 These are the kinds of laws that the Organization of the Islamic Conference is working to bring to the West. "Egypt court upholds 4-year sentence for blogger," from Reuters, December 22: CAIRO (Reuters) - An Egyptian court confirmed the four-year jail sentence imposed on an Egyptian student blogger for posting writings critical of Islam and the government, the state news agency MENA said. Blogger Abdel Kareem Nabil Suleiman, then 22, was arrested in 2006 and charged with publishing opinions aimed at disturbing public order, insulting the head of state and defaming Islam. He was expelled from al-Azhar University, Egypt's most prestigious seat of Islamic learning. Suleiman will spend only one year in jail as he has already spent three years in detention since his arrest.... With thanks to JihadWatch
 A human rights group says a Syrian court has sentenced a blogger to three years in prison for "spreading false news that weakens the nation's morals." The National Organization for Human Rights said Monday that Karim Antoine Arbaji, a 31-year-old who writes frequently about corruption in the country, was sentenced a day earlier. NOHR said Arbaji has been repeatedly summoned by the agency over his writings, and was detained in 2007. NOHR did not specify what prompted his conviction. The group called on Syria to free its political prisoners. Since coming to power in 2000, President Bashar Assad has freed political prisoners and passed laws aimed at liberalizing the state-controlled economy. But he has also clamped down on political activists. Source: JPost
By ALI AKBAR DAREINI | June 17 | TEHRAN Iran's most powerful military force is warning online media of a crackdown over their coverage of the country's election crisis. The Revolutionary Guards, an elite body answering to the supreme leader, says Iranian Web sites and bloggers must remove any materials that "create tension" or face legal action. It is the Guards' first public statement since the crisis erupted following the presidential election last Friday. Iranian reformist Web sites as well as blogs and Western Web sites like Facebook and Twitter have been vital conduits for Iranians to inform the world about protests over the declaration of election victory for hardline President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. The government barred foreign media Tuesday from leaving their offices to report on the street protests. Source: Washington Post
 Iranian blogger Omidreza Mirsayafi died March 18 under mysterious circumstances in Tehran's notorious Evin prison. The official word is suicide, but close observers strongly suspect foul play. Mirsayafi ran a cultural blog called Rooz Negar, but in totalitarian states the cultural is the political, and a revolutionary court gave Mirsayafi two years in prison for “insulting” the Islamic Republic's leaders, and tacked on an additional six months for “publicity against the government.” Mohamed Abdel Dayem of the Committee to Protect Journalists told The Washington Times that this case illustrates how Iran “actively violates the rights of journalists and bloggers.” His organization is calling for a full and transparent investigation into how Mirsayafi died, but Iran is not known for admitting its crimes against humanity. American bloggers can snark with impunity, but in many countries blogging is hazardous to your health. Take Syria, which Reporters Without Borders recently named an “enemy of the Internet” along with Iran and 10 other countries. Read more ...Source: The Washington TimesH/T: J.R.
