On the 6th of November 2010, Palestinian blogger and activist Waleed Al Husseini was arrested by the Intelligence Services of the Palestinian Authorities in his hometown of Qalqilya in the West Bank. Waleed has anonymously created the widely controversial (and now defunct) ‘Allah’ page on Facebook. He also blogs about atheist issues (often stealing and/or plagiarizing other atheist writers while appropriating the text). As the official press clip reveals, The 26 year old was ‘caught in the act of diffusing atheist thought’ in an Internet café  by Intelligence Services after being duly tracked for two consecutive months.

First and least, I would like to congratulate the Services for their great achievement, building on painstaking and meticulous work. You know, when you’re a nation project under occupation, and wishing to gain the sympathy of the international community by proving that you CAN be a fully-functional nation which assumes the natural rights of its citizens, and when your occupier spares no PR muscle to position himself as the only ‘civil democracy’ in the region, your best bet is to follow and prosecute people who are committing the devious act of propagating their ideals.

I would also love to congratulate the Maan news agency for their brilliant journalistic flair. Not only have they sided with the Intelligence Services in demonizing Waleed for spreading atheist thought, but they have absolutely failed to understand that the Allah page on Facebook was all about discrediting the divinity of the Koran by proving that there’s nothing superhuman about its text, and instead reported Waleed as claiming divinity. I really would have respected you much more for acting professionally by denouncing his arrest as strongly as his plagiarism . Meanwhile, I’d rather turn to Haaretz for more reliable news on the Palestinian issue, which is a little ironic.

Last and most, I would like to applaud with unprecedented fervor the jaw-dropping tolerance of those people who commented on the article (most residents of Qalqilya as it seems?). Their calls for the cruelest acts of punishment against  Waleed (aided by wishes of divine sadism) is a crystal clear display of what religion truly means beyond the vain denial of apologetics: a well of bigotry, of censoring difference, of panicking at any attempt of  intellectual search and discourse, and of willing to forgo the tie that binds humanity: that basic instinct of geographical community. Waleed is not the son of Qalqilya anymore because he dared to differ. By ardently calling for his execution, you’re basically telling the world that an Arab/Palestinian individual exercising his basic human rights is much safer within the 48 territory than within the territories governed by his own kin. Again, well done. (Check this appalling community string in Arabic as well. It says it all. The only negatively rated comments are those which defend Waleed!)

Enough sarcasm. We have a pertinent issue here. We have an individual who was exercising his right to self-expression, and who’s facing dark uncertainties both from his government and (unfortunately) his own community. Please sign the petition to free Waleed here. Also please visit the Facebook page dedicated to his cause here.

Update 1

I have to say that my opinion on Waleed has changed since the time I published this post. A note on facebook suggests that he was plagiarizing the content of his blog. I verified some of the links and unfortunately found out that the claim is true. To me, Waleed is no more a freethinking hero, but more like a thief. Even with this realization, I maintain the conviction that he should be freed. What he is being detained and threatened for is his atheism, while he should be held accountable for his plagiarism. We all understand that both ‘crimes’ are not equal where he is detained and consequently our action to free him is still very much justified.