Kareem Amer

During the 2011 Egyptian revolution of the Arab Spring, Amer participated in the protests at Tahrir Square. He was arrested by the Egyptian Army on February 6 while leaving a protest. After three days in custody, he was released without charge. Since 2012, he's lived in exile in Norway in order to avoid further legal issues with the Egyptian authorities. Norwegian media have hosted articles and interviews of him. Through them, he urges the Norwegian society and the rest of Europe to show a more critical attitude towards Islam. He became a Norwegian citizen in 2020.

Three Italian MPs, former Minister of Defence Antonio Martino, President of the 10th Permanent Commission (Productive Affairs, Trade and Tourism) Daniele Capezzone, and Senator Gaetano Quagliariello wrote letters to the Egyptian Ambassador to Italy Mohamed Farid Monib.

Amer was briefly freed on 5 November 2010, having served the full four years of his sentence. He was quickly rearrested by the Interior Ministry and detained for eleven additional days, during which time he later stated that he was tortured. Following his second release on November 16, he stated that he had no regrets for his previous words, and intended to continue blogging.

PEN America made Amer one of its "highest priority cases", arguing that he was "jailed for exercising his inalienable human right to freedom of expression". Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales discussed Amer's case during the WikiMania 2008 conference in Alexandria, suggesting that high-profile arrests like his could be hampering the development of the Arabic Wikipedia by making editors afraid to contribute.

Kareem Nabil Suleiman Amer (Arabic: كريم نبيل سليمان عامر, IPA: [ʕæbdelkeˈɾiːm næˈbiːl seleˈmæːn ˈʕæːmeɾ, -kæˈɾiːm-]) (born c. 1984) is an Egyptian Norwegian blogger and former law student. He was arrested by Egyptian authorities for posts on his blog that were considered to be anti-religious and insulting to Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak. On 22 February 2007, in his native city Alexandria, Amer was sentenced to three years of imprisonment for insulting Islam and inciting sedition and one year for insulting the Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak. He was the first blogger in Egypt explicitly arrested for the content of his writing, and was released on 17 November 2010, but not before he was beaten and detained by Egyptian security forces. He thereafter moved to Bergen, Norway where he obtained political asylum and gained Norwegian citizenship.

On 22 February, the judge said Nabil was guilty and would serve three years for insulting Islam and inciting sedition, and one year for insulting Mubarak. An appeals court upheld the sentence on 13 March 2007.

Early in 2006, Amer was expelled from al-Azhar University, Damanhour Campus, for criticizing some of the university's Islamist instructors, writing in his blog that the "professors and sheikhs at al-Azhar who ... stand against anyone who thinks freely" would "end up in the dustbin of history". He also posted writings that promoted secularism and women's rights.

On 6 November 2006, Amer was again detained by the public prosecutor's office after it questioned him about his writings on "Modern Discussion" that were considered by authorities to be of an irreligious nature, and because of al-Azhar's complaint to the Public Prosecutor Office.

Amer first came to the attention of Egyptian authorities after he published a series of blog writings highly critical of the Muslim role in the deadly sectarian riots in Alexandria in 2005, the result of a play performed at a Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria, and the violent reaction of the Muslim community over the play's 'insult to Islam'.

On 26 October 2005, Amer was arrested for the first time by Egyptian state security agency Amn al-Dawla for anti-religious posts on his blog. He was detained for twelve days, and his books and personal writings were confiscated.

In 2004, Amer began expressing his reformist views at "Modern Discussion", as well as "Copts United" by 2005. By mid-2006, he discontinued publishing at Copts United because he accuses them of limiting his writings to only criticizing Muslims and not Copts as well.