Sunday, December 03, 2017

What Western media don't report about the Middle East: church censorship

A 65-year old Lebanese poet, Mustafa Sbayti, is languishing in Lebanese jail because he wrote on Facebook two weeks ago a poetic piece in which he said he wishes to "fornicate with the "virgin Mary".  There was a huge storm and both Muslims (who revere Mary and Christians) condemned his statement.  But that was not enough.  the poet apologized and removed his comment and admitted it was written under the influence of alcohol but the Catholic Media Center (which is a medieval-style censorship powerhouse, and which declared a few years ago that anyone who dares to criticize the Maronite Patriarch will be excommunicated) call for his arrest. He was arrested and is still in jail.  Today, the reactionary Greek Orthodox Bishop, Ilyas Awdah, attacked him publicly and called him a "drunk".  Some Gulf media called the poet "Hizbullah", when the man is an atheist communist and he has Lenin's picture on Facebook and named his daughter Lorca and his son Fidel.  Naturally, Human Rights Watch would not touch the issue because the poet in question does not belong to its right-wing camp of March 14.