– We in the U.S. say we are the beacon of freedom in the world.  And perhaps we are the freest country but I seriously question how we go about trying to spread the wealth of freedom.  We give a large amount of money every year to Egypt (Egypt and Israel are our two largest aid targets).
– But it is hard to see where any of this has been conditioned on advancements in Egyptian human rights and freedoms.  Apparently, we prop up their bullshit because they’ll support ours – hardly an active strategy for improving the world. I would prefer to see us ‘walk our talk’.  Some might argue that in the short-term it might frustrate some of our geopolitical aims but I would assert that in the long-term it would gain us the genuine respect that wears better over time.
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CAIRO – Lawyers across the region have taken to filing ‘hisba’ lawsuits against bloggers, journalists and intellectuals in an effort to stem the flow of what they deem heretical Islamic ideas. In Saudi Arabia on Nov. 4 blogger Roshdi Algadir was arrested for a poem he posted on his blog roshdi.maktoobblog.com.According to the Arabic Network for Human Rights Information (ANHRI), Algadir was beaten and forced to sign an agreement to never again publish work on the Internet.
Hisba was established in early Islamic jurisprudence to enable individuals to publically discuss matters of religion. Leading Islamic scholar, Gamal al-Banna said that in the past it was “a construct used to promote the good and criticize the bad. Every individual in an Islamic society is responsible for the actions of the society.”
In more recent times, since the ascension of increasing radical notions of Islamic thinking in the region, hisba lawsuits – which are cases filed by private people in the name of protecting state interests – have been used to stifle rather than promote public discourse on Islam. Essentially, in modern times, hisba has been used as a means of accusing commentators of apostasy, a claim with far reaching consequences in Muslim societies.
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Tags: Egypt, U.S. foreign Aid