Job opportunity in Saudi Arabia: they’re hiring executioners.

Saudi Arabia is advertising for eight new executioners, recruiting extra staff to carry out an increasing number of death sentences, usually done by public beheading.

No special qualifications are needed for the jobs whose main role is “executing a judgment of death” but also involve performing amputations on those convicted of lesser offences, the advert, posted on the civil service jobs portal, said.

Not a bad job at all; just cutting off heads and hands. Light, healthful work in a pleasant environment.

The Islamic kingdom is in the top five countries in the world for putting people to death, rights groups say. It ranked third in 2014, after China and Iran, and ahead of Iraq and the United States, according to Amnesty International figures.

Great company my country keeps, isn’t it – China, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Iraq. Murderers’ Row.

A man beheaded on Sunday was the 85th person this year whose execution was recorded by the official Saudi Press Agency, compared to 88 in the whole of 2014, according to Human Rights Watch (HRW). Amnesty said there were at least 90 executions last year.

Most were executed for murder, but 38 had committed drugs offences, HRW said. About half were Saudi and the others were from Pakistan, Yemen, Syria, Jordan, India, Indonesia, Burma, Chad, Eritrea the Philippines and Sudan.

Well at least the US doesn’t execute people for drugs offences. Yet.

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

HRW on Indonesia’s “virginity test”:

Virginity testing is a form of gender-based violence and is a widely discredited practice. In November 2014, the World Health Organization issued guidelines that stated, “There is no place for virginity (or ‘two-finger’) testing; it has no scientific validity.”

Indonesia’s coordinating minister for politics, law, and security, Tedjo Edhi, acknowledged that the military requires the tests on November 18, 2014, the day that Human Rights Watch issued a report about “virginity testing” for female National Police candidates. Maj. Gen. Fuad Basya, the armed forces spokesman, said that the Indonesian military has conducted “virginity testing” on female recruits for even longer than the police, without specifying when the practice began. Human Rights Watch research found that all branches of the military – air force, army, and navy – have used the test for decades and also extended the requirement to the fiancées of military officers.

It kind of makes you wish the whole childbearing thing could be shifted to factories instead of human women’s bodies, so that women and men could relate to each other without anyone worrying about whose sperm is/might be inside which woman.

Human Rights Watch interviewed 11 women – military recruits and fiancées of military officers – who had undergone the test at military hospitals in Bandung, Jakarta, or Surabaya; a female officer at the military health center; and a doctor who worked in a military hospital in Jakarta. Applicants and fiancées who were deemed to have “failed” were not necessarily penalized, but all of the women described the test as painful, embarrassing, and traumatic.

All of the women interviewed told Human Rights Watch that it was required of all other women applying to enter the military or planning to marry military officers. They said that the only women excluded were those with “powerful connections” or who bribed the military doctors who administered the tests. Human Rights Watch found that the testing included the invasive “two-finger test” to determine whether female applicants’ hymens are intact. Finger test findings are scientifically baseless because an “old tear” of the hymen or variation of the “size” of the hymenal orifice can be due to reasons unrelated to sex.

Plus there’s the fact that a soldier’s virginity or non-virginity really has nothing to do with being a soldier.

Indonesia’s National Police responded to the Human Rights Watch exposure of police use of “virginity testing” by supporting the practice. A senior police official, Inspector General Moechgiyarto, on November 18 confirmed the requirement, defending it as a means of ensuring “high moral standards.” He suggested to the media that those failing the test were prostitutes.

Again the reduction of morality to more or less sexual activity.

Human Rights Watch has advocated ending “virginity testing” in other countries, including Egypt, India, and Afghanistan. These procedures have been recognized internationally as a violation of human rights, particularly the prohibition against cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment under article 7 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and article 16 of the Convention against Torture, both of which Indonesia has ratified.

But if you think morality boils down to policing women’s access points, well, never mind your pesky conventions against torture then. Safety first.

Indonesian Women Speak Out on “Virginity Testing” in the Indonesian Armed Forces:

I initially learned from other physicians performing the “virginity test” in our hospital. The women were positioned like women giving birth. In 2008, I administered the test myself. Those young women were totally unwilling to be positioned in such an opened position. It took an effort to make them willing to [undergo the virginity test]. It was not [just] a humiliating act anymore. It was a torture. I decided not to do it again.
—A female physician in a military hospital in Jakarta

On the one hand women must be fiercely policed so that they don’t allow random people to have access to their Significant Orifice, on the other hand women must let some stranger check their Significant Orifice for evidence of random people having access. You just can’t win.

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

A news item from the Jakarta Globe:

Jakarta. The commander of Indonesia’s armed forces believes that invasive virginity tests for female recruits are a good thing and the only way to gauge the women’s morality.

Asked for his response to growing international condemnation of the practice, Gen. Moeldoko insisted to reporters at the State Palace in Jakarta on Friday that the so-called two-finger test was one of the requirements for women joining the Indonesian Military, or TNI.

“So what’s the problem? It’s a good thing, so why criticize it?” he said.

