A blogger is released but a new storm is building.

There was widespread relief at the decision to release blogger Mohammed Erraji. This changed quickly when news spread that Erraji is to be retried. And at the time this drama was playing out an other has been unfolding over the publication of The Jewel of Medina. Both cases are worth examining in the light of ongoing unease over limits to free speech

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A court released an Internet blogger Thursday while he appeals a two-year prison sentence for allegedly criticizing Morocco's king, the official news agency said.

Mohamed Erraji was fined and sentenced to prison earlier this week for "lacking respect toward the person of the king and the royal family," the MAP agency said. It said prosecutors at the appeals court in Agadir, on Morocco's southern coast, agreed with giving Erraji a provisional release.

Other media said the blogger had criticized state-funded programs in this North African nation, including those sponsored by King Mohammed VI, for not being well-run.

The Paris-based rights groups Reporters Without Borders said in a statement Thursday that Erraji was "not guilty of insulting the king" and praised the decision to release him.

"The Moroccan judicial system must now hear his appeal in a proper manner," the Paris-based watchdog said in a statement. "We hope the outcome will be fair."

Meanwhile blogger support is growing around the world.

It still remains to be seen if his retrial will go ahead. Between now and then it is to be hoped that saner heads prevail and the entire sorry business is dropped and also that the Moroccan authorities will take time to think a little more carefully before launching ill-considered attacks on the freedoms that bloggers are entitled to enjoy.

Trouble brewing over Jewel of the Medina

The issue of free speech has been widely debated around issues such as Rushdie's The Satanic Verses and the the Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons crisis. Now it appears a new storm is brewing.

Sherry Jones is a journalist turned novelist who thought she was on to a good thing when Random House paid her $100,000 (USD) and offered a two book contract. The first of her contracted books was The Jewel of Medina which was scheduled for publication in 2008.


The Jewel of Medina has been described as a racy historical novel about Aisha, the young wife of the prophet Muhammad. The novel tells Aisha's story from the age of six, when she was betrothed to Muhammad, to his death.

Ms. Jones had done her homework, reading scholarly books, learning Arabic and spending a great deal of time and effort "getting it right". But in April, when a galley copy was sent to Denise Spellberg, an associate professor of Islamic history at the University of Texas in Austin, the trouble started.

According to Asra Nomani, writing in The Wall Street Journal, Ms Spellberg said the novel was a "very ugly, stupid piece of work." It should be mentioned that this Ms Spellberg has also penned a book about Aisha with the very worthy if somewhat awkward title - Politics, Gender, and the Islamic Past: The Legacy of 'A'isha Bint Abi Bakr.

Ms Spellberg raised the alarm about the more populist book by Ms Jones, going so far as to call it "softcore pornography". According to Nomani, Spellberg informed Random House that publication would expose Random House employees to Islamic terrorism and that Muslims would react with the kind of violence and Random House ducked for cover. Their response was to withdraw the book from sale.

What is interesting in this case is that the initial objections to the publication did not come from within the Muslim community but from an American academic. Nomani was dismayed.

"All this saddens me. Literature moves civilizations forward, and Islam is no exception. There is in fact a tradition of historical fiction in Islam, including such works as "The Adventures of Amir Hamza," an epic on the life of Muhammad's uncle. Last year a 948-page English translation was published, ironically, by Random House. And, for all those who believe the life of the prophet Muhammad can't include stories of lust, anger and doubt, we need only read the Quran (18:110) where, it's said, God instructed Muhammad to tell others: "I am only a mortal like you."

So what did others think? According to Salman Rushdie, author of The Satanic Verses,"This is censorship by fear and it sets a very bad precedent indeed." Andrew Franklin, who worked for Penguin Books when they published The Satanic Verses and is now the publisher of Profile Books, described the decision as "absolutely shocking" and called the Random House editors "such cowards". Geoffrey Robertson, who received terrorist threats for representing Rushdie, said that Random House should pay Jones "substantial compensation" and recommended that the book be placed on a website "so everyone can read it".

It has been announced The Jewel of Medina will be published by Beaufort Books in the United States and by Gibson Square in Great Britain. Translation rights have been sold to a number of languages and a Serbian version has been withdrawn after protests. It is expected more protests will follow.

While almost without exception writers and bloggers are staunch advocates of free speech, the questions that need to be addressed in relation to publications that can cause offence are these: Are there boundaries, cultural and religious sensibilities, that deserve respect? Are there "sacred spaces" where one should tread more lightly?


Tags: Moroccan Morocco Fes, Maghreb news