Egyptian Copt Cleared of Fake Facebook ‘Blasphemy’
ICC Note: Bishoy Kameel Garas, a Coptic Christian from Egypt, has officially been cleared of guilt related to blasphemy charges regarding statements posted on Facebook. The Facebook posts, which were published in a fake account under Garas’ name, resulted in a six-year prison term for charges including the “defamation of Islam.” Before his acquittal, served over half of his prison sentence and experts doubt that he will receive reasonable compensation for this injustice.
04/04/2016 Egypt (World Watch Monitor) – An Egyptian Copt, Bishoy Kameel Garas, has been declared ‘innocent’ after he spent more than half his 6-year sentence for charges including defamation of Islam, the Cairo Court of Cassation has ruled.
Garas, now in his late twenties, was jailed in September 2012 for offending the country’s dominant religion, the then-Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi, and a Muslim sheikh’s sister. The charges related to Facebook posts found on a fake page opened in his name.
On 25 July, Cairo’s senior court had ruled against the prison sentence, but it took Garas until 9 Oct. to be released, due to “intransigence by the prosecution, and prison authorities dragging their feet”, his lawyer Magdy Farouk Saeed told World Watch Monitor back in November.
Despite mounting evidence weighing on the side of his acquittal, the prosecution and two lower courts insisted on condemning the Christian, until the higher court finally declared him innocent on March 13.
As with other blasphemy cases levelled against Christians and seculars, the proceedings were bedevilled by mob pressure and judicial religious prejudice.
“Back in 2012, the defence team was mobbed by scores of angry people around and inside the courthouse shouting, ‘Are you Muslims or what?’ The lawyers were themselves accused of apostasy and had to be spirited from the court’s security office,” said Ishak Ibrahim from the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights (EIPR).
Coptic activists insist the proceedings were a travesty from the beginning.
“To be accused of defamation (of Islam) is to be guilty of it, especially with the mob pressure and rioting accompanying the proceedings,” said Safwat Samaan, director of Nation Without Borders, a human rights advocacy group.