The WHAT?

He conceded, though, that there was no direct link between a woman being a virgin and her abilities as a member of the armed forces, but insisted that virginity was a gauge of a woman’s morality – one of the three key traits he said a woman must have to serve in the TNI, along with high academic aptitude and physical strength.

The virginity test “is a measure of morality. There’s no other way” to determine a person’s morality, Moeldoko claimed.

A person’s? How do they determine men’s morality then? They don’t stick two fingers up’em, I assume, so what do they do?

Also – I know it’s obvious, but what a ridiculous notion of morality. So you can be cruel, sadistic, violent, selfish, and tyrannical, but as long as you’re a virgin, you’re a moral person? Really?

Human Rights Watch has told Indonesia to stop doing this, so that’s why Moeldoko was asked for his thoughts.

The Indonesian Council of Ulema, or MUI, the country’s highest Islamic authority, has also come out in opposition to the practice, saying it goes against Muslim jurisprudence, Tempo reported on Saturday.

Syarifudin Damanhuri, the head of an East Java district chapter of the MUI, suggested a religion test instead, arguing that it would give military recruiters a better profile of an individual’s character than a virginity test ever could.

No. No, that won’t do either.

To justify the tests, military officers told female recruits they were crucial to preserving “the dignity and the honor of the nation,” HRW said.

Officers who wish to marry require a letter of recommendation from their commanders, who only issue them upon confirmation that the fiancée has undergone a medical examination, including the “virginity test” at a military hospital.

WHAT??

Sorry to keep shouting, but really. Women who plan to marry officers have to get a “virginity test” at a military hospital?! That’s grotesque.

I wonder if the hospitals require the women to wear high heels while they’re being “tested.”

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

Tarek Fatah thinks highly of my friend Taslima Nasreen.

On my way to Delhi’s Indira Gandhi airport Sunday night for a flight back to Canada, I made a detour to pay my respects to someone I consider the bravest woman alive today — exiled Bangladeshi author, Taslima Nasreen.

I think many people consider her that, and rightly so.

Despite the security, this woman of steel, who has braved both physical and verbal assaults over her last 20 years in exile, sounds despondent.

She tells me, “The jihadi death squads of Bangladesh, who have killed three secular writers in three months, have now added my name to their list.”

Swiping her iPad, Nasreen shows me the threat made on Twitter by someone using the now-deleted handle @JihadForKhilafa, a call to wage jihad to establish an Islamic Caliphate.

“@TaslimaNasreen u r also among the 84 who r on the hitlist. Count ur days -;” the message reads.

Nasreen repeats a line from the award-winning Bangla film Nirbashito about freedom of speech, based on her life.

“It’s the pen and the sword; the sword always wins.”

We’ve been watching the sword win victory after victory lately.

Nasreen smiles, as she often does, with a wicked twinkle in her eyes, but I sense an air of despondency in her.

“We will win,” I tell her, trying to infuse her with some optimism.

“Kaisa jeeta ga, tumm bhi tho bhag gaya?” she asks me in jest.

(“How can we win, when you, too, are running away?”)

She speaks in a lilting, Urdu accent, reminding me of the 1970s, when both of us were citizens of Pakistan.

“No, I am not running away,” I protest. “I will fight the cancer of Islamofascism until it’s defeated.”

But she isn’t convinced.

“That’s your problem, Tarek,” she tells me, “stop fooling yourself, (the problem is) Islam, not Islamofascism.”

“I, too, am a European citizen”, she lectures me. “I too, can live in Europe, but I choose to fight the extremists here in India. This is where the epic ‘Ghazwa-e-Hind’ (will occur).”

This refers to the end-of-time battle Prophet Mohammed is said to have predicted, where non-Muslims will come under Islamic control, triggering the long-awaited Islamic Armageddon.

Nasreen taunts me, arguing this war will not be waged by jihadis in air-conditioned Canada.

“Come to Canada,” I suggest.

“Really?” she responds sarcastically. “I can never forget the mob of Muslim students in Montreal’s Concordia University, who successfully disrupted my speech, and I had to be taken away by police.”

Swords clanged in the background.

We part, knowing we may never meet again.

The woman I consider the world’s bravest feminist, who has no family, siblings, parents or children, just her conviction and integrity, beams me a smile.

I am teary-eyed as I say “Khuda Hafiz”, (“May God be your Protector”), a parting wish banned by Islamists in Bangladesh and Pakistan, but not yet in India.​

And may she not need any protectors.

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

Another Mighty Girl.

18-year-old Sonita Alizadeh never expected her love of rap music to change her life. When the Afghan-born singer was 14 years old, she was devastated to learn that her parents were arranging a marriage for her. In response, she wrote and recorded a powerful song called “Brides for Sale.” Not only did it change her parents’ minds, but the attention her music video generated has led to new opportunities and given her the chance to speak out on behalf of girls forced into child marriages around the world.

