Freedom in Egypt

For John, BLUF:  We are not seeing a spread of religious freedom across North Africa and the Middle East.

I will grant you it is Fox News and thus suspect in many eyes, but we do have this report on an Egyptian Court sentencing a woman to jail for 15 years for her returning to the Christianity of her youth.

A criminal court in the central Egyptian city of Beni Suef meted out the shocking sentence last week, according to the Arabic-language Egyptian paper Al-Masry Al-Youm.  Nadia Mohamed Ali, who was raised a Christian, converted to Islam when she married Mohamed Abdel-Wahhab Mustafa, a Muslim, 23 years ago.  He later died, and his widow planned to convert her family back to Christianity in order to obtain an inheritance from her family.  She sought the help of others in the registration office to process new identity cards between 2004 and 2006.  When the conversion came to light under the new regime, Nadia, her children and even the clerks who processed the identity cards were all sentenced to prison.

I guess one can understand why Christians in Egypt, and friends and relatives here, are nervous about the influence of the Muslim Brotherhood on the Egyptian Government of President Mohamed Morsi and its new "Islamic Constitution".  Which is worse, the video Innocence of Muslims or the sentencing of this woman, Nadia Mohamed Ali, to 25 years in jail for walking away from Islam?

Mr Samuel Tadros, a research fellow at Hudson Institute's Center for Religious Freedom told the reporter, Mr Benjamin Weinthal:

the [Egyptian] constitution limits the practice of Christianity because “religious freedom has to be understood within the boundaries of Sharia.”  He added that the constitution prescribes that the highest Sunni authority should be referred to as an interpreter of the religion clause contained in the constitution.

In the mean time, former Representative Dennis Kucinich has been signed as a Fox News contributor.  I think this is a good thing.  Representative Kucinich can provide alternative views without being disagreeable.  The man has a brain.  I am sorry to see he has left the US House of Representatives.

Regards  —  Cliff