Another courageous journalist

The author and journalist David Pryce-Jones has his own blog, which is of great interest because of the incredible variety of subjects he is interested in.

His latest posting is about the fate of yet another supremely courageous journalist, Salahuddin Shoaib Choudhury.

In Dhaka, the Bangladeshi capital, he founded a magazine with the title The Weekly Blitz, and has published and edited it. The magazine calls for moderation, and rejects the Wahhabi extremism that Saudi Arabia is doing its utmost to export there, as everywhere, and which is causing such political and moral chaos. More than that, Choudhury believes in interfaith dialogue and advocates opening relations between Israel and the Muslim world.

Up with this they will not put. His office has been bombed and looted by masked gangs; his family persecuted; and now he is charged with sedition and "spying for Israel". Well, of course. Who but a spy would advocate open and peaceful relations between the Muslim world and Israel? Quelle canaille.

Shoaib Choudhury's case has been taken up by many in the blogosphere, including bloggers in Muslim countries (see here , here and here, among others) though not by the MSM much. Clearly, freedom of speech is of little interest.

We have pointed out before on this blog that we intend to help publicize, as far as we can, cases of journalist and bloggers being persecuted in their countries, whether it is for writing about subjects that are related to our own core themes or not. We have written about the Palestinian conflict and we have written about the peculiar position of Israel in the world.

The fact that in a Muslim country, not connected with Palestine in any way, writing on interfaith matters and advocating peaceful relations with Israel means a gaol sentence at the very least, speaks volumes.

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