In the wake of the rising tide of Islamism, which appears to be about to take charge of everything in Egypt, the top Egyptian comedian Adel Imam has been sentenced to three
In the wake of the rising tide of Islamism, which appears to be about to take charge of everything in Egypt, the top Egyptian comedian Adel Imam has been sentenced to three months prison and a EGP100 fine for disdaining Islam. Imam has taken his case to the court of appeals which will be seeing it on 3 April.
All over the world, films are attributed to the director or the author, who both possess the vision that materialised into film, while the actors and actresses are the role players. By what logic then may Imam be held responsible for the theme of a film, merely because he starred in it?
The lawsuit against Imam had been presented by one of the lawyers of the Muslim Brotherhood (MB), Assran Mansour, who accused him with insulting Islam in several of his films. Among these was the 1994 al-Irhabi (the Terrorist) written by Lenin al-Ramli and directed by Nader Galal; the 2008 Hassan and Morqos written by Youssef Ma’ati and directed by Rami Imam; and other films which tackled State corruption, such as the 1995 Toyour al-Zalam (Birds of the Darkness) written by Wahid Hamed and directed by Sherif Arafa.
Just the beginning?
The ruling against Imam may just be the beginning of the hurdles that would be placed in the way of Egyptian art and creativity. Yet it has to be remembered that a number of figures who had once spearheaded terrorist operations are now venerable Islamist MPs.
As I see it, it appears that the terrorists who reaped much benefits from the 25 January 2011 Revolution, have forgotten the blood-stained events they wrought in Egypt in the late of 1990s. The films of that period, among which were Imam’s, merely portrayed the bitter reality. The filmmakers did their bit in exposing terrorism and corruption, and their films were warmly welcomed by the public and were huge box-office successes. They unveiled the terrorists’ dark thoughts, unmasked their satanic plans, and depicted the dreadful crimes they committed against tourists, Copts, and Egyptians in general.
It was Islamist terrorists who assassinated the liberal writer Farag Fouda (1946 – 1992), and made an attempt on Nobel Laureate Naguib Mahfouz’s life, also in the 1990s. They conducted the horrendous Luxor massacre at the Deir al-Bahari paharaonic temple in 1997, killing some 58 tourists.
Imam’s films depicted no more than that; are the Islamists trying to blot out their black history from our memory? Do they hope to rewrite their history as a pure, innocent one?
It is to be feared that the sentence against Imam is merely the first drop in the torrent, it will be followed by the confiscation of books and papers and the implementation of Islamist censorship.
WATANI International
26 February 2012