CAIRO: A case filed by Alexandria Judge Abdel Fattah Murad that calls on the Ministry of Communication and Information Technology (MCIT) to block over 50 websites, has been postponed to July 4. The websites in question published information showing that Murad plagiarized from a report by the Arabic Network for Human Rights (ANHRI). Murad had published a book that copied pages from a human rights report on freedom of internet access in the Arab world. Murad sued in February 2007 to have the websites blocked after the ANHRI publicized the copyright infringement. He claimed that the websites threatened national security and insulted President Hosni Mubarak. In December 2007, the Administrative Court ruled against Murad. The court cited Article 47 of the Egyptian Constitution that "freedom of expression is sacred. Murad appealed that decision to the Supreme Administrative Court. The court decided on Sunday to postpone the case at the request of the MCIT's lawyers, who asked for more time to review a new memorandum submitted by Murad. In the memorandum, Murad seeks to have the websites blocked with reference to a May 12 ruling by the Administrative Court that ordered the MCIT and the National Telecom Regulatory Authority to block obscene websites. The court has yet to rule on whether the websites in question are "obscene. At the time of the obscenity ruling, however, Egyptian human rights groups expressed worry that the power to block websites would be abused. Emad Mubarak, director of the Association for Freedom of Thought and Expression, told Daily News in May that, "We are opposed to internet censorship generally because of our deep concern that the Egyptian government will use this as a pretext to go after other sites, with the justification that their content infringes society's values and so on.
