Egypt: Blogger convicted for insulting Islam

Abdel Karim Suleiman

Abdel Karim Suleiman, a 23-year-old former law student, has been sentenced to 4 years imprisonment by a court in Alexandria for insulting both Islam and the Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak in articles that he published in his Internet blog. The trial took merely five minutes. The judge sentenced him to three years for insulting Islam and to one year for insulting the president, whom he called a dictator. Suleiman is the first person in Egypt, who has been convicted for nothing else but peacefully expressing his opinion in the Internet. His lawyers announced that he would appeal against the judgment.

Suleiman was a law student of Al-Azhar University in Cairo, Sunni Islam’s highest institute of learning [see also the next article]. When he criticized the university in his Internet blog for suppressing free thought and promoting extreme ideas, calling it a “university of terrorism”, they expelled him and pressed prosecutors to put him on trial. He was arrested in November 2006 and kept in solitary confinement since then.

Among the articles branded as insult against Islam is a report with the title “The Naked Truth of Islam as I Saw it”, describing savage Muslim attacks on Christians, who watched a video clip of an allegedly anti-Islamic theater play in their church in Alexandria in 2005. After publishing this report, Suleiman had been arrested for the first time, but was released after 12 days.

Though many oppositional bloggers were temporarily arrested during the last year - some in connection with the circulation of a video clip showing police brutalities - the Internet remained the major forum of political criticism in the country. After introduction of a harsh new press law in 2006, the press is kept at a tight leash, and there have been repeated violations of press freedom. Suleiman’s trial and conviction has sent out shock waves in the blogger scene, as they could set a dangerous precedent.

The Paris-based press freedom organization Reporters Without Borders has listed Egypt among 13 “enemy-of-Internet-freedom” countries and demands that the United Nations respond to Suleiman's conviction by disqualifying Egypt from hosting an Internet Governance Forum in 2009.

Germany: "We have renounced!"

"Central Council of Ex-Muslims" founded

Mina Ahadi

Mina Ahadi, Iranian-born Human Rights campaigner in Germany, has founded the “Central Council of Ex-Muslims”. Together with 29 other apostates from Muslim countries, many of them women, she wants to give a hand to those, who wish to come out of Islam. The organization is headquartered in Cologne. The name was chosen as a play on the Central Council of Muslims, which is with about 800,000 members the largest Islamic group in Germany. There are currently more than three million people in Germany, who were born in Islamic communities. Many of them are secular-minded, says Mina Ahadi. But they have no voice in the country. Muslim organizations claim to speak in the name of all immigrants from Muslim countries and want to enforce their policies on their personal lives, even if they are not members. And the German authorities accept them. Ahadi wants to give them a voice and to form a counterweight to the Muslim organizations.

In February, the Ex-Muslims launched a courageous campaign with the motto “We have renounced”, publishing photos and personal statements of their members. This brought in more than hundred membership applications within a few days. Meantime, Mina Ahadi had to be put under police protection. She received death threats since she founded the council. Renouncing Islam still carries the death penalty in countries like Saudi-Arabia, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran and Sudan. And even in Europe, there are enough fundamentalists out to kill apostates in the name of Allah. But death threats don’t spoil Ahadi’s optimism. “We want to create a new movement”, she says, “in other European countries too. We hope that soon there will be 10,000 of us representing many more people.”

Mina Ahadi is also the founder of the International Committee against Stoning and the International Committee against Execution. She fled to Europe after her husband, a political activist, was executed in Iran on their marriage anniversary.

Vice-president of the council is the Turkey-born Arzu Toker, writer and former member of the West-German Radio Council. The Central Council of Ex-Muslims is supported by the atheist Giordano-Bruno-Foundation in Germany.

UK: Now women can volunteer to donate eggs for research

In a landmark decision, the British government has allowed women to volunteer as egg donators for scientific research. Up to now, only eggs developed in connection with medical treatment could be donated ("egg-sharing"). "Altruistic donation" will not be paid, but donors are eligible for expenses up to 250 Pound. The decision was advised by the Human Fertilization and Embryology Authority (HFEA) of the UK in order to overcome the crisis of short supply. According to the new regulation, women undergoing costly fertility treatment can avail a discount in return for donating the overproduction of eggs.

Angela McNab, chief executive of the HFEA, responded to concerns about a possible health risk for donors: "Given that the medical risks for donating for research are no higher than for treatment, we have concluded that it is not for us to remove a woman's choice of how her donated eggs should be used."

"Women have been donating eggs for more than 20 years, usually those undergoing sterilization where the eggs would be used to study early embryonic development", said Professor Peter Braude, director of the Centre for Preimplantation Genetic Diagnosis at Guy's and St Thomas' Foundation Trust. "The difference now is that women are being asked as volunteers where their ovaries would be stimulated to develop eggs specifically and solely for research."

The decision could help to speed up developments in stem cell research. Scarcity of human eggs, needed to create cloned embryos from which stem cells can be derived, is a major technical bottleneck. Stem cell researchers are working towards what is expected to be a breakthrough of regenerative medicine. They may soon be able to create perfect transplants that can replace damaged cells in patients by using stem cells with their original genes. This technique could help treating numerous ailments and ultimately benefit millions of people. It could for example enable us to repair spinal code injuries or heart muscles damaged by heart attacks or to replace dead brain cells killed by Parkinson's or Alzheimer's diseases.

