A very interesting article that discusses the under the radar cases of blasphemy that have gone unnoticed in Christian, European Greece, and the common cause that violent Neo-Nazis and reactionary religious groups are making.

I’m positive we’ll be hearing outrage from Spencer and Geller about the attack on freedom of speech (h/t: Daniel b.).

A delicate blasphemy case in Greece

by Matthaios Tsimitakis (AlJazeeraEnglish)

When Benghazi, Islamabad and capitals across the Muslim world were shaken by protests against an anti-Islam film last month, a case of blasphemy in a Christian European country went largely unnoticed.

In crisis-stricken Greece, a 27-year-old man from the island of Evia was recently arrested on charges of malicious blasphemy and insult of religious beliefs for allegedly hosting a satirical page on Facebook mocking a monk whom some believe to be a saint. Both charges are misdemeanors that could, combined, result in up to two years in prison.

Elder Paisios was a monk who lived an ascetic life on Mount Athos, a peninsula in northern Greece that has hosted monasteries and Orthodox Christian monks for more than 1,000 years. Elder Paisios became famous among the faithful for his gentleness, austere lifestyle, and for having visions and the gift of healing. He passed away in 1994 and since then, some have considered him to be a saint – although the Greek Orthodox Church hasn’t yet made such a decision.

Almost 20 years after his death, the Greek right-wing press often invokes Elder Paisios’ name to advance their cause. These publications frequently prophesise wars and confrontations between religions and ethnicities, such as between Muslim Turkey and Christian Greece.

In order to mock this type of rhetoric, the 27-year-old – whose name has not been made public – created a satirical Facebook page called “Elder Pastitsio the Pastafarian”, featuring a funny picture made with Photoshop, criticising this speech and its consequences. Pastitsio is a traditional Greek dish made out of baked pasta with ground beef and bechamel sauce.

The 27-year-old also supposedly wrote and spread a fictional story about a miracle Elder Paisios performed, in which a comatose young man was healed when his mother put dirt from the monk’s grave under his pillow. The story was published on several right-wing blogs as well as in a far-right newspaper.

Golden Dawn’s involvement

The rest of the story sounds ridiculous, but is revealing about the consequences of the financial and political crisis that has hit Greece. The neo-Nazi group Golden Dawn, whose MPs enjoy parliamentary immunity – despite having been repeatedly accused of involvement in crime – brought the issue to the Greek parliament. MP Christos Pappas condemned the Facebook page and asked the government whether it would tolerate such blasphemous expressions online, and also criticised other online media such as the website Athens Indymedia. Two days later, the Greek police arrested the creator of the page and confiscated his laptop on a controversial legal basis, after a district attorney asked Facebook to hand over to the Greek police the man’s personal data. The district attorney claimed the Facebook page could threaten lives by leading to a revolt of devoutly religious Greeks.

Greek social media users were shocked, and the hashtag #freegeronpastitsios became a global trend on Twitter for almost a day. Ten more Facebook pages satirising Elder Paisios were created shortly thereafter, and have been pretty successful.

Unfortunately, Greeks who are proud they live in a secular democracy protecting the freedom of speech discovered that not only is secularism limited in the country, but also learned that last March, during the governance of a three-party coalition lead by prime minister and former banker Lucas Papademos and the troika, the law against blasphemy was strengthened, widening possible prison sentences to six months. The irony in this case is that the very same day that the author of Elder Pastitsios was arrested, the Greek police brutally cracked down on some Muslim protestors’ attempt to demonstrate outside the American embassy in Athens.

Online speech in Greece is falsely believed to be free and unregulated. Speech on the internet is regulated by various authorities – beginning with the social networks themselves and extending to undemocratic power structures. Social and political rights activists know that they can be targeted, arrested and prosecuted.

Double standards

But neither Facebook nor the Greek justice system has ever attempted to arrest paramilitaries who promote their illegal actions online. Fascists, racists and neo-Nazis who clearly promote hate speech have nothing to fear.

Greek internet users and the public now know well that it might not be democratic consensus but parastate organisations that regulate certain rights in this country. The Greek police announced that it operated under the command of hundreds of claims it received from faithful citizens against the page but the concurrency of the arrest with Golden Dawn’s actions only adds to the feeling.

Golden Dawn may be a parliamentary force today, but it has been accused of operating as a parastate organisation. On many occasions, the Guardian has reported, police officers have referred Greek citizens to Golden Dawn, claiming they are unable to provide security. A few days after the arrest over the Facebook page, a group of antifascist protestors who tried to stop members of Golden Dawn from attacking immigrants and their properties was arrested and reportedlytortured by the Greek police.

