Egypt and Russia

What do Egypt and Russia have in common?

Well it seems that both countries or to be more precise the leaders of both countries - Presidents Morsi and Putin - have taken a keen personal interest in trying to silence well-known 'bloggers' who poke fun at their respective governments.

Bassem Youssef, for example, writes a widely read blog and also hosts a hugely popular  Egyptian TV programme - The Show - which lampoons the country's leading politicians, the Islamists who are in power and the more liberal opposition.

Now in the UK and other democracies this would simply be accepted as part of everyday life - the rough and tumble of modern politics, if you like - but in Egypt government prosecutors are attempting stifle critics whom they say have stepped over the line of good taste and the law.

Because in Egypt - even after the 2011 revolution - the country's penal code still contains prohibitions on people insulting the President and mainstream religions, which primarily means Islam.

Human rights observers have criticised Egypt's laws as oppressive and prone to misuse - by people only too willing to cry blasphemy at the drop of a hat (or Fez).

Meanwhile in Russia, the state is about to launch a modern political show trials - with the aim of neutralising one of the Kremlin’s main critics - the anti-corruption blogger, Alexei Navalny.

Only this time the tactics are more subtle since Navalny being prosecuted for embezzlement  - over claims that he and a business partner cheated the state out of timber profits.

Which seems a tad severe when you think that a handful of Russian oligarchs - many of them close associates of President Vladimir Putin - seem to have hijacked the commanding heights of the Russian economy.

Mr Navalny says that President Putin - whom he calls the “chief crook” - wants to see him prosecuted to discredit him and limit his political ambitions - since the blogger is arguably Vladimir Putin’s most serious electoral challenger.

But the stakes are extremely high and Alexei Navalny faces up to ten years in prison - if convicted.

A much more severe punishment than the three young women members of the punk rock group Pussy Riot - who were each sentenced to three years in a Russian gulag - for singing a rude song about President Putin in a Russian orthodox church.

So in their different ways both presidents are trying to silence dissenting voices - not though the power of ideas or force of argument - but by using the power of the state, its prosecuting authorities and with the backing of the established religious order.