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Egypt Jails Political Activist for Posting 'Defense Secrets' on Facebook

by Amar Toor on December 2, 2010 at 11:00 AM

protest in cairo, egypt
Over the course of the past few months, the Egyptian government has taken a particularly hard-line stance against Facebook-based activism, many authorities believing it to pose a legitimate threat to President Hosni Mubarak. In March, a military tribunal unsuccessfully attempted to silence a controversial blogger named Ahmed Mustafa, barely three years after Egypt had jailed another writer for criticizing Mubarak and religious authorities on his blog. And, just last week -- in the run-up to the contentious parliamentary elections that have since engendered heated protests and accusations of fraud -- many political Facebook pages were mysteriously shut down, just a few hours before a mass demonstration organized by opposition activists. Now, the government has once again cracked down on an activist, who, according to prosecutors, threatened the military via a seemingly innocuous Facebook group.

The activist, Ahmed al-Bassiouni, reportedly created a Facebook group with which he shared information on the paperwork and procedures that must be completed before joining the Egyptian military. In the eyes of an Egyptian military court, however, such actions were tantamount to "publicizing defense secrets of the country." On Tuesday, the court sentenced al-Bassiouni to six months in jail, and slapped him with a fine of LE500 ($86.42). It certainly seems bizarre to classify a simple application process as top secret information, but perhaps Egyptian law actually supports the conviction. Considering the country's recent anti-Facebook crackdown, though, we're guessing the case has a lot more to do with institutional paranoia than it does with any real security concerns.

Tags: blogger, court, egypt, election, facebook, facebook groups, FacebookGroups, jail, middle east, MiddleEast, military, politics, SocialNetworking, top, trial, web

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