The latest example of how Golden Dawn can be influencing the state came just a few days ago, when Golden Dawn MP Ilias Panayiotaros asked the ministry of interior affairs to inform him about the number of kindergarten students who are immigrants. The state is preparing to hand over these facts to Golden Dawn, despite the fact that the party has openly threatened to invade kindergartens and throw immigrant children out.

Cases like this redirect the public’s attention to issues of minor importance and away from the important ones. For example, many tax-evading Greeks have taken large amounts of money out of the country, while workers and pensioners have seen their salaries and pensions slashed. It was recently revealed the Christine Lagarde, the head of the IMF, handed a list of tax evaders to the previous minister of finance, Giorgos Papakonstantinou, but he did not use the list to raise additional revenue. But they also help construct the sense of fear and authoritarianism that is spreading rapidly now in the country.

Rage misdirected

As Mark LeVine recently wrote in an article for Al Jazeera, “it’s always been far too easy for those with power to misdirect the rage of others away from them and towards whatever social forces might challenge their control”.

This seems to be exactly the case in Greece today. While certain forces in the police and the political establishment were trying to reconstruct the old conservative front (based on religiosity, ethnicity and conservative values) along with reactionary formations like the Golden Dawn, new austerity measures were being decided upon that will make Greek workers and pensioners even more desperate.

Blasphemy, by introducing a divine entity into human affairs, serves only as an empty signifier aiming to create a boundary of “us” towards “them” and solidify questionable principles in stereotypes of religious and national identities. In the case of Paisios, the goal is to bring together the religious with the reactionaries, against progressives and the left.

The strategy has been successful: On Thursday, members of Orthodox Christian organisations along with Golden Dawn members – including MPs – attacked people outside a theatre in the centre of Athens while the police turned a blind eye. The play presents Jesus Christ from a homosexual point of view. One man said a Golden Dawn MP punched him twice in the face while police stood by. It’s been several days now since protestors and counter protestors met outside the theatre fighting over what used to be commonly accepted in this country: The freedom of artistic expression.

In the latest development of this case the Christian orthodox bishop of Siatista condemned Golden Dawn’s actions and whoever joins it’s MPs in actions of violence and provocation as being anti-christian and against the spirit of the church. But the very next day another Bishop, the one of the city of Piraeus filed a lawsuit against the director of the play, Laertis Vasileiou, escorted by five Golden Dawn MPs. The accusation again is malicious blasphemy. So now with God being claimed by fascists, the church has been forced to enter politics.

The best answers to both the anti-Islam film and the Elder Paisios incidents have been given by people from religious communities. In the case of the film, many Muslim scholars and religious leaders around the world condemned the attacks on embassies as having nothing to do with Islam. In the case of Paisios, a religious Greek blogger wrote: “Mocking someone’s belief is not only stupid but also disrespectful to the right of self-determination. Making fun of someone who has passed away is cheap and low. But using someone else’s faith in order to impose fascism is tragic and endlessly dangerous. Those who have a poor spirit are not always blessed – and no court has the right to judge opinions.”

Matthaios Tsimitakis is a freelance journalist based in Athens.

Related Articles:

-The Golden Dawn: A love of power and a hatred of difference on the rise in the cradle of democracy

-Greek Fascists beating police, people

Why is curtailing free speech wrong for Muslims and right for Western countries?

Hate-Speech Hypocrites

By William Saletan, Slate

What if they were Muslim? (H/T: rookie)

Greek police arrest man behind Facebook page satirizing ‘mystical’ priest

Cross posted from ekathimerini.com

A 27-year-old man was arrested in the village of Psahna, Evia, on Monday on suspicion of being behind a Facebook page satirizing a dead Orthodox priest who some faithful believe had uncanny powers of perception.

The suspect, who was not named, is alleged to have maintained the page mocking Father or Elder (Geron) Paisios. The page was named Father Pastitsios after a traditional pasta-based dish.

The 27-year-old is being charged with blasphemy and insulting the late priest, who has become a cult figure among some Orthodox Christians over the past few months after allegedly foreseeing Greece’s economic crisis.

Police said that they made the arrest after “thousands” of complaints about the page from various parts of the world reached the electronic crimes squad.

Critics, however, point out that the police took action a few days after far-right Chrysi Avgi (Golden Dawn) raised the issue in Parliament.

The arrest was heavily criticized on Facebook and other social media as being an unacceptable case of censorship unbefitting a modern European country.

Opponents of the man’s arrest began a campaign on Twitter under the keyword #FreeGeronPastitsios.

It’s wonderful news that Rimsha Masih has been released from jail in Pakistan.

