Jail sentence against liberal writer upheld

Cairo: An Egyptian appeal court on Thursday upheld a three-year jail sentence against prominent liberal writer Fatima Naoot who was convicted of insulting Islam, the latest in a series of similar cases in the country.

The court confirmed the sentence after rejecting an appeal by Naoot against the ruling issued by a lower court three months ago.

Naoot, 51, did not attend the appeal hearing. She said on her Facebook page that she is in Toronto for an Egyptian-Canadian conference. Naoot’s lawyer, Sharif Adeeb, said he would appeal the new ruling in 10 days’ time according to the law.

In January, the Misdemeanour Court in Cairo handed down the sentence to Naoot and ordered her to pay a fine of 20,000 Egyptian pounds (around Dh8196) for posting a Facebook comment in 2014 criticising Islam’s annual ritual of sacrificing animals during the festival of Eid Al Adha.

Naoot, a Muslim architect-turned-writer, has repeatedly said she did not mean to defame Islam in her controversial post.

Since the charges were raised against Naoot in late 2014, rights advocates have voiced worries about free expression in Egypt.

In December, another court sentenced Muslim researcher Islam Al Behery to one year in prison after convicting him of defaming religion on a now-suspended TV programme. Al Behery questioned the credibility of some widely accepted sources of the Prophet Mohammad’s (PBUH) sayings, a major reference to Islamic jurisprudence.

In February this year, four Christian teenagers were sentenced to five years in prison each on similar charges.