A popular female writer has been convicted in a law court and jailed for three years for a rather shocking reason.
Fatima Naoot
An Egyptian court jailed on Tuesday, a popular female writer, Fatima Naoot, for three years for insulting Islam after she criticised the slaughter of animals during a major religious festival, a judicial official said.
Naoot went on trial last year after she wrote “Happy Massacre” on her Facebook page in October 2014 during Eid al-Adha, the Muslim feast of sacrifice.
“Annual massacre observed because of a nightmare of one (prophet) about his son… ,” Naoot, who is a Muslim, wrote on her Facebook page at the time.
“Although the nightmare has passed for the prophet and his son, each year helpless animals pay with their lives the price of this sacred nightmare,” she wrote in Arabic.
On Tuesday, a Cairo court found her guilty of having “insulted Islam” and sentenced her to three years in jail. She was also ordered to pay a fine of 2,000 Egyptian pounds ($255, 235 euros).
Speaking to AFP, she said: “I’m not sad about the sentencing as I don’t care about going to jail. I’m sad that the efforts of reformists have been wasted.”
However, her lawyer said he would appeal the sentence.
Animals are slaughtered during Eid to commemorate the willingness of prophet Abraham to fulfil God’s command to sacrifice his own son, although in the end God provided him with a sheep.