Court upholds 4-year sentence for Egyptian blogger convicted of insulting Islam and president

Egyptian court upholds 4 years jailing of blogger

CAIRO — Egypt’s High Appeal Court has upheld the four-year prison sentence given to an Egyptian blogger who was convicted of insulting Islam and Egypt’s president.

Egypt’s official news agency said Tuesday that the court rejected 24-year-old Abdel Kareem Nabil’s last appeal.

Nabil, a former student at Cairo’s Al-Azhar University, was sentenced by an Alexandria court in February 2007 to three years in prison for insulting the Prophet Muhammad and another year for insulting the president.

In the trial, Nabil was convicted for calling Islam a brutal religion in a piece he wrote in 2005 after Muslim worshippers attacked a Coptic Christian church in Alexandria.

Reporters Without Borders condemned Tuesday’s decision.