By Exjani Rojas —
An Egyptian Coptic Christian has been sentenced to five years hard labor for posting apologetics YouTube videos under the nation’s blasphemy laws.
Augustinos Samaan, 37, was ramrodded through the judicial system without even notifying his defense team, which is now appealing to international pressure to free him. Under military sharing agreements with the United States, Egypt has the duty to improve its human rights abuses.
“When you think of blasphemy laws, you’re probably thinking this is an ancient thing that no longer exists, but in fact it does,” says Mariam Wahba, a research analyst at Foundation for the Defense of Democracies. “Most Muslim majority countries have some sort of blasphemy laws that are used to target Christian and other ethnic and religious minorities.”
Samaan was found guilty of showing “contempt of religion” and “misuses of social media.”
In Islamdom, most countries have blasphemy laws, which prohibit disrespect for Islam, the Qur’an or the Prophet Mohammad. Usually they are vague, and it’s easy to run afoul of them, if you are accused by the right people.
In Pakistan, a Muslim neighbor who is feuding with a Christian neighbor will make a false accusation and get a police crackdown or a mob lynching.
These countries actively enforce blasphemy laws: Pakistan, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan, Somalia, Qatar, Kuwait, United Arab Emirates and Yemen.
These countries have blasphemy laws but enforcement is sporadic: Egypt, Jordan, Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, Indonesia, Malaysia, Brunei and Oman.
In the West, the public is used to seeing atheists and others mock Christianity, slam the Bible and profane Jesus, so it seems other-worldly to think of nations that treat severely anything slightly negative about their sacred things.
France mocked Christianity in its Olympic opening ceremonies and then ridiculed people who complained. They don’t dare speak out against Islam though. In January 2015, Muslim gunmen shot and killed 12 staff of the magazine Charlie Hebdo in Paris.
The vagueness of blasphemy laws shows in Samaan’s case. He may have been only showing the positive side of Christianity in doing a comparative religion study.
But the YouTuber, who has 100,000 viewers, got arrested by masked security forces at 1:30 a.m. on Oct 1 last year. Police confiscated his laptop, mobile phone, a large number of books and several personal papers.
On Oct. 11, his 15-day detention was prolonged, and successively, in the police station of El Basatin, a governorate of Cairo. Defense lawyers were told to come on Jan. 6, at which time they were surprised to learn that he had already been tried and found guilty in a trial Dec. 27-Jan. 3, Coptic sources report.
The Egyptian Constitution guarantees a fair trial with a defense, but to date, the defense team has not been allowed to see the case file, sources report.
The world’s blasphemy laws come at odds with UN resolution 16/18 which calls for nations to protect individuals from violence and promote open debate and dialogue, but Egypt skirt the intent under the idea of safeguarding “social cohesion.”
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