Sonita fled Afghanistan with her family to Tehran, Iran when she was eight years old. She discovered a non-profit organization that offered programs for undocumented Afghan kids; there she learned karate, photography, and had her first lessons in singing and rapping. Her lyrical ability quickly caught people’s attention, and she started working with an Iranian director who helped her polish her style and make her first music videos. She had high hopes for pursuing her interest in music until one day her mother told her: ‘You have to return to Afghanistan with me. There’s a man there who wants to marry you. Your brother’s engaged and we need your dowry money to pay for his wedding.”

Crushed by the prospect of being forced into a child marriage, Sonita poured her feelings into a new song, “Brides for Sale.” In the music video, she appears dressed as a bride with a bruised face and a barcode on her forehead. It begins: “Let me whisper, so no one hears that I speak of selling girls. My voice shouldn’t be heard since it’s against Sharia. Women must remain silent… this is our tradition.” She was worried what her parents would think of the video, but to her relief, they loved it and told her she didn’t have to marry. “It means so much to me that my family went against our tradition for me,” Sonita said in an interview with PRI. “Now I’m somewhere that I never imagined I could be.”

Sonita’s music attracted such attention that she was offered a full scholarship to an arts academy in Utah and she recently held her first US concert in San Francisco. Although Sonita is thrilled by the opportunities she’s finding in the US, her heart remains back home with the millions of women she knows still live with discrimination, forced marriage, and worse. She told PRI, “I sometimes I think about the fact that I could have been a mother right now — with a few kids. It’s not a thought I like.” But she hopes that her music can make a difference for other girls and women like her: “Rap music lets you tell your story to other people. Rap music is a platform to share the words that are in my heart.”

Watch a subtitled video of her song “Brides for Sale” on YouTube. You can read more about Sonita’s story on PRI.

To learn more about the crisis of child marriage worldwide, photojournalist Stephanie Sinclair’s eight-year-long investigation into the practice has been turned into a 10-minute video call to action by the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting. Watch the video, “Too Young to Wed: The Secret World of Child Brides,” which is not recommended for young viewers due to graphic content.

To learn more about the movement to end child marriage and how to get involved, visit Girls Not Brides, a global partnership of over 300 civil society organizations from around the world.

For several books about Mighty Girls who fought against child marriages, check out “Homeless Bird” for ages 9 to 13 (http://www.amightygirl.com/homeless-bird), “The Lightning Dreamer” for ages 13 and up (http://www.amightygirl.com/the-lightning-dreamer), and “I Am Nujood, Age 10 and Divorced” for ages 16 and up (http://www.amightygirl.com/i-am-nujood).

For stories of both real-life and fictional girls and women confronting gender discrimination and prejudice in a multitude of forms, visit our “Gender Discrimination” section at http://www.amightygirl.com/books/social-issues/prejudice-discrimination?cat=69

For a highly recommended book for older teens and adults that discusses how girls and women are fighting back against oppression and transforming their communities, check out: “Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide” at http://www.amightygirl.com/half-the-sky

There are also two films that explore the transformative potential and power of girls and women in developing countries – both for ages 13 and up: the documentary based on the “Half the Sky” book (http://www.amightygirl.com/half-the-sky-documentary) and “Girl Rising” (http://www.amightygirl.com/girl-rising).

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

Of course. Obama got a shiny new POTUS Twitter account, and he tweeted a tweet to see if it worked. Ten minutes later, the Twitter scummerati were calling him “nigger.” Of course they were.

Here at [New Civil Rights Movement], announcing the news about 45 minutes later, we joked, “Someone’s going to have to break it to him that he doesn’t get to keep the account when he leaves office…”

But back on Twitter, it took conservatives all of ten minutes to start engaging in despicable acts, by calling President Obama “nigger.”

@POTUS get cancer nigger

— Doxful (@DoxfulTheGod) May 18, 2015

That was the first, but hardly the last. A quick search this morning found 60 tweets that included @POTUS and nigger…

Twitter means never having to filter what you say.

Jonathan Capehart at the Washington Post has some thoughts.

There are moments when I come this close to quitting Twitter. The amount of hatred squeezed into 140 characters or less by lunatics usually cloaked in anonymity is enough to make you question your support for the First Amendment and your faith in the decency of other people. To the uninitiated, the torrent of bigotry can leave you feeling violated. Even the most seasoned, battle-scarred, seen-it-all, can’t-nuthin’-shock-me individual will be left O-o by the filth in his or her Twitter feed.

Especially her.

If you follow me on the beast that is Twitter, you have seen me do battle with racists, homophobes and the willfully uninformed and ignorant. I strongly believe those folks need to be exposed[,] for sunlight is the best disinfectant, as the saying goes. And I strongly believe those folks need to endure the public censure and ridicule that comes with being revealed as a hate-filled bigot. It is then that whatever sliver of hope I have in humanity is restored.

A pretty thought, but since most of them are anonymous, they can’t be exposed, can they.

Welcome to Twitter, Mr Obama.

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

Originally a comment by A Masked Avenger on Guest post: Narrative in literature is about explaining something. 

Narrative is a particularly engaging form of explaining.

