Nèdeem Elmahjoub's blog

“The Hidden Light of Objects  was banned in 2017. Since then, thankfully, that particular law has been overturned, so my book is no longer banned. But it reveals that those in power do indeed believe that literature can make a difference , enough of one to necessitate its suppression.”

“ Debates about blasphemy and apostasy laws among Muslims are naturally influenced by international affairs. Across the globe, Muslim minorities – including the Palestinians, Chechens of Russia, Kashmiris of India,   Rohingya   of Myanmar and   Uighurs   of China – have experienced severe persecution. No other religion is so widely targeted in so many different countries. Alongside persecution are those  Western policies  that discriminate against Muslims, such as laws prohibiting headscarves in schools.” Two Muslims identify with each other regardless of their nationality or ethnicity. That is their ‘imagined community’. In addition, many Muslims regarded the wars on Afghanistan and Iraq as a ‘wars on Islam’. It is a socio-psychological question when we see them support executing an apostate or wanting the implementation of shari’s laws. Thus authoritarian regimes in alliance of Muslim sc holars find support among many when it comes to blasphemy and aposta...

"The attack on the band [Mashrou' Leila] in its home country started with a series of threats and accusations of  blasphemy  by Christian fundamentalist groups a few weeks before their August 9 concert in Byblos, a tourist-favourite town north of Beirut that hosts an annual summer festival." 'Blasphemy' laws to punish gay-fronted band See also Activists in Lebanon have long fought to end the use of article 534 of the penal code to prosecute consensual same-sex conduct. The law is a colonial relic,  put in place by the French mandate  in the early 1900s, and punishes “any sexual intercourse contrary to the order of nature” with up to one year in prison. It has at times been enthusiastically wielded to persecute LGBT people, often affecting particularly vulnerable groups including  transgender women  and  Syrian refugees .  Human Rights Watch