Egyptian sentenced to 3 years for insulting Islam in his Facebook postings
CAIRO — Egypt’s state media says a Cairo court has sentenced a man to three years in prison for postings on Facebook deemed to be inciting sectarianism and in contempt of Islam.
The MENA state news agency said Saturday a the misdemeanor court found Ayman Mansour had intentionally mocked Islam and used “outrageous and scurrilous” language in describing the religion’s holy book, the Quran, and its prophet and believers.
The court said freedom of belief doesn’t excuse contempt that may offend believers and “subject the regime and the country’s security to serious dangers.”
Egypt is grappling with an increasingly assertive ultraconservative Islamist trend, and recent clashes between the military police and Coptic Christians have heightened fears of increasing sectarian strife.
One of the things that I found most appalling about the western left's response to the Arab riots and uprisings, which they ironically call "the Arab Spring," was the willful naivete.
People were screaming from the hillsides that democracy was on the march in the Arab and Muslim world.
Very early on I took a wait and see approach to the question and I still maintain a wait and see approach.
Unfortunately, however, what I am seeing does not look a whole lot like democracy.
They even tend to think of the Muslim Brotherhood, which is a genocidal organization and the father of Hamas, as a "moderate" organization. How foolish is this? The Muslim Brotherhood, as anyone who knows anything about the history of the organization can tell you, has a lineage that goes, in part, to Nazi Germany.
And, yet, here we have "liberals" and "progressives" telling the world how wonderful it is that the Egyptians have risen up to throw off their shackles and proclaim their freedom.
Uh-huh.
I'll believe in Egyptian democracy when I see it.
Meanwhile, on the left, the only actual democracy in that part of the world, Israel, gets perpetually defamed as a racist, colonialist, imperialist, apartheid, racist country and those of us who support Israel get defamed, sometimes directly and sometimes by implication, as racist, colonialist, imperialist, apartheid, racist people.
It's just grotesque, really.
Yes, the Lollipoppians will never be able to see the reality of events, even while female reporters are being raped as Jews and Egyptians are fighting for the right to hate Jews even more. The bigger the pile of manure, the more sure they are that it hides a pony within.
ReplyDeleteWell, what can one say?
ReplyDeleteI would very much like to see Egypt emerge as a democracy, but until this happens why are people so quick to judge a positive outcome when we really have no idea what is going to be.
All I know for sure is that the Brotherhood is empowered and the western left could hardly care less.
That's fair enough and not inconsistent with what I wrote.
ReplyDeleteI will believe Egyptian democracy when I see it... and I very much hope to see it.
Doubtful, but we can hope.
So basically, what anonymous (a cowardly name if ever I saw one) is saying is, never mind how hateful or violent the government is, the important thing is whether it was chosen by the people. So if The People democratically choose a racist, xenophobic, theocratic party to be their leaders, that's OK because it was done democratically. Never mind, nothing to see here, move along, move along...
ReplyDeleteWhat it tells me is two things:
1) The democratically-elected government is a bunch of brutal, racist, theocratic thugs, and...
2) The government is a reflection of the population that elected it, meaning...
BONUS INSIGHT) the citizens are brutal, racist, theocratic thugs.
That's your Arab Spring for you. The sad thing is, this Arab Spring started out with great hopefullness and expectations for a better life in the Middle East, and it's turning out to be a classic case of "Meet the new boss, same as the old boss."
Anonymous troll said:
ReplyDelete"...nor do I believe that everyone who votes for an Islamist political party does so because they support racism and brutality. ... People vote for various political parties for a variety of reasons."
I've encountered this bifurcation so many times: It's either totally because they hate, without regard for their personal well-being, or totally not because they hate, but only for their own personal well-being. The possibility is never considered that they could be voting for both reasons.
It's been said time and again that the Weimar Republic German man in the street voted the Nazi Party to power to get him out of the Great Depression and apply a few fixes to the Versailles Treaty, while the Nazi leadership steered Germany toward German imperialism and the Holocaust. I highly doubt it. I believe Goldhagen's thesis is spot-on in showing the German man in the street wanted both the improvement of his personal situation and ridding the world of the Jews.
The Muslims voting for the heirs of Mufti Al-Husseini (Hitler's trusty ally in the war against the Jews) do so both out of concern for their well-being, and the idea that killing all the Jews and stealing their possessions (particularly their state) is in line with that concern. It doesn't have to be either/or.
Interesting.
ReplyDeletePaul said exactly nothing about Muslims, whatsoever.
Uhhh, Karma, he didn't have to. We're talking about Islamist political parties and those who vote for it. Meaning, we're talking about Muslims who self-identify strongly with their faith, enough to vote for Islamist political parties.
ReplyDeleteAnd ziontruth, I take your point. I am hardly sympathetic to any Islamist political parties. However, this question is complicated. Holding populations responsible for their votes is one thing; attributing to them all the beliefs of the political parties they vote for is another. Most Americans, when they vote, vote based on a strange combination of factors and often don't have any coherent political ideology to speak of. Are American citizens, therefore, entirely responsible for each and every statement and action of George W. Bush?
Which of course doesn't mean that anti-semitism is not a factor in how many residents of Gaza cast their votes. However one could similarly point to Israeli Jews and suggest that anti-Arab and anti-Muslim belief is a strong factor in voting for the right, along with religious fundamentalist commitment to all of the land of Israel.
But where does that get us, beyond providing evidence that all of "those" people are bad and hateful?
"...attributing to them all the beliefs of the political parties they vote for is another."
ReplyDeleteBased on that vote alone, I'd agree. But I didn't form my views on the basis of their vote. There's a boatload of evidence that the Muslim man in the Arab street looks forward to killing all the Jews with gusto. MEMRI has the whole works on that.
