Silenced: How Apostasy and Blasphemy Codes Are Choking Freedom Worldwide

by Paul Marshall

  Rabah Al-Quwayi was a journalist in the northern city of Hail and a frequent blogger on many liberal websites, most of which have since been shut down by the government. His posts concentrated on the dangers of Al-Qaeda attacks on the Arabian Peninsula and denounced illiberal Wahhabi practices, such as ritual book burnings.77 He received many death threats, and, on November 15, 2005, the day after he questioned the authorities’ case against Al-Harbi, his car was destroyed, and a note left stated, “This time it is your car but next time it is you. Return to your religion and forsake heresy …”78 When Al-Quwayi filed a complaint with the police about the attack on his car, the Mabahith decided to investigate the soundness of his religious beliefs instead. He was arrested on April 3, 2006, and charged with “doubting the [Islamic] creed” and “harboring destructive thoughts.” His accusers also claimed that he promoted homosexuality because he had written that it is a genetic predisposition. He was released in mid-April after being forced to sign a statement saying that he had denigrated Islam and not been a true Muslim but that he would defend Islamic values in his future work. The Committee to Protect Journalists reports that if he had refused to sign the statement, he would have been charged with the capital crime of riddah, apostasy.79

  Hassan al-Maliki, a theologian, lost his job at the Ministry of Education and spent time under virtual house arrest after challenging Wahhabi teachings. He criticized early Muslims, the Salafis, for allowing the Umayyad caliphs to establish a dictatorship that demanded unquestioning obedience in the name of Islam, and he suggested that contemporary Wahhabis carried on this unfortunate tradition. In 2007, he lamented that the Saudi educational system taught that “whoever disagrees with Wahhabism is either an infidel or a deviant—and should repent or be killed.” Sheikh Saleh Al-Fawzan, who authored the portions of the curriculum that al-Maliki criticized, responded to the criticism by threatening to behead him, proving al-Maliki’s point as perhaps nothing else could have done. Al-Maliki was barred from leaving the country, and his books have been banned.80

  On December 11, 2009, Saudi journalist Nadine Al-Bdair wrote in an Egyptian newspaper that Islamic leaders should issue an edict allowing women, as well as men, to marry up to four times. She claimed that the ancient reasoning, that the father of the child would be unknown if the woman got pregnant, is now obsolete because of technological advances. As a result, she faced charges of blasphemy, as did Magdy Al Galad, the editor in chief of the newspaper that published the article.81 In March 2010, Al-Bdair was also indicted for insulting the prophet on her TV program on Al-Hurra channel.82

  Closing

  Under King Abdullah, there have been recent signs of slight moderation in the kingdom, but the monarch’s reputation as a reformer so far seems overblown. Announced policies have not materialized into actual practices or changes on the ground. Because of sweeping attacks by state-approved and state-financed clerics on anyone who departs from Wahhabi orthodoxy as a blasphemer or apostate, Saudi Arabia remains perhaps the most repressively controlled Muslim country in the Sunni world. The kingdom is also aggressive in seeking to make its form of Islam the dominant one in the world, and it spends billions of dollars to do so. It has been the largest purveyor of Islamic educational materials worldwide, and, due to its role as custodian of the two holiest shrines in Islam, its religious authority is given special legitimacy. If it continues successfully to export its currently held Wahhabi views, the future will be bleak for minorities, thinkers, writers, and reformers throughout the Muslim world and beyond.

