A well known Jordanian writer was shot and killed outside a court in Amman, Jordan on Sunday before he was set to appear in a trial over charges of sharing an anti-Islamic cartoon over Facebook, according to the state news agency Petra.
Nahed Hattar, a Christian-born atheist, was charged for inciting sectarian strife and insulting Islam after posting the cartoon on social media earlier this year.
The cartoon (seen below), entitled ‘The God of Daesh (ISIS),’ depicted an ISIS militant in heaven, sitting in between two women in bed, and asking for God to bring him a drink.
Petra reported that the gunman was arrested at the scene after shooting Hattar three times in the head at close range when he arrived for the hearing. According to a witness, Hattar’s two brothers and friend, who accompanied him, chased down the gunman and turned him over to the authorities.
The Jordanian government has denounced Hattar’s killing as a “heinous” crime, but his family is holding Jordan’s prime minister, Hani al-Mulki, responsible.
Saad Hattar, a cousin of the victim, said that the government did nothing when fanatics called on Nahed to be killed or lynched.
“The prime minister was the first one who incited against Nahed when he ordered his arrest and put him on trial for sharing the cartoon, and that ignited the public against him and led to his killing,” his cousin told the Guardian.
While many Jordanians believe the cartoon was an insult to Islam, Hattar insisted that he did not mean to insult Islam by posting the cartoon, rather to illustrate how ISIS “envisions God and heaven.”
Cartoonists and journalists have been killed for drawing depictions and caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad as recently as the shooting at the offices of the French magazine, Charlie Hebdo, in January 2015.
It appears that the list of what offends extremists and fanatics is only expanding, but to the vast majority of Muslims, killing in the name of God is much more offensive than any cartoon could ever be.
Watch Saad Hattar’s reaction to Nahed’s death below:
