Malaysia detains Saudi accused of prophet insult

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia — Malaysian police say they have detained a Saudi journalist who apparently fled his country after being accused of insulting the Prophet Muhammad on Twitter.

Jiddah-based newspaper columnist Hamza Kashgari triggered an uproar in his country this month after tweeting remarks about the prophet that many considered offensive.

A Malaysian federal police official said Kashgari was held on arrival at the Kuala Lumpur International Airport on Thursday. The official spoke on condition of anonymity Friday because he was not authorized to issue public statements.

Some Saudis have reportedly made death threats against Kashgari or called for him to be charged in court.

Malaysian officials declined to say whether the 23-year-old would be returned to Saudi Arabia soon. Phones at the Saudi Embassy rang unanswered Friday.

[KampungHighlander]

What is most disturbing about this is that Interpol allowed the Saudi's to issue a Red Notice even though Interpol's regulations explicitly rule out issuing a Red Notice when the "crime" is political or religious in nature. Interpol needs to answer why they violated their own rules.

[Galactic Cannibal]

Clearly these fanatics do not live or think in the 21st century. But far worse than that is our country the U.S. considers Saudi Arabia an ally. This is a country who buys $$billions of guns and bullets from U.S. Saudi Arabia sits on an ocean of oil but do not allow women to drive cars. And 15 of the 19 terrorists who attacked in 9/11 were Saudi Arabians. Notg one was IRAQI or Afghanistan

[kaze13]

Gota love our american exceptionlism, so long as the brown people do as we say and keep the us paid dictators in power we are happy with them but the moment they want power for the people of these countries the us is ready to blow them off the fact of the earth. Any country that is ruled by religion is going to have severe consquences for its people, one of the reasons why even though our founders where christian, they insisted on a seperation of church and state. Though seeing how well people like santorum are doing makes one really wonder about that seperation any more, though im betting most of the GOP and obama dont give a rats @$$ about the constitution so long as they get more power.