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A version of this piece was first published in The Edge on 18 February

On 12 February Malaysia deported a young Saudi journalist named Hamza Kashgari where he is to face charges of blasphemy, an offence that carries the death sentence.

Kashgari fled Saudi Arabia after a controversy erupted after he used to social network Twitter to imagine a conversation with the Prophet Mohammed. Kashgari apologised and deleted the tweets in the hope that this would calm the situation. His efforts were insufficient and a directive was issued for his arrest for blasphemy. Kashgari fled the country, he hoped to secure political asylum in New Zealand but was arrested in Kuala Lumpur while in transit.

It seems that the Malaysian authorities would have rather kept the arrest and deportation off the radar. However, the news began to spread. The authorities began trying to justify themselves and their intended actions. It was suggested that the arrest was part of an Interpol initiative, though Interpol denied any knowledge of the matter.  Attempts were then made to characterise the affair as being part of an extradition exercise but Malaysia does not have an extradition treaty with Saudi Arabia.

Lawyers were appointed and began efforts to meet their client and to secure his release. They appear to have been given the run-around or kept in the dark about the fact that the authorities had already unilaterally decided to return Kashgari to Saudi Arabia. The procuring of an injunction from a High Court judge on Sunday to temporarily restrain the deportation came to nought; Kashgari had been deported earlier that morning despite awareness of the intended legal challenge.

One cannot help but question the manner in which the Malaysian authorities conducted themselves. Malaysia was under no legal obligation to return the journalist to Saudi Arabia and the two countries are not bound by an extradition treaty, meaning what Kashgari has done in Saudi Arabia is not of relevance in Malaysia. Kashgari had not committed any offence in Malaysia and had entered the country on a valid travel document. He was not intending to stay in Malaysia; his final port of call was New Zealand.

There is a more fundamental question: what was Kasghari arrested for? That has not been made clear by the authorities; all they have said is that he is wanted in Saudi Arabia. Under Malaysian law a person is guaranteed life and liberty and can only be arrested for having committed a crime. Kashgari did not commit a crime here, he was entitled to contest the legality of his arrest. This is why his lawyers ultimately filed a habeas corpus application.

The situation is ironic. The Home Minister has attempted to justify the deportation as an extradition. But were this to be the case, the person sought to be extradited would be entitled to challenge the validity of the extradition order. Those who have been following the extradition proceedings concerning Julian Assange would have seen how aggressively he has opposed extradition. In the same way, General Augustus Pinochet had fought his extradition to Spain. In such cases it is open to the person sought to be extradited to show that were he to be extradited, he would face consequences that were harsher than those permitted in the deporting country.

Where Kashgari is concerned, this was clearly the case. He is facing a death sentence for having done something that would either not have been an offence in Malaysia or would not have carried a death sentence.

The very real possiblity of Kashgari being sentenced to death has been studiously avoided by the Malaysian authorities. They take the position that this is an internal Saudi matter. Curiously, the Home Minister has gone on to say that Malaysia is not to be seen as a haven for terrorists; the offence Hamza is said to have committed does not concern an act of terrorism.

And underlying all of this is the fact that the Malaysian authorities did not have to intervene at all. Kashgari could have been left to take his flight to New Zealand and the problem would have been New Zealand’s.

All of this marshals into one inescapable conclusion. The Malaysian government acted only in its own interests and chose to prioritise diplomatic expediency over the lawful rights of Hamza Kashgari, even though this may ultimately cost the columnist his life. In doing so, the government acted in complete defiance of legal obligations it was under.

I am not alone in this view. The National Human Rights Commission (SUHAKAM) has condemned the authorities for having acted as they did.

For all its talk about moderation,  progress and commitment to the fundamentals of the international human rights framework, it is regrettable that the Malaysian government appears to be willing to uphold human rights only where it is politically convenient to do so. Put more plainly, it just does not seem to care.

Were it otherwise, Hamza Kashgari would have had his day in court.

Malik Imtiaz Sarwar is a practising lawyer and the president of the Malaysian National Human Rights Society. He tweets at @malikimitiaz

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Can a tweet kill? Yes, if you live in Saudi Arabia and have Interpol working for the killers. All a 23-year-old Saudi  provincial journalist, Hamza Kashgari, did was tweet on the anniversary of the birth of  the Prophet Mohammed. His tweet read: “On the day of your birth, I find you wherever I turn. I like some things about you but I have given up others and there’s lots I don’t understand about you.”

By the standards of a Hitchens or a Dawkins, the tweet was not exactly a profession of atheism. But it was enough for the Saudis to take time off from pouring money into their campaigns to establish Wahabi Islamism as the norm in Egypt, Tunisia and now Syria to attack the young man. He was banned from his work as a local journalist by the Minister of Information. The Saudi Islamist preacher Nasser al-Omar went on television to call for the execution of the “blasphemer.” There were tears in his eyes as he announced that Islamism demanded the tweeter be put to death.

The Saudi Council of Fatwas  announced Kashgari was guilty of apostasy — a crime which carried the penalty of beheading by sword carried out by the régime which Britain, the USA and European leaders like Merkozy never dare criticise.

