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Egypt Court Rejects Writer Fatima Naoot’s Appeal Against Jail Sentence for ‘Contempt of Religion’

March 31, 2016
Egyptian journalistic writer and poet Fatima Naoot. Courtesy of her Facebook page.

Egypt’s Sayeda Zeinab Criminal Court rejected Egyptian poet and writer Fatima Naoot’s appeal against a three-year imprisonment sentence previously handed down to her for “contempt of religion” and mocking an Islamic ritual. The court’s decision was a result of Naoot’s failure to show up in court, as she is currently in Canada for an international conference. The writer was put on trial due to statements she made on her Facebook page in October 2014, in which she criticized the Islamic ritual of sacrificing animals for Eid Al-Adha. The annual feast is in commemoration of Prophet Abraham’s willingness to slaughter his own son based on orders from God. Naoot described these rituals, celebrated annually by Muslims around the world, as an annual “massacre” but she later denied that these statements amounted to contempt of religion and emphasized that she is a Muslim herself. There has been a slew of cases related to “blasphemy” and “contempt of religion” over the past several months, including that of religious researcher and television host Islam El Beheiry, who was sentenced to one year in prison after he stirred controversy with his show, “With Islam.” Al-Azhar, the…


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