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“Palestinian” atheist imprisoned, beaten for criticism of Islam

Dec 8, 2014 3:21 pm By Robert Spencer

Waleed Al-Husseini2“My views, however, cannot be changed by a prison sentence or by persecution. I still believe that Islam often stands in opposition to human rights and women’s rights. I believe that the Qur’an relays that Muhammad demanded death for non-believers….” Waleed Al Husseini better be careful with talk like that. He’s in the Daily Beast today as a prisoner of conscience, but if he continues to say that “Islam often stands in opposition to human rights and women’s rights” and that “the Qur’an relays that Muhammad demanded death for non-believers,” he will soon begin to be denounced as a racist, bigoted, right-wing, hatemongering Islamophobe by those who preen that they are the champions of free thought.

“What It’s Like to Be an Atheist in Palestine,” by Waleed Al Husseini, Daily Beast, December 8, 2014:

Like many non-religious people around the world, I use the Internet to express my thoughts. It provides a relatively safe way of speaking freely, especially in a country where the vast majority believe in one religion and do not like to hear criticism. Or so I thought.

I used to run a blog in Arabic called “Nour Alakl” and ran a satirical Facebook page under the pseudonym “Allah.” But in October 2010, Palestinian security forces stormed into an Internet cafe and arrested me. Until then, I had been under the impression that I had a right to freedom of speech and to the freedom of belief. But in jail, I was told that my online statements about religion and Islam were illegal. I was told that society didn’t accept such criticisms.

That’s certainly true in the West, if not in “Palestine.”

I was beaten by prison guards who demanded to know who had made me write against Islam. In their minds, I could only say these things as the result of some plot, some conspiracy. The idea that I might simply want to express my independent thoughts was alien to them.

The 10 months I spent in Palestinian prison were the worse of my life. I faced constant pressure to retract my statements. I was told they had removed my blog and that I must apologize for publishing it. Even once I was freed, I was told I should never again use the Internet, nor meet with the media.

For months after my release, I was harassed by the security services, who further interrogated me and detained me without cause. I received letters from people saying they wanted to kill me.

My views, however, cannot be changed by a prison sentence or by persecution. I still believe that Islam often stands in opposition to human rights and women’s rights. I believe that the Qur’an relays that Muhammad demanded death for non-believers. Many Muslims may disagree with my view, or interpret Islam in a more moderate way, but I cannot accept this religion myself. That is what my conscience tells me….

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Filed Under: blasphemy, Featured, free speech, Palestinian Authority, Sharia Tagged With: Nour Alakl, Waleed Al Husseini


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Comments

  1. cs says

    Dec 8, 2014 at 3:25 pm

    Perfectly fit to live in Israel. If 90% had the same thoughts everything would be fine.

    • Salah says

      Dec 8, 2014 at 11:30 pm

      Rest assured, they are growing in number. Apparently, there are already more than two million atheists in Egypt alone.

      http://crossmuslims.blogspot.ca/2014/01/egyptian-muslims-tear-up-quran.html

  2. Walter Sieruk says

    Dec 8, 2014 at 3:40 pm

    This is just as I had stated before, the only real reason that such a awful and terrible violet reaction happened to this person is because the foundations and doctrines of Islam are so very weak that this religion can’t hold to or stand up to criticism.

  3. mortimer says

    Dec 8, 2014 at 5:44 pm

    This brave young man is another clue that the jail of Islam is cracking from top to bottom. There are more and more Muslims who cannot stomach the stinking carcass of this misogynistic, intolerant, backward Death Cult. The cracks are spreading throughout Islam and with an earthquake the unwholesome mess will collapse on its own lies.

    • Ashley says

      Dec 8, 2014 at 5:57 pm

      Thank you for your comment, Mortimer.

      It has given me a sense of hope…

    • jimbo says

      Dec 9, 2014 at 7:39 am

      Geez Mortimer, i hope your right. Stats show however that more than any other terrorist organization, more muslims westerners or not, have flocked to isis from around the world then any other group.

      That’s a worry and hardly suggests cracks in this mental ideology.

      But we can only how your right.

  4. Champ says

    Dec 8, 2014 at 6:12 pm

    Don’t you dare speak the unvarnished and ugly Truth about islam or company, or else …

  5. terry says

    Dec 8, 2014 at 6:22 pm

    “the foundations and doctrines of Islam are so very weak that this religion can’t hold to or stand up to criticism.”