Sensibly enough the young writer withdrew his tweet, apologised in every way he could, and said he would give up tweeting.

The charge of apostasy was maintained, his home was attacked and, again, sensibly enough, Kashgari decided it was time to leave Saudi Arabia. The response of the Saudis was to approach Interpol and ask them to issue an international search and arrest warrant.

Interpol is meant to be tackle serious crime, not act as the little helper for régimes that want to kill journalists. Kashgari headed for New Zealand hoping to win asylum status there. New Zealand is about as far away as you can get from Saudi Arabia and does not have the constant press and political attacks on political refugees and human rights that many other democracies now are infected by. But he was detained in Malaysia at Kuala Lumpur airport. Despite appeals to the Malaysian government, this nominally democratic Commonwealth country decided to kow-tow to the Saudis and sent Kashgari home. Malaysia has no extradition treaty with Saudi Arabia and was under no legal obligation to send him back but as in so many other Commonwealth nations the notion of human rights is extremely limited.

Now the world waits to see his fate. Pressure is important. This time last year the Egyptian military police arrested an Egyptian blogger. Maikel Nabil. He was jubilant about the fall of Mubarak but as he saw the increasing role of the military he criticised the soldiers. A military tribunal sentenced him to three years in prison but an effective international campaign got under way and on Saturday I got a letter from the Egyptian ambassador announcing that Nabil has been freed and pardoned.

So once again it is time to write to the Saudi Ambassador, and to William Hague so that our Ambassador in Riyadh can make protest. The Commonwealth Secretary General should get involved too, as it is to Malaysia’s shame that they send this harmless young man to the possibility of a dusty public square and the executioner’s sword. The Home Secretary too should ask why Interpol is acting as an agent for the most blood-thirsty and cruel of régimes. Might Twitter pay for his legal defence? And when one of our Royals takes tea with one of their Royals perhaps a few whispered words might be muttered about why in the 21^st century Royals — Muslim, Christian, whatever —  should not chop off heads because of a tweet.

Denis MacShane is MP for Rotherham and a former FCO minister

 UPDATE 15/02/11: Interpol has claimed that it was not involved in the pursuit of Hamza Kashgari

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The case of journalist Hamza Kashgari has entered a new and deeply worrying phase as Malaysian authorities have deported the 23-year-old journalist back to Saudi Arabia, where he could be executed for “blasphemy”. There has been widespread and rightful opprobrium of the Saudi government’s response but few seem to question the official Saudi line that their indignation at alleged blasphemy is behind the call for the death penalty. Specifically, the government claims Hamza’s tweets, in which he appeared to express irreverence for the Prophet, is the source of its vendetta against him.

The tweets represented an imaginary conversations with Prophet Mohammed, in which Hamza expressed both admiration, reproach and confusion: “On your birthday, I will say that I have loved the rebel in you, that you’ve always been a source of inspiration to me, and that I do not like the halos of divinity around you. I shall not pray for you”, he stated. Few have questioned whether the charges are actually a front to stifle discussion over broader political issues, which Hamza raised in other tweets and writings. According to Hamza himself, he is part of the young generation of Saudis who are increasingly resentful of the state’s intransigence and are seemingly willing to risk official wrath in expressing their views. “It’s not logical that, if someone disagrees with the Saudi government, that he should be forced to leave the country. Many of those who have been arrested are fighting for simple rights that everyone should have — freedom of thought, expression, speech and religion.”

The masquerade of religious offence is a poorly constructed artifice to continue to limit the basic human rights of Saudi nationals, including freedom of speech and gender equality. Fostering a climate of fear and oppression is the best guarantee of compliance and Islam is a traditional rallying cry for the masses, ensuring public support at a time of broader upheaval. The monarchy is particularly concerned about dissent at a time when the region has been rocked by protests which have seen longstanding despots ousted and others relinquishing political concessions to avoid instability.

One of Hamza’s tweets was a criticism of the status of women in the kingdom, which the monarchy is keen not to see stirred up, particularly in the wake of the on-going campaign by Saudi women to challenge a long-standing driving ban. It is entirely likely that Hamza’s tweet that “No Saudi women will go to hell, because it’s impossible to go there twice” along with his broader critiques of the regime, are at the real root of the government’s fury.

Saudi Arabia presents itself as the defender of Islam and justifies much of its unacceptable legal and political repression through the prism of religious exceptionalism. The reality is that fewer and fewer Muslims look to Saudi Arabia as reflection of Islamic values and many more support the young generation of Saudis’ struggle for basic human rights.

The current controversy is an opportunistic attempt to rouse Islamic sentiment for a profoundly illegitimate dictatorship, whose shameful abuses of power cannot and should not be masked by the ill-fitting “defence of Islam”.  If Saudi Arabia executes Hamza, it will be in the name of perpetuating its fundamentally un-islamic political oppression and nothing to do with the compassionate model of the Prophet, whose name they claim to be acting upon.

Myriam Francois-Cerrah is a writer, journalist andbudding academic

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