Reporters Without Borders (RWB) has condemned the months of harassment by Egyptian authorities in Qina that forced Hala Helmy Boutros to close down her blog "Aqbat Bela Hodood" (Copts Without Borders), which tackled the persecution of the Christian Coptic minority.
To avoid further intimidation, (http://halaelmasry.blogspot.com/) was closed down and Boutros stopped writing for other Websites. Moreover, the 42-year-old Egyptian, who wrote under the pseudonym of Hala Al Masry, is now the target of a judicial investigation and is banned from leaving the country, RWB said in a press release.
"We are outraged by the practices used by the Egyptian authorities to intimidate and silence Boutros," the press watchdog said.
"With relations between Christians and Muslims off-limits in the traditional media, all she did was write posts on the Internet about the fate of the Coptic minority," RWB said.
"It is unacceptable that freedom of expression and movement should be restricted in this fashion. We insist that the authorities guarantee Boutros' basic rights," it added.
In articles, interviews and video reports online, Boutros had accused the political authorities and police of complicity in the attacks against Copts on January 19 when they tried to restore their church in the village of Edyssat, near Luxor.
Houses were burned and the church was destroyed in the course of this violence, in which two Copts were killed and several others injured.
Her posts clearly irritated the authorities as first her phone line was cut and then her Internet connection, forcing her to go to her father's house to continue posting.
The authorities also placed her under surveillance. One night, her father was beaten by two strangers who told him, "This is a present from your daughter."
When he went to the police station to report this, the police got him to sign a blank sheet to which they added a statement in which he appeared to accuse her of being responsible for the attack.
Boutros reacted by filing a complaint against the police officer concerned, Mahmoud Sabri, accusing him of bringing false charges, but the case was not pursued by the authorities.
On June 15, she tried to fly to the United States to attend a conference about the Copts in Newark, New Jersey, but the authorities removed her from the airplane before it took off, on the grounds that she was banned from the leaving the country.
She was questioned for several hours at the airport and ordered to report to a state security court in Cairo on June 25.
Security agents raided her home on the night of June 22 with the apparent intention of arresting her, but she was in Cairo at the time. Her husband was forced to go with them and to sign a statement guaranteeing that she would report to the court three days later.
Boutros went to the court with two lawyers, Mamdouh Ramzy and Naguib Gobraeil, on June 25. She was questioned about her Internet posts and accused of "spreading false news" and of "disrupting social harmony between the Muslim and Christian communities."
She was released the same day after paying 3,000 Egyptian pounds ($520) in bail, but was questioned again the next day.
Fearing for her safety and the safety of her family, Boutros finally decided to shut down her blog. She is being watched by plain-clothes police, her telephone is tapped and her e-mail is being monitored.
Months of harassment silences Copt blogger
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