Walid Husayin
Encyclopedia
Walid Husayin is a Palestinian
blogger. In October 2010, the Palestinian Authority arrested him for allegedly blaspheming against Islam on Facebook
and in blog posts. His arrest has garnered international attention.
The New York Times
writes that "The case has drawn attention to thorny issues like freedom of expression in the Palestinian Authority, for which insulting religion is considered illegal, and the cultural collision between a conservative society and the Internet."
city of Qalqilyah
. As a university student, he studied computer science but remained unemployed and instead helped out a few hours a day at his father's one-chair barber shop
. Acquaintances described him as an "ordinary guy" who regularly prayed at the mosque on Fridays.
The Qalqilyah resident also spent much of his time on the Internet. After his mother discovered articles on atheism
on his computer, she canceled his Internet connection, hoping he would reject such views. Instead, Husayin began frequenting a local Internet cafe where he spent up to seven hours a day in a corner booth.
and anthropomorphic God" and the prophet Muhammad
as "a sex maniac" who went around all the laws he had enacted to "appease his voracious desire", claiming that Muhammad was no different from "barbaric thugs who slaughtered, robbed, and raped women". In an essay entitled "Why I Left Islam" on his blog Noor al-Aqel (Enlightenment of Reason), Husayin wrote that Muslims "believe anyone who leaves Islam is an agent or a spy for a Western State, namely the Jewish State
... They actually don’t get that people are free to think and believe in whatever suits them." Husayin emphasized that he was not implying that Christianity or Judaism were better than Islam, and that in his opinion, all religions were "a bunch of mind-blowing legends and a pile of nonsense that compete with each other in terms of stupidity". Husayin rejected claims that Islam was a religion of tolerance, equality, and social justicice. He also criticized Islam's treatment of women, its suppression of human creativity, and the allegations that the Koran contained scientific miracles. The Facebook groups he allegedly created elicited hundreds of angry comments, death threats and the formation of more than a dozen Facebook groups against him. At its peak, Husayin's Arabic-language blog had more than 70,000 visitors. He also posted English language translations of his essays in the blog "Proud Atheist"http://proud-a.blogspot.com/.
After Palestinian Authority
(PA) intelligence was tipped off, intelligence officials monitored him for several weeks and arrested him on October 31, 2010 as he sat in the cafe. In November 2010, the Ma'an News Agency
filed the first report on the arrest of the "controversial blogger whose postings on Facebook had infuriated Muslims."
The PA did not give any explanation as to why Husayin has been arrested. According to a Palestinian human rights expert, if Husayin would be tried, it would be according to a 1960 Jordanian law against defaming religion which is still in force in the West Bank. Tayseer Tamimi
, the former chief Islamic judge in the area, said that Husayin is the first person to be arrested in the West Bank for their religious views.
In December 2010, a Palestinian security source said Husayin would continue to be kept in jail for his own protection:
"It is impossible to release him because we are afraid he will be killed by his family." Human Rights Watch
has urged the PA to release or charge him, citing that holding him without charge for more than 72 hours violates Palestinian law.
Palestinian human rights groups have remained largely silent on his arrest. A lawyer with Al Haq
, a Ramallah
-based human rights organization said, " I respect Mr Husayin's right to have these beliefs but he also has to respect the law, there are limits to freedom of speech." He said that Husayin probably faces a sentence of between three months and three years for the offence.
(HRW) has called for Husayin's release. Joe Stork
, deputy Middle East director at HRW, stated, "The Palestinian judiciary should demonstrate its integrity by protecting the right to free expression and ordering Hasayin's release and his safety." The French foreign ministry has expressed concern over his arrest, stating, "France is concerned by the risks of damage to fundamental freedoms and in particular the freedom of expression, contained in the 'crime of blasphemy.'"
In the Wall Street Journal, columnist Bret Stephens
wrote that "if Palestinians cannot abide a single free-thinker in their midst, they cannot be free in any meaningful sense of the word. And if the U.S. can't speak up on his behalf, then neither, in the long run, can we." In regards to the case, a Los Angeles Times
editorial questioned, "Will the new [Palestinian] country move toward fundamentalist values and Islamic law, as many followers of Hamas would like, or will it opt to be a more open, democratic society?"