Engaging… and dangerous. I can tell a story about how a woman saves herself from an attacker in the park by shooting him with her concealed weapon, and influence readers to believe (a) that “normal” attacks against women are by strangers in parks, and (b) women would be safer if only they carried more guns.

Or I can tell a story about a concerned, caring Earl, who sticks by his servants despite their being arrested twice and charged (falsely, of course) with two different murders, and who spends himself to the brink of penury all for the welfare of his tenants.

Or about the woman plantation owner whose slaves are heartbroken by the emancipation proclamation and insist on continuing to work for her without pay because she’s such a wonderful mistress.

Or about the libertarian paradise, or the socialist paradise, or… or… or…

I’m having trouble tracking it down, but I seem to recall that Mary Roberts Rinehart wrote a popular novelization of a famous crime, in which she exonerated the counterpart of the person who was actually convicted for the crime, with the effect of convincing many people that the person was innocent after all. I’m probably misremembering that it resulted in an actual pardon. In any case, again IIRC, Rinehart’s theory of the case was deemed unsupportable.

Whether or not that’s accurate, there are enough examples in which novels and movies “based on actual events” have colored public memory of those events to the point that misconceptions of those events are more prevalent than accurate knowledge.

I don’t see a solution to the problem, but we’re suckers for a good story. To a terrifying extent.

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

Annals of Gender Policing. Anna Merlan at Jezebel reports:

The Cannes Film Festival is reportedly not allowing women into screenings if they’re wearing flat shoes.

Into screenings. It would be bad enough if it were the Top Gala Codfish Ball, but it’s screenings. People go to screenings as part of their work, as well as for entertainment and enlightenment. The Cannes Film Festival is a professional event as well as social and festive and so on.

And then there’s the issue of what high heels are, which is a form of temporary and comparatively mild foot-binding. The bones aren’t actually broken as they are in footbinding (although high heels can easily cause broken bones in the feet and anywhere else, because they’re highly unstable – that’s the whole point of them), but they are pinched and bent.

A few days ago I saw a pair of woman-man couples cross the street on their way to a wedding in a local park. The street there is pocked and lumpy, as city streets so often are. Both women looked all but disabled by the task – their posture was hunched and distorted as they picked each step carefully in their towering heels. The men of course were just walking in a normal confident manner. It creeps me out that this is just normal. I think most people consider foot-binding (if they’re aware of it) grotesque and deeply misogynist, yet high heels are a close relative of foot-binding but they’re seen as normal…and in Cannes, actively mandated.

Flatgate erupted on Twitter this week after several women were apparently turned away from a red carpet screening of Cate Blanchett’s new movie Carol because they were in the demon flats. According to Screen Daily, the screening was on a Sunday night and the women weren’t exactly wearing Keds:

Multiple guests, some older with medical conditions, were denied access to the anticipated world-premiere screening for wearing rhinestone flats.

The festival declined to comment on the matter, but did confirm that it is obligatory for all women to wear high-heels to red-carpet screenings.

That’s just sick. High heels are a body-deforming article of clothing, just as tight corsets are. Nobody should be making them obligatory for anyone.

And as Village Voice film critic Stephanie Zacharek notes, heels are always red carpet-appropriate (Full disclosure: Zacharek is a friend and former coworker, and possibly the most stylish woman in journalism).

Stephanie Zacharek ‏@szacharek
So let me get this straight: I could wear these on the red carpet at Cannes… (1/2)

But not a gorgeous pair of Manolo Blahnik flats she shows next.

I have to say though, I would love to see someone wear those.

(And then take them off and wear a gorgeous pair of flats.)

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

There was this human rights outrage in February –

On the night of 16th February, the latest victim in Bahrain’s war on domestic dissent was arrested by masked policemen in Manama, the tiny Gulf Kingdom’s capital. The target on this occasion wasHussain Jawad, head of the European-Bahraini Organisation for Human Rights (EBOHR), who is well-known for his condemnation of abuses committed by the regime.

Jawad is at the time of writing being held in detention by the regime, and according to EBOHR (in a statement collected from Mr Jawad through his lawyer) has been subjected to torture, beatings and sexual abuse. These assaults are alleged to have taken place at Manama’s notorious Crime Investigation Directorate (CID) site.

The purpose of Jawad’s alleged mistreatment appears to have been to punish him for his rights advocacy and to silence a staunch critic of the government – if possible, by finding grounds to lock him up permanently.

The US Navy parks the Fifth Fleet in Bahrain.

At any rate, Elham Manea just told us Jawad has been released.

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

Kate Clancy has some thoughts on boys with toys. She got angry listening to that NPR segment.

Kulkarni: “Many scientists are I think, secretly, are what I call ‘boys with toys.’”

Palca: “Boys with toys.”

Kulkarni: “And I think there’s nothing wrong with that, except—“

Palca: “Boys with toys.”

Kulkarni: “—you’re not supposed to say that.”

