Egypt blogger maintains innocence (his crime is "apostasy" )

[UndertheOcean]

The judge in Egypt's first trial prosecuting a blogger for writings critical of the country's religious authorities said on Thursday he will deliver his verdict on February 22.

Lawyers for Abdel Kareem Nabil say he could face up to 11 years in prison if convicted of insulting Islam by the court in the city of Alexandria.

In a heated exchange during Thursday’s court session a prosecution lawyer accused 222-year-old Nabil of being an "apostate".

Nabil, who has been in detention since November, pleaded innocent to charges of insulting Islam, harming the peace and insulting President Hosni Mubarak.


"I don't see what I have done," he said from the defendant’s cage. "I expressed my opinion...the intention was not anything like these ."

http://mwcnews.net/content/view/12254/195/


This is utterly and completely disgusting.

[Ezlivin]

1. America's Religious Right is salivating over the prospects of a similar law here

Many Americans don't seem to realize just how serious fundamentalism is. For those who identify themselves as fundamentalists, any law that enforces their peculiar religious beliefs is a good thing.

If you think the old "Blue Laws" that kept businesses shuttered on Sundays was stupid, you'd not believe what they would like to see implemented.

Christofascists is what they are. And they won't be satisfied until every single one of us are in our "place".

[Ediacara]

2. 222 years old huh? He looks really young :-)

Seriously though... why are the Egyptians our "allies" when we rail against the Iranians for doing similar things?

[RaleighNCDUer]

3. It is bizarre.

Apparently the kid blogs about conservative Islam, even calling his former university the "university of terror" - which suggests he is of a moderate, if not liberal, mindset.

And he is arrested by the government, the same government which is locked in constant battle against the Muslim Brotherhood, a fundamentalist radical conservative Islamist group.

So the government arrests a blogger for speaking out against the very people that the government is trying to control with an agressive, repressive campaign for fear of an Islamist revolution in Egypt. The blogger supports democracy, is against terror and religious repression, while the non-democratic government is against democracy and terror and religious repression, unless it is their own religious repression.

Have I got that right?