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LEADING members of a cultural society have been found guilty of infringing upon the fundamental beliefs of Islam and insulting its prophets.
The three Bahraini defendants, belonging to Al Tajdeed Cultural and Social Society, were each handed a one-year suspended sentence by the Lower Criminal Court yesterday.
Two of the defendants – the society’s president and another senior member – were present in court when the ruling was announced. They were also required to pay a BD500 bond.
The youngest defendant and the son of the president currently lives in the UK and was sentenced in absentia.
The defendants’ lawyer Mohamed Ahmed told the GDN that his clients plan to appeal the verdict.
Following the ruling, Cyber Crimes Prosecution vice-head Zahra Murad issued a statement giving details of the case.
“The prosecution received reports from the Social Development Ministry and the Anti-Cyber Crime Directorate about online posts published by the members of the organisation,” she said.
“These blog posts and video series that discussed the lives of prophets contained contradictions to what was said of them in the Holy Quran, and ridiculed their divine characteristics.”
The Twitter and YouTube posts were reviewed, and the Supreme Council of Islamic Affairs, which was consulted on the matter, reportedly declared the posts “a clear violation of the text of the Quran and the Prophet’s teachings”.
The council said that the defendants denied facts of the Islamic religion such as the miracles of the prophets, describing them as myths or folk tales.
The two cases in which the defendants were tried concerned tweets published by the youngest defendant, along with a video by the senior member and main researcher at the society.
The society’s president was accused of amplifying the messages and aiding in the production of the videos.
In the first case, the younger Bahraini posted tweets discussing the validity of a theory that discredits the Islamic messenger’s revelations, and was charged with insulting the Prophet.
The second case involved a YouTube video posted by the researcher who discussed the Quranic chapters that narrate supernatural abilities of prophets. He was charged with disrespecting figures revered by Muslims and defaming their rituals.
Ms Murad had earlier accused the defendants of blasphemy and disrespecting Islam.
She told the judge that in the tweets, the defendant alleged that the Prophet had temporal lobe epilepsy ‘under the pretence of intellectual discussion’.
She added that in the video, the other defendant interpreted Surat Al Fil (‘The Elephant’ sura) in a way that constitutes a severe transgression on Islam.
“This speech is intended at making people doubt the fundamentals of our sacred religion,” she said.
During the hearings, a statement by the society president was read out, in which he referenced renowned Islamic scholars including an ancient theologian as a way of defending the society’s video. Mr Ahmed said that the prosecution had cherry-picked the parts of his client’s tweets, taking them out of context and omitting ones that deny his client’s belief in the theory in discussion.
He added that the defendant was knowledgeable enough to discuss epilepsy because he is a physician and internal medicine consultant.
On the day of the first court hearing, on February 21, the society posted a statement on its social media denying the charges and asserting their ‘right to free speech’.
“The accusation is based on a misunderstanding as a result of a campaign to misconstrue and distort the content of our broadcasts,” it read.
The society added that the lawsuit was based on efforts to ‘falsify, slander, boycott, and alienate’ them from society.
Two days before the verdict, Al Tajdeed published a 50-page document arguing in favour of the defendants.
Yesterday, Ms Murad reaffirmed the prosecution’s defence of the freedom of speech.
“The freedom of thought and scientific research is granted to all by Bahrain’s law and the Constitution, on the condition that they respect others’ beliefs.
“The defendants exceeded the freedoms granted to them – they misused these rights by offending Islam, its laws, holy book and figures, contradicting the word of God and mocking other people’s beliefs.”
Although not directly related to the case, Ms Murad accused the society of allegedly abusing its members by forcing them to marry, “leading to members leaving the country and some attempting suicide”.
In the final hearing, Mr Ahmed said that the defendants were individuals and their actions had nothing to do with the society.
He also claimed that prosecutors asked leading questions in their investigations, phrased in a manner that presupposed guilt.
The society, which aims to renew and reinterpret the teachings of Islam (Tajdeed is Arabic for ‘renewal’), has been a source of controversy since its establishment.
Over the past year, the society’s videos and materials have sparked more controversy on social media, resulting in huge backlash.
Despite the court case, the society has not stopped posting the videos of Quranic interpretations, with hours-long lectures being posted multiple times a week.
The video for which the researcher was charged came in a 10-part series of one-hour-long videos discussing the meaning of the sura, with more parts coming out even after the trial began.
zainab@gdnmedia.bh
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