Academic in blasphemy row, liberals under pressure

An Egyptian public university has referred a lecturer to a disciplinary board for allegedly making blasphemous remarks – the latest in a series of moves against liberals in the Islamist-ruled country.

Officials at the Suez Canal University said the action against Mona el-Prince, a professor of English literature at the Teachers' College, was in response to complaints from her students.

“The move was taken after 40 students and the dean of the college complained that Dr Mona showed contempt for religion and spoke inappropriately about Muslim sheikhs,” said the university’s President Maher Musbah.

He added that the complainants also accused the lecturer of “talking about issues unrelated to the syllabus”.

El-Prince has vehemently denied the accusations. "I am a Muslim and have never insulted religion," she said.

The row started last month when the academic was giving a class on conversation in English. “The subject of conversation does not have a specific syllabus. It usually depends on discussing a topic of public interest,” she told a local television station.

At the time, the issue of sectarian sedition in Egypt was the focus of attention after incidents of violence between Muslims and Christians. El-Prince explained: "The lecture looked at different aspects of sectarianism in Egypt. I exchanged views with students.”

According to a report in Egypt’s Daily News, the lecture was titled “Is there racism and sectarianism in Egypt?”

Afterwards, some angry students lodged complaints with the college board. “The dean of the college told me on the phone not to show up, claiming he could not ensure my safety after I received anonymous death threats,” the professor revealed.

El-Prince said the college's deputy dean, whom she described as a follower of the ruling Muslim Brotherhood, had twice stopped her from giving lectures.

"The situation in Egypt has become confusing. Accusations are deliberately made against anybody who holds a different view,” she said, but vowed to continue to "promote the language of reasoning", despite alleged bids by hardline Islamists to block her efforts.

A popular uprising, which forced president Hosni Mubarak to step down in February 2011, has brought long-oppressed Islamists to power in Egypt.

In June last year Mohammed Mursi, a senior Brotherhood official, became Egypt's first democratically elected president. The country's liberals and Christian minority have voiced concerns about freedom of speech and beliefs under Islamist rule.

Dozens of Egyptian secularists and Mursi's critics have been probed for allegedly defaming Islam, the country's official religion, and Egypt has seen deadly Muslim-Christian violence in recent months.

The decision to question el-Prince has drawn condemnation from local rights advocates.

“Complaints filed about apparent contempt for religion mainly aim to suppress freedoms and silence opponents,” said Gamal Eid, the head of the Cairo-based non-governmental group Arab Network for Human Rights Information.

"Instead of accusing academics of insulting religion, inciters of sectarian unrest should be brought to justice,” he added. "It is also necessary to encourage university lecturers to open discussions to promote awareness among their students."

In the 1990s Hamed Nasr Abu Zeid, a professor of Islamic philosophy at Cairo University, infuriated Muslim militants with his unorthodox interpretation of Islam's holy book, the Quran.

They accused him of apostasy and requested a court to divorce him from his wife, Ibtihal Younis, a teacher of French literature. Sharia Islamic law forbids Muslim women from marrying non-Muslims. The court ordered Abu Zeid and Younis to divorce.

Shortly afterwards, the couple left Egypt and settled in The Netherlands, where he taught humanism and Islamic studies at Utrecht University. They returned to Egypt in May 2010 after 15 years in exile. Abu Zeid died two weeks later.