Ahmad Mostafa

Ahmad Mostafa, an engineering student at the University of Kafr el-Sheikh, is the first Egyptian blogger to stand before a military court because of his blogging. Ahmad wrote on his blog Maza Asabak ya Watan (What Weent Wrong With You oh My country?!) about a student from the War School, who was expelled and his dad asked to sign a statement saying: "my son was not able to adapt to the military life".

According to Mostafa's blog post, which only quoted members of the expelled student's family, a rich man who wanted to have his son join the school but couldn't find a place for him, maneuvered for this place and then succeeded to replace his son with the expelled Mostafa.

He was transferred to the military attorney who decided to keep him in custody for 4 days in order to resume the investigation, and to send him to the military court in Cairo on February 28th, 2010, as he is accused of: 1- defaming the Egyptian armed forces. 2- shaking the trust of people on the armed forces. 3- publishing false news.

According to Al-Masry Al-Youm, Mostafa admitted, during the hearing (february 28th, 2010) that "he wrote the blog entry but refused to disclose his sources for the story, making him legally responsible for its contents."

“[My source] is afraid that the issue will reach the press, but I decided to publish it here anyway," Mostafa wrote on his blog before telling the former student's story. "If it reaches the press, it will circulate fast.”