In the style that now seems to be the norm on NPR, Palca’s voice interrupts Kulkarni’s. When he repeats Kulkarni’s phrase, his delivery is both amused and authoritative, with emphasis on both the words boys and toys. An opportunity to engage Kulkarni on what may have been a misstep becomes instead a reinforcement, by Palca, of gender norm expectations.

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

Originally a comment by latsot on And full as much heart.

I can’t decide whether the idea that narrative is necessary for empathy is depressing or encouraging. Over the years I learned, when writing grant proposals, first to tell a story about the technology I’m pretending I’m going to build and then later to tell a story about how the people reviewing the proposal will use that technology. Often, it’s a story about how they’ll write their own grant proposals based on the proposed technology, whether it ever exists or not. That’s one of the reasons computer science isn’t really science.

This approach has been spectacularly successful and, as I said, I can’t decide whether that’s good or bad. But persuading people to support a cause – even to the extent of spending enormous sums of money on it – is often seriously helped out by narrative. By literature. By spinning a yarn. By telling a tale with the reader as the protagonist, as the hero. Or even as the villain; I’m talking about computer science, after all.

That should surprise nobody. But in my experience, that narrative sticks and will make the people who bought into it more inclined to support future projects, regardless of the success or otherwise of the previous ones.

It wouldn’t surprise me much if those of us who did a lot of our earlier socialising via literature had a more well-established and fundamental sense of empathy than some others, even if (though?) we’re shit at actually interacting with real people. Narrative in literature is about explaining something. Someone’s feelings, their motives, their intentions. Sometimes it’s about explaining those things about someone who isn’t a party to the discussion. Sometimes it’s an argument about a third party’s feelings or motives, sometimes speculative.

Either way, it’s an artificial construct designed to help tell a story and I have a nagging suspicion that something about that abstraction can help tune natural inclinations toward empathy.

Or perhaps people who read a lot of books are just awesome, I don’t know.

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

Default male strikes again.

NPR ran an interview with astronomer and Cal Tech professor Shrinivas Kulkarni yesterday, and overall it’s relatively mild. But less than two minutes in, Kulkarni manages to say something dumb: “Many scientists, I think, secretly are what I call ‘boys with toys’.” It’s one of those quotes that makes you cringe and roll your eyes simultaneously. Even NPR’s Joe Palca cautiously repeats the phrase back to Kulkarni. Twice. “Boys with toys,” he muses, “Boys with toys.”

But with his ill-advised, off-the-cuff remark, Kulkarni touches on a big problem: defaulting to a certain gender (usually male)

Gotta stop you for a second there. When it’s a default it’s always male. That’s sort of the point.

Although it can work the same way but with women in the sentence, that’s true – in sentences that assume women will be the ones to make the coffee, for instance. Ok, carry on.

defaulting to a certain gender (usually male) when referencing a diverse group of people is not only dated and closed-minded, it also doesn’t make sense — and many people don’t even think twice about it. The idea of STEM fields as “boys clubs” isn’t unfounded, but Kulkarni seems to have forgotten all about his female colleagues and students. Luckily, Twitter, oasis of calling people on their shit, has decided to call Kulkarni on his shit.

Last night, the hashtag #girlswithtoys was born, with female scientists around the world sharing photos of themselves working with tools, machines, and concepts from their fields.

And so, let’s see some of them.

Cool toys.

From Los Alamos Labs:

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

Among Charles Windsor’s letters to governments released the other day were those about “herbal remedies.” Charles Windsor, with no scientific training, feels qualified and entitled to influence public policy on medical issues.

Tony Blair agreed to postpone implementation of new EU rules restricting the sales of herbal medicines in the UK after lobbying by the Prince of Wales in February 2005, letters published on Wednesday reveal.

The then-prime minister told the prince, who had given him “sensible and constructive” contacts in the herbal medicines world, that he would be “consulting with your colleagues and others” on the best way to bring about changes to the planned implementation of the EU directive on herbal medicines.

“We simply cannot have burdensome regulation here,” wrote Blair to the prince on 30 March 2005.

Oh quite; what possible reason could there be to regulate medicine of all things? It’s not as if anything labeled medicine can ever be harmful, or on the other hand inert and useless. If the label “medicine” is on it it’s flawless, so there’s no need for burdensome regulation here.

The EU directive was passed in 2004 in the wake of a number of cases of serious harm caused by herbal medicines, which were freely available to buy.

Piffle. Stuff and nonsense. It’s some sort of effete Continental squeamishness that makes them think any serious harm was caused by herbal meds. That simply can’t happen, because “herbal” means benign and beneficial.

The prince appears to have raised his concerns first with the former health secretary, John Reid, although no letter from the heir to the throne to Reid has been made public. Reid’s response, on 11 February 2004, is short and to the point. “Following our previous discussions on integrated health,” it opens, “I agreed to provide a note on the outcome of my Department’s recent consultation document on the statutory regulation of herbal medicine and acupuncture.” The document shows strong support for the regulatory proposals, he says.

