Egyptian bogger jailed for four years

AN EGYPTIAN blogger was jailed for four years for insulting Islam and Egypt's current Pharaoh.

According to Associated Press, Abdel Kareem Nabil, a 22-year-old former student at Egypt's Al-Azhar University, is a secularist and sharp critic of conservative Muslims. Judge Ayman al-Akazi sentenced Nabil to three years in prison for insulting Islam and the Prophet Muhammad and inciting sectarian strife and another year for insulting President Hosni Mubarak.

Apparently the Prophet Muhammad was insulted in a piece Nabil wrote in 2005 after riots in which angry Muslim worshippers attacked a Coptic Christian church over a play deemed offensive to Islam.

The comment about the President that got him a year in chokey was that the Egyptian people were enduring "oppression, poverty and torture, so the least we can do is insult the president".

Nabil's lawyer, Ahmed Seif el-Islam, said he would appeal the verdict, adding it will "terrify other bloggers and have a negative impact on freedom of expression in Egypt."

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