Rights group wary of government crackdown on freedom of expression.

On Saturday, Human Rights Watch called on the Egyptian government to free the first person in Egypt to be tried for his online posts. Abdel Kareem Nabil Suleiman has been detained since November 2006 for blog posts that were decried as religiously and politically inflammatory.
Suleiman could be sentenced to nine years in prison if found guilty.

Human Rights Watch denounced the charges. “The Egyptian government should immediately drop all charges against Suleiman and release him," said Sarah Leah Whitson, a director for Human Rights Watch.

The Suleiman case gives journalists, bloggers, and human rights activists in Egypt cause to fear a heightened crackdown on the country's outspoken independent press and its young, activist bloggers - who have been primary agitators for democratic reform.

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