But the prince also spoke to Blair, who gave him a warmer response. On 24 February, at the end of a long letter to Blair on other matters, the prince mentions their brief discussion of the EU directive on herbal medicines “which is having such a deleterious effect on the complementary medicine sector in this country by effectively outlawing the use of certain herbal extracts.

“I think we both agreed this was using a sledgehammer to crack a nut.”

Blair had “rightly asked me what could be done about it,” the prince continued. His answer was to offer a detailed briefing document from the chief executive of the Foundation for Integrated Health, which the prince set up in 1993 to promote the use of complementary therapies outside and inside the NHS. He also promised a contact at the Herbal Practitioners’ Association.

It’s as if the man has never heard of the existence of quacks and fraud. It’s as if he thinks words and labels are magic, and declared intentions are identical to real intentions.

Blair wrote back offering help. Those people with whom the prince had put him in touch “feel that the directive itself is sound and the UK regulators excellent, but are absolutely correct in saying that the implementation as it is currently planned is crazy. We can do quite a lot here: we will delay implementation for all existing products to 2011; we will take more of the implementation on ourselves; and I think we can sort out the problems in the technical committee – where my European experts have some very good ideas.

“We will be consulting with your contacts and others on the best way to do this – we simply cannot have burdensome regulation here.”

Herbal products were not required to be authorised until 2011 in the UK or the rest of Europe. In the UK, they were also allowed to stay on the shelves for some years after that date if they were within their sell-by date. There was evidence of some stockpiling ahead of 2011.

I wonder if they considered bringing back leeches.

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

More from the Rohingya refugees.

Crowded under tarpaulin tents strewn with rubbish and boxes of water, the Burmese and Bangladeshi migrants speak of horrors at sea: of murders, of killing each other over scarce supplies of food and water, of corpses thrown overboard.

“One family was beaten to death with wooden planks from the boat, a father, a mother and their son,” says Mohammad Amin, 35. “And then they threw the bodies into the ocean.”

He’s one of the lucky ones: he’s off the boat.

Between 6,000 and 8,000 more are believed to still be stuck off the coasts of Thailand, Indonesia and Malaysia, with limited water and food, in a situation the UN has warned could fast become a “massive humanitarian crisis” because no government in the region is willing to take them in.

…

Out back in the hospital wing in Langsa, a row of men lie on stretchers with their emaciated limbs hooked up to intravenous drips. The back of one shirtless man is marked with deep red lashes.

“They hit us, with hammers, by knife, cutting,” says Rafique, recalling onboard violence between the different groups of migrants.

Starvation and injury.

Concrete details about the migrants’ time at sea are hard to come by at this stage. But most in Langsa tell of being transported in small boats from Burma and Bangladesh before being herded onto a larger vessel docked off Ranong in Southern Thailand.

Some waited on for up to two months there, others just a week, for the boat, crewed by Thai and Burmese nationals, to fill up before they could leave. Most paid between 5,000 and 8,000 Malaysian Ringgit to agents of people smugglers for the journey.

For 25 days they were at sea, surviving on minimal supplies given to them from the Indonesian and Malaysian navies after the captain and crew deserted them. Amin says they slept crouched and huddled next to each other on the ship and tried to save supplies for the women and children on board.

But the migrants were desperate, thirsty and starving, and fighting broke out on board.

“When the captain and the crew escaped, deserted us, I was sobbing,” explains Amin, “One man from Bangladesh said ‘the captain has run away, we must pray to Allah’ but there was not enough room for us to kneel and pray.”

Read the whole thing and see the photos of emaciated men lying on blue tarps.

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

A woman who went on the lam with her four-year-old son to prevent him from being genitally mutilated at the behest of his father was arrested and imprisoned last Thursday and is now in federal court.

Heather Hironimus, 31, was arrested Thursday in the long-running dispute over the removal of her 4-year-old child’s foreskin. She went missing with the boy nearly three months ago and ignored a judge’s warnings that if she didn’t appear in court and give consent for the circumcision to proceed, she faced jail.

The case originated in state courts but will be heard in a federal courtroom Monday in West Palm Beach. An attorney for Hironimus filed a federal civil rights complaint as legal options faded.

The parents had “signed an agreement” but Hironomus changed her mind.

Hironimus, 31, went missing with her son after a judge compelled her to turn the child over to his father, Dennis Nebus, and have him undergo the procedure. The child is reportedly “scared to death” of being circumcised. The couple were never married but had signed a parenting agreement in court in which Hironimus had initially agreed to their son being circumcised. However, she later changed her mind, setting off a drawn-out court battle with Nebus.

In March, a Palm Beach County judge signed a warrant for Hironimus’ arrest after she missed a court appearance. The mother subsequently filed a civil rights lawsuit last month arguing that circumcision violated her son’s Christian faith. While circumcision is largely a matter of personal preference rather than religion for many Christian parents in the United States, Hironimus’s case cited specific passages of the New Testament as well as Catholic teachings that read, “except when performed for strictly therapeutic medical reasons, directly intended amputations, mutilations, and sterilizations performed on innocent persons are against the moral law.”

