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- Newsgroups: misc.activism.progressive
- Path: sparky!uunet!gatech!ukma!mont!pencil.cs.missouri.edu!rich
- From: ngrjn@milton.u.washington.edu (V Nagarajan)
- Subject: Fwd: Indian actors in UAE face death rap
- Message-ID: <1992Aug26.222036.28654@mont.cs.missouri.edu>
- Followup-To: alt.activism.d
- Originator: rich@pencil.cs.missouri.edu
- Sender: news@mont.cs.missouri.edu
- Nntp-Posting-Host: pencil.cs.missouri.edu
- Organization: University of Washington, Seattle
- Date: Wed, 26 Aug 1992 22:20:36 GMT
- Approved: map@pencil.cs.missouri.edu
- Lines: 48
-
- >From : Mahesh Yadav in misc.news.southasia
- >Source : Times of India, Aug,12,1992
-
- INDIAN ACTORS IN UAE FACE DEATH RAP
- ===================================
-
- Abu Dhabi, aug,11(AFP).
-
- A group of 11 Indian actors could face a possible death sentence after
- being arrested in United Arab Emirates(UAE) for allegedly insulting Islam, a
- Muslim cleric has warned.
-
- The actors, some of whom live in UAE, stagged the play in the UAE
- emirate of Sharjah in May and it triggered a public furore that the
- participants offended Jesus and Islam 's Prophet Mohammed.
-
- "We have received scores of calls expressing dismay at the play. The
- actors have been arrested", a police official told AFP.
-
- Entiled "ants feast on corpses", the play opens with three corpses
- lying on the stage. A villager asks if he can eat on of the corpses, which
- scholars who saw the videotape said represented Prophet Mohammed. The other
- corpses were Jesus Christ and Karl Marx.
-
- The actors were arrested in June and had been due to go on trial last
- week. However, the case has been adjourned until September.
-
- The UAE and other Gulf states are among the most conservative Muslim
- countries but it was not clear what punishment those actors would get if they
- are found guilty. A local Muslim cleric said they could face death.
-
- "The court is looking into their case and its complications", Sheikh
- Mohammed Abdul Razzak told the UAE magzine Al-Islah. "The sentence could be
- death if they were found to have insulted the Prophet on purpose".
-
- "It is another Satanic verses",Al-Islah said, in a reference to the
- British author Salman Rusdie's book that led to the late Iranian spritual
- leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini ordering the Indian born writer's death.
-
- Court sources said the actors had denied permission by Sarjah
- authorities to stage the play, which was also rejected by Kerala. But they
- went ahead with their plans and staged it on May,28 before a large audience
- of Indians, including Muslims and Christians, they added.
-
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