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.

Indonesian Man Gets 5 Years For Insulting Islam On Facebook

Four years in prison wasn't enough for Sebastian Joe's blasphemy conviction, the West Javan Bandung High Court decided to add another year to the Ciamis District Court's, just for good measure.

The high court decided on Tuesday to give Sebastian a higher sentence as it used the 2008 Information and Electronic Transaction (ITE) Law as a lex specialis (special law), instead of the Criminal Code (KUHP) used by the district court, said Sebastian’s lawyer, Anang Fitriana, as quoted by tempo.co on Wednesday.

Apparently someone from the Islam Defenders Front (FPI) snitched on him when he wrote something on his Facebook page which was deemed insulting to Islam.

You can't find much information on the case, but someone commenting on the Jakarta Post article says he believes the status post that got Joe in trouble was:

 "Tuhan pelit dan sombong", meaning "God is mean and arrogant."

That deserved 5 years in jail?

Kuwaiti Man Gets 10 Years For Insulting Islam on Twitter

26-year-old Hamad al-Naqi, the Kuwaiti man who has been sitting in jail for the past three months (since his arrest) for insulting Mohammed, Aisha (his 9-year-old wife) and Mohammed's companions via Twitter, will spend the next ten years in jail for those transgressions. Other charges included "spreading false news that undermined Kuwait's image abroad" (as though that takes much), and for insulting Bahrain and Saudi Arabia.

According to the court, al-Naqi had "endangered state security" with those insults, although I'm not quite sure how.

Khaled al-Shatti, his lawyer, seems overly positive. He told AFP:

“We plan to challenge the ruling against my client Hamad al-Naqi in the appeals court and we are very optimistic that the higher court will cancel the sentence."

Al-Naqi claims his account was hacked, which is a definite possibility, but the court didn't buy that excuse.

He could have been sentenced to death, since Kuwait recently passed a law approving the death sentence for 'cursing God'- and naturally there were those demanding it- but he lucked out that the bill has not yet been implemented. He did, however, receive the maximum sentence for his criminal tweets.

Our jails would be overflowing if we had the same laws as Kuwait.

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.