Maikel Sanad

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Kate Phizackerley draws attention ("Maikel Sanad") to the hunger-strike protest in jail of this young Egyptian in protest at being tried before a military court without either himself or his lawyer present and sentenced to three years for the "crime" of "blogging about the Revolution and questioned whether the army supported the people". As she points out, this is another reason why people who outside the country have been trying to make sense of the confused news coming out of the country might feel safer staying away.

She points out that:

The case also exposes the ongoing problem of the reliability of reports from Egypt. At present the only reports seem to be essentially press reports reported in Ahram and occasion stories in Youm which tend to be almost impossible to verify.

She stresses the importance of independent bloggers able to report on the status of sites and to give another perspective from that filtered by the Egyptian media.

Our thoughts are with Maikel and his family.