A young journalist fled his home nation for his life after seemingly moderate tweets about the prophet Mohammed infuriated his country men. He was detained in Malaysia and is said to be awaiting extradition to the fundamentalist shit-hole kingdom also known as Saudi Arabia on the charge of religious blasphemy. If found guilty he could be sentenced to death. What kind of awful things could he have posted?
(Herald Sun) — On the occasion of the Muslim prophet’s birthday last week, 23-year-old Hamza Kashgari tweeted: “I have loved things about you and I have hated things about you and there is a lot I don’t understand about you.” “I will not pray for you,” he added.
A Saudi based Facebook page has been established where thousands have called for his death. Of course it wouldn’t do any good if he did pray, there is no quasi-living prophet Mohammed or resurrected Jesus, and nothing fails quite as spectacularly as prayer. Like all religions, Islam is a bunch of made up bullshit passed down by ancient, frightened little men cringing from lightning and thunder.
I hope this guy can get to America or Europe. Here in the states we have barbaric fundies too. They whine about women’s rights and dream of being able to force their hoary nonsense on grown-ups just like Hamza’s bloodthirsty accusers . But, at least for now, they don’t get to censor tweets and cut off the heads of skeptics expressing a shred of doubt about magical invisible sky wizards conjured up by bronze-age goat herders. I guess that’s something.
It’s worse than that. He has been detained in Malaysia.
http://www.themalaysianinsider.com/malaysia/article/malaysia-arrests-saudi-blogger-over-prophet-mohammad-tweets/
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/saudi-writer-detained-after-tweets-about-muhammad/2012/02/09/gIQApsgW2Q_story.html
The fact that the Malaysian Insider is trying to call it an Interpol operation makes me very suspicious. I am wondering if they are trying to get around something. Does Malaysia have the authority to arrest him for crimes committed in Saudi Arabia? Do they have an extradition treaty which would cover this?
In any event, this appears to be against Interpol’s constitution:
“It is strictly forbidden for the Organization to undertake any intervention or activities of a political, military, religious or racial character.”
http://www.interpol.int/About-INTERPOL/Legal-materials/Neutrality-Article-3-of-the-Constitution
Sign this petition for Hamza
http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/death-calls-for-saudi-poet-and-blogger/
Nobody in the U.S. has anything to worry about over criticizing Christianity. Heck, people like Bill Maher make whole careers out of antagonizing Christians.
Never heard of wild-eyed, slobbering Presbyterian mobs threatening to saw his head off because if it.
Well he was idiot enough to fly into a muslim majority country that has sharply turned religious in recent years – Malaysia – and has been arrested. Things are not looking good for him.
What seems amazing to me about this one is that it is not a direct attack on the prophet M., but rather, he is just expression his own doubt honestly. How can this be construed as an affront?
“Like all religions, Islam is a bunch of made up bullshit passed down by ancient, frightened little men cringing from lightning and thunder.”
I suspect it was more like ‘evil and greedy little bastards who discovered a neat way of screwing over their fellows’
Nobody in the U.S. has anything to worry about over criticizing Christianity.
Unless they want to run for office. Or live in small-town America. Or get/keep jobs if they come out. Or be on basketball teams in Oklahoma. Or–
Well, maybe there are some prices for criticizing christardery.
Heck, people like Bill Maher make whole careers out of antagonizing Christians.
He made a career over political humor.
Do keep up.
Never heard of wild-eyed, slobbering Presbyterian mobs threatening to saw his head off because if it.
I take it that you haven’t heard of Ulster, then?
It’s probably this clause:
that stirred the bloodlust of the slavering fanatics.
My advice to every Saudi:
1. Follow the prescribed rituals diligently.
2. Never even mention Allah if you don’t have to.
3. Get out of Saudi Arabia at your first opportunity and don’t look back.
You can contact Interpol here and ask them for clarification though I am getting some kind of fatal error message when I try to submit a message.
According to this article the arrest was undertaken at the request of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
I will simply quote this article.
I guess that gets you a death sentence in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
charlesmartel’s post of fatwa envy is all the more ironic in that it’s in response to a blog post that attacks fundamentalist Islam.
Fact of the matter is that, with only a handful of exceptions, atheists and religious doubters face more persecution than Christians or Muslims in nearly every country on Earth (though, to be sure, one of those exceptions is China).
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-17001900
For all practical purposes, he’s dead. Islam is going to be demanding a blood sacrifice on this one. The international attention is going to turn this into a loss of face for the beards if it goes any other way.
They are going to execute this man for three tweets! :-(
Another petition for Hamza Kashgari. This one for getting the US State Department to put pressure on Saudi Arabia. I suspect any such pressure would be useless:
http://www.change.org/petitions/us-state-department-save-hamza-kashgari