An obscene attack

If there was an award for the most obscene attack against donation of eggs for research, it should have been given to the “Appignani Centre for Bioethics” in New York. In her statement, the centre’s only representative does not waste words on any of the more serious concerns that had been in discussion in connection with the new regulation. She reads us a sermon about the despicable ethical stature of egg donors. Especially if they accept financial compensation. Her tirade is nothing but a new version of the oldest theme of Christian Puritanism. But it is a little bit shriller and more fundamentalist than the well-known tune: Not only having sex for other purposes than for making new family and community members is a deadly sin – now even producing eggs is! The self styled guardian of bio-ethical values goes so far as to compare egg donation for research with prostitution! Comparing egg donation for scientific research with prostitution, she writes: “Many people have no problem with a law that allows others to pay for sex; however, few will call this ethical and even fewer would recommend such a practice to their mothers, daughters or sisters. No one wants their sister or daughter working their way through college as an egg seller.”

If you think now the “Appignani Centre for Bioethics” was an unknown outfit of the Christian Right in the USA, you are completely wrong. Disturbingly, it has been introduced last year as a new flagship in the fleet of a humanist organization. The centre’s statement caused some confusion and embarrassment among rationalists and humanists who happened to read it. A clarification from humanist associates of the “Appignani Centre” would be appreciated.

10 April 2007: No clarification yet - but reacting to our criticism, the director of the “Appignani Centre” gave it another try and published a new article on the same subject; this time in a more suitable tone. [Spot the difference: HNN 21 Febr. 2007, HNN 4 April 2007]

Egypt: Prominent writer faces lawsuit over 'blasphemous' play

Dr. Nawal al-Saadawi

The Sunni-Islamic Al-Azhar University in Cairo is preparing another attack. They want to press for a blasphemy trial against prominent Egyptian writer Nawal al-Saadawi for her play “God resigns in a summit meeting”. Al-Azhar’s chief censor Sheikh Mohammed Sayyed Tantawi, chairman of the “Islamic Research Council”, announced that he would officially refer the play to court. The author, currently in Bruxelles, called the act “Al-Azhar’s revenge”. Previously, already two of her novels have been banned on initiative of the Islamic University. The controversial play, published in December 2006, is an allegory dealing with contemporary problems in Egypt, she says. Under growing pressure of Islamic hardliners, her publisher removed the book in January 2007 from the Cairo International Book Fair, together with the latest edition of al-Saadawi’s autobiography, and destroyed all copies.

Dr. Nawal al-Saadawi, 75, a physician and psychiatrist by profession, is an outspoken critic of religion and fighter for women’s rights. While holding high official positions like director of public health in the Egyptian health ministry and UN adviser for women programs in Africa and Middle East, she has been a prolific writer all throughout her life. Her taboo-breaking novels about women in Middle East as well as her non-fiction books made her a thorn in the eyes of the Islamic authorities. After publishing a book on women and sexuality, she was dismissed from the Health Ministry.

Thailand: Kids are laughing all the way to the temple

For children in Thailand, it has never been easier to get some pocket money. The government is offering them a very special job: temple hopping. All they have to do is to show up in one of 80 selected places of worship and get their visit recorded in a report book. 20 visits fetch 1000 baht (about 30 US Dollar). This novel way of burning the education fund has been initiated by the Social Development and Human Security Ministry. Minister Paiboon Wattanasiritham is convinced that “bringing children to temples, churches or mosques is one way to get them close to Dharma and goodness. They will grow up as good adults in our society.'' Main target of the campaign are students under Grade 6.

The listed places of worship include some mosques and churches, but the campaign focuses mainly on Buddhism, Thailand’s state religion. The government feels that there is a growing indifference towards religion in the country and that Buddhism is more affected than the minority religions Islam and Christianity.

This is not the first time that the authorities employ unusual methods to come to the rescue of the state religion. Some time back, they set up “Buddhism corners” in department stores. But only few people cared, and the campaign was a failure.

USA: A glimpse on a nation without religious slogans

Madalyn Murray O’Hair (1919-1995)

On 15th February 2007, Madalyn Murray O’Hair would have laughed, if she was still alive.

Since nearly seventy years now, every Dollar coin of the United States bears the inscription “In God we trust” – a slogan that even became the national motto in 1956. In 1978, American Atheist leader Madalyn Murray O'Hair filed a case against the religious inscription that is a violation of the principles of secularism as proclaimed in the First Amendment of the US Constitution. But neither this nor any subsequent case achieved the motto's removal. God and the Dollar seemed to be inseparable - till 15th February 2007. That was the day, when suddenly and unexpectedly thousands of god-free new George-Washington-Dollars – till today, the exact number is unknown - were rolling out of the highly official US Mint in Philadelphia, passed miraculously all inspections and went into circulation. Their outer edges where the standard inscription “In God we trust” should have been were conspicuously naked, plain and smooth.

New George-Washington-Dollar without the inscription "In God we trust"

Many did not believe that this was just a production mistake. They suspected a blasphemous conspiracy. Others greatly enjoyed looking at the inscription-free Dollar, regarding it as a symbol of God’s defeat. Those who had known her, remembered the powerful late American Atheist leader Madalyn Murray O’Hair. The plain edged coin appeared to them as a reminder that the battle for secularism is still to be won.

India: Satya Saibaba miracles in Indian Rationalist Association Blog

Indian god-man Satya Saibaba "creates" golden necklaces and vibhuti (holy ash for Hindu ceremonies) with a magical hand gesture. His disciples include Presidents and Prime Ministers of India. Television cameras have caught several times how Saibaba performs his feats. Some video clippings of Saibaba miracles can be downloaded or viewed at the Blog of Indian Rationalist Association.

http://indianrationalists.blogspot.com/