Dissident roundup

I have blogged before about Abdul Kareem, an Egyptian blogger on trial for... well, blogging. Some updates from The Sandmonkey.

While Kareem's defense team try to exploit a legal loophole, arguing that the servers that hosted the blogs were outside Egyptian jurisdiction, it turns out that the trial judge is a blogger himself. Meanwhile, the poor lad's father has wheeled out four Koran-memorising siblings (carefree days of youth, huh?) to disown his more independent-minded son. According to the father, Human Rights organisations should be called Chimps Rights organisations because... Oh, I can't be bothered to tell you. Read it on the last link.

Meanwhile, in Iran, Azarmehr reports that:

Amad Batebi, the Iranian student who was sentenced to 15 years imprisonment during Khatami's presidency, for having raised a bloody T-shirt of a student colleague at a peaceful student protest, was taken to hospital on Friday after going into a coma.

After Khatami was given an honorary doctorate at St. Andrew's university, the Islamic regime felt more emboldened to further ill treat Batebi...

More on Batebi from The Spirit of Man.