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Elijah Zarwan, a consultant for Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International in Egypt, talks about the impact that the internet has had on civil society and human rights activists in Egypt and beyond. He also notes how the work done by bloggers to expose human rights abuses has led to a change in how ordinary citizens in Egypt talk about their rights.
Elijah refers specifically to the work done by blogger and journalist Wael Abbas and his fellow blogger Alaa Abdel Fateh to expose cases of police torture through online video and blogging. He also mentions the case of Emad Al Kabir, a Cairo micro-bus driver, who was tortured and seriously sexually assaulted by police officers, two of whom were eventually sentenced to three years in prison each.
[Interview conducted in Budapest, Hungary, on Sunday 29th June 2008 after the Global Voices Citizen Media Summit. Apologies for the occasionally raucous audio...]