This Friday, Amnesty International, a human rights group pleaded the Egypt authorities to give up the on-going trial of an ordinary Facebook user, who has been accused for publically writing on about Egypt's military on the website without any prior permission. 30 years old Ahmed Hassan Bassyouni, just set up a group on the social network about carrying out military service and was answering questions about the military and for this crime; he has been sentenced up to five years in prison, which according to the Amnesty International is very severe.
However, even after several attempts the relevant Egyptian Authorities were unreachable or not willing to give any statement on the matter, as of this Friday. Bassyouni was trial in a Military Court, called al-Haram this November 24, however the case is now shortly delayed to November 29 as the Amnesty exclaimed that the "The Egyptian authorities must end the practice of trying civilians before military courts."
Later Amnesty also claimed fiercely that "This is an abuse of the Egyptian judicial system and the right to a fair trial. These trials are fundamentally unfair." Bassyouni was arrested on October 30, and had been under trial for just posting information readily available anywhere else on the internet. It was also discovered, even though this might not even be related to the event, the same day two Egyptian opposition pages on Facebook were deleted from the Internet ahead of Egypt's parliamentary election on Sunday.
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