Bloggers Live Dangerously

Lina and Asmaa in Cairo, Oct. 2010.
Source

Blogger and journalist Asmaa Alghoul from Gaza, whom I met at the Young Media Summit in Cairo, has received a death threat: Someone calling himself 'Masirek' has threatened to kill her in front of her son's eyes. Lina Ben Mhenni, who was also a participant of the summit, has written a solidarty post in French, where she rightly condemns Masirek's verbal attack. According to Egyptian blogger Tarek Amr, the threat was not prompted by any particular post, but by Asmaa's stances and points of view in general. Asmaa has been fighting against so-called honour killings and for the rights of Palestinian women.

Physical threats to bloggers, by the way, are not as rare as you might think. Even in Germany there have been cases of severe harassment, up to the involvement of Police - as has also been demanded in Asmaa's case. It is important to remember that threats, even if they aren't followed by action, are a) litigable and b) abuse, too. See this related post on verbal abuse for more information.