Saturday, March 30, 2013

All Joking Aside: "Blasphemous" Comedian Gets Smack Down in Morsi's Egypt

Proving once again that laughing at orthodoxy is about as subversive as it gets:
CAIRO (AP) — Egypt's state prosecutors issued an arrest warrant Saturday for a popular television satirist for allegedly insulting Islam and the country's president, in the latest legal action to take aim at a critic of the nation's Islamist leader. 
The warrant against Bassem Youssef is also the latest in a series of legal actions against the comedian, who has come to be known as Egypt's Jon Stewart. Youssef's widely-watched weekly show, "ElBernameg" or The Program, has become a platform for lampooning the government, opposition, media and clerics. 
The fast-paced show has attracted a wide viewership, but has also earned itself its fair share of detractors. Youssef has been a frequent target of lawsuits, most of them brought by Islamist lawyers who have accused him of "corrupting morals" or violating "religious principles."...
Go figure--the same thing happens to wisenheimers in Canada (except here it happens, comically enough, in the name of protecting "victims" and upholding their "human rights").

No comments: