Egyptian police sexually assault imprisoned blogger

They’re branching out from beatings, according to Mohammed al-Sharqawi, the blogger in question. The allegation comes from this article in Time about the growing threat posed to Mubarak by the Egyptian blogosphere. What they lack in numbers — there are reportedly only 1,000 of them, compared to 75,000 in Iran — they make up for in ardor: of the 300 pro-democracy activists arrested by the regime over the past few weeks, six of them are bloggers. They include al-Sharqawi and, of course, Alaa Abdel Fatah, who’s become something of a cause celebre among American bloggers thanks to Instapundit.

WaPo had a nice piece yesterday about how blogging in Egypt is a fast track to prison:

“Most of what they are writing could be punished according to the law, because it is libel and blasphemy,” Mubarak said. Referring to himself as the source of whatever free speech exists in Egypt, he added: “If they think that what they are doing is an expression of their freedom, they should remember who gave them this chance, and who is insisting on its continuity.”

Jefferson Morley of the Post runs down the latest news and wonders, now that Egyptians are standing up, whether the U.S. government will stand with them. Answer: no.

Finally, Sandmonkey‘s got an op-ed in the Christian Science Monitor today that’s well worth your time. He’s a brave man to be taunting Mubarak when, by his own count, the ministry of information is visiting his site 30 times a day. And I’m not just saying that because his latest post quotes me at length.

Update: A new development since Morley’s post this morning: the political headquarters of jailed dissident Ayman Nour have mysteriously been gutted by fire.

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