CAIRO — An Egyptian whose outspoken views on Islam and politics — expressed in his Internet diary — enraged the government began a four-year prison sentence yesterday amid an international outcry.

The 22-year-old former law student, whose own father has disowned him and called for his execution under Islamic law, was sentenced by a court in Alexandria.

The convictions resulting from the views published on his Web log, Sandmonkey, included counts for “spreading information disruptive of public order and damaging to the country’s reputation;” “incitement to hate Islam,” and “defaming the president of the republic.”

Abdelkareem Suleiman was also found guilty of criticizing Al-Azhar University. He was expelled from the university last March after writing in his blog that the “professors and sheikhs at Al-Azhar who … stand against anyone who thinks freely” would “end up in the dustbin of history.”

The sentence, which was condemned by human rights groups, is widely seen as the latest attempt by the government to punish Internet activism.

The Interior Ministry recently established a new intelligence unit — a department for confronting computer and Internet crime — and new laws have made it easier for the police to shut down Web sites deemed subversive.

Identification is now a requirement to use the Internet in public places, and state security issues proprietors with black lists of those forbidden from going online. The state-controlled press often accuses bloggers of defaming Egypt’s reputation abroad or of being in the pay of foreign powers.

Seven bloggers were among dozens of people arrested last year during student demonstrations, but Mr. Suleiman was the first to be convicted.