1. Last week, 25-year-old Maikel Nabil Sanad (maikelnabil.com) was slapped with three years’ imprisonment for criticizing Egypt’s army. Speculation is that his Coptic Christian background and pro-Israel positions made him a soft target.
2. Award-winning journalist Wael Abbas (misrdigital.blogspirit.com) made waves by posting videos of police brutality and mob harassment of women, and was among the first online voices to call for revolt, on January 25.
3. Mahmoud Salem (sandmonkey.org) writes in English with a heavy dose of snark and a decidedly pro-Western slant.
4. Fiery married couple Manal Hassan and Alaa Abdel Fattah’s (manalaa.net) widely read, anti-Mubarak postings have kept them on the government’s watch list since 2008.
5. Revolutionary socialist activist Hossam el-Hamalawy (arabawy.org) mouths off in English about labor issues, foreign affairs, and Egypt’s repressive State Security, which tortured him when he was a student. He is devoutly anti-Israel and has called Obama “the butcher of Afghanistan and Iraq.”
6. One of Egypt’s boldest bloggers during the Mubarak era, Kareem Amer (karam903.blogspot.com) was released from prison in November after serving nearly four years for criticizing Mubarak and Islam. Recently, he called for the ouster of Egypt’s military rulers.