Ugh. I wish all parties would argue the case in secular terms, because otherwise you just get dueling arbitrary commandments, which is what it says on the tin – arbitrary. It should be a human rights issue, not a competing-religions issue.

The case has generated national attention, largely fueled by the growing “intactivist” movement, which argues that subjecting infant boys to the procedure is barbaric and that it is unethical for parents to make the decision for their children. Many of these activists have rallied behind Hironmius’ cause, framing the case as a human rights issue.

But she is apparently not framing it that way, which makes it tricky.

Bottom line? All parties should respect the rights of the four-year-old boy and leave his penis alone until he’s old enough to decide for himself.

No “bottom line” jokes. Just kidding; you would never do that.

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

Maryam has a dreadful story of a young woman in Pakistan imprisoned awaiting trial on a charge of “blasphemy.”

Over a year ago, a friend of mine, a British Pakistani actor got in touch with me after his annual visit home to Lahore.  He was very troubled by a blasphemy case that he had come across which appeared to have blighted the lives of two young people who had neither contacts nor money without which it is impossible to get out of a sticky situation in countries like Pakistan. He knew I was a long term member of Southall Black Sisters and wondered if I could help. But our funding covers services to women facing domestic violence in this country and only stretches to the Asian sub-continent if British Asian women have been abducted there in order to be forced into a marriage or abandoned there so that British Asian men may marry again. The fate of a young Pakistani woman languishing in a prison on false charges of blasphemy lay outside our remit, although not outside the bounds of our sympathy and solidarity. As I listened to the story and then spoke to ‘Mo’ and read the legal papers, I was very moved by their plight and decided I would do what I could to support them as an individual but with the support of all the contacts that SBS had forged in its 35 years of existence, including Maryam Namazie and the Council for Ex-Muslims of Britain (CEMB).

‘Esha’ was arrested in March 2012 for having torn up the pages of the Qu’ran. Although I disagree with the whole notion of blasphemy and find it ridiculous that a legal case should be fought on the basis of whether she did or she didn’t, what is worse is that she didn’t even do it. She had an argument with a friend of hers who then shopped her to the authorities. It is a common way of settling scores in countries like Pakistan. I have provided some of the statistics in another article. Her friend is prepared to drop the case if Esha pays her £20,000 and gets her a job in Dubai – none of which is within Esha’s reach.

Read on.

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

Mr Biblical Gender Roles did a later post asking the vexed question, Is a husband selfish for having sex with his wife when she is not the mood?

That seems like an odd way of putting it. If she’s not in the mood he’s not really having sex with her, is he, he’s using her for sex for himself. But he of course doesn’t see it that way.

I feel that today we make far too many excuses for the sin of sexual denial in marriage, and as men of God we must address this issue without pulling punches.

That’s an unfortunate metaphor for the subject…or perhaps it’s not a metaphor.

Now we need to establish the key Biblical teachings about sex.

Why? Why not instead talk about what people want, and mutual respect?

The Apostle Paul later in the New Testament, elaborates on this right and responsibility of sex in marriage making it clear that both husbands and wives have the right TO and responsibility FOR sex in marriage:

“A wife does not have the right over her own body, but her husband does. In the same way, a husband does not have the right over his own body, but his wife does. Do not deprive one another sexually—except when you agree for a time, to devote yourselves to prayer. Then come together again; otherwise, Satan may tempt you because of your lack of self-control.” – I Corinthians 7:4-5(HCSB)

The phrase “A wife does not have the right over her own body, but her husband does.” could not be clearer. A wife does not have the right to stand and deny her husband access to her body. As I said in the previous post, a wife can humbly ask for a “delay”, or “raincheck”, but only for legitimate physical or psychological reasons and the judge of what is legitimate or not is her husband.

And if her husband decides nope, that reason is not legitimate, he gets to rape her, according to Mr Biblical. Of course there is the small detail that marital rape is against the law, but hey, she probably won’t be able to prosecute, so who cares.

I realize at this point some people may say “it is not always true that sex leads to fondness between a man and a woman” and they would be right. But let’s consider why it would not. I have one word for you – its called pride. A wife may actually be more annoyed at her husband after sex, then she was before if she does not release her feelings of pride during sex and give herself fully, both mind and body to her husband.

It’s that pesky secular pride that makes women not like to be raped by their husbands! If only they would all learn better from Mr Biblical.

I will say this, despite American laws to the contrary, Biblically speaking, there is no such thing as “marital rape”. In the Scriptures, the only way rape occurs is if a man forces himself on a woman who is not his property (not his wife, or concubine). A man’s wives, his concubines (slave wives taken as captives of war or bought) could be made to have sex with him, no questions asked.

Now the Bible states that if a man did take one of his female slaves, he had to make her at least a slave wife (a concubine), which gave her a certain status above a normal slave. She had the right to be fed, clothed and the right to regular relations with him even he had other wives. She also had to be given the full rights of a daughter, if her father-in-law had purchased her for his son. I realize this entire scenario is appalling to our modern western notions, but I choose to not challenge God’s wisdom in the laws he gave. If you want to argue with God about this at the judgement, be my guest.

