October 22, 2011 (AFP)
October 22, 2011 (AFP)
An Egyptian court sentenced a man to three years in jail with hard labor on Saturday for insulting Islam in postings on Facebook, the official MENA news agency reported.
The Cairo court found that Ayman Yusef Mansur “intentionally insulted the dignity of the Islamic religion and attacked it with insults and ridicule on Facebook,” the agency reported.
The court said his insults were “aimed at the Noble Koran, the true Islamic religion, the Prophet of Islam and his family and Muslims, in a scurrilous manner,” the agency reported.
Mansur was arrested in August after police tracked him down through his internet address.
Egyptian law outlaws insults to religion. The law has been used in the past to try Shiite Muslims.
MENA did not mention Mansur’s religion or beliefs, but quoted the court as saying that “all members of religions are obligated to tolerate the others’ existence.”
In 2007, a court sentenced blogger Kareem Amer to jail for insulting the Muslim prophet and then president Hosni Mubarak. He was released last year.
Egypt, the most populous Arab country, follows the French legal system but its constitution, suspended since the military took over after an uprising ousted Mubarak in February, stipulates that Islam is the main source of law.
The country is also home to the Middle East’s largest Christian population, roughly 10 percent of its 80 million population.
