TWENTY-THREE-YEAR-OLD newspaper columnist Hamza Kashgari deleted his “blaspheming” Twitter postings within six hours, apologised, and fled Saudi Arabia.
Now, after a couple of days in custody in Kuala Lumpur airport, he has been repatriated by the Malaysian authorities and is likely to face charges of apostasy, punishable by death under the kingdom’s strict interpretation of Islam.
“The only choice is for Kashgari to be killed and crucified in order to be a lesson to other secularists,” commented Abu Abdulrahman, typically of the tens of thousands of online responses to his tweets. A Facebook page, “Saudi people want punishment for Hamza Kashgari,” has more than 20,000 members. The authorities acted with alacrity, according to Saudi reports at the instigation of Prince Abdullah, and with the disgraceful collusion of their Malaysian counterparts in breach of an injunction in its courts.
Kashgari will be charged, the Saudi authorities say, but with what is not yet clear. A student of Islam who is said to have memorised the Koran, he had imagined a conversation with the Prophet Muhammad which he has since repudiated, insisting it does not reflect his views. He addressed the prophet directly in three tweets. One said: “On your birthday, I will say that I have loved the rebel in you, that you’ve always been a source of inspiration to me, and that I do not like the halos of divinity around you. I shall not pray for you.”
The Saudi regime’s persecution of this young man for thought crime makes a mockery of its protestations internationally at the oppressive rule of Syria’s Bashar al Assad. And at home, this Sunni regime doesn’t hesitate to fire on minority Shia protesters or to torture prisoners. In truth the ostensible excuse of a religious offence has more to do with an attempt to muzzle and intimidate political dissent over the kingdom’s appalling human-rights record, feudal rule, and injustice towards women than with genuine religious sentiment.
His friends say Kashgari was already a marked man. In one of his many previous tweets he had observed that “No Saudi women will go to hell, because it’s impossible to go there twice”, and he had made many broader critiques of the regime. To its shame, however, the latter’s response to the Arab Spring and to the growing numbers of still silent Kashgaris among its young, has been to retreat further into bullying religious obscurantism. It is crucial that it is made aware that this is only a road to increased international opprobrium.