Bullshit, Damn, What, Unbelievable.. these where some of the first things came to people’s mind commenting on my Facebook status that Eslam Samhan, a Jordanian poet and a journalist, was sentenced with one year in prison and 10,000 JOD (almost same in EUR) fine. He was convicted the day before yesterday with what described as “insulting religions” for using phrases of the Quran in his poetry book “As light as the shadow” (برشاقة الظل). The news as it came from the AP:
The court said Sunday that Islam Samhan published his work without approval from the Jordanian government. Jordanian law bans publication of books that could be seen as harmful to Islam and the Prophet Muhammad.
This is not the first case of human rights violation of this sort that happened in Amman in the past year, last Ramadan, many tourism and leisure outlets were closed on various accusations, and couple of months ago, a friend of mine and a school principal, Ahmad Al Jaafrah, was fired from a public school for objecting of using religious themes in the schools morning exercises!
I worked with Eslam before on Voices for Gaza fund raising concert, and he’s a very well mannered good man, and you know what, forget it, even if he’s an asshole and a lousy poet, he have the right of free speech, this is a secular state, and everybody should understand that, this is not Saudi Arabia neither Taliban’s Afghanistan, if this is not understood by some, then we should make it so.
It’s plain and simple, this is YOUR RIGHT you’re defending on, this is not just about Eslam, or Ahmad, or Madian, or or or.. this is about YOUR RIGHT, the right that you have as a human being, even before Jordan signed the UN human rights declaration, it is you nature-given right, your right to be free, that no one should take it away from you.
Action
- If you’re in Jordan
Join us tomorrow to organize a campaign against this sentence before the appeal
Where: Daret Al Fonon – Lwebdeh
When: Wednesday, 6:30 PM
- Outside Jordan
If you know media or organization welling to help on this issue, let me know at:
gyonis [at] gmail [dot] com










