In America, signing up for an online blog is free. But in Egypt, bloggers must pay for their words in censorship, government control and threats to their personal safety. For Wael Abbas and Ahmed Elderiny, the cost doesn't matter. They still fight for a more politically active Egyptian citizenry.
The two bloggers visited Syracuse University last week as part of a year-long project to improve journalism in Egypt and other Arabic regions of the world.
"Blogging the Election," organized by the Kamal Adham Center for Journalism Training and Research at The American University in Cairo, sends eight Egyptian bloggers to the U.S. for three weeks in September, and again at the end of October, to blog about the 2008 presidential election.
Along with visiting online news organizations like time.com, WashingtonPost.com and HuffingtonPost.com, the bloggers spend a week at some of the top journalism schools in the United States including: SU's S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications, University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill's School of Journalism and Mass Communications, University of Texas' College of Communication and the University of Nebraska-Lincoln College of Journalism and Mass Communications.
"We are not trying to make them into journalists," said Lawrence Pintak, director of the Kamal Adham Center, explaining that bloggers are encouraged to express their opinions. "But we are trying to help them improve their craft."
The bloggers were chosen by the Kamal Adham Center based on their expressed interest in improving their journalism skills and experience in blogging on politics and society.
"The fact that several of the bloggers involved in the project blog anonymously is a reflection of the oppressed state of media in Egypt today," Pintak said.
Egypt has been under emergency law since 1981 when Hosni Mubarak became president. Since then, the country has been under strict regime that bans many democratic principles like the right to assemble.
Most of the newspapers in Egypt are government-owned or moderated, making independent Internet and blog sites one of the only ways for people to express their true opinions.
"I wanted to work as a journalist but then I found out that the journalism in Egypt is not as free as it should be," Abbas said. "I saw that the internet has potential to express your freedoms."
Abbas began publishing Arabic content online in 1998. But while sending his content to online Arabic newspapers, he realized that they were becoming restricted by the government just as traditional newspapers had been.
By 2004, Abbas began his own blog: Egyptian Awareness. At the time, the streets of Egypt were filled with political activity, protesting another term of Mubarak as the Egyptian leader. "These kind of activities were not getting enough coverage," Abbas said. He began taking pictures, video and audio of the events.
Soon, people began sending Abbas their own content, including a video documenting the torture of an Egyptian citizen in a police station in which an independent journalist identified the victim.
The video marked a significant cooperation between the blogging world and the traditional journalism in Egypt.
Similar to Abbas's experience, Ahmed Elderiny began blogging in 2005 because of the freedom an independent medium provided.
Elderiny, 27, is the first and youngest person to create an independent radio station in Egypt - political parties own most. TeetRadio, named after the sound broadcasting stations used when censoring comments, was formed in January 2008. The broadcast uses sarcasm to reach Egyptian citizens and educate them on the critical issues in the country.
"We are speaking freely," Elderiny said. "We are saying the prohibited content, and we are expressing our generation."
But the ability to speak freely comes at a price for the Egyptian bloggers.
"The official media is attacking us all the time, calling us liars and forgers," Abbas said.
The media in Egypt has consistently degraded Abbas' reputation. The government has even gone as far as to broadcast on television that he had a criminal record, Abbas said.
Despite the harsh criticism bloggers and activists face in Egypt, strides are being made in the fight towards a free speaking society. In 2007, Judge Abdel Fattah Murad demanded the closing of 50 blogging, human rights and news Web sites in Egypt.
Murad also made claims against three Egyptian bloggers, saying that they had blackmailed him and defamed the reputation of Egypt. This year, The Administrative Court ruled against Murad, refusing to ban the 50 Web sites.
"Of course we're scared," Abbas said when asked how he felt about the government's negativity towards bloggers. "It's a game that we agreed to play, but we cannot get scared away. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose."
For Abbas and Elderiny, speaking freely is not a choice - it's a necessity.
"You have to express yourself, your nation, the class you belong to and the country you are living in," Elderiny said.
Until the citizens of Egypt are able to speak up for themselves, blogging will continue to flourish in Egypt.
"We are trying to be the spark that starts the three institutions that are absent in society: the civil society, the free media and the political parties," Abbas said. "People think we are here to replace them, but we're only here temporarily."
sirodig@syr.edu
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