CAIRO - An Egyptian blogger, released earlier this month after a four-year imprisonment on charges of insulting Islam and defaming President Hosni Mubarak, said Wednesday he would stick to his 'secular' path, had no regrets about his controversial writings. "I have never regretted my secular writings. If time returned, I would write the same way," blogger Abdel Karim Nabil Suleiman, aka Kareem Amer, told a press conference in Cairo Wednesday. Amer, a former law student at the religious Al-Azhar University, added that he was condemned to solitary confinement inside prison for long hours as he was barred from being visited by his lawyers and family since October 2009. "I had a very harsh experience inside the prison. However, I insist on my way of thinking," said the 26-year-old blogger, who had the longest jailing term as a blogger in the Arab world. Amer's sentence expired November 5, but his release was delayed by 12 days as he was questioned but State Security. “I have been transferred to State Security on November 5, where two young-looking police officers slapped me on the face twice,” he added at the conference held at the Arab Network of Human Rights Information (ANHRI). Flanked by Gamal Eid, the head of the ANHRI, and Rawda Ahmed, his lawyer, Amer's voice quavered with apparent sadness when he talked about the “special” treatment he received by police officers, prosecutors and even his family. "My ideas are so different from those of my fundamentalist family. However, they are still my family. They received me upon my release," Amer explained. Amer's ordeal reflects the Government's concern over dissident voices arising on websites and online social networks that are trickier to control than traditional opposition media outlets, say observers. Amer was a student at Al-Azhar University studying law and growing increasingly disillusioned with his religion and his Government, according to him. "It was a shock for me to be dismissed by Al-Azhar, which then informed the Public Prosecution about my articles," he said. Things then followed swiftly as he was sentenced to three years in prison for disdaining Islam and one year for defaming the President. Amer started his blog in April 2005, in the height of the Kefaya (Enough) movement, the genesis of protest cyberactivism in Egypt. "Amer was announced by Amnesty International an opinion prisoner in 2009. He is backed by some international rights groups," Eid of the ANHRI told the same conference. He added that, however, the biggest support to Amer came from the Egyptian bloggers “whether Muslims, Christians or secular”. "I can differ with Kareem and all of you can. However, should he be jailed for his opinion?" asked Eid. In March 2005, Amer was subjected to disciplinary hearings at Al-Azhar, which he chronicled on his blog, labelling them an "inquisition" by a "repressive" institution. A bi-partisan letter by two members of the US Congress demanding his release was the first of many high-level governmental interventions around the world, from Italy to Sweden to the United Nations. The US State Department expressed its concern, and his case was mentioned in Egypt's Universal Periodic Review at the UN Human Rights Council.