  One indication of Wahhabi views of intellectual life beyond the kingdom’s borders was given by then–doctoral candidate Sa’id ibn Nasser Al-Ghamdi. His dissertation at Imam Muhammad Ibn Saud Islamic University in 2000 accused more than 200 Arab intellectuals of heresy and apostasy and thus implicitly legitimized attempts to kill them. Those implicated included renowned Egyptian author and Nobel Prize winner Naguib Mahfouz, who had previously been stabbed by Islamic extremists, as well as Egyptian intellectual Nasr Abu-Zayd, who fled to the Netherlands when Islamists attempted to forcibly divorce him on account of his views, and who is a contributor to this book. Al-Ghamdi also attacked noted Syrian author Adonis, Egyptian intellectuals Taha Hussein and Hassan Hanafi, Egyptian author Jaber Asfour, Syrian poet Nizar Qabbani, Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish, Iraqi poet Badr Shakir Al-Sayyab, Egyptian poet Amal Dankal, Libyan poet Muhammad Al-Fayturi, Yemeni poet ‘Abd Al-‘Aziz Al-Maqalih, Saudi intellectual ‘Abdallah Al-Ghadhami, Moroccan author Mohamed Choukri, Egyptian author Qassem Amin, Palestinian poet Mu’in Bsisu, Palestinian poet Tawfiq Ziad, Palestinian author Ghassan Kanafani, Palestinian author Emil Habibi, Egyptian intellectual Rifa’a Al-Tahtawi, Egyptian intellectual Sa’id ’Ashmawi, Egyptian author Yusuf Idris, and Sudanese author Al-Tayyib Salih. For this, Al-Ghamdi was awarded his doctorate summa cum laude.83

  Al-Ghamdi’s dissertation evolved into a book, Deviation from the Faith as Reflected in [Arab] Thought and Literature on Modernity, published in 2003. In a review, Egyptian poet and literary critic Abdallah Al-Samti writes: “Al-Ghamdi believes that modernism is a foreign plant intended to complete the West’s colonialist domination over the Muslim countries … [He] does not leave a single detail of modern culture—large or small—uncriticized. His criticism … reaches various levels of revilement, racism and accusation of heresy.” Al-Ghamdi’s proposals for handling the accused writers’ deviant behaviors are similar to, in Al-Samti’s words, “the recommendations of the Inquisition.” Furthermore, he did not stop with his cultural critique but addressed the political sphere, as well, berating “secular” Arab rulers and regimes, labeling them “apostate” and thus calling for their deaths.84

  As one might expect, one of the dangers of throwing about charges of apostasy and blasphemy with promiscuous abandon is that the accusers themselves are subject to the same charges. Following NATO attacks in Afghanistan in 2001, a number of Saudi clerics, including the prominent legal scholar Hamoud bin Oqla al-Shuiabi, pronounced the entire Saudi royal family infidel on the grounds that “whoever backs the infidel against Muslims is considered an infidel.”85 After an April 2004 suicide attack on a Saudi government building, the radical Brigade of the Two Holy Mosques claimed responsibility for striking the “apostate” Saudi authorities.86 In a video released in July 2010, Al-Qaeda then-second-in-command Ayman Al Zawahiri denounced the house of Saud as Arab Zionists for their support of a peace proposal concerning Israel.

  3

  Iran

  Hojjatoleslam Hassan Yousefi Eshkevari was trained as a cleric in the religious center of Qom. He has been published widely in scientific and religious periodicals, served as Director of the Ali Shariati Research Center, and was contributing editor of now-banned newspaper Iran-e Farda, a contributor to the Great Encyclopedia of Islam, and editor of the Encyclopedia of Shi’a.1Eshkevari participated in the 2000 Heinrich Böll Institute conference in Berlin, and, before attending, in an interview with Iran Press Service he criticized compulsory veiling for women and said that mixing religion and politics “spoils, corrupts and empties both of their substance” and that no leader should have powers above those of the constitution. At the conference itself, he spoke on the topic of dictatorship and its history, and his speech was criticized publicly by conservative clerics in Iran, including the Supreme Leader Khamenei. Critics compared his statements on separation of state from religion and unveiling of women to Salman Rushdie’s “anti-Islamic” statements.2

  Eshkevari went from Berlin to Paris for medical treatment and was arrested on his return to Iran in August 2000. In October of that year, he was tried behind closed doors by the Iranian Special Court of the Clergy on charges of apostasy, corruption on earth, waging war against God, conduct unbecoming a clergyman, insulting Islamic sanctities, and spreading lies, and, on October 17, he was sentenced to death. He appealed, and in May 2001, the appeals court overturned the death sentence but upheld a seven-year sentence—four years for “insulting Islamic sanctities,” in particul
ar, for his comments about veils, one year for attending the conference, and two years for speaking against the Islamic Republic and “spreading lies.” He was released on February 6, 2005, having served two-thirds of his sentence: he was prohibited from wearing cleric’s robes, as one condition of his release.3

