Egyptian Muslim Writer To Be Tried For Insulting Islam

Muslim Egyptian writer Fatima Naoot, 50,  criticized the ritual sacrifice of animals that occurs during Eid Al-Adha every year, and now she's in hot water for "insulting Islam."   Back in October she posted on Facebook:

"Happy massacre." " Massacre committed by men over the past 10 centuries and followed by men each year with a smile." "Annual massacre observed because of a nightmare of one (prophet) about his son." "Although the nightmare has passed for the prophet and his son, each year helpless animals pay with their lives the price of this sacred nightmare."

 Eid Al-Adha (aka Feast of the Sacrifice) marks the end of the annual Hajj (trek) to Mecca, and commemorates Abraham's willingness to sacrifice his son at God's behest. Muslims usually sacrifice a cow, or a sheep, goat, camel or buffalo. As many as 10 million animals are slaughtered on Eid,

Naoot, who is Muslim, deleted her posts from Facebook after controversy erupted about them. But a judicial official said on Saturday that she admitted during questioning that she had written them.

The 50-year-old columnist denied she had any intention to insult Islam, the official told AFP, adding she had also been charged with "making fun of the right to sacrifice".

"It is the price paid by those who carry torches of enlightenment at every age," Naoot wrote on Friday after having been informed of her trial which is due to start on Jan. 28.

She said that in October she had posted messages on Facebook to congratulate Muslims for Eid Al-Adha but "urged them to respect the offering and not humiliate it by flooding the ground with animal blood".

One of her "friends" must have ratted her out.

In Egypt, you're not allowed to insult and of the three major state-sanctioned religions: Christianity, Islam and Judaism.

Those who have been convicted have received up to 6 months of jail time.

Saudi Blogger Gets 7 Years and 600 Lashes for Insulting Islam

According to Human Rights Watch, Saudi liberal blogger Raef Badawi- who faced possible death for apostasy- will get 7 years in jail and 600 lashes instead for insulting Islam. They couldn't get him on apostasy because he proved he is still a Muslim. I'm sure those who were bucking for apostasy charges are all sorely disappointed.

The charges against Badawi were based solely on his peaceful exercise of his right to free expression, Human Rights Watch said. Badawi established his online platform in 2008, to encourage debate on religious and political matters in Saudi Arabia. He has been detained in Jeddah’s Buraiman prison since his arrest on June 17, 2012.

[snip] 

“This incredibly harsh sentence for a peaceful blogger makes a mockery of Saudi Arabia’s claims that it supports reform and religious dialogue,” said Nadim Houry, deputy Middle East director at Human Rights Watch. “A man who wanted to discuss religion has already been locked up for a year and now faces 600 lashes and seven years in prison.”

[snip]

Abu al-Khair said that the judge sentenced Badawi to five years in prison for insulting Islam and violating provisions of Saudi Arabia’s 2007 anti-cybercrime law through his liberal website, affirming that liberalism is akin to unbelief. The judge ordered the closure of the website and added two years to Badawi’s sentence for insulting both Islam and Saudi Arabia’s Committee for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice, or religious police, in comments during television interviews.

[snip]

Saudi authorities have long harassed Badawi for debating religious issues. In March 2008, authorities arrested Badawi and questioned him about his website, but released him a day later. In May 2008, Badawi was formally charged with “setting up an electronic site that insults Islam” and he left the country. He returned when prosecutors apparently decided to drop the charges, he told Human Rights Watch. In 2009, the authorities barred Badawi from traveling abroad and froze his business interests, depriving him of a source of income, he told Human Rights Watch.

On March 18, 2012, the well-known cleric Sheikh Abdulrahman al-Barrak issued a religious ruling declaring Badawi an “unbeliever… and apostate who must be tried and sentenced according to what his words require.” Al-Barrak claimed that Badawi had said “that Muslims, Jews, Christians, and atheists are all equal,” and that even if these were not Badawi’s own opinions but “an account of the words of others, this is not allowed unless accompanied by a repudiation” of such words.

Fearing a backlash, his wife and four kids left the Kingdom. Hope he does the same thing when he's released.

Jail For Kazakh Teens Planning To Blow Up Vodka Factory For "Insulting Islam"

Some Kazakh teens will spend from three to five years in jail for planning on blowing up an alcohol factory that printed "The power of Allah suffices for all" in Arabic on its vodka bottles.

