CAIRO: Egypt's Islamic conservatives are on the offensive, having hacked local Akhbar al-Youm's website on Sunday after they were upset at a cartoon that was published about Salafists – Muslims who take a literal interpretation of the Qur'an. According to the newspaper, a group of young conservative Muslims, or Salafists, allege that cartoonist Mustafa Hussein and writer Ahmed Ragab defamed Islam and made a mockery of Salafists. In their hacking of the site, they say Hussein is inciting public opinion against them. The cartoon was originally published on the newspaper's website on June 4, which depicts a man and his desire to become a Salafist. He is dressed in the traditional galabiya, or long robe, and grows a beard. The cartoon was meant to be a satire critical of those who hide behind religion, but many conservatives in the country have denounced it as un-Islamic. The pan-Arab press freedom organization the Arabic Network for Human Rights Information (ANHRI) denounced the attack on the newspaper. “It is totally refused that any person or group imposes censorship on innovation and freedom of expression in the same way [the] Mubarak regime had been using to suppress the freedom of expression and got rid of his opponents,” a statement from the network said. The continued to say that the Egyptian revolution, which ousted Mubarak's government on February 11, should guarantee free speech. “The Salafist groups themselves have benefited from the freedom of expression after they had been suffering too much from the suppression of speech during [the] Mubarak regime,” the statement added. This appears to be the crux of the matter for many observers of the situation. “The idea that the conservatives are now attempting to censor those individuals they don't agree with, while at the same time complaining of their voices being stifled, is hypocritical and doesn't make sense,” said one foreign journalist in Cairo, who was reporting on the developments Sunday evening. ANHRI has demanded that the Egyptian government take initiatives to apprehend those responsible for the hacking and try them in a criminal court. BM
