Such charges often were dismissed or led to light prison sentences and received little public scrutiny. But increasingly, cases are coming to trial, such as one this month in which three Alexandria officers were found guilty of abusing a suspect by forcing him to march down a busy street wearing women's underwear.
"Egyptians knew about this kind of torture," Abbas said. "But it's the first time they are seeing it. These videos have created a state of shock and disbelief. . . . The number of reported abuse cases is growing, and the number of officers convicted is growing."
He criticized the United States for supporting the Mubarak government with about $2 billion a year in military and economic aid.
"The U.S. should stop aiding Egypt, because it's paying for military and police forces that are suppressing the Egyptian people with pepper spray and tear gas," he said.
Blogging in the Middle East can be as liberating as it perilous. With autocratic governments wielding security and intelligence forces, freedom of expression on human rights and politics is often safest when whispered. Even Egypt's robust independent news media is constantly the target of lawsuits and intimidation. Bloggers, once considered by censors as harmless computer nerds tapping out missives in a vacuum, have become a larger threat in a region rapt for unfiltered information.
"There's a blogger in Morocco posting police videos. In Saudi Arabia, bloggers are tackling taboo issues such as religious freedom and the rights of women," said Abbas, adding that bloggers in many Middle East countries, including Egypt, have been imprisoned. "But bloggers don't have a lot of support in the region. The power is in the hands of the regimes."
Dressed in jeans, a leather jacket and a hooded sweat shirt, Abbas sat the other day in a Cairo cafe. He said he was inspired years ago by the rebellious music of Ice-T, who much to Abbas' chagrin now plays a cop on a TV show.
Abbas is streetwise but is as low-key as his website -- misrdigital.blogspirit.com -- is loudly defiant. His ring-tone is not "Staying Alive," but the softer, "More than a Woman."
He has been detained by police several times; once he was held for six hours and never questioned. Abbas has not faced the charges that force many writers and journalists into court: defaming the president or spreading false rumors.
When asked why he thinks he hasn't been indicted, Abbas said, "That's the million-dollar question. I've been lucky."
