“Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” —Martin Luther King, Jr.

More injustice from one of America’s supposed allies, Egypt, as reported by Index on Censorship:

Leading woman novelist condemned for ‘insulting Islam’

Barely a week after an Egyptian blogger was sentenced to four years for inciting hatred towards Islam, the distinguished novelist Nawal El Saadawi faces similar threats from the country’s religious establishment. Jo Glanville reports.

Al Azhar, one of the leading religious centres in the Muslim world, is threatening legal action against the celebrated Egyptian writer and activist Nawal El Saadawi.

At a meeting this week, the Islamic Research Council agreed to present a petition against El Saadawi to the prosecutor general for her attacks on ‘God, the prophets and the heavenly religions’, according to the Egyptian newspaper Al Misry al Yom.

Dr El Saadawi is one of Egypt’s most celebrated writers and activists. She was a candidate in the last presidential election and believes that the current action against her is politically motivated. Al Azhar’s threats are just the latest in a number of attempts to intimidate the author.

The head of Al Azhar, Sheikh Mohammed Sayyid Tantawi has condemned El Saadawi’s play God Resigns at the Summit Meeting for allegedly offending Islam. Five of El Saadawi’s books – including the play – were banned at the Cairo bookfair in January. All copies of the play have been destroyed.

‘Political groups want to threaten writers and freethinkers,’ El Saadawi told Index on Censorship. ‘It’s a backlash. The whole of Egyptian society is going backwards.’ [full text]