I've been blogging a lot recently about Fouad Mourtada, the young Moroccan man sentenced to three years in jail for posting a joke profile of the King's brother on Facebook. Yet there is another Fouad - Fouad Alfarhan - who has been in jail for three months with no release imminent. Fouad, who is a politically vocal blogger, was arrested on December 10th, and an online campaign to free him started soon after. However, when President Bush visited Saudi Arabia
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On February 5, computer engineer Fouad Mourtada was blindfolded and taken from his house in Casablanca, Morocco. He was taken to a police station where he was harassed and spat on by local police. Two weeks later, on February 22, he was sentence to three years in prison and a $1350 fine. His crime was creating a fake profile of Prince Moulay Rachid, the King's brother on Facebook. As Laila Lalami comments on The Nation's web site, "there are fake
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Despite heavy press coverage, Saudi blogger Fouad Al-Farhan remains in prison. Now Avaaz, an international digital activism organization with over 1 million members worldwide, is joining the fight free Fouad. They have posted a petition demanding Fouad's release and are hoping to get 2500 signatures. Only 2500 signatures for Fouad? I bet we can get at least twice that!Let's get 5000 signatures for Fouad!Here's what you can do: 1. Sign the petition to free Fouad here (English) of here (Arabic).2.
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A great piece on CNN about Fouad Alfarhan's imprisonment and the blog campaign to free him:
Please ad the Free Fouad quote randomizer to your blog. The quote randomizer scrolls through a list of quotes by jailed Saudi blogger Fouad Alfarhan. Even though the Saudi government is trying to silence Fouad, should them that jailing a blogger will only carry their words further.Just embed the following code in the sidebar of your blog:<iframe name=""FouadRandomizer"" src=""http://alfarhan.org/fouadphrases/fouad_phrase.php"" frameborder=""0"" marginheight=""0"" marginwidth=""0"" scrolling=""no"" height=""200"" width=""150"></iframe>"
Fouad Alfaran, only of Saudi Arabia's most important bloggers, was arrested on December 10 for blogging about Saudi Arabia's political prisoners. Ironically, he is now a political prisoner himself. The campaign to free him is taking advantage of several digital activism techniques, including a Free Fouad blog (in English and Arabic), a Free Fouad Facebook group, and an e-petition. Please consider taking action by signing the petition, joining the Facebook group, and learning more about the case on the blog.
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