  Zabihollah Mahrami was called before the Islamic Revolutionary Court in Yazd on September 6, 1995, and questioned about his Baha’i faith as part of an unsuccessful attempt to persuade him to renounce his beliefs. On January 2, 1996, he was put on trial for apostasy, and the prosecutor argued that, based on a 1983 newspaper announcement and another 1985 document, Mahrami had renounced the Baha’i faith and declared himself a Muslim. The court minutes read: “Mr. Mahrami … followed the wayward Baha’i sect until the year 1981 … when he recanted Bahá’ísm in a widely distributed newspaper and announced his acceptance of the true religion of Islam. …” The court asked him again what his religion was, and Mahrami affirmed that he was a Baha’i. He was then sentenced to death—a verdict based not on any statute but on quotations from the writings of Ayatollah Khomeini. On appeal, the Supreme Court confirmed the death sentence. In December 1999, due to a presidential amnesty on the eve of the birth of Prophet Muhammad, Mahrami’s sentence was commuted to life imprisonment. On December 19, 2005, he was reported dead in prison, purportedly from a heart attack; however, before his death he was believed to have been in good health.

  On June 3, 2008, twenty-eight-year-old Tina Rad, a Christian, was arrested for committing “activities against the holy religion of Islam,” while her husband, thirty-one-year-old Makan Arya, also a Christian, was charged with “activities against national security.” Rad was accused of attempting to convert Muslims by reading the Bible together with them in her residence. Security officials seized personal belongings, including all of the couple’s videos, CDs, DVDs, and books, in addition to their computer and television set. They were jailed for four days, leaving their four-year-old daughter, Odzhan, alone. Tina Rad was tortured so severely that she was unable to walk when she was released. Security officials also told the couple that in the future they would be charged with apostasy and that Odzhan would be taken away from them and put in an institution. One officer told Rad that authorities could frame her and her husband as drug smugglers, a charge that can lead to the death penalty. The family’s shop windows have been smashed, and they have received repeated threats from the surrounding community and anonymous phone calls. In June 2009, the family fled from Iran.4

  Country Overview

  Iran’s population is around seventy million. Comprising 89 percent Shia Muslims, 9 percent Sunni Muslims, 0.5 percent Baha’is, and 0.5 percent Christians, as well as small and diminishing numbers of Jews, Zoroastrians, and Mandaeans, the Iranian state is intertwined with Shia religion. That relationship was intensified when, in 1979, the Pahlavi monarchy was toppled and Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini led a revolution producing a regime controlled by Shia Islamic jurists.5

  According to Khomeini’s revolutionary doctrine, state institutions that embody the establishment of Shia Islam include: (1) the Vali Faqih, or Supreme Leader (initially Khomeini, who declared himself to be the representative of Imam Mehdi, the “hidden Twelfth Imam” of traditional Shia belief); (2) the Majles-e Khobregan, Council of Experts, comprising eighty-three clerics who choose the successor to the Vali Faqih if he dies in office; (3) the Shura-ye Negahban, Council of Guardians, made up of six clerical jurists chosen by the Supreme Leader and six other Muslim jurists, which ensures that legislation is compatible with Islamic precepts and must approve all presidential and parliamentary candidates; and (4) the Shura-ye Tashkhis-e Maslahat-e Nezam, Committee to Determine the Expediency of the Islamic Order, or the Expediency Council, comprising senior state leaders, which arbitrates legal and theological disputes in the legislative process.

