Egypt: three years prison sentence for mocking Islam

[wautd]

Link

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.

Will Egypt become a democracy or a totalitarian theocracy? Seeing this news, hopefully not the latter.

[K. A. Pital]

Oh, saw this today too. Seems the Muslim Brotherhood is much talk about "equal right" for all religious and non-religious alike but not much do. Or, in fact, quite the opposite.

Will Egypt become a democracy or a totalitarian theocracy?

Democracy, totalitarianism and theocracy are not mutually exclusive terms. Egypt can be one and the same.

[Bakustra]

The Muslim Brotherhood has spent 70-odd years agitating for democratic rule in Egypt. I doubt that they're secretly SPECTRE and thus willing to play a fifty-year bluff just to erode their own base of support. That said, they do believe that the Presidency and the upper ranks of the military should be restricted to Muslim men, so they certainly wouldn't run a very humane democracy, but on the other hand, an unknown part of their support is merely circumstantial.

[K. A. Pital]

The Muslim Brotherhood has spent 70-odd years agitating for democratic rule in Egypt. I doubt that they're secretly SPECTRE and thus willing to play a fifty-year bluff just to erode their own base of support. That said, they do believe that the Presidency and the upper ranks of the military should be restricted to Muslim men, so they certainly wouldn't run a very humane democracy, but on the other hand, an unknown part of their support is merely circumstantial.

Yeah, I know. Hence why I said democratic mechanisms do not necessarily preclude theocratic leanings.

[MarshalPurnell]

The Muslim Brotherhood does not run Egypt at the moment. Sad to say, but the law in question existed under Mubarak and would have been enforced the same way regardless of his continued rule. It is not evidence for how things have gotten worse since the revolution.

[Zixinus]

Though it is evidence that no one saw fit to remove or revoke the law, or that everyone sees it in quite the same light.

Or it is evidence that westerners don't quite get what is going on in Egypt and the political situation there. Removing Mubarak wasn't Luke Skywalkers killing Darth Vader (to use a titular example). Removing him doesn't mean that everything there will be a highly liberal, secular and humane government overnight.

[K. A. Pital]

The Muslim Brotherhood does not run Egypt at the moment. Sad to say, but the law in question existed under Mubarak and would have been enforced the same way regardless of his continued rule. It is not evidence for how things have gotten worse since the revolution.

Yeah, that's pretty much obvious. I heard that unlike, say, Gaddafi, Mubarak did not seek to replace Islamic law with his own legalese - instead, he promoted a "sharia" law in Egypt, but in a more secularized fashion than Saudi Arabia or Iran. Once you say "Sharia", something like this would inevitably rise up from the depths of religious mires.

[hongi]

Though it is evidence that no one saw fit to remove or revoke the law, or that everyone sees it in quite the same light.

That would be the military government, they seem to follow the same authoritarian streak as Mubarak. They're supposed to be around until the elections determine the future of Egypt.

[Crown]

Will Egypt become a democracy or a totalitarian theocracy? Seeing this news, hopefully not the latter.

I'm sorry, I'm honestly not trying to be a smart ass cunt, but do you understand the meaning of the word 'democracy'? It's just a fancy term for 'rule of the mob', and if the mob in question are highly religious, then ... (fill in the blanks)

And as a general observation to everyone on the board; is this the reason when the ramp up to the Iraq war, people were banging on about 'bringing democracy to Iraq' and meaning 'Iraq being like us, and liking us'? While the rest of us were thinking; you bring democracy to Iraq, the Iraqi's are just gonna vote your ass home like X-Factor!