Anas Hassan Deserves Unconditional Release From Prison
Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): The Good Men Project
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2023/12/18
Blasphemy: A law to protect an All-Powerful, supernatural Deity from getting it’s feelings hurt.
-Ricky Gervais
Anas Hassan was imprisoned over allegations of activity associated with non-belief or non-religiosity. He was jailed in 2019. The allegation is running a Facebook page called “The Egyptian Atheists.”
State investigators claimed the Facebook page was promoting atheism. That they critiqued “divinely revealed religions.” Maybe, those prayers can help. Perhaps, the all-powerful can handle themselves. No, the all-powerful need State intervention.
The is the problem for freethinkers. Religious people and secular dogmatists use the police, the military, the State, the court systems, public opinion, any other devious and treacherous tool, to jail, kill, beat, and intimidate us.
I live in a relatively good society on this front. Yet, I have been harassed, stalked to my home, lost job opportunities, faced defamation, intimidation, and had to face bullying on the job. That’s religion and dogmatism on the mind.
For others, the cases are more severe. These individuals deserve a voice or some attention for a miscarriage of justice. The Economic Misdemeanors Court of Ameriya received Hassan’s case.
The United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF), established under the International Religious Freedom Act of 1998, is a federal commission with members appointed by the President, Senate, and House of Representatives leaders from both major political parties.
According to the USCIRF, the referral to the Economic Misdemeanors Court of Ameriya came under the following: “misusing social media” (Art. 27 Cyber-Crime Law, 2018), “assaulting Egyptian family values” (Art. 25 Cyber-Crime Law, 2018), “inciting hatred against a sect of people” (Art. 176 ECC),“publishing a religious text in a way that distorts its meaning” (Art. 161(1) ECC), and “inciting people to commit felonies through oral or visual means” (Art. 171 ECC), among others.
The Economic Misdemeanors Court of Ameriya sentenced Hassan to three years in prison with a fine of 300,000 Egyptian pounds. The final charge: “insulting religion and misusing social media.” What is more offensive: jailing an atheist Facebook page manager by the State or managing the atheist Facebook page?
Make no mistake, this is the same mentality and sense of privilege in many dogmatic Christian communities at home too. I keep the criticism unified here. If they could jail non-believers, then they would imprison non-believers – many of them.
I am reminded of an important interview with the most creative activists in the freethought sphere known to me: The Satanic Temple. I conducted several interviews with them. One publication, “An Interview with Michelle Shortt (Chapter Head) and Stuart “Stu” de Haan (Spokesperson): The Satanic Temple (Arizona Chapter).”
I’ll quote the section of my interview with them in full below:
Jacobsen: You see this in those that don’t put the self first too. For instance, the current Catholic Pope—I believe Discordianism likes to joke that that’s the guy who thinks he’s the only Pope—basically, he is liberalizing much of, not necessarily church doctrine but, perception in the public eye of the Catholic Church. He’s even meeting with the leader of the second largest sect of Christianity.
250-300 million, which is the Eastern Orthodox Church, they met with the Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I, in Cairo of all places! There are times of meetup, I guess. But when you were talking about alternative places for people who don’t really find themselves buying majoritarian mythologies very much, two things came to mind.
One was a United Church of Canada Minister. For context, the United Church of Canada is probably considered the most liberalised Christian church in Canada. I use it as a benchmark. Whatever is controversial to them, it is what Christianity will allow in this country. Not sure about America, things are different in America. The minister’s name is Gretta Vosper.
She lost her faith while in the church. She went from the progression of theist to deist to atheist. Her congregation were fine with the minister. Recently, late 2016, she was under review for her suitability for being in the church. She was giving – for that particular group – moral lessons. Another case I was thinking about was the secular church in, what some would consider the equivalent of the Bible Belt in America, Calgary, Alberta.
So I think there are ways this stuff is cropping up more, and more. And it is heartening to hear this. Media representation is interesting. The United States has very powerful public relations, previously termed propaganda, industry. When I watch interviews with Lucien Greaves, for instance, there’s talking over him. There’s stereotypes. There’s not taking him seriously.
Any bad journalistic practice. He undergoes. Is there a bettering trend in the representation of the media of Satanism?
de Haan: No.
Shortt: No. A Fox News thing posted an article for our veterans’ memorial in Minnesota. First line: “Devil Worshippers Erecting Monument in Bell Plains.”
de Haan: It’s like they won’t even give the courtesy of a Google search, sometimes.
Jacobsen: [Laughing].
de Haan: If you want to see how we’re treated personally, you can Google it. A councilman in Phoenix, Arizona compared us to ISIS. Michelle and I have personally been called terrorists by public officials. We’ve been called bullies, as they tell us to go to hell.
Jacobsen: These would be the same person, same personality type, that would bully you in work and then would play the victim.
de Haan: What we see in Christianity a lot is if they don’t get 100% of their way 100% of the time, they play the victim.
Jacobsen: [Laughing] of course.
de Haan: That they’re being persecuted. Part of what we do is expose this. I think a lot of stuff people don’t realize is going on until you have someone who comes up, and who is an easy standard to call the ‘wrong religion’.
Shortt: We definitely do not see them being any fairer in their representation of us at all, to answer the question. In fact, almost anything like pizzagate. Or the satanic panic being underway with religious freedom now being the thing. It’s going to happen.
de Haan: Moral panics are on the rise. It is a bit concerning. As they are calling it in the Trump Era, the Post-Fact Era, the facts simply do not matter anymore. What makes you maddest? That’s the truth. You see the things like pizzagate. Where a pizza parlour, they say they’re going to have children sacrifices in the basement. In 2017, this is a throwback to the McMartin babysitter case, which happened in the 80s.
You’re seeing stuff like this happening. Luckily, you have debunking of this pretty quickly. People know about Snopes, and so on. Michelle and I have been the subject of conspiracy theories in Phoenix, in our own cities. There are websites slandering us personally. It is what we deal with, especially if you’re in a leadership position.
And I write and say these things not as a representative of an organization, though I have been involved in freethought organizations, but as a concerned individual about a lack of universality of ethical application.
The abuse of purported traditional transcendent religious ethics in place of international secular human rights. Where, in the former, individuals who do not adhere to the dominant religion become second-status citizens.
The non-religious and other religions become bound to this religious outlook. While, in the latter, everyone gets the same treatment under the law, in theory, because of the universal application of the law without regard for parochial demographics or specific religious lenses.
It’s the sense of legal and moral entitlement identified and experienced in the midst of public abuse and intimidation by de Haan and Shortt. Brave people, like them, make a mark and take the hits many of us fear even within family – let alone in public, at work, or in mass media.
Almost always, I speak as an individual on numerous matters and not as a collective representative; unless, it’s explicitly stipulated. If I am working with a group, individual, or organization, which have been and continue to be enormous, then it’s entirely on a voluntary basis.
These cases of mistreatment of the non-religious happen all over the world with only the difference in severity and type of mistreatment. Hassan’s case was upheld in the Economic Misdemeanour Appeals Court in Alexandria on June 21, 2020 and an appeal was rejected on February 10, 2022 in the Court of Cassation.
Anas Hassan’s imprisonment for his activities on the Facebook page, ‘The Egyptian Atheists’, represents a grave infringement on the fundamental right to freedom of expression.
Hassan’s conviction for ‘insulting religion and misusing social media’ is in stark contrast to international human rights standards, which Egypt is obliged to uphold.
Given the completion of his sentence duration, the continued imprisonment of Anas Hassan is unwarranted and he should be immediately released.
He should be released unconditionally.
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