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Summary Two Tunisians have been jailed for seven years for committing blasphemy.
A country where religion holds the most value, two young Tunisians have been sentenced to seven years in prison for posting cartoons of the prophet Muhammad on Facebook.The two men had posted depictions of the prophet naked on the social networking site, the justice ministry said.They were sentenced ... to seven years in prison for violation of morality, and disturbing public order, said Chokri Nefti, a justice ministry spokesman.One of the two, Jabeur Mejri is in jail while the second, Ghazi Beji, is still being sought by police and was sentenced in absentia.The sentence was handed down on March 28 but was not reported until Thursday, when bloggers started posting information about the case on the Internet.It seems it is becoming difficult for the Tunisian authorities to distinguish between freedom of speech and religious sanctity as one of the bloggers posted,This decision is aimed at silencing freedom of expression even on the Internet. Prosecutions for offending morals are a proxy for this government to gag everyone.Tunisia electrified the Arab world in January last year when protests forced its autocratic president, Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali, to flee the country. In their first democratic election, Tunisians elected a government led by moderate Islamists.The revolution also brought tension between conservative Muslims who believe their faith should have a bigger role in public life, and secularists who say freedom of expression and womens rights are now under attack.The government says it has a duty to defend standards of public decency but its secularist opponents accuse it of using the justice system to crack down on anyone who does not fall into line with religious orthodoxy.
