Even though the “Free Kareem” campaign has not yet achieved its primary goal of getting the 22-old blogger Kareem Nabel Sulaiman released from the prison where he is sentenced to spend the next four years for insulting Islam and the Egyptian president Hosni Moubarek, support for the case is growing rapidly, both online and offline. Even those who may not agree with the things he wrote on his personal blog — or the manner in which he wrote them — are expressing solidarity with Kareem by signing petitions, demonstrating in the streets, blogging about the case and adding his banner to their sites and blogs. Worldwide rallies designed to help “Free Kareem” have taken place in front of several Egyptian embassies around the globe and the case has caught the attention of both mainstream and citizen media. The role that Global Voices has played in covering, supporting and amplifying Kareem’s case is obvious. Since the beginning, our team of editors and authors have been continuously translating and reporting what their respective blogspheres are saying about the case. As you can see from the next animation, Global Voices has served as source of information for many who couldn’t find sufficient background knowledge and, given the existing cultural constraints and communication barriers across countries, offered a better picture of the situation than many other sources. The success of the “Free Kareem”more campaign in attracting attention and winning sympathy for the young blogger's case should give new impetus to the exploration of an efficient strategy for supporting all persecuted bloggers and online writers, especially those who, for various reasons, have not succeeded in gaining the attention of the media or the blogsphere. The success of the campaign also makes it difficult to avoid answering some hard questions about the reasons for the overwhelming support it has gained. Why is Kareem Amer is getting such attention, not just from the media, but also from politicians and people in the street? In a region where the Western media, armed with its familiar stereotypes and clichés, are used to focusing on Islam and religion as the most critical ingredients in any situation, people are asking legitimate question about the motives behind the support given to the campaign. Is it possibly related to the fact that Kareem was criticizing Islam? Responding to the question, “Why Kareem? What About the Others?”, the activists running the “Free Kareem” blog have given an excellent answer to a question on many people's minds: There are many people who are going through horrific and unimaginable experiences in prison. Many of these people don’t deserve what they are going through. We do realize this unfortunate fact, we never denied it nor do we consider Kareem more important than the many others in similar positions (…) As for the claim that the Western media is paying particular attention to Kareem and are treating him as a “special figure” because of his anti-Islam stance, this is hardly the case. The Tunisian blogger Malek, who supported Kareem from the beginning and took part in demonstrations on his behalf in Paris, has tried to understand the support given to the Kareem case as “selective compassion”, and makes the comparison between the coverage given to the Kareem case and that given to the case of lawyer, internet writer and human rights defender Mohammed Abbou, who – charged with writing online articles criticizing the Tunisian penitentiary system – marked his second year in jail on March 1st, 2007: Le phénomène de la compassion sélective n'est pas nouveau. Faut-il certainement y voir la prédominance des médias de masses qui ont formaté l'information en la réduisant à des symboles qui ont pour but de susciter de l'émotion. Selon le pays, la culture et l'histoire du consommateur de l'information, sa réaction face à l'information n'est pas la même. C'est donc tout naturellement que pour les médias occidentaux, un blogueur égyptien incarcéré pour avoir sévèrement « critiquer » l'Islam, est beaucoup plus accrocheur médiatiquement qu'un avocat père de deux enfants, époux d'une femme remarquable, torturer et jeter en prison pour un texte qui dénonce l'état des prisons tunisiennes et les exactions qui s'y pratiquent. Les médias alternatifs qui ont émergé avec les nouvelles technologies de l'Internet, avaient initialement pour objectif de se soustraire à cette information du symbole et de l'émotion. Mais semblent en fin de compte succomber aux même tentations simplificatrices et stéréotypées. Selective compassion is not a new phenomenon. At work here one can see the hand of the mass media, which manipulated information by reducing it to symbols in order to raise emotion.