Most would expect that an offensive cartoon depicting the Islamic State would only land a cartoonist in jail in territory ruled by the Islamic State itself. But this happened in Jordan, a country described as becoming increasingly “extremist.”
Of course, the coverage of this incident focuses on the cartoon’s depiction of Allah as being its offensive aspect. But its opposition to the Islamic State could have had something to do with this sentence as well. There is significant support for the Islamic State in Jordan. Jordan’s “moderate” king has threatened to confront Israel over giving Jews the right to pray on the Temple Mount, and a shocking report was released last January by the Jewish Press entitled “Jordan’s King Supports ISIS; YES, You Did Read This Right!”
“Jordanian cartoonist jailed for “offensive” anti-Daesh cartoon”, Albawaba (Thanks to Religion of Peace), August 15, 2016:
Jordanian cartoonist and political satirist Nahed Hattar recently turned himself into the police after a warrant was issued for his arrest this weekend, Jordanian news sources have reported.
This comes after he published a cartoon on his Facebook page lambasting Daesh (ISIS), and how they “envision heaven”. The cartoon shows the inside of a tent with a member of Daesh flanked by two women in bed with God peeking in through the tent’s opening. When God asks if the Daesh member needs anything, he replies that he’d like a beer, then the Daesh member repurposes several Islamic phrases from the 3rd person to the 2nd person in a mocking manner.
Almost immediately after posting, the controversy started with social media users infuriated by the depiction of God and Hattar’s indelicacy with the subject matter.
Hattar, a Jordanian Christian and self-described non-believer, is not a stranger to controversy. He was has previously come under fire for both being insensitive to religious views and for striking up ethnic differences – Hattar is a strong supporter of restricting Jordanians of Palestinian descent certain rights and privileges, a taboo topic in the ethnically-split Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan….