Egyptian jailed for anti-Islamic Facebook opinions

An Egyptian was sentenced to three years in prison for creating a page on social networking site Facebook that published opinions allegedly offensive to Islam and the Prophet Mohamed. Egyptian news site Al Masry Al Youm reported an Egyptian court saw the opinions on Ayman Youssef Mansuor's Facebook page as derogatory to Islam. “The accused person (Mansour) deliberately insulted Islam and mocked the religion. His phrases were offensive to Islam, the Quran and the prophet," the report quoted the court as saying. Judge Sherif Kamel, head of the Azbakiya Court of First Instance, said Mansour created the page “Al-Monadel Mard" on Facebook and used it to express opinions that threaten national unity. The report said scores of complaints were sent to the Ministry of Interior last August, accusing the Facebook page in question of being offensive to Islam. The Department for Combating Electronic Crimes at the Ministry of Interior had identified the location in which Mansour wrote the comments. He was arrested and the prosecutors charged him with insulting Islam and inciting sedition. For his part, Judge Kamel said the case was brought to court by the prosecution office. He added the prosecutors were sure that this was the accused’s Facebook account, and that Mansour admitted that making the statements. Second court ruling The report said this was the second court ruling against online content considered in "contempt of religion" according to article 98(f) of the Penal Code, amended in 2006. Under the article, “Whoever exploits religion in order to promote extremist ideologies by word of mouth, in writing or in any other manner, with a view to stirring up sedition, disparaging or holding in contempt any divine religion or its adherents, or endangering national unity, shall be punished with imprisonment for between six months and five years or a fine of at least LE500." According to the report, the first case of online “contempt of religion" involved blogger Abdel Kareem Amer, who was arrested in 2006 on charges of insulting Islam and then-President Hosni Mubarak on his blog. He was sentenced to four years in prison and expelled from his university. Criticized by rights groups The report said local and international human rights groups have criticized the criminalization of contempt of religion, saying the language used to describe such crimes is vague. They also questioned imprecise terms such as “extremist ideologies," “sedition" and “national unity." Activists accused the government of targeting political dissidents and suppressing freedoms of belief and opinion. — TJD, GMA News