12 - 18 July 2001
Issue No.542
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Al-Ahram Weekly Online 12 - 18 July 2001 Issue No.542 |
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Case of incitement
Nawal El-Saadawi expects a happy ending to the case brought against her by a lawyer demanding that she be divorced from her husband, reports Khaled Dawoud.
A Cairo personal status court will hand down its ruling on 30 July in the high-profile lawsuit brought by a lawyer against prominent feminist and novelist, Nawal El-Saadawi, demanding that she be divorced from her husband. The lawyer, Nabih El-Wahsh, claims that an interview Saadawi gave to an independent newspaper, Al-Midan, in early March included statements that were tantamount to a renunciation of Islam and, therefore, she cannot remain married to a Muslim man.
The case sent shock waves through Egyptian and international intellectual and feminist circles in which Saadawi is well-known as a staunch supporter of women's rights in Egypt and the Arab world. The lawsuit filed by El-Wahsh also triggered fears that a new wave of what are known as hisba cases could begin after more than seven years of relative quiet.
Hisba advocates claim that under Islamic law, any Muslim is entitled to take legal action on behalf of the public if he/she feels that the sanctity of religion is being harmed or about to be harmed.
In 1995, an Islamist lawyer filed a hisba lawsuit against university professor Nasr Hamed Abu-Zeid, demanding that Abu-Zeid be divorced from his wife, on the grounds that his writings allegedly violated religious teachings. To the surprise of most observers, the court ruled against Abu-Zeid, who has been living in exile in Holland with his wife since, while continuing to fight to have the ruling revoked. To prevent a repeat, the People's Assembly approved an amendment of the hisba law in 1996, banning citizens from going straight to court with their claims. Anybody who wants to file a hisba case has to go through the prosecutor-general, who will decide whether there are adequate reasons to take the matter to court.
The prosecutor-general's office had earlier refused to take to court a complaint filed by El-Wahsh against Saadawi, in which the lawyer accused her of "holding religion in contempt." And yet, El-Wahsh, who has filed other lawsuits to attract media attention, chose a different route and initiated legal proceedings with a personal status court.
The 70-year-old writer who has been married to 78-year-old Sherif Hetata for nearly four decades insists that she was misquoted by Al- Midan, and that many of her statements were taken out of context.
Three weeks after Saadawi's interview, the reporter who met her went to the mufti of the republic, Sheikh Nasr Farid Wassel, to seek his view on her alleged statements. The mufti said that if the reported Saadawi quotes were accurate, "that would oust her from the community of Muslims and she should be considered an apostate."
Hearings in the Saadawi trial opened in mid-June amid expectations that the court would reject the case in the first session because the necessary legal procedures were not followed. And the state did request the court to hand down such a decision. Thus, when the court decided to adjourn hearings until 9 July, human rights activists and Saadawi's supporters expressed surprise and misgivings.
But in the crowded Zananiri courtroom in Shubra on Monday, the judges did not give El-Wahsh much time to detail his demands. He asked the court to summon the mufti and the two reporters who interviewed Saadawi for questioning and to listen to a recording of the interview. He also claimed that the amendment introduced by parliament to the hisba law in 1996 was unconstitutional and asked the court's permission to file a case with the Constitutional Court.
Meanwhile, Saadawi's lawyer, Hamdi El-Assyouti, presented no argument other than to ask the court to throw out the case because it was not filed in accordance with legal procedures.
At the end of Monday's session, the judge turned down El-Wahsh's demands and decided to hand down a ruling on 30 July. El-Assyouti said that "this is good news." El-Wahsh, however, said he was not bothered, and that "even if this court rejects the case, I will file an appeal."
Although Saadawi did not attend the second session of hearings, the same heated debates that took place between her supporters and those of El-Wahsh at the opening of the trial were repeated on Monday. El- Wahsh stood in front of the court's entrance running after television cameras and reiterating his claims that Saadawi "wanted to spread immorality" and that she "disrespects Islam." Representatives from the London-based international human rights group, Amnesty International, and the Tunisian League for Human Rights were present in court to express solidarity with Saadawi.
Saadawi's husband, Hetata, was present in court and insisted that the "hisba law should be abolished once and for all. This type of law is an insult to Egypt's image and that of Islam. There is no way anybody can understand or appreciate forcing a couple to separate against their will."
Using his extraordinarily loud voice, El-Wahsh, however, managed to win some sympathisers from among average citizens passing outside the court. One man who introduced himself as a car mechanic said after listening to El-Wahsh that "Saadawi should be killed in the event she does not retract her comments. This is apostasy."
It is this kind of sentiment that deeply worries Egyptian intellectuals who support Saadawi. They say that even if the court rejects the case against her, there is no guarantee that a fanatic may not threaten her life.
In 1990, members of the clandestine Al-Gama'a Al-Islamiya assassinated secularist intellectual Farag Foda after a number of Muslim scholars issued a statement claiming that his writings were non-Islamic. In 1994, a young man stabbed Nobel prize winner, novelist Naguib Mahfouz, in the neck, also after some scholars ruled that a novel he wrote in the late 1950s contravened Islamic teachings.
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