Diaa Hadid of the Associated Press
notes that the "Western-backed Palestinian Authority is among the more religiously liberal Arab governments in the region. It is dominated by secular elites and has frequently cracked down on hardline Muslims and activists connected to its conservative Islamic rival, Hamas." Hadid suggests that the anger toward Walid "reflects the feeling in the Muslim world that their faith is under mounting attack in the West". According to the Palestinian Ma'an news agency, while secular political beliefs are "not uncommon" in Palestinian society, "the expression of views seen as hostile to the dominant religions is viewed by many as incitement rather than free speech."
Palestinian people
The Palestinian people, also referred to as Palestinians or Palestinian Arabs , are an Arabic-speaking people with origins in Palestine. Despite various wars and exoduses, roughly one third of the world's Palestinian population continues to reside in the area encompassing the West Bank, the Gaza...
blogger. In October 2010, the Palestinian Authority arrested him for allegedly blaspheming against Islam on Facebook
Facebook
Facebook is a social networking service and website launched in February 2004, operated and privately owned by Facebook, Inc. , Facebook has more than 800 million active users. Users must register before using the site, after which they may create a personal profile, add other users as...
and in blog posts. His arrest has garnered international attention.
The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
writes that "The case has drawn attention to thorny issues like freedom of expression in the Palestinian Authority, for which insulting religion is considered illegal, and the cultural collision between a conservative society and the Internet."
Bio
Husayin, reportedly in his mid-20s, is from the West BankWest Bank
The West Bank ) of the Jordan River is the landlocked geographical eastern part of the Palestinian territories located in Western Asia. To the west, north, and south, the West Bank shares borders with the state of Israel. To the east, across the Jordan River, lies the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan...
city of Qalqilyah
Qalqilyah
-Bibliography: p. -External links:**...
. As a university student, he studied computer science but remained unemployed and instead helped out a few hours a day at his father's one-chair barber shop
Barber
A barber is someone whose occupation is to cut any type of hair, and to shave or trim the beards of men. The place of work of a barber is generally called a barbershop....
. Acquaintances described him as an "ordinary guy" who regularly prayed at the mosque on Fridays.
The Qalqilyah resident also spent much of his time on the Internet. After his mother discovered articles on atheism
Atheism
Atheism is, in a broad sense, the rejection of belief in the existence of deities. In a narrower sense, atheism is specifically the position that there are no deities...
on his computer, she canceled his Internet connection, hoping he would reject such views. Instead, Husayin began frequenting a local Internet cafe where he spent up to seven hours a day in a corner booth.
Blogging and Facebook activities
Allegedly writing under the pseudonym Waleed al-Husseini in Facebook and on his personal blog, Husayin, according to The New York Times, "angered the Muslim cyberworld by promoting atheism, composing spoofs of Koranic verses, skewering the lifestyle of the Prophet Muhammad and chatting online using the sarcastic Web name God Almighty." He described the God of Islam as "a primitive, BedouinBedouin
The Bedouin are a part of a predominantly desert-dwelling Arab ethnic group traditionally divided into tribes or clans, known in Arabic as ..-Etymology:...
and anthropomorphic God" and the prophet Muhammad
Muhammad
Muhammad |ligature]] at U+FDF4 ;Arabic pronunciation varies regionally; the first vowel ranges from ~~; the second and the last vowel: ~~~. There are dialects which have no stress. In Egypt, it is pronounced not in religious contexts...
as "a sex maniac" who went around all the laws he had enacted to "appease his voracious desire", claiming that Muhammad was no different from "barbaric thugs who slaughtered, robbed, and raped women". In an essay entitled "Why I Left Islam" on his blog Noor al-Aqel (Enlightenment of Reason), Husayin wrote that Muslims "believe anyone who leaves Islam is an agent or a spy for a Western State, namely the Jewish State
Israel
The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...
... They actually don’t get that people are free to think and believe in whatever suits them." Husayin emphasized that he was not implying that Christianity or Judaism were better than Islam, and that in his opinion, all religions were "a bunch of mind-blowing legends and a pile of nonsense that compete with each other in terms of stupidity". Husayin rejected claims that Islam was a religion of tolerance, equality, and social justicice. He also criticized Islam's treatment of women, its suppression of human creativity, and the allegations that the Koran contained scientific miracles. The Facebook groups he allegedly created elicited hundreds of angry comments, death threats and the formation of more than a dozen Facebook groups against him. At its peak, Husayin's Arabic-language blog had more than 70,000 visitors. He also posted English language translations of his essays in the blog "Proud Atheist"http://proud-a.blogspot.com/.
Arrest
Husayin spent several months at the Qalqilyah Internet cafe. The cafe's owner, Ahmed Abu Asab, found his activities suspicious: "Sometimes he was in here until after midnight for over eight hours a day, always sitting in the corner. He was very secretive. He never wanted you to see his screen." Using software to check on what his client was doing, Abu Asab discovered Husayin's sacrilegious Facebook writings. Abu Asab said he and three friends knew of Husayin's actions and that "maybe somebody" informed the authorities.After Palestinian Authority
Palestinian National Authority
The Palestinian Authority is the administrative organization established to govern parts of the West Bank and Gaza Strip...
(PA) intelligence was tipped off, intelligence officials monitored him for several weeks and arrested him on October 31, 2010 as he sat in the cafe. In November 2010, the Ma'an News Agency
Ma'an News Agency
Ma'an News Agency is a large wire service created in 2005 in the Palestinian Territories. It is part of the Ma'an Network, a non-governmental organisation media network created in 2002 in the Palestinian Territories among independent journalists throughout the West Bank and Gaza and including...
filed the first report on the arrest of the "controversial blogger whose postings on Facebook had infuriated Muslims."
The PA did not give any explanation as to why Husayin has been arrested. According to a Palestinian human rights expert, if Husayin would be tried, it would be according to a 1960 Jordanian law against defaming religion which is still in force in the West Bank. Tayseer Tamimi
Sheikh Taissir Tamimi
Sheikh Taissir Dayut Tamimi . He is a supporter of the PA and an opponent of Hamas. His political views frequently bring him into conflict with Israel....
, the former chief Islamic judge in the area, said that Husayin is the first person to be arrested in the West Bank for their religious views.
In December 2010, a Palestinian security source said Husayin would continue to be kept in jail for his own protection:
"It is impossible to release him because we are afraid he will be killed by his family." Human Rights Watch
Human Rights Watch
Human Rights Watch is an international non-governmental organization that conducts research and advocacy on human rights. Its headquarters are in New York City and it has offices in Berlin, Beirut, Brussels, Chicago, Geneva, Johannesburg, London, Los Angeles, Moscow, Paris, San Francisco, Tokyo,...
has urged the PA to release or charge him, citing that holding him without charge for more than 72 hours violates Palestinian law.
Family
Husayin's family is ashamed of his actions. His father, Khaled, said this his son was in treatment and had been "bewitched" by a Tunisian woman he had met via Facebook. According to Husayin's cousins, his mother wants him imprisoned for life, both to restore the family's honor and to protect her son from vigilantes.Qalqilyah and the Palestinian Territories
In conservative Qalqilyah, there appears to be universal criticism of his actions as well as calls for his death. One 35-year-old resident said "he should be burned to death" in public "to be an example to others."Palestinian human rights groups have remained largely silent on his arrest. A lawyer with Al Haq
Al Haq
Al-Haq is an independent Palestinian human rights organization founded in 1979 and based in Ramallah in the West Bank. It monitors and documents human rights violations by all parties to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, issuing reports on its findings and producing detailed legal studies.Al-Haq...
, a Ramallah
Ramallah
Ramallah is a Palestinian city in the central West Bank located 10 kilometers north of Jerusalem, adjacent to al-Bireh. It currently serves as the de facto administrative capital of the Palestinian National Authority...