Omid Reza Misayafi, one of a number of Iranian bloggers arrested for "insulting" the government and religious authorities in that country, is dead. Misayafi's death was reported on Global Voices Online via an Iranian human rights site in Farsi and we learned of it from The Committee to Protect Bloggers. No cause of death is yet known, but the Committee says torture of bloggers is common in Iran and they are usually placed in close proximity to the most dangerous criminals in any facility. Misayafi was sentenced in December to 30 months in prison "for insulting Islamic Republic Leaders." The man said he was a cultural blogger, not a political one, and only wrote a few satirical articles that got him into trouble. An update tonight indicates that the prison conditions may have led the man to take his own life. Directly or indirectly, it appears that Misayafi's life has been brought to an end for exercising free speech, for criticizing an authoritarian state and for doing it using online social media. Social media users and advocates around the world should take note of this event. We've reported here on a number of bloggers imprisoned in Iran and in Egypt for documenting government abuses or just writing critical words about governments that demand total compliance. In the middle of last year we wrote about Iran's parliament debating legislation that would add the death penalty to the list of possible punishments for using blogs to challenge government authority. It is a timeless battle all around the world between freedom, art and self expression on one side and authority, expediency and abuse on the other. The rise of the web has made that battle different, though. Blogs give a voice to the previously voiceless, and the historical and moral importance of efforts to save those new voices from arrest, torture and death cannot be overstated. Read more ...Source: Read Write WebH/T: Atlas
On Friday, Dec. 19th, the Justice Ministry sent out a press release headlined: “New Penal code: Better protection against hateful expressions”. In it Knut Storberget (Labor) explained that the government had finally decided to remove the blasphemy article. What didn’t get as much attention was that the government proposed to expand section 185 against hateful expressions: “The government will therefore propose to expand article 185 on hateful expressions so that the provision attends to the need for criminal protections against qualified attack on religions and life outlooks.” “So how did the Norwegian press respond to having freedom of speech curtailed because it can cause conflicts, and that Norwegian law should be changed because some immigrant groups don’t tolerate it like sturdy, Christian and ethnic Norwegians? With almost total silence,” writes journalist Jon Hustad in Dag og Tid in his article “fear of criticism of religion”, which was published Jan. 22. Read more ...Source: IFPS
A criminal court in Tehran sentenced 4 bloggers to a total of 8.5 years of prison terms and 124 lashes. Bloggers Javad Gholam Tamimi, Shahram Rafizadeh, Rouzbeh Mir Ebrahimi and Omid Memarian received the sentences four years after their release on bail. Ebrahimi, who has already spent several months in solitary confinement received a 2 year and 2 day prison sentence plus 84 lashes. “We will appeal the verdict within the designated time period one hundred percent and reveal necessary facts about this case. This verdict has no merit and is based only on previous confessions which were extracted under torture and in solitary confinement,” he told Rooz... Read more ...Source: Rooz OnlineH/T: Gateway Pundit
By Hamidah Atan The Islamic Development Department (Jakim) will take stern action against bloggers who insult Islam, including non-Muslims. Its director-general Datuk Wan Mohamad Sheikh Abdul Aziz said the department could act against irresponsible bloggers, regardless of their religious background. "Right now, the police and the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission are still trying to trace the blogger said to have insulted Prophet Muhammad. "We will come in once the culprit is found," he said. Read more ...Source: News Straits TimesH/T: Dhimmi Watch
 The mother and two sisters of the Egyptian blogger and Internet writer Reda Abdul Rahman were threaten to be killed, when they tried to ask state security agents about the whereabouts of Abdul Rahman, who was kidnapped last month by State Security Investigation.
The mother of Mr. Redda Abdel-Rahman Ali, and her two daughters (Azza, and Hebba), went to the center of the State Security forces and tried to meet the officer in charge, who attacked the mother and her daughters and insulted her with the most brutal and filthy language.
According to a statement issued by the International Quranic Center, an NGO concerned with people who believe in Holy Qran as the only source of faith, known as Quranics:
He [the officer in charge] then ordered his troops to point their guns towards them and threatened them with death if they do not leave the place immediately, he himself drew his gun and pointed it at them with the same threats. He also threatened one of the daughters that he would arrest her and get her kicked out of her university. His troops followed his orders and pushed and shoved the mother and both her daughters out of the building, committing in the process some sexual harassment to all of them,
Abdel Rahman, 32, is a social worker at a Religious Institute affiliated to Al-Azhar. He is a member of Ahmed Sobhi Mansour’s family. Mansour is considered as a God Father of Quranists.
Abdel Rahman was arrested last October, police picked him from his house to unknown place, and confiscated his computer and a number of CDs that were in his apartment.
On his web blog Justice-Freedom-Peace he wrote last July that he was interrogated at Al-Azhar Sheikdom Legal Affairs Department regarding his articles and that he was put under pressure to force him to sign a confession that he will not publish such articles or any other religious material in the future.
The Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights, an independent Egyptian NGO,
called on the Interior Ministry to release Abdel Rahma. The Initiative said it got information that Abdel Rahman was deprived of food in prison. In a complaint to the Egyptian public prosecutor two days ago, the Initiative requested the Interior Ministry to announce where Abdel Rahman is arrested and to let him contact his defense and relatives.