Masih is an 11 year old Christian girl who was arrested under Pakistan’s blasphemy laws after she was falsely accused of burning the Quran. She and her family will remain in protective custody to ensure their safety.

One interesting point to highlight in the following article is that Pakistan’s blasphemy laws derive not from Sharia, but from Biritsh colonial laws, circa 1860. The looniest blogger ever, Pamela Geller, is frothing-at-the-mouth, telling her readers anyone reporting this unwelcome historical  fact is, “whitewashing Pakistan’s blasphemy laws,” including CNN.

Whatever the origin of Pakistan’s vile blasphemy laws, they urgently need to be repealed. Let’s hope this outrageous, high profile case will ultimately spark much needed reform.

In Pakistan, girl freed but blasphemy debate still stuck

By Taha Siddiqui, Christian Science Monitor

Pakistan released from jail a Christian girl accused of burning Muslim religious texts and flew her to an undisclosed location by government helicopter.

“Due to the security concerns surrounding her and the family, the girl is being kept in government’s protective custody and there are plans to settle them outside Islamabad,” says Tahir Naveed Chaudhry, one of her lawyers.

The courts had approved the girl’s bail on Friday at a sum of one million rupees (equivalent to $10,500), on the grounds of her being a minor. The accusations against the girl had also lost strength when it emerged that a local cleric had planted burnt pages of the Quran in the evidence, in order to evict Christians from the locality they were living in.

Activists seeking to reform Pakistan’s stringent blasphemy laws had hoped this case would spur public debate and government action toward amending the laws. However, that has not happened yet, say activists, and the girl’s release may cause the spotlight to fade.

“Even though we are happy that the child is now reunited with her parents, I am unhappy about the public face the government put on during the ordeal. The state did not come with any long term resolve to stop the abuse of blasphemy laws, and the debate does not even seem to go in that direction,” says Peter Jacob, head of one of the largest minority rights’ activist groups in Pakistan.

The blasphemy laws, which date back to the colonial times in South Asia, were carried forward in the constitution by Pakistani authorities after the country’s independence in 1947. In the 1980s, draconian amendments to the laws by a military dictator were introduced, to the extent that anyone found guilty of committing blasphemy can be punished for life, and in severe cases, with a death sentence.

“The text of the law has problems but even if that is changed, it is the mindset of society that needs to be changed,” says Marvi Sirmed, a social activist, who has been threatened many times over her strong secular views. “Until and unless the state divorces itself from religion, and becomes secular, persecution of minorities will continue to happen,” Ms. Sirmed adds…

Pakistan’s Christian community

Pakistan’s roughly 2.7 million Christians make up less than 2 percent of the population. The Christianity community here, both Catholic and Protestant, traces much of its roots back to missionary efforts during British rule of the Indian subcontinent…

Read the rest here

Related Stories: 

Pakistan: 11 Year Old Christian Girl, Rimsha Masih Arrested on Charges of Blasphemy

Pakistani mullah ‘planted charred texts’ on girl accused of blasphemy

Senior Islamic cleric defends Christian girl: “Our Heads are Bowed in Shame”

Mehdi Hasan: Not In My Name: Islam, Pakistan and the Blasphemy Laws

CAIR Calls for Release of Pakistani Girl Held for ‘Blasphemy’

Christians and Muslims protest the blasphemy laws.

“He will not enter paradise whose neighbor is not secure from his wrongful conduct” – Prophet Muhammad

In the most recent manifestation of rising intolerance against minorities in Pakistan we have yet another instance in which blasphemy laws, amended under the military dictatorship of Zia-Ul Haq in the 1980′s have been used and manipulated to abuse and harm the most vulnerable.

This time an 11 year old girl by the name of Rimsha Masih has been arrested at the incitement of a mob on charges of allegedly burning a few pages of the Qur’an.

This is not the first time such egregious assaults on the conscious in Pakistan have come to our attention.

A few months ago a mentally ill man in Bahawalpur was accused of insulting Islam by burning the Qur’an, he was beaten by a mob, police intervened and jailed the man for his protection. This however did not sit well with the mob or their thirst for vigilante ‘vengeance’. The mob besieged the police station, forced their way inside, overwhelmed the impotent police force, dragged out the man, and beat and burned him alive.

Before that incident there was the high profile case of Aasia Bibi, a poor Christian woman who was accused of blasphemy by her co-workers. In the resulting aftermath the Governor of Punjab, Salman Taseer was murdered by his own security guard for speaking out about the injustice of the blasphemy laws and the treatment of Aasia Bibi. Shahbaz Bhatti, Minister of Minority Affairs, was quite vocal regarding his opposition to the law and the way Aasia Bibi was treated, he too was gunned down.