The factory's director was forced to apologize last year for "insulting Islam".

The apology was made after Kazakhstan’s Islamic clergy protested, saying such an inscription on alcoholic products is unthinkable in mainly Muslim Kazakhstan because of Islam's prohibition on drinking spirits.

The convicted three, who are 17, 18, and 19 years old, pleaded not guilty.

Their relatives told RFE/RL that the three teenagers had been framed by undercover security-service agents.

Some good jihadists in the making.

Saudis Consider New Laws To Combat Insulting Islam

I was under the impression that Saudi Arabia already had serious blasphemy laws. After all, the Kingdom is ruled by Sharia, and blasphemy in Islam is considered apostasy, and the sentence for apostasy is death. But according to a recent Reuters article, Saudis are only now considering criminalizing insulting Islam. I assume they just want to bring social media (like Twitter and Facebook) into the mix, possibly in response to the blaspheming 23-year-old journalist/blogger Hamza Kashgari's posts on Twitter in February of this year.
Kashgari wrote on Twitter:

"I have loved things about you and I have hated things about you and there is a lot I don't understand about you." [then added] "I will not pray for you."

There were calls for his head by top Islamic clerics (and others), and he was eventually tracked down by Interpol (yes, Interpol!) in Malaysia and sent back to Saudi Arabia.  In some countries, repenting (which Kashgari did) can save your hide, but he was still extradited, and is awaiting trial.

But with these new regulations  it won't just be criticism of Mohammed that could get you in to major trouble,  it will also include other Muslim notables and clerics from way back when, and punishment could be very "severe."

"Within the next two months the Shura Council will reveal the outcome of study on the regulations to combat the criticism of the basic tenets of Islamic sharia."

"The (regulations) are important at the present time because violations over social networks on the Internet have been observed in the past months,"

Saudi Arabia's Wahhabi-style Islam is one of the stricter versions of Islam and the sentence for blasphemy is death.

Although Saudi Arabia every once in while takes a tiny, positive step towards reform, it then takes  giant steps backwards. The youth in that country (and apparently there are many) will need to take things into their own hands before the Kingdom turns into another Iran.

Analyst Jamal Khashoggi says it best:

"I would rather have this law discussed by the public first. It should not only be debated by the Shura, it should be debated in newspapers first because it can be misused."

"I don't want anything to affect my freedom and we don't want Saudi Arabia to be another Iran."

Turkish Atheist Pianist Faces Jail Time For Insulting Islam

It's not surprising when Muslims become atheists, and there's definitely a multitude of them. Not the route I would take, since I firmly believe in God, but I can certainly understand why they might turn their backs on Allah and their religion in its current incarnation. But atheists in Muslim countries are as persecuted as any other non-Muslim minority, and as liable as any other 'infidel' of being prosecuted for "explicitly insulting Islam.

And since the once secular Turkey has gradually become more like its Islamist-leaning cousins elsewhere in the Middle East, people over there now need to be very careful what they say about Islam- or they could wind up like 42-year-old Fazil Say. Say is a famous, world renowned Turkish classical pianist- who also happens to be an avowed atheist- who is facing an 18-month jail term for insulting "Muslim religious values."  Apparently Say (who has performed with orchestras all over the world) uses Twitter, and religious conservatives took offense to some quotes from a poem by Omar Khayyam (11th Century Persian poet of  "Rubaiyat" fame) that he posted.

“You say rivers of wine flow in heaven, is heaven a tavern to you? You say two hours await each believer there, is heaven a brothel to you?”

He also made fun of a muazzin:

someone who makes the Muslim call to prayer.

“The muazzin finished the evening prayers in 22 seconds ... Why are you in such hurry? A lover? A raki table?” he asked, referring to the aniseed-flavored spirit popular in Turkey.

His trial is set to commence on October 17 in Istanbul, and according to his attorney, Meltem Akyol, Say will be attending.

In the meantime he is contemplating getting the heck out of dodge.

The multiple award-winning artist said in April in an interview with the Hurriyet daily that he felt completely ostracized by Turkish society since he declared that he was an atheist and that the criticism he had received had highlighted a growing culture of intolerance.

“I think it’s time for me to move to Japan,” Say told the daily.

“When I said that I was an atheist, everyone insulted me and the legal authorities jumped on everything that I wrote on Twitter. I am perhaps the first person anywhere in the world to be the object of a judicial inquiry for declaring that they are an atheist.”

