Defaming the Moster
Police have arrested a blogger [at] Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport on Monday evening on charge of defaming Prophet Mohammad (pbuh) in a blog post.
According to the officer-in-charge of Barguna’s Amtali police station, the blogger Asaduzzaman Nur, more commonly known as Asad Nur, has been on the run after a case was filed against him on January 11 this year under ICT act. The case was filed for a blog post which allegedly carried defamatory language against the prophet.
You can’t “defame” dead people. Defamation applies to alive people only, people who can be harmed in their real, contemporary lives. The law doesn’t protect the reputations of dead people. They don’t mean “defamatory,” they mean “obnoxious to our religious beliefs.”
OC Shahid Ullah also said police sources confirmed that Asad, an Amtali denizen and son of one Tofazzal Hossain, fled to India as soon as he learned about the case. Limon Fakir, a known associate of Asad, had also been arrested in this connection.
“We [Amtali police] notified the immigration police about Asad’s status at the time,” the OC said.
An immigration police official, wishing anonymity, said Asad Nur has been detained after his passport number raised red flag in the immigration system at the airport.
They could have just let him flee to India, but oh no, they had to grab him and punish him for not sharing their religious views.
Via Tasneem Khalil
Nor can one honestly wish ‘peace be upon him’ for someone who has been dead for around 1,500 years. Mohammed wasn’t supposed to be divine at all. He is a dead merchant and one-time absolute dictator of Medina. Why should he require infinite, ritualized praise? (pb&j)
I’m not sure I understand what it means for peace to be upon even someone living, let alone what wishing that state could possibly mean.
The ritualised aspect is just so sinister. It seems simultaneously like a purity test (burn the witch, she didn’t say pbuh) and an enforcement of suitably pious behaviour. Kind of like “amen”, I guess, but shoe-horned into every day conversation. Shudder.