Kareem of Egypt was imprisoned in 2007 for blogging about politics and religion.
Meet Esra’a Al Shafei, a young woman from Bahrain who uses WordPress to push for freedom of religious and political speech within the Muslim world.
She is also the founder and executive director of MidEastYouth.com. She also received the 2007 Templeton Freedom Award for Best New Intellectual Entrepreneur.
I had the chance to interview her in September during my visit to WordCamp Birmingham. The interview happened just weeks after the uprising in Iran, so the issue had a special poignancy.
She was a highlight of the entire conference, making clear to all who attended just what a vital force blogging can be in countries where free speech is not the cultural norm.
We were told not to take pictures of Esra’a (and you won’t find them online) because of the dangers involved for her in being so publicly identifiable.
She spoke a lot about her friend, Kareem Amer, an Egyptian blogger who was sentenced to years in jail in 2007 for expressing his opinion online about the government there and Islam.
Esra created a blog, a WordPress blog, just after he was arrested to tell the world about his imprisonment.
Those first posts caught fire internationally, leading to Free Kareem parties around the world and bringing media and political scrutiny against Egypt’s actions.
Esra said much of the Islamic world looks to Egypt as an example, so it’s critical that such human right violations not be tolerated or it will make such oppression acceptable in other Middle Eastern countries.
It was a real pleasure to interview her.
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[...] Fayetteville is May 29-30, 2010, and their blog hosts an interview with Esra’a Al Shafei, the founder of MidEastYouth.com and a WordPress blogger. Meet Esra’a Al Shafei, a young woman from Bahrain who uses WordPress to [...]