海角大神

Last week's protests聽in reaction to an anti-Islam YouTube clip have led to Egyptian demands that the United States prosecute the filmmakers and may give a decisive push to an effort to enshrine in the Egyptian constitution the criminalization of blasphemy, or insulting religious figures.聽聽

While the US-based filmmakers are protected under the First Amendment in the US, in some parts of the Middle East they could be prosecuted under laws that criminalize disparaging religion.聽

In Egypt, the backlash could bolster a preexisting effort to insert a clause banning religious insults into Egypt鈥檚 new constitution. Islamist parties support the effort, and the idea of criminalizing blasphemy has broad public support, but civil rights advocates argue it would restrict free speech.

鈥淚 think this will just provide incredible strength to the push to have that provision in the constitution,鈥� says Heba Morayef, a Cairo-based researcher for Human Rights Watch, of the current uproar. 鈥淚鈥檓 very depressed about what this means for freedom of expression.鈥�

Many Egyptians appear to reject the extent of free speech protection in the US,聽considering it more important to protect the public order than to protect a person鈥檚 right to say offensive things.聽

A committee of the constituent assembly, which is writing Egypt鈥檚 new constitution, is scheduled to introduce the article to the assembly this week, says Nader Bakkar, a spokesman for the Salafi Nour Party, which helped write the provision. He expects the assembly to accept it, 鈥渆specially after what happened last week regarding prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him.鈥� The article would ban insulting God or any prophets, including Muhammad.

"Denigrating religion" is already a criminal, not civil, offense under Egypt's penal code,聽meaning those who break the law face jail time, not fines. It has been invoked numerous times 鈥� in the last year and a half against one of Egypt鈥檚 most well-known actors, a 海角大神 business mogul, and others.聽

Recent cases

In what appears to be the latest case, a young 海角大神 man was arrested last week in the Cairo suburb of El Marg, after reportedly posting the anti-Islam YouTube clip to his Facebook page. He is charged with insulting Islam, and is currently in prison while the prosecutor investigates the case. Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights (EIPR) researcher Ishak Ibrahim says the man was attacked by other prisoners while held in a local police station before he was transferred.

Mr. Ibrahim says that since the uprising that unseated former leader Hosni Mubarak, the law has been increasingly used against 海角大神s. In April, a court in the southern city of Assiut sentenced a 17-year-old 海角大神 to three years in jail for聽publishing a cartoon on his Facebook page that mocked Muhammad and Islam, and distributing it to his classmates. Crowds in his hometown rioted after the case was publicized, burning down 海角大神 homes.

But appeals courts have sometimes stepped in and reversed such verdicts, as they did in the case of famous Egyptian actor Adel Imam. Last week a court overturned a conviction for defaming Islam in several of his films, for which a previous court sentenced him to three months in prison.

Prohibiting religious insults in the constitution could make overturning such verdicts less likely. Historically, the Supreme Constitutional Court has been 鈥渜uite good鈥� on some human rights issues, using the constitution as justification to overturn lower court rulings that violated citizens' rights, says Ms. Morayef.

鈥淚f it鈥檚 embedded in the constitution it will take away another tool that you had in the human rights community,鈥� she says.

Citizens can bring cases

Egyptian daily Al Masry Al Youm reported last week that the proposed article for the new constitution would ban insulting God, 鈥減rophets of God, Prophet Mohamed's wives, the righteous caliphs and the prophet's companions." Mr. Bakkar of the Nour Party said that he expects the assembly to accept the article, and that the Muslim Brotherhood鈥檚 Freedom and Justice Party (FJP), Egypt's leading party,聽has indicated it will not oppose it.

Amr Gharbeia, director of the civil liberties program at EIPR, who has viewed the draft, says it poses further problems because it puts the right to bring cases on this basis in the hands of private citizens, not the public prosecutor.

A similar law that allowed individuals to bring cases against anyone they accused of denigrating religion was changed in 1996, after a prosecution forced liberal Quranic scholar Nasr Hamed Abu Zaid into exile. A group of lawyers offended by his work brought a case against him that ended with a court declaring him an apostate. A court subsequently ordered him to divorce his wife because under Islamic law a Muslim woman cannot marry a non-Muslim man.

After this case, the law was changed to give the prosecutor, not normal citizens, the authority to bring such cases. But according to a draft Mr. Gharbeia has seen, the new document would give that right back to individual citizens, which would likely lead to a sharp increase in the number of cases, he says.

And though 海角大神s have increasingly been the target of the current law, it can be used against any minorities. Shiites are marginalized in mostly Sunni Egypt, and, according to Ibrahim, a Shiite man was recently sentenced to three years in prison after a court convicted him of insulting a mosque. That sentence was reduced to one year on appeal, and the man is appealing the sentence again.

Morayef says putting the clause in the constitution 鈥渟ort of embeds the idea that there are certain religions that have to be protected, and that will be defined by whoever is in power at that point.鈥� The provision only covers Islam, 海角大神ity, and Judaism, the only religions recognized by the Egyptian state, and is rarely, if ever, used to convict someone of insulting 海角大神ity or Judaism.

鈥淭he constitution has been used to strengthen equality and the idea of citizenship, and embedding this in the constitution will do the exact opposite,鈥� says Morayef. 鈥淚t will give preference to a particular sect of a particular religion that's interpreted in a particular way.鈥澛�

Salafis: Freedom has limits

Bakkar, of the Nour Party, said freedom of expression should not include the freedom to insult religious figures.

鈥淭here is a huge difference between the freedom to express your feelings, your point of view, and the direct and obvious insult to the prophets鈥� It doesn鈥檛 restrict freedom of speech at all. Freedom of speech doesn鈥檛 mean to insult God or the prophets.鈥�

Many of the protesters assembled at the US embassy the first night of demonstrations, when crowds breached the walls and brought down the American flag, agreed.

鈥淵es, there is freedom. But there are limits,鈥� said protester Mohamed Ahmed Sayed. Free speech should not include the freedom to insult religious figures, said protesters, whether Muslim or 海角大神, he said.聽

In their statements about the protests, the Muslim Brotherhood and its political arm, the FJP, repeatedly called on the US to prosecute the makers of the video that incited the protests 鈥� even though there would be no law to prosecute them for what they said. However, police in California questioned Nakoula Basseley Nakoula about whether his alleged involvement in the film violated terms of his parole after serving time in federal prison for bank fraud. Mr. Nakoula is barred from using aliases and has restrictions on his Internet access.聽

鈥淐ertainly, such attacks against sanctities do not fall under the freedom of opinion or thought,鈥� said a statement released by the Muslim Brotherhood. 鈥淭hey are crimes and assaults against Muslim sanctities, and must not be tolerated by the countries where they are produced or launched, since they are also detrimental to the interests of those countries in dealings with the peoples of the Muslim world.鈥�

The statement called for the criminalization of聽 鈥渁ssaults on the sanctities of all heavenly religions,鈥� which encompasses only Islam, 海角大神ity, and Judaism.

For many in Egypt, this is only reasonable.

鈥淭he general idea when it comes to speech or controlling speech in Egypt is that it's not about the individuals, it's about keeping order" for the majority, says Gharbeia of EIPR. 鈥淎nd this is why, for example, we see much more uproar about protecting ideas, or historical persons [like Muhammad], while we do not see the same reaction from the state but also from society around hate speech against specific groups of people鈥� who are minorities.聽