    So true!! Actually, it won’t stand a fraction of the critical thinking directed at the bible or Christianity. I already knew that, for over two decades, now, but no one in the west wanted to listen, up till recently; I still meet a lot of resistance from many when I try explaining the true nature of that religion, to them.

    It is sad and ironic how the media, many governments and their leaders, in the west, deal with it with a lot of respect and veneration, without asking themselves whether it was proofed by enough prior critical thinking or not. Most probably, they vet it to be good, simply because it has over 1 500 million followers.

    “Might makes right” is still at it, in the 21st, in full force! It proves that at least, the majority of human beings are not as rational as many of us thought or would have liked to think!

    All that science, technological advances, even the profound knowledge about the workings of the brain, concious, subconscious and the great role of the “pain, pleasure” dual, in shaping lives and destinies, at the end of the day, amount to, at least, almost nothing, given the fact that in the last 30 years, millions of lives were lost horrifically and needlessly, and still more to come, all because many people, including governments, leaders and media refused and still refuse to deal properly with the issue of Islam

  6. Bezelel says

    Dec 8, 2014 at 7:59 pm

    Jimmy the Cricket always said to “Let Your Conscience Be Your Guide” I guess Jimmy would be in deep doo doo in fakestein.

  7. Walid says

    Dec 8, 2014 at 8:17 pm

    So the Palestinians are afraid of speaking out against Hamas; now we know why we don’t see “unholy” demonstrations in Gaza or the West Bank. However, in a subtle play of dialectics, islam will eventually kill islam, because darkness and blood does not create anything, it only destroys and exterminates. Egypt is destroying the MB and Hamas. In a few year’s time, islam will be deeply endangered; maybe it will remain as some folkloric legend or ridiculed practice.

    • gravenimage says

      Dec 12, 2014 at 9:36 pm

      Maybe—but right now it is bloodily resurgent.

  8. profitsbeard says

    Dec 9, 2014 at 1:03 am

    Only a Death Cult forbids criticism or departure to those whom it ensnares.

    Until Islam lays down The Sword, we must take up our own… in defense of Civilization.

    Death Cults do not go away peacefully, so this critic got off lightly, so far.

  9. Dennis Trisker says

    Dec 9, 2014 at 5:08 am

    Bravo to this young atheist. As a non-believer myself I can’t imagine the pressures against freethinkers in Muslim countries. Of course the US has seven states with laws against atheists holding public office. This young man shoud be allowed to migrate to Israel which is a secular state.

  10. duh_swami says

    Dec 9, 2014 at 6:15 am

    Specialty atheism… It’s not hard to not believe in Allah. Most posters here don’t believe in Allah every day. Not believing in Allah is a JW standard. Enlightenment is just one article away.

  11. Crixus says

    Dec 9, 2014 at 1:01 pm

    Well done Waleed Al Husseini, you are a very brave man.

  12. dumbledoresarmy says

    Dec 10, 2014 at 8:14 am

    It is such a beautiful thing to see someone leaving Islam. Look at his face: he’s *alive*. I know he’s an atheist, but I still say – as I say of others, such as Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Ibn Warraq, Wafa Sultan – God bless him. God – the *real* God, the Holy One – protect him. I rejoice when *anyone* leaves Islam.

    When a human being who has been pickled in Islam from birth somehow manages – in spite of the monstrous threat of the apostasy law – to think their way free it is a miracle of the first order. It is like watching one of Tolkien’s mythical orcs miraculously transformed back into an Elf (in Tolkien’s fictional mythological world, Orcs were originally Elves, but were corrupted and twisted by Sauron’s master, the Dark Lord Morgoth).

  13. Savvy Kafir says

    Dec 10, 2014 at 2:41 pm

    This guy is my new hero! The world needs many more former Muslims with the courage to speak out against Islam — especially ones like him, who have rejected superstition entirely, and who see the Big Picture — i.e., it’s all BS, top to bottom.

  14. gravenimage says

    Dec 12, 2014 at 9:45 pm

    “Palestinian” atheist imprisoned, beaten for criticism of Islam
    ………………………

    Waleed Al Husseini is a very brave and principled man. Like many, though, he underestimated how oppressive and violent Islam had made his own society. I hope he considers relocating to Israel or the West—I doubt very much that he will ever be safe in the “Palestinian territories”, and things would be even worse in Gaza under Hamas.

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