Thursday, December 30, 2010

Paranoid

News of Facebook and internet users getting into a bit of bother with authorities is nothing new. Usually this is due to the users posting something critical of the government or authorities in their country. However Egypt has made the news for being maybe the first country in the world to jail someone for promoting the country!

An Internet user in Egypt, Ahmed Hassan Bassyouni, was sentenced to jail for starting a Facebook group for army recruits. The kicker however is that according to Reporters Without Border, the Facebook group Bassyouni set-up was to encourage his fellow Egyptian Internet users to enlist in the Egyptian armed forces! He was promoting the Egyptian Armed Forces to his fellow Egyptians and for that reason, he was sentenced to six months in prison by a military court.

Wow! Now since I’m not in Facebook, I can’t check to see if the Facebook group really is promoting the Egyptian armed forces but if it is…how do you spell paranoid is Arabic?

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