Suleiman, known online as Karim Amer, was arrested on the orders of the Prosecutor General’s office in the northern city of Alexandria in connection with his critical online writings. In February 2007, a criminal court in Alexandria found him guilty of insulting Islam and President Hosni Mubarak. He was sentenced to a four-year jail term, making him the first Egyptian blogger to be sentenced explicitly for his work.
Suleiman had been a student at Cairo’s Al-Azhar University. He was expelled in 2006 because he frequently criticized the state-run religious university, which he accused of promoting extremist ideas, and Mubarak, whom he referred to as a dictator.