Tag: culture

Appeal court fines prominent poet for insulting religious extremist

IFEX : Appeal court fines prominent poet for insulting religious extremist:

The Southern Cairo court stipulated 8 August 2007 as the date for selling Hegazi’s home furniture in order to put into effect the court ruling, after Hegazi refused to pay the money, preferring his home furniture be sold.

This ruling, in an insult lawsuit brought forward by al Badri in 2003, is the latest in a series of lawsuits by al Badri against various writers, thinker and poets, sometimes in the form of a “hesba” (insult to God) case, and on other occasions as an insult case.

Nasr Hamid Abu Zaid was among the victims of sheikh al Badri in the famous case of 1993-1994, which resulted in a court ruling divorcing Abu Zaid from his wife. While Abu Zaid immigrated to the Netherlands after the court ruling, writers and thinkers continue to be brought before the court; many of those cases are raised by the sheikh. Other cases brought by the sheikh against other writers, thinkers and poets are still in court.

I mentioned this case a few days ago but thought it was worth repeating. If any reader hears of what happened today please leave a comment.

“A madrassa grows in Brooklyn”

When I was in New York last year, I heard about a new middle school that was going to open in Brooklyn and offer classes in Arabic. The Khalil Gibran school was going to be the first American public school to have “Arabic language and culture” as part of its curriculum. I’m pretty sure a few of my colleagues at NYU looked into possible teaching there. Good thing they didn’t, because apparently, this public New York high school is actually going to be a radical madrasa!This has been discovered thanks to the efforts of the usual band of credible organizations: a group calling itslef the “Stop the Madrassa Community Coalition,” Daniel Pipes (whose recent column provided me with the hilarious title of this post), Militant Islam Monitor, and the New York Sun. As the New York Times reports:

Alicia Colon, a columnist for The New York Sun, wrote that Osama bin Laden must have been “delighted� to hear the news of the school. “New York City, the site of the worst terrorist attack in our history, is bowing down in homage to accommodate and perhaps groom future radicals,� she said. “I say break out the torches and surround City Hall to stop this monstrosity.�

Then Fox decided to cover the story, with predictable results.No matter that the school is open to students from all backgrounds, and that it will teach the standard state curriculum. Its principle Debbie Almontaser, a Muslim woman long involved in inter-faith efforts, apparently has an “Islamist agenda.” And no mattter that almost everyone in the US government agrees we are in dire need of more Arabic speakers–apparently it’s OK to promote Americans speaking Arabic; but Arabs (Arab-Americans are still Arabs) speaking Arabic on U.S. soil can clearly be up to no good.All this I understand perfectly; what I can’t figure out is why the New York Times calls Daniel Pipes “the director of the Middle East Forum, a conservative research center that says its goal is to promote American interests in the region.” I don’t expect the Times to tell the truth (the Middle East Forum’s agenda is to smear real academics, spread racism against Arabs and Muslims, and blindly support Israe). But surely they could get a bit closer.

Leonardo DaVinci may have been Arab

Dama1This story is very cool, not because Leonardo might have had Arab blood, but because of the fantastically meticulous research that has gone into it. Going through over 200 partial fingerprint samples from DaVinci’s paintings, finally finding the most complete one in ‘Portrait of a Lady with an Ermine’ (pictured on the right) and matching with other ones from manuscript.

In the case of Leonardo’s fingertip, patterns and ridges pointed to the Middle East, the researchers concluded.

“The fingerprint features patterns such as the central whorl that are dominant in the Middle East. About 60 percent of the Middle Eastern population display the same dermatoglyphic structure found in the fingerprint,” Capasso said.

The discovery would support Vezzosi’s claim that Leonardo’s mother was not a local peasant girl as previously thought, but a Middle Eastern slave.

According to Vezzosi, records unearthed in Vinci offer substantial evidence that Leonardo’s father, a craftsman called Ser Piero Da Vinci, owned a Middle-Eastern female slave named Caterina.

“It was common in 15th century Tuscany to own slaves from the Middle East,” said Vezzosi.

Indeed, in 1452, the same year of Leonardo’s birth, a law was passed in Florence that gave slave owners greater rights over their slaves.

Shortly after the law was passed, Ser Piero married Caterina off to one of his workers. The woman had just given birth to a boy called Leonardo.

Droit de seigneur?

[Thanks to Hisham for the link.]

Hizbullah’s House of Spiders

Charles Levinson visits a Hizbullah exhibition on last summer’s war:

The first exhibits are two reconstructed Hezbollah bunkers. One looks like some sort of command post. There is a manikin dressed like a Hezbollah fighter in fatigues with an AK47 slung over his shoulder. He’s eyeing a wall map of “Occupied Palestine”. There’s a desk with a laptop computer, a walkie talkie, a phone and two korans. On the other side of the passage way there is another reconstructed bunker, this one made to resemble the rooms where Hezbollah fighters sleep. There are two manikins here, one kneeling in prayer, the other relaxing on a mattress on the floor, a koran in his right hand, his left resting casually on an AK47. A radio blasts old Al Manar news reports from the front lines of last summers war, mixed with martial anthems.

Visitor move on and enter the main hall of the exhibit. The first display is a series of six foot tall portraits of US and Israeli leaders with quotes from last summer’s war underneath each picture.

A picture of Rumsfield has the quote in Arabic and English: “Israel should ignore calls for a ceasefire.”

Condi’s picture is accompanied by the quote: “This war is part of the birth pangs of a new Middle East.”

The picture of Bush shows him clutching a Thanksgiving turkey, presumably before the traditional holiday pardon. His quote: “Our nation is wasting no time in helping the people of Lebanon.”

Egypt poet refuses to pay court fine

Egypt poet refuses to pay court fine:

A renowned Egyptian poet, Abdel Moati Hegazi, has refused to pay a court fine of US $3,500 following his conviction for insulting a religious extremist, Yusuf al Badari, depicting him as an enemy of freedom of thought, expression and thought.

His colleagues at the Arab Network for Human Rights Information (Hrinfo) salute him for standing firm on his principles. They also call on all advocates of free speech in Egypt to extend solidarity to Hegazi and at the same time resist actions by the likes of Badari.

Following his refusal to pay the fine, a court in southern Cairo set aside 8 August as the date when Hegazi’s home furniture will be sold.

The renowned poet’s case is among a string of insult lawsuits brought against writers, thinkers and poets by al Badari. Ironically, the religious extremist would sometimes sue people for insulting God.

If there is any kind of collection to help out Abdel Moati Hegazi pay his fine (or replace his furniture), I would like to donate to it and publicize it. And if there is a fund to get lawyers to go after al-Badari in any way possible, or simply make his life a living hell, I would like to donate to that, too.

I am not sure what Hegazi called al-Badari, but surely a public figure like al-Badari is exempt from the protection given ordinary people. Or is that not the case in Egypt?