"However one could similarly point to Israeli Jews..."
Yes, the old moral equivalence game. *yawn*
Tell you what: The day Jews express their hatred toward the Arabs as a result of indoctrination from childhood and not in reaction to Arab hostilities, I'll give those equivalences credence. Right now as things stand, one side's hatred stems from conspiracy theories (the Protocols are a big seller in the Arab world) while the other's hatred is simply well-earned (not to hate those who send suicide-murderers and lob rockets onto your civilian centers would be a case for psychiatric investigation).
I refer those interested to my comment at my blog about the matter of political parties and the furtherance of democracy.
ReplyDeletehttp://oldschooltwentysix.blogspot.com/2011/10/some-stuff-i-would-ask-activists-on.html?showComment=1319389985172#c6352580735507007736
(How do you insert links in comments using blogger?)
Testing a link to school's article
ReplyDeleteYou need to use basic html coding.
ReplyDeleteBasic html coding: help!!! Guess I have something to learn about.
ReplyDeleteThe information is actually in a comment, and refers to the Refa Partisi case and the rationale for banning political parties that use democracy to destroy democracy.
"...anyone who has spent a minute of time in Israel..."
ReplyDeleteNot you, then.
"...but particularly among center right and right wing Jews, the sentiment is extreme..."
So let the Arabs ask themselves what they have done to drive tons of Israeli Jews to the Right in the course of the 2000s decade. After all, this question "What did we do to make them hate us?" is demanded of Westerners and Israeli Jews, isn't it? What's good for the goose is good for the gander.
"Not to mention studies of the Israeli school curriculum which have shown pervasive anti-Arab indoctrination."
Liar. There exists no such indoctrination. If anything, Israeli schools have taken great pains teaching Jewish children that the Arabs are just like us and have the same dreams like us. Some of those curricula have been abandoned, of course, because they're too out of whack with reality—there's a limit to what you can make even children believe.
"I could just as easily say that the vast majority of Arab anti-semitism is a reaction to Jewish hostilities and to the occupation."
You could. You'd be wrong, and so would the Arabs be. With 21 states over a huge mass of land, the Arabs exhibit rank chutzpah in complaining about Jewish hostilities.
"...you think Jewish Israelis are innocent bunnies minding their own business..."
I think the Land of Israel belongs to the Jewish nation by right, just as the land of Hellas belongs to the Greek nation by right, and therefore, any Arab opposition to the Jewish inhabitation of our lands constitutes imperialist aggression, by nature. I don't care what the Arabs or their supporters like you think. As far as I'm concerned, the Jewish State isn't under a calling to defend its legitimacy; no, but it is her enemies who are under trial, for their unjust opposition to the Jewish nation's rightful inhabitation and exercise of political sovereignty on its one and only plot of land in the world.
Anti-Zionism is illegitimate, and so is any criticism of Israel that is based on anti-Zionism.
The land of Israel belongs to its inhabitants, who include Jews and non-Jews.
ReplyDeleteAnd I say this as a Jew.
What you've revealed is your Jewish supremacist thought, nothing more. I believe in the rights of citizenship of people who live on their land. I am not an anti-Zionist, in fact I strongly support a two state solution and I strongly reject the religious right in Israel and its claims to all of the land of Israel at the expense of millions of non-Jews living there. God does not entitle us to more rights than other people. We have a state that is far larger and more successful than any early Zionist ever imagined possible. The insistence that we must also be able to settle the West Bank will be the end of that state.
"Jewish supremacist thought,"
ReplyDeleteOK, we have your number, man. It's a fairly common and lackluster one.
"The land of Israel belongs to its inhabitants, who include Jews and non-Jews."
ReplyDeleteNo two nations can reside peacefully under the same political roof. We have seen this from Lebanon (1975–90), Yugoslavia (1990s), Iraq (post-2003) and countless other examples. Even the more benign cases, such as Belgium, where the two nations coexist but with seething contempt for each other, the undesirability of this setup—multiculturalism, I believe it is called—is patent.
But don't tell me, I know: It is far better in your eyes to be "anti-racist" than to prevent, by pre-planned prudence, nations from murdering each other. How moral you are.
"What you've revealed is your Jewish supremacist thought, nothing more."
Nope. I'm no Jewish supremacist, as I believe every (real) nation, not just the Jewish nation, has this same right to exclusive, safe, secure political sovereignty on its own land. What I wish for the Jews in the Jewish State on the Land of Israel, I accept for (for example) the Dutch in the Dutch State in the Netherlands, and the Thais in Thailand.
"God does not entitle us to more rights than other people."
I didn't bring God into it. You see what you want to see.
"We have a state that is far larger and more successful than any early Zionist ever imagined possible."
So you think, but the Arabs don't think we deserve even that which we have, in the pre-1967 borders alone.
"The insistence that we must also be able to settle the West Bank will be the end of that state."
No, the failure to recognize the fact that the Arabs wish to destroy the Jewish State, kill all its Jewish inhabitants and plunder its riches for themselves would be the end of the Jewish State. Fortunately, most Israeli Jews learned in the course of the 2000s the truth about the Arab imperialists' desire. The Arabs want everything we have, therefore there is no point in giving them anything we have. Concessions are worse than useless—they do not bring peace, they only signal weakness, and they only put the Jewish State in a worse position for the next war, which is inevitable not because of those "religious right-wing fanatics" but because the Arab colonists are getting more and more emboldened.
Anon,
ReplyDeleteAre Muslims racist and supremacist? Does Islam say it is supreme and that Muslim culture is superior to the corrupt Western culture?
Do you find that calling people apes and pigs and bacteria is racist and supremacist?
Just want an idea of where you are coming from.