Prison limelight

Jailan Halawi
Rousing the ire of human rights organisations and intellectuals, a state security court sentenced Salaheddin Mohsen, a minor author accused of blasphemy, to three years in prison with hard labour for writings deemed offensive to Islam. The court also ordered that all of Mohsen's books and publications be confiscated for containing what it described as "extremist" ideas.
The verdict, delivered on Saturday, is a far cry from the sentence handed down by a high state security court last August, when Mohsen was first tried. A conviction for offending religion usually carries a maximum sentence of five years in prison. On 7 August, Mohsen was given a suspended six-month sentence. The court, in explaining its ruling, said it did not want to make a hero out of the author, but the prosecutor's office found the sentence too lenient, and demanded the ruling be overturned. A re-trial was then ordered. Saturday's severe ruling, however, is the first of its kind.
In questioning by police ahead of his first trial, Mohsen said that he did not believe in Islam and that he had used his four latest books to promote secular thought.
"He mocked Islam, its beliefs and duties and was proud of his insolence against religion -- under the pretext of enlightenment and freedom of expression," prosecutor Ashraf El-Ashmawi said at the opening session of the re-trial.
Judge Khaled El-Beheiri, justifying the verdict, said that "after hearing Mohsen's confessions, the court is convinced that he is guilty, and this cannot be disputed by the defendant's claim that he was exercising his constitutional right to express his opinion."
The constitution guarantees freedom of expression to all citizens, but Judge El-Beheiri said that Mohsen had forsaken this right by attacking Islamic thought. "The defendant's claim to freedom of expression is not valid," El-Beheiri said. "He exceeded all limits of freedom by deriding religion, defaming Islam and the Prophet Mohamed and denying the existence of God." This, El-Beheiri continued, is "a violation of one's legitimacy -- and the constitution itself."
El-Beheiri also explained that a credible writer should use his writings to promote knowledge, culture, literary values and religion; not to "abuse God's name, like Mohsen did in his blasphemous writings."
Although Mohsen, 52, is an obscure writer, his trial was monitored by a number of human rights organisations, who expressed their deep concern about curbing freedom of thought and expression in Egypt. The Centre for Human Rights and Legal Assistance (CHRLA) issued a statement on Sunday saying that it was "highly disturbed" by the verdict.
"Whatever Mohsen's ideas are, he should only be tried for literary offences before the Writers Union and not in the courts," the statement said. The CHRLA urged President Mubarak "not to ratify the sentence and order Mohsen's release."
Hafez Abu Se'eda, secretary-general of the Egyptian Organisation for Human Rights (EOHR), agreed. He said that while he disagreed with Mohsen's ideas, he felt that issues related to freedom of expression should not be penalised with imprisonment. "An offensive writer might be fined, but not jailed," Abu Se'eda told Al-Ahram Weekly. Saying that the prosecutor's insistence on pursuing the case and having an "extremist" writer punished had "backfired", Abu Se'eda claimed that the sentence "will only trigger a hunt for forbidden fruit."
These cases, Abu Se'eda continued, also attract the attention of international organisations for human rights, who are now dealing with Mohsen "as a hero who's jailed for his beliefs." Before this trial, Mohsen and his books were virtually unknown, Abu Se'eda explained. Sometimes, a writer will choose to be deliberately provocative in order to attract attention. "Mohsen's books, which hadn't found a niche in the market, are now published on the Internet, and I expect their prices will soar on the black market," Abu Se'eda said.
At least nine books were confiscated from the Cairo International Book Fair, which coincided with the court ruling. In the People's Assembly, an Islamist deputy submitted a request for information regarding a movie deemed to be "pornographic". "These actions indicate a fierce [political] campaign being launched by Islamists against freedom of expression, opinion and ideology and embraced by the government -- at a time when it [the government] ought to be adopting the opposite stance," Abu Se'eda said.
Instead of raising issues of political and economic reform at the People's Assembly, Abu Se'eda charged, "Islamist lawmakers are focusing only on the prohibition of books and penalising rival ideologies."
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