Such horrific cases are not limited to Christians: Hindus, Sikhs, Ahmedis, Sunnis and Shias have all been subjected to the injustice of blasphemy laws, in one form or another. The laws are generally used according to observers as a means to settle personal scores.

Critics among Pakistan’s embattled liberals say the law is regularly misused by people to settle personal scores and dispossess neighbours from land.

Now, 11 year old Rimsha Masih sits in a dingy jail cell, as in other cases ostensibly for her protection.

How did this tragedy unfold?

Some doubts and questions exist about whether or not Rimsha Masih is actually 11 years old and suffers from Down syndrome as most media outlets have portrayed,

Christian, and some Muslim, neighbors said Ms. Masih was 11 years old and had Down syndrome. Senior police officers dismissed those claims; one described her as 16 and “100 percent mentally fit.”

Discussions about Masih’s mental faculties and age miss the point and are irrelevant considering there is agreement on the most important facts.

According to most accounts, Rimsha and her family are impoverished street sweepers who lived in a slum near Islamabad. According to her landlord the controversy erupted when a local cleric was informed by his nephew about Masih holding a burned copy of a book called the “Noorani Qaida” which is used to teach children the Quran.

Malik Amjad, landlord of the family’s rented house, said the controversy started early last week after his nephew saw Ms. Masih holding a burned copy of the Noorani Qaida. The nephew informed a local cleric, Khalid Jadoon, Mr. Amjad said.

Desecration of Muslim holy texts is illegal in Pakistan and punishable by death. But Mr. Amjad said the incident bothered few local residents initially and caught fire only at the instigation of the cleric and two conservative shopkeepers.

“He tried to shame people by saying, ‘What good are your prayers if the Koran is being burnt?’ ” Mr. Amjad said.

Mr. Amjad said he handed the girl over to the police for her own protection and criticized the cleric’s role. “He exaggerated the incident and provoked people,” he said.

It was not clear how, or even if, Ms. Masih had come across the burned religious book. One neighbor, Malik Shahid, said it might have simply become accidentally swept up in a trash pile she was collecting.

The situation has been roundly condemned by Pakistani Human Rights campaigners and activists, government officials and politicians.

Senior government and police officials agreed with Christian leaders that the accusations against Ms. Masih were baseless and predicted that the case would ultimately be dropped.

Imran Khan, a leading politician and frontrunner in Pakistan’s 2013 Presidential elections sent out this message,

Shameful! Sending an 11yr old girl to prison is against the very spirit of Islam which is all about being Just and Compassionate.

The Poor child is already suffering from Down Syndrome. The State should care for its children not torment them. We demand her immediate release.

Pakistani journalists and bloggers have also been quite vocal about the shocking situation.

We have been alerted to two separate petitions calling on Pakistan’s Minister of Human Rights and the government to protect and immediately release both Aasia Bibi and Rimsha Masih (h/t: Hatice).

Repeal Aasia Bibi’s death sentence petition

And

Letter to Pakistan’s Minister of Human Rights for the Immediate Release of Aasia Bibi

And

Appeal to UNO Human Rights for the Release of Rimsha Masih

It is important to sign and share these petitions, so as to make clear where the world stands on these issues. It is vital foremost for Muslims to do so.

Some may question why we are highlighting this particular case, since Loonwatch focuses on exposing rampant anti-Muslim and Islamophobic bigotry. We believe sharing the above petitions are important most of all out of respect for basic human dignity and because such attacks also harm Muslims everywhere, especially in the West. A bigot or an Islamophobe may use it as justification for his (or her’s) nefarious anti-Muslim agenda and or as an excuse for violent reprisals. It is also important to point out the great irony of all of this, that such mobs, excited by ignorant and blind passions of “defending the faith” stand condemned by Islam–unequivocally. Nowhere, not even in classic, medieval Islamic jurisprudence can one find an interpretation permitting vigilante, extra-judicial torture and murder of any person who allegedly committed a crime–let alone killing and beating the insane, handicap and poor. Indeed, those individuals who took part in the mob should be found, arrested and given the harshest judgment possible under the law. To be made examples.

Clearly the implementation of the blasphemy laws in Pakistan has proved defective and only increased divisiveness, sectarianism and injustice. It calls to mind the urgent need to implement what Islamic scholar Tariq Ramadan called “An international moratorium on corporal punishment, stoning and the death penalty” in Muslim majority countries–and to go further, a repeal of unjust laws such as the current blasphemy law in place in Pakistan which overwhelmingly prosecute and persecute the innocent, the poor, the vulnerable and the minority.