Algerian blogger who, through Internet campaigns, forced the Algerian President to freeze his plan of privatizing the country's biggest oil company. Furthermore, by scrolling down a few inches, arabawy readers can access clips from an interesting BBC documentary on torture in Egypt. A few clicks away you'll find zeinobia.blogspot.com whose author contemplates whether one of the men arrested for spying on Egypt for Israel is homosexual. In her post The spy turned out to be gay, Zeinobia argues that Mohamed El-Attar (the spy) could be gay after reading the first security release in which he says that he left Egypt because he didn t feel he fit in socially. Then he went to the High Commission of Refugees in Ankara and sought asylum in a Western country for humanitarian reasons. Moving on from spying and homosexuality, the blogger behind fustat.blogspot.com praises journalist Negar Azimi s recent article in the American newspaper The Nation on blogger activism in Egypt and the role of bloggers who act as whistleblowers exposing human rights abuses. Moreover, a final click on nahdetmasr.blogspot.com, run by a middle-aged Cairo University professor, triggers heated debate over Egypt s state-run newspapers.