The International Holy Quran Center described Abdel Rahman’s arrest as “continuous policy to terrorize the Quran people in Egypt”. Source: International Quranic Center
By JOSEPH MAYTON CAIRO – Lawyers across the region have taken to filing 'hisba' lawsuits against bloggers, journalists and intellectuals in an effort to stem the flow of what they deem heretical Islamic ideas. In Saudi Arabia on Nov. 4 blogger Roshdi Algadir was arrested for a poem he posted on his blog roshdi.maktoobblog.com. According to the Arabic Network for Human Rights Information (ANHRI), Algadir was beaten and forced to sign an agreement to never again publish work on the Internet. Hisba was established in early Islamic jurisprudence to enable individuals to publically discuss matters of religion. Leading Islamic scholar, Gamal al-Banna said that in the past it was "a construct used to promote the good and criticize the bad. Every individual in an Islamic society is responsible for the actions of the society." Read more ...Source: Middle East Times
 THREAT TO NATIONAL SECURITY: Raja Petra accompanied by his
wife Marina Lee Abdullah leaving Kuala Lumpur magistrates’ court
on July 15 after he was released on RM2,000 bail. Yesterday,
he was charged under ISA following his article titled ‘I
promise to be a good, non-hypocritical Muslim’ in his blog.BAGAN DATOH: The arrest of blogger Raja Petra Kamarudin under the Internal Security Act (ISA) yesterday afternoon should serve as a warning to irresponsible bloggers who flout the law, said Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department Datuk Seri Dr Ahmad Zahid Hamidi. He said many bloggers might be thinking that they could get away from facing the ISA if their blogs were based overseas and therefore not subjected to this country’s laws. “It is not appropriate that the ISA is used against Raja Petra while the other irresponsible bloggers are free to do as they please,” he told reporters at Kampung Sungai Burung, here yesterday. He was commenting on Raja Petra’s arrest following his article titled ‘I promise to be a good, non-hypocritical Muslim’ which contained remarks that insulted Muslims, besides allowing postings that insulted Islam and Prophet Muhammad in the article, ‘Not all Arabs are descendants of the Prophet’, that appeared in the ‘Malaysia Today’ website. Read more ...Source: Borneo Post
By Baron Bodissey A British blog called Harry's Place is being sued by Mohammed Sawalha for posting a variant of a translated phrase from one of the plaintiff’s speeches. Lest you think of Mr. Sawalha as an innocent lamb, consider that even the BBC (yes, even the Beeb!) says that he “master minded much of Hamas’ political and military strategy” and in the UK “is alleged to have directed funds, both for Hamas’ armed wing, and for spreading its missionary dawah”. Harry is evidently up against some high-priced and hard-hitting solicitors on behalf of the Hamas mastermind. He’s going to need help if Mr. Sawalha continues with his legal intimidation. Read more ...Source: Gates of ViennaMohammed Sawalha
Latest recipient of the Distinguished Islamofascist Award
By Faiza Saleh Ambah  JIDDAH, Saudi Arabia, Dec. 31 -- Saudi Arabia's most popular blogger, Fouad al-Farhan, has been detained for questioning, an Interior Ministry spokesman confirmed Monday. It was the first known arrest of an online critic in the kingdom. Farhan, 32, who used his blog to criticize corruption and call for political reform, was detained "for violating rules not related to state security," according to the spokesman, Maj. Gen. Mansour al-Turki, responding to repeated requests for comment with a brief cellphone text message. Farhan's Dec. 10 arrest was reported last week on the Internet and has been condemned by bloggers in Egypt, Tunisia, Morocco and Bahrain. The Saudi news media have not yet reported the arrest, but more than 200 bloggers in the kingdom have criticized Farhan's detention, and a group of supporters have set up a Free Fouad Web site. Read more ...Source: The Washington Post
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These are the kinds of laws that the Organization of the Islamic Conference is working to bring to the West.
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