Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1303831
2 maltatoday | WEDNESDAY • 28 OCTOBER 2020 NEWS Malta imam says religious vilification should be illegal MATTHEW VELLA THE Imam of the Paola mosque, Moham- med El Sadi, has once again called for the criminalisation of blasphemy and the mock- ing of faiths, in a reaction to the fanatical murder of a French teacher who displayed the notorious Charlie Hebdo cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad in his class. "We always condemn killing people be- cause of their convictions irrespective of the identity of the perpetrators or their own justifications for their wrong doing… There is no legal justification for such criminal act," El Sadi said, saying all Muslims in Eu- rope had to be law-abiding citizens. The murder of Samuel Paty, a French middle-school teacher, took place on 16 October 2020 in a Paris suburb, where he was killed by Abdoullakh Anzorov, an 18-year-old Muslim refugee of Chechen descent, and then beheaded. Anzorov was shot and killed by police minutes later. His motive for the murder was that Paty had, in a class on freedom of expression, shown his students Charlie Hebdo cartoons de- picting the Islamic prophet Muhammad, including one cartoon which depicted Muhammad naked. But El Sadi disagreed that the human right of freedom of expression was "a goal in itself", and said absolute freedom of ex- pression could be destructive by causing avoidable hatred. "It can trigger violence, endanger the lives of people and threatens the harmonious peaceful coexistence of any modern multicultural society. Eventu- ally, it serves no good cause." El Sadi also said that the mocking of faiths should be criminalised. In 2016, Malta abolished the vilification of the Ro- man Catholic religion, a law in place since 1933. The incitement of hatred based on religion, gender, race, sexuality, gender identity or political belief is already illegal in Malta. "For us Muslims it is too difficult to com- prehend how anybody dares to mock any prophet because we consider them all the most righteous, the infallible and models, especially Noah, Abraham, Moses, Jesus and Muhammad," El Said. In a back-handed reference to anti-vili- fication laws, El Sadi suggested that those who "promote" such mockery and "reward it" were making Muslims feel they are "detrimentally targeted". "Those who keep insisting on publishing, distributing and displaying the infamous cartoons of Prophet Muhammad on the public buildings in a provocative open way against the Muslim sentiments are playing into the hands of the Muslim extremists and the extreme right groups. They are directly responsible for any unfortunate consequences." The Imam also insisted that mocking "any Prophet" was blasphemous, and that mocking the Prophet Muhammad was "definitely a direct insult to 1.5 billion Muslims all over the world who consider him dearer than their parents and chil- dren. It deeply provokes and hurts their spiritual sentiments and leaves severe bit- terness in their hearts." El Sadi quoted Pope Francis who said believers should not be provoked or their faith be made fun of. "Unfortunately, secu- larism in certain countries has become ex- treme anti-religion and freedom of expres- sion has become a weapon for defamation of the sacred symbols of faiths." El Sadi also called on political leaders to stop stigmatising and criminalising Mus- lim communities. "Muslims are the main victims of ter- rorism more than any other nation… We Muslims do not associate with Christian- ity, the terroristic attacks against Muslims in New Zealand because we know how should distinguish between the religion and the religious. "Such individual, isolated acts should not be used as a justification for collective pun- ishment of Muslims, violating their basic human rights and enforcing them to lose their own Islamic cultural identity." KURT SANSONE MARK Camilleri, chairperson of the Book Coun- cil, said the Imam should be deported after he called for a law against religious vilification to be re-introduced. He accused the Imam of "inciting violence" when he called for the criminalisation of blasphemy and the mocking of faiths, in a reaction to the fanati- cal murder of a French teacher who displayed the notorious Charlie Hebdo cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad in his class. In a hard-hitting Facebook post, Camilleri said the Imam's words were "putting the lives of au- thors and illustrators at risk" by implying that sa- tirical depictions of Muhammed will directly lead to violence. The Facebook post included a cartoon of the Muhammed wearing a turban in the form of a bomb that had been published by Danish news- paper Jyllands Posten. "This is the same argument rapists make about women who show their skin – 'she asked for it'," Camilleri said. When Malta abolished the vilification of religion from its laws in 2016, the move was criticised by the Imam, the Maltese archbish- op and exponents of the Nationalist Party. But with the Imam resurrecting the argu- ment in the context of a murder, Camilleri did not take nicely to his words, insisting artists and authors were not asking for it by publishing the cartoons. "What we are asking for is that you stop killing us, but you seem to want to impose on us conditions based on the fear and ter- ror you are promoting by explicitly arguing that our art and writing is provocative. No, we are not asking for it Mr Imam and our State should prioritise us, writers and artists over crazy ideologues like yourself," Camill- eri wrote. Book Council chairperson calls for Imam's deportation Imam Mohammed El Sadi Mark Camilleri