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Egypt: Blogger warned by state security if he goes on writing on the internet

Categories: Egypt, Advocacy, Harassment

fares 31.jpg The Egyptian blogger Abdel Rahman Fares [1] was summoned to State Security headquarters, where he was blamed for his online writings. Fares was warned that he would be arrested if he goes on blogging, and asked to give up both his online and offline activities.

Fares is blogging at Lesani Howa Qalami [1] (My Tongue is My Pen). On Friday, 25 September, 2009, he received a phone call from States Security, and was asked several questions related to his blogging, then summoned [2] to State Security office in Fayoum (North of Cairo) where Fares is living.

The young blogger (25 years) spent around four hours at the State Security headquarter, where he was interrogated about a strike to take place in October and about his political views.

Fares was interrogated by three police officers, one of them discussed with him a post appeared on his blog entitled “Those will spend the feast behind bars with accusation of loving Egypt [3]” in which Fares reminded his readers about the fate of detained bloggers, like Mous'ad Abu Fagr, Ahmad Abu Doma, Kareem Amer and Hani Nazeer.

At the Sate Security headquarter, Fares was offered to stop his activism in exchange for becoming a member of the ruling Party's ‘elite’, an offer that he politely refused.

After his release, many Egyptian bloggers covered their friend's experience [4], calling each others not go to State Security offices when they are summoned via the telephone, as it is not a legal order.

Fares was arrested previously on 2007 and 2009. His last [5] arrest was on 5th April, 2008, while he was handing out flyers in his city calling people to take on the street and protest against the government, as a part of 6th April strike [6].