Ironically, Al Arabiya mentions that conservative Islamist Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan was jailed in 1998,

...for reciting a poem that a court ruled was an incitement to religious hatred.

Erdogan, the then mayor of Istanbul, had belonged to an Islamist party that had been banned after the military forced its leader to resign as prime minister a year earlier. He served six months in jail. The poem he had read contained the verses;“The mosques are our barracks, the domes our helmets, the minarets our bayonets and the faithful our soldiers.”

You'd think Erdogan would be more understanding, then again, maybe it's his payback time. Besides, Islamists have little to no tolerance or understanding of anything other than their own ultra rigid beliefs.

Kuwait Parliament Approves Death Penalty For 'Cursing God'

Jail time for insulting Islam isn't enough for the Kuwaiti government, they now want your head, so the parliament just passed a provisional amendment that mandates the death penalty for blasphemy. Now if you curse God, Mohammad or his wives you'll pay with your life.

Forty-six MPs, including cabinet ministers, voted for the key amendments that will come into effect only after another round of voting and government approval. The second and final vote will take place in two weeks.

Four Shiite MPs voted against the law, a pro-Shiite Sunni lawmaker abstained, while two MPs refused to vote.

Shiite MPs have demanded that the new amendments also enforce the death penalty for anyone who curses their sect’s 12 revered Imams, but the Sunni- dominated parliament rejected their requests.

Apparently, they want to take major steps backwards by joining their Saudi and Pakistani brothers in instituting the death penalty.  The move was prompted by the arrest of a Shiite man, Hamad al-Naqi, who allegedly cursed Mohammad (and others) on his twitter account, although he denies it. Al-Naqi has yet to go to trial, but I'm sure those MPs would be pretty darn happy to get this law in place before he gets his day in court.

Kuwaiti Writer Gets 7 Years Jail For Insulting Shi'ite Minority

Mohammad al-Mulaifi, a Sunni Muslim Kuwaiti writer, will spend seven years of his life in jail for allegedly insulting the Shi'ite minority via Twitter. He has also been fined around $18,000.

The court said Kuwaiti Mohammad al-Mulaifi posted falsehoods about sectarian divisions in the Gulf Arab country and insulted the Shi’ite faith and its scholars with comments that damaged Kuwait’s image.

He was arrested in February and his comments triggered protests by Shi’ites, according to Kuwaiti media. His lawyer was not immediately available for comment.

But Shi'ites are also targets.  Last month a man was arrested for blasphemy, though he denies it, for insulting Mohammad, Aisha et al, also via Twitter. He claims his account was hacked, and that he would
"....never attack the Holy Prophet." 

Blasphemy is punishable in Islam, but being critical of fellow Muslims?  Where is that in the Quran? And seven years for that?  I realize there is no freedom of speech in Muslim-majority countries, but come on.

This just makes it even more imperative that the push for global anti-blasphemy laws NEVER gets any traction.

7 Years In Jail For Blasphemy For Two Tunisian Men

 Since the Arab Spring, and the resulting rise of Islamism in the region, there seem to be more cases of jail time for 'blasphemers'.

Yesterday, a young Egyptian Christian teen was sentenced to three years in prison for mocking Islam on his Facebook page.  Now we hear of two Tunisians,  Ghazi Beji and Jabeur Mejri (both late twenties) who were fined approximately $800.00 each and sentenced at the end of March to seven years in jail.  According to the justice ministry spokesperson Chokri Nefti,

“They were sentenced, one of them in absentia, to seven years in prison, for transgressing morality, defamation and disrupting public order.”

Disrupting public order?

What's most troubling is that Mejri  and Beji (an atheist), like the young Egyptian, had posted their 'blaspehmous content'  on social networking sites. 

Beji wrote a book called “the Illusion of Islam”, discussing his views about Islam and religion. Mejri, also wrote a book. “Dark Land”, where he “cursed the government, Islamists, and expressed his hatred towards Arabs.“

Beji, a biotech food engineer, lucked out and fled to Greece, seeking asylum. When interviewed by Tunisia Live, Beji said,

  “After the Revolution, in March 2011, I said to myself Tunisia is a free and democratic country now and I should try to publish my book. I contacted several book publishers in Mahdia but they all refused to publish it. So I opted to upload it online.”