-based human rights organization said, " I respect Mr Husayin's right to have these beliefs but he also has to respect the law, there are limits to freedom of speech." He said that Husayin probably faces a sentence of between three months and three years for the offence.
International
Husayin's cause has won support abroad with a Facebook group and several online petitions forming in solidarity. The Jordan-based Arabic-speaking Irreligious Coalition was one organization to circulate a petition calling for his release. Human Rights WatchHuman Rights Watch
Human Rights Watch is an international non-governmental organization that conducts research and advocacy on human rights. Its headquarters are in New York City and it has offices in Berlin, Beirut, Brussels, Chicago, Geneva, Johannesburg, London, Los Angeles, Moscow, Paris, San Francisco, Tokyo,...
(HRW) has called for Husayin's release. Joe Stork
Joe Stork
Joe Stork is an American political activist and Deputy Director for Middle East and North Africa at Human Rights Watch. He holds an M.A. in International Affairs/Middle East Studies from Columbia University.-Career:...
, deputy Middle East director at HRW, stated, "The Palestinian judiciary should demonstrate its integrity by protecting the right to free expression and ordering Hasayin's release and his safety." The French foreign ministry has expressed concern over his arrest, stating, "France is concerned by the risks of damage to fundamental freedoms and in particular the freedom of expression, contained in the 'crime of blasphemy.'"
In the Wall Street Journal, columnist Bret Stephens
Bret Stephens
Bret Louis Stephens is the foreign-affairs columnist of the Wall Street Journal and deputy editorial page editor, responsible for the editorial pages of the Journals European and Asian editions...
wrote that "if Palestinians cannot abide a single free-thinker in their midst, they cannot be free in any meaningful sense of the word. And if the U.S. can't speak up on his behalf, then neither, in the long run, can we." In regards to the case, a Los Angeles Times
Los Angeles Times
The Los Angeles Times is a daily newspaper published in Los Angeles, California, since 1881. It was the second-largest metropolitan newspaper in circulation in the United States in 2008 and the fourth most widely distributed newspaper in the country....
editorial questioned, "Will the new [Palestinian] country move toward fundamentalist values and Islamic law, as many followers of Hamas would like, or will it opt to be a more open, democratic society?"
Diaa Hadid of the Associated Press
Associated Press
The Associated Press is an American news agency. The AP is a cooperative owned by its contributing newspapers, radio and television stations in the United States, which both contribute stories to the AP and use material written by its staff journalists...
notes that the "Western-backed Palestinian Authority is among the more religiously liberal Arab governments in the region. It is dominated by secular elites and has frequently cracked down on hardline Muslims and activists connected to its conservative Islamic rival, Hamas." Hadid suggests that the anger toward Walid "reflects the feeling in the Muslim world that their faith is under mounting attack in the West". According to the Palestinian Ma'an news agency, while secular political beliefs are "not uncommon" in Palestinian society, "the expression of views seen as hostile to the dominant religions is viewed by many as incitement rather than free speech."
Apology
In early December 2010, Husayin posted a letter to his family on his blog in which he apologized for offending Muslims and sought forgiveness for what he called his "stupidity". A friend, who spoke anonymously because of the sensitivity of the issue, said Husayin posted the letter in hopes of winning release from prison.See also
- Human rights in the Palestinian National AuthorityHuman rights in the Palestinian National AuthorityHuman rights in the Palestinian National Authority refers to the human rights record of the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank and Gaza. Since Israel's implementation of its unilateral disengagement plan in 2005 and the evacuation of all Jewish settlements from Gaza Strip, the Palestinian...
- Freedom of religion in the Palestinian territoriesFreedom of religion in the Palestinian territoriesFreedom of religion in the Palestinian territories refers to the freedom given individuals in the Palestinian territories to observe and practice the religion of their choice. The Palestinian territories include a population of approximately 4.2 million people, with representation of a number of...
External links
- "Proud Atheist" Walid Husayin's English-language blog
- "I'm proud to be Atheist" Walid Husayin's English-language Facebook page
- "In Solidarity With Waleed Al-Husseini" Facebook page