Kareem Amer

Kareem Amer
Kareem Amer, center, delivers his first public remarks four days before the country's parliamentary elections. November 2010.
Born	Abdul Kareem Nabeel Suleiman Amer (1984-06-17) June 17, 1984 (age 32) Alexandria, Egypt
Nationality	Egyptian
Occupation	blogger
Known for	2007-10 imprisonment

Abdul Kareem Nabeel Suleiman Amer (Arabic: عبد الكريم نبيل سليمان عامر‎‎, IPA: [ʕæbdelkeˈɾiːm næˈbiːl seleˈmæːn ˈʕæːmeɾ, -kæˈɾiːm-]) (born c. 1984) is an Egyptian blogger and former law student. He was arrested by Egyptian authorities for posts on his blog that were considered to be anti-religious and insulting to Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak. On February 22, 2007, in his native city Alexandria, Amer was sentenced to three years of imprisonment for insulting Islam and inciting sedition and one year for insulting the Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak. He was the first blogger in Egypt explicitly arrested for the content of his writing, and was released on November 17, 2010, but not before he was beaten and detained by Egyptian security forces.

Kareem Amer, a secular Egyptian, completed elementary and secondary school at al-Azhar University. He wished to complete a biology degree, but family pressure forced him to enroll in al-Azhar's Department of Shari'a and Legal Studies instead.

In 2004, Amer began expressing his reformist views at "Modern Discussion", as well as "Copts United" by 2005. By mid-2006, he discontinued publishing at Copts United because he accuses them of limiting his writings to only criticizing Muslims and not Copts as well.

Amer first came to the attention of Egyptian authorities after he published a series of blog writings highly critical of the Muslim role in the deadly sectarian riots in Alexandria in 2005, the result of a play performed at a Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria, and the violent reaction of the Muslim community over the play's 'insult to Islam'.