  Iran combines republican and theocratic elements, but the latter far outweigh the former. The Guardian Council “screens” candidates who seek to run for Parliament, the Presidency, or the Council of Experts. By disqualifying all the candidates it deems insufficiently Islamic, which are most of them, the Guardian Council undercuts democratic choice. In addition, the elected bodies have limited power, and their decisions can be vetoed by the unelected ones. Ali Afshari aptly calls this a “vicious cycle”: the Supreme Leader appoints all six clerical voting members of the Guardian Council (the six nonclerical members are advisors who cannot vote); the Guardian Council assesses the qualifications of all Assembly of Experts’ candidates; and, to close the loop, the Assembly of Experts approves the Supreme Leader and is the only body that can impeach him.6 Khomeini announced that government rule stemmed from the “absolute dominion of the Prophet of God” and stood above “all ordinances that were derived or directly commanded by Allah.”7

  Iran’s June 2009 elections seemed to bring the Islamic state’s authority into question. A popular uprising filled the streets of Tehran and other Iranian cities with tens of thousands of dissenters—in a movement popularly called the “Green Revolution”—who protested the purported landslide reelection of President Ahmadinejad over Mir Hussein Mousavi, election results that were eventually confirmed by Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. Since then, despite brutal crackdowns within the country, outspoken dissatisfaction with the regime’s hard-line rulers has continued. There are signs of divisions within the regime, but, at the time of this writing, it is not clear what effect the upheaval will have on Ayatollah Khomeini’s 1979 Islamic Revolution.

  Blasphemy and Apostasy

  Questioning the theological doctrines that undergird the regime may be understood as blasphemy and apostasy. Iranian legislation does distinguish the terms; however, in practice, the authorities often use them interchangeably, and sometimes in an apparently ad hoc fashion, to punish those who challenge the regime or to repress those, such as Baha’is, whose very existence is held to be a violation.

  The Iranian penal code defines blasphemy as a serious crime, and Article 513 states, “Anyone who insults the Islamic sanctities or any of the imams or her Excellency Sadigheh Tahereh [a respectful adjective to describe Prophet Muhammad’s daughter Fatima] should be executed if his insult equals to speaking disparagingly of Prophet Muhammad. Otherwise, he should be imprisoned from one to five years.”8

  In all of the Penal Code’s 729 articles, none specifically define, regulate, or criminalize apostasy. The word itself is mentioned only in Article 95 on adultery and Article 180 on the consumption of alcohol, and then indirectly: “[I]f a person is to be punished according to Haad [for adultery or intoxication] the punishment will not be revoked even if he is insane or apostate.”

  However, there is mention of apostasy in other legal provisions, which function as de facto apostasy laws. Article 167 of the constitution, Article 214 of the Criminal Procedure Act, Article 8 of the Modified Act on Establishment of General and Revolutionary Courts, and Article 42 of the Regulations Governing Special Court for the Clergy are used to convict and punish apostasy. In addition, Article 26 of the Press Law states, “[W]hoever insults Islam and its sanctities through the press and his/her guilt amounts to apostasy, shall be sentenced as an apostate and should his/her offense fall short of apostasy he/she shall be subject to the Islamic penal code.” Article 29 of the Councils Law states, “[T]hose who are convicted of apostasy by competent courts are deprived of being candidates in elections.”9

  In practice, the principal article used to punish apostasy is Article 167 of the constitution, which states that if there is no codified law, the judge “has to deliver his judgment on the basis of authoritative Islamic sources and authentic fatwa.”10 It is important to understand that the “judges” and “courts” in such cases have sweeping powers. Many Iranians charged with undermining national security, apostasy, blasphemy, or other “crimes” described in this chapter were tried by Islamic revolutionary courts.

  These courts, created immediately after the 1979 revolution, are notorious for lack of due process, u
se of torture either as punishment or to obtain confessions, and other gross violations of human rights. There are no juries, and the judges, who are religious figures, also function as prosecutors and sometimes as investigators. Defendants have no legal representation, “trials” may last only a few minutes, and verdicts cannot be overturned or appealed. The judges are believed to know the “right path” (serate mostaqim) and have accepted every means—including beating, lashing, solitary confinement, amputation, rape, sexual abuse, burning, starvation, and strangulation—to force defendants to follow it. The enforcement mechanism of these “divine” laws is the Ministry of Intelligence and National Security, also known as SAWAMA, the Revolutionary Guards, the Basiji paramilitary groups, and the pseudo-official Partisans of the Party of God (Ansar-e Hezbollah). This apparatus works under the command of the Supreme Leader.11