Help an Egyptian journalist of Twitter fame

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UPDATE: The email address listed for His Excellency Habib al-Adly appears not to be working. If you have a fax machine please let me know if that is working!
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Two months ago you may have seen this story about a Journalism grad student who twittered his way out of jail. He was covering protests in Egypt when police tossed him and his translator in jail. Because he still had his cell phone, James Karl Buck was able to use Twitter, a text-messaging network, to let his teacher and colleagues know he had been arrested. From there, his friends hired a lawyer to help him out of jail, and he was released within 24 hours.

The sad news is Buck's translator and journalist friend, an Egyptian named Mohammed Maree, is still being held in jail. He needs our help to get him free.

Egypt has a bad reputation for detainee human rights. But as Amnesty International has proven, global concern for the welfare of a prisoner can pressure those in power to ease off.

From Buck's Web site, here's how you can help (from June 9th):

Help Mohammed - send an email or make a phone call to your Senator or Congressperson and asking them to support Mohammed’s release. Ask them to call the State Department and the Embassy — or you can call them directly:

• State department Egypt desk Larry Cohen (202) 647 4680, cohenle@state.gov
• American Embassy Egypt political officer Ed White, +2 012 219 1768, WhiteEA@state.gov

Fax or email the Egyptian interior minister, the one who ordered Mohammed’s detention:

• His Excellency Habib al-Adly
  Interior Minister
  Al-Sheikh Rihan St.
  Bab Al-Louk, Al-Tahrir
  Cairo, Arab Republic of Egypt
  Moi1@idsc.gov.eg *- Not working
  Fax: 002 022 579-2031

If you write, please let me know and/or send me a copy of your letter. Remember to call for his immediate and unconditional release, and remind Egypt's government that the world is very concerned for Maree's safety.

A note about ASAP

While at the Sacramento AAJA's careeer workshop last Saturday, I asked Tom Verdin if he knew why ASAP folded. He told me that the site didn't make enough money. I mentioned advertising and he corrected me--AP does not sell ads. It is a wire service. Not enough newspapers chose to subscribe to the content ASAP delivered.

Though it failed in a financial sense, he compared it to a laboratory because it allowed AP writers to experiment with telling a story using multimedia. It gave them experience that they can now pass on to other writers, and carry with them in the future.

During the panelist discussion, he stressed that AP reporters are not technology experts. They are expected to be comfortable with taking video and audio and other things, but "we don't get paid extra for it," he said.