Jailed 3 years for being atheistic:

Originally posted by C Hess
Uh, you're holding the atheist responsible for this? The atheist is the victim for not having freedom of speech.

Well it depends. Egypt like many other predominately Islamic countries has blasphemy laws. Now if the person in question was simply supping his coffee and the police busted and jailed him for no apparent reason then no, that is a transgression of justice (the article is rather sketchy as to what actually happened). If on the other hand he was preaching atheism in the street then he can be held personally accountable, irrespective of whether under the Egyptian constitution he has hypothetically the legal right to do so.

'all things are lawful but not all things are advantageous'. 1 Corinthians 10:23

Thus if this was the scenario, I do not question the mans right to freedom of speech nor the legality of his stance. I question the wisdom of engaging in an act that is likely to get you jailed for three years.

Originally posted by C Hess
And who can we blame for this? The constitution in egypt is supposed to guarantee absolute freedom of expression, and yet it has exceptions. One of those exceptions apparently spells: "Don't bad-mouth our religion mothafocka, or we gonna throw you in jail, YEAH!"

I guess the atheist brought it on himself, yeah?

If he actually 'bad mouthed' Islam, he would not have made it alive to GO to jail.

Originally posted by sonhouse
If he actually 'bad mouthed' Islam, he would not have made it alive to GO to jail.

The article clearly states that he was arrested not for his atheism but for criticizing Islam in particular.

Among al-Banna's posts are a split image of a severely scarred woman and a Quran with the caption, "It's OK to burn a woman ... but it's NOT OK to burn a book. Something is wrong with your priorities." Another post carries the caption, "A big reward to whoever represents Islam" and shows several caricatures of bearded men in similar dress pointing at each other, saying, "This person does not represent Islam."

Now if he had said: My religion requires me to believe Islam is bad, then he might be covered under freedom of region laws. I would say that all religions are implicitly blasphemy of other religions, but not quite the same as naming and shaming another religion.

Originally posted by KellyJay
I wasn't aware that Egypt had freedom of speech built into its laws.

Egyptian president has more guts to speak out about radical Islam than Obama.

http://www.aim.org/guest-column/egyptian-president-has-more-guts-to-speak-out-about-radical-islam-than-obama/

Originally posted by RJHinds
Egyptian president has more guts to speak out about radical Islam than Obama.

http://www.aim.org/guest-column/egyptian-president-has-more-guts-to-speak-out-about-radical-islam-than-obama/

Leave it to the race hater to use an injustice such as this to make a dig at Obama. It doesn't matter WHAT good Obama has done, he's black and he is Democratic, if he was black and Republican, he would be a nice guy, if he was white and a Republican he would be a god. You disgust me.