Mohammed Maree was dismissed because he wrote articles and opinions critical of the government on his blog.
(ANHRI/IFEX) – On 9 January 2011, the Arabic Network for Human Rights (ANHRI) Information reported that an Egyptian blogger, Mohammed Maree, lost his job because he expressed his political views in his blog posts.
Maree – owner of the http://egytimes.org blog – joined a pharmaceutical company in Mahalla two and a half months earlier. He was surprised by the decision to terminate his contract and asked for the reason for his dismissal. He was informed that it was because of his political activity, “concealing” that he was arrested before for political reasons, as well as having a blog where he writes articles and opinions critical of the Egyptian government.
This is not the first time that an Egyptian blogger has been fired because of his or her blog and political activities. ANHRI has recorded at least six cases of bloggers, activists and Egyptian journalists being fired for expressing their opinions on the Internet and other media. The last of these cases involved the dismissal of Facebook activist Ahmed Maher because of his activity in the April 6 youth movement.
ANHRI said, “The unfair dismissal of bloggers and political activists, writers and journalists has become a pressure tactic used to gag activists. The frequency of these incidents proves it is a systematic method used by the Egyptian regime to put pressure on its opponents.”
“It has become clear now that the Egyptian government is making blacklists of ‘undesirable’ citizens to restrict them in their livelihood – a method which does not reflect fairness. We must all face this trend and expose these practices,” ANHRI added.
