ALEXANDRIA, Egypt, Nov. 11 (UPI) -- Amnesty International Thursday demanded Egypt free a blogger who completed a four-year prison sentence for insulting the country's president and Islam.
Abdel Kareem Nabil, who wrote as Kareem Amer, was not only held in an Alexandria prison after last Friday, the day he was supposed to be released, but also was allegedly beaten by State Security Intelligence officers, the London rights group said.
Egypt should "immediately release" the blogger and "investigate allegations of beatings and other ill-treatment," the non-governmental organization said.
It added the four-year sentence was itself inappropriate "for actions that amounted to no more than exercising his right to freedom of expression."
Nabil, 26, was convicted in February 2007 of "inciting strife and defaming Muslims on the Internet by describing the prophet of Islam and his comrades as murderers, which disturbs national peace," and of "insulting" President Hosni Mubarak.
His sentence was three years on charges of insulting Islam and the Prophet Mohammed, plus another year for insults to Mubarak.
Nabil, a critic of conservative Muslims, called Mohammed and his seventh-century followers "spillers of blood" for their teachings on warfare, a comment cited by the judge who sentenced him.
