Israel Matzav

Egypt bans French and German newspapers

The third largest recipient of US foreign aid has banned editions of two French and German newspapers, Le Figaro and the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, because of articles deemed 'insulting to Islam,' the state news agency MENA said on Sunday.

Al-Reuters reports:

Under a decree issued by Information Minister Anas el-Feki, the two editions will not be able to enter the country, [MENA] said.

"They published articles which disparaged Islam and claimed that the Islamic religion was spread by the sword and that the Prophet ... was the prophet of evil," it added.

The edition of Le Figaro, dated September 19, contains an opinion piece on Islam and the Prophet Mohammad by French philosopher and high school teacher Robert Redeker.

"Merciless warrior, pillager, murderer of Jews and polygamist -- that is how Mohammad portrays himself in the Koran ... Hatred and violence live in the book by which every Muslim is educated, the Koran," Redeker wrote.

The edition of the German newspaper, dated September 16, contains an article by German historian Egon Flaig looking at how the Prophet Mohammad was a successful military leader.

Flaig presents other arguments supporting the view that Islam has had a violent history.

The Egyptian agency said: "The minister of information said that he would not allow any publication that insults the Islamic religion or calls for hatred or contempt of any religion to be distributed inside Egypt."

Someone please explain something to me. What's banned is apparently one edition of the paper, and not every edition of the paper going forward. But these papers were published a week to ten days ago. So what if they already entered Egypt? Will the Egyptian police go and find them?

And are they going to search all the arriving flights from Paris and Frankfurt to make sure that no one stuck a copy in their suitcase? This has lots of possibilities....

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 11:58 PM