Not sure why he thought that a country that is now predominantly Islamist would not take offense to his writings, but I suppose hope springs eternal.  Not so, unfortunately, when you are dealing with religious fanatics. But it is interesting to note how many ex-Muslims there are who are atheists.  Plenty of them on Facebook.

On the other hand, Mejri, who is an English teacher, wasn't so lucky and is currently in police custody waiting to serve his seven years.

Human Rights Watch in Tunisia made their obligatory statement- that the sentencing was  “an attack on freedom of expression and freedom of belief.”   Not that any of the officials would care what HRW has to say about 'freedom', since there is no freedom of expression or belief in non-secular Muslim majority countries.

17-Year-Old Egyptian Christian Gets 3 Years In Jail For Insulting Islam

If Egyptian Christians think it's bad now, wait until there's an Islamist president to go with the Islamist majority in parliament, and Sharia law becomes the official law of the land. 

In Saudi Arabia, under Islamic blasphemy laws, insulting Islam, Mohammad or anyone or thing associated with Islam will get you executed, since the Saudis consider blasphemy 'apostasy' (and Sharia imposes the death penalty for apostasy). Same thing goes for Pakistan. Insult Mohammad, say bye-bye to your head. Defile the Quran, you'll spend the rest of your life in jail. 

Egypt, though not yet an Islamic state, still has blasphemy laws, although the sentences are tame in comparison to Saudi Arabia and Pakistan.  Gamal Abdou Massoud, a 17-year-old Christian boy who apparently defamed Islam and Mohammad by posting some cartoons on his Facebook page, will spend three years in prison for his actions. 

Gamal Abdou Massoud was also accused of distributing some of his cartoons to his school friends in a village in the southern city of Assiut, home to a large Christian population and the hometown of the late Coptic Orthodox Pope Shenouda.

“Assiut child’s court ordered the jailing of Gamal Abdou Massoud ... for three years after he insulted Islam and published and distributed pictures that insulted Islam and its Prophet,” the court said in a statement seen by Reuters.

The cartoons, published by Massoud in December, prompted some Muslims to attack Christians. Several Christian houses were burned and several Christians were injured in the violence.

Human rights lawyer Negad al-Borai said the jail sentence was the maximum penalty under Egyptian law for such a crime.

Christians, who make up about 10 percent of the country’s 80 million population, have long had a difficult relationship with Egypt’s overwhelmingly Muslim majority.

Tension between Muslims and Christians has simmered for years but has got worse since the revolt that toppled Hosni Mubarak. Christians have become increasingly worried by a surge in attacks on churches, which they blame on hardline Islamists, though experts say local disputes are often also to blame.

The maximum penalty for such a "crime"? The crime is sentencing a child (or anyone else for that matter) to three years in jail for exercising his right to freedom of speech.

But Muslim-majority countries aren't the only ones with blasphemy laws.  I was actually surprised to learn that many Western nations have them as well, though some don't implement the laws, and others just hand out hefty fines. Wales and the U.K. only recently abolished their blasphemy laws. But if the Organization of the Islamic Conference has its way, there will be a global "anti-blasphemy law", and we all better watch out.

Saudi Who Faces Execution For Tweets About Mohammed Arrested In Malaysia

23-year-old Saudi writer/journalist/columnist Hamza Kashgari (aka Mohammad Najeeb A Kashgari) who fled the Kingdom after his tweets about Prophet Mohammed caused a furor, including calls for a death sentence, was arrested in Malaysia's Kuala Lumpur Airport. I'm not sure what possessed him to fly to Malaysia, a Muslim-majority country that isn't as moderate as it claims to be, because even though the Saudis and Malaysians have no 'formal' extradition treaty, it looks like he will probably be extradited under other security agreements.

Malaysia's Home Minister, Hishammuddin Tun Hussain, said:

“The police have been in contact with authorities in Saudi Arabia to determine further action.”

It all started after Kashgari tweeted:

"I have loved things about you and I have hated things about you and there is a lot I don't understand about you." [then added] "I will not pray for you."

Oops. Not something you want to say in country where apostasy is met with calls for death. Demands for his trial as an "apostate" have come from top clerics and others who want his head for having insulted their beloved prophet. Of course, that's exactly what Shariah law calls for, so no surprise there.  And even though the lad apologized, people were having none of his contrition, even though Shariah law clearly states that someone gets 3 days to repent before his/her head gets chopped off.

The usual suspects have already created a Facebook page: "The Saudi people demand Hamza Kashgari's execution". It apparently has almost 10,000 fans, and the administrators were calling for efforts to increase the number.

"Our page has almost 10,000 members... but we need you to work harder. The prophet deserves more respect," said one post.

Top Saudi clerics, calling him an "infidel" and "apostate" want him tried in a Shariah court (that's so they can execute him).  Their statement said,

"Muslim scholars everywhere have agreed that those who insult Allah and his prophet or the (Muslim holy book) Koran or anything in religion are infidels and apostates."

After a meeting of The Permanent Committee for Scholarly Research and Religious Edicts (Ifta), the Grand Mufti Sheikh Abdul Aziz Al-Asheikh also called for action, stating that mocking Mohammad was apostasy, sacrilegious and kufr (infidelity).

"Whoever dares make a mockery of Allah, the Prophet or the Holy Book undermines the religion and displays enmity toward it. It is the duty of the rulers to try such a criminal," the committee said, warning Muslims to stay away from such practices so as to avoid exasperating God.

Then the website, The Prophet's Sunnah and Sciences, piped in:

"This is a sacrilegious action necessitating harsh punitive measures to deter others who might think of doing the same thing," supervisor of the website Faleh Al-Saqeer said. He expressed confidence that the rulers of this Islamic country would not allow the culprit to get off scot-free.

Of 30,000 plus tweets in response to Kashgari's so-called transgression, only a lone voice here and there asked for forgiveness:

"Brothers, the man has repented. If the prophet himself was here he would have forgiven him and ended this," said tweeter Saleh al-Ghamdi.

It's rather telling that most Muslims are calling for his execution or, barring his head, at least some serious form of punishment.  So much for mercy in Islam.

Sources: GulfNews, Breitbart,  ArabNews,

Egyptian Actor Fined For Insulting Islam

Egypt has its own version of frivolous lawsuits but over there you can get jail time. In a suit that would immediately have been thrown out of court in the West, the Arab world's most famous comic film star, 71-year-old Adel Imam, has been fined 1,000 Egyptian pounds (approximately $170.00). In addition to the fine, he has also been sentenced to 3 months in jail (in absentia) for insulting Islam. 

The case was brought by Asran Mansour, a lawyer with ties to Islamist groups, and had languished in court for months, judicial sources said.

Mansour accused the actor of offending Islam and its symbols, including beards and the Jilbab, a loose-fitting garment worn by some Muslims, the Egyptian news portal Ahramonline reported.

Among films and plays targeted by the lawyer were the movie “Morgan Ahmed Morgan” and the play “Al-Zaeem” (“The Leader”), the report said.

Another of his criticized works was a production back in 1994 called "The Terrorist" (al-Irhabi), but according to Imam

“All the works in which I have starred went through the censors. Had they been found to be defamatory, the censors would have banned them.”

Apparently this isn't the first time that someone in the entertainment industry has been sued for allegedly disrespecting Islam, it happens all the time to artist/intellectual types. But this case is different because Imam is a celebrity, the case sat around for a long while and was only resurrected since Islamists have come to power. 

Our prisons would be full if this happened in the U.S. There are so many films and plays that people find offensive, but thank God we live in a democracy where you might be black-balled for a while, or criticized but never fined or jailed.

British Engineer Could Spend 1 Month In Abu Dhabi Jail For Insulting Islam

I can't quite figure out what the appeal of the Gulf countries is, either as an ex-pat worker or a tourist.  The beaches might be lovely but the do's and don'ts in Abu Dhabi and Dubai are extensive and with even the slightest infraction you can end up in jail. I'm sure there's a truckload of money to be made in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) but is it worth the risk? You be the judge:

A British engineer could spend a month in jail because he insulted his Muslim co-workers by telling them in a fit of frustration:

 'When will we finish with the damn mosques?'

Misinterpreting and overreacting, as Muslims are apt to do, his colleagues then tattled on him to the authorities and he wound up in court. The ex-pat (who is appealing the sentence) tried to explain that the 'insult' was not deliberate, and that it was simply his frustration at how slow moving the project was, and that he just

".. wanted it to be ready as soon as possible.'

Apparently he works for Abu Dhabi's parks and recreation and is in charge of designing the gardens surrounding a mosque that has yet to be finished, and obviously taking far longer than it should. 
The engineer will know on February 7 whether he'll be spending a month in jail or be a free man.

If he's smart he'd head on back to England.