Journos Convicted, Fined for Insults to Islam

(Casablanca, Morocco) Last week, the editor-in-chief of Moroccan weekly Nichane, Driss Ksikes, and a journalist, Sanaa al-Aji, were put on trial for publishing jokes about Islam. They faced a possible five years in prison. Prosecutors considered the offense a most serious crime.

Today, Driss Ksikes and Sanaa al-Aji were convicted and sentenced.

The court gave three-year suspended sentences to Driss Ksikes, editor of Nichane, and to journalist Sanaa al-Aji, court officials said.

Both were barred from any journalistic activity for two months and the independent Arab-language magazine was suspended for two months. They were fined $9,280 each.

The sentence was milder than the three to five years in prison that prosecutors had requested.

For comparison, the Danish cartoonists received death fatwas for insulting Islam. Of course, they weren't Muslims as Dsikes and al-Aji are.

Incidentally, this whole episode supports my contention that Islam is a totally humorless ideology.