And there it is again – “never mind your modern qualms, this is God’s law.”

I spit on it.

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

Ursula Halligan, political editor of TV3 in Ireland, has a wrenching piece in the Irish Times today, coming out and supporting same-sex marriage. She starts with a tragic example of the way religion can cause people wholly unnecessary self-loathing and misery.

I was a good Catholic girl, growing up in 1970s Ireland where homosexuality was an evil perversion. It was never openly talked about but I knew it was the worst thing on the face of the earth.

So when I fell in love with a girl in my class in school, I was terrified. Rummaging around in the attic a few weeks ago, an old diary brought me right back to December 20th, 1977.

“These past few months must have been the darkest and gloomiest I have ever experienced in my entire life,” my 17-year-old self wrote.

“There have been times when I have even thought about death, of escaping from this world, of sleeping untouched by no-one forever. I have been so depressed, so sad and so confused. There seems to be no one I can turn to, not even God. I’ve poured out my emotions, my innermost thoughts to him and get no relief or so-called spiritual grace. At times I feel I am talking to nothing, that no God exists. I’ve never felt like this before, so empty, so meaningless, so utterly, utterly miserable.”

Wholly, entirely unnecessary, you see – all that was because she thought she was someone terrible in the eyes of God, for no good reason whatever. It wasn’t because she was a cruel bully making other students’ lives hell. It wasn’t because she enjoyed torturing animals. It wasn’t because she was unkind to her parents or neighbors or teachers. It was simply because she fell in love with a girl.

So she locked herself in the closet, as she puts it. She pretended.

In the 1970s, homophobia was rampant and uninhibited. Political correctness had yet to arrive. Homosexuals were faggots, queers, poofs, freaks, deviants, unclean, unnatural, mentally ill, second class and defective humans. They were society’s defects. Biological errors. They were other people. I couldn’t possibly be one of them.

…

Emotionally, I have been in a prison since the age of 17; a prison where I lived a half-life, repressing an essential part of my humanity, the expression of my deepest self; my instinct to love.

It’s a part that heterosexual people take for granted, like breathing air. The world is custom-tailored for them. At every turn society assumes and confirms heterosexuality as the norm. This culminates in marriage when the happy couple is showered with an outpouring of overwhelming social approval.

For me, there was no first kiss; no engagement party; no wedding. And up until a short time ago no hope of any of these things. Now, at the age of 54, in a (hopefully) different Ireland, I wish I had broken out of my prison cell a long time ago. I feel a sense of loss and sadness for precious time spent wasted in fear and isolation.

Look ahead.

Twenty years ago or 30 years ago, it would have taken more courage than I had to tell the truth. Today, it’s still difficult but it can be done with hope – hope that most people in modern Ireland embrace diversity and would understand that I’m trying to be helpful to other gay people leading small, frightened, incomplete lives. If my story helps even one 17-year-old school girl, struggling with her sexuality, it will have been worth it.

As a person of faith and a Catholic, I believe a Yes vote is the most Christian thing to do. I believe the glory of God is the human being fully alive and that this includes people who are gay.

If Ireland votes Yes, it will be about much more than marriage. It will end institutional homophobia. It will say to gay people that they belong, that it’s safe to surface and live fully human, loving lives. If it’s true that 10 per cent of any population are gay, then there could be 400,000 gay people out there; many of them still living in emotional prisons. Any of them could be your son, daughter, brother, sister, mother, father or best friend. Set them free. Allow them [to] live full lives.

Vote yes.

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

Here’s a funny thing: the Mirror reporting on more horrible behavior from Katie Hopkins, to wit calling an autistic nine-year-0ld rude names. But I noticed something particular about it…

The headline:

Katie Hopkins stoops to new low as she bullies autistic nine-year-old girl over weight and calls her a ‘t***’

The story:

You might not have thought it possible, but Katie Hopkins appears to have sunk to a new low as she has called a nine-year-old girl ‘a t***’.

The outrageous columnist was tweeting throughout Channel 4’s new show, Born Naughty?, where nine-year-old Honey was diagnosed with mild autism.

“Honey can’t complete the autism assessment as she is too busy being a complete t***. But the s*** mum assessment is complete #bornnaughty,” Katie tweeted.

See there? It appears that “twat” is too rude (in the sense of “obscene”) to spell out. But how can that be? I’ve been told that it’s not even mildly rude in the UK, that it’s actually a different word from the US one, which we can tell because it’s pronounced differently. I’ve been told that even the queen says it.

But if that’s true, why does the Mirror asterisk it?

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

More from that article about ex-Muslims.

[Imtiaz] Shams, who seems remarkably self-possessed for his young age, agrees that there are particular gender issues that afflict disillusioned Muslims. To this end he has tried to link up with feminist societies at universities. “But there’s a real problem in this country,” he says. “People don’t want to touch anything to do with leaving Islam. Especially in universities, where the politics are insane.”

He has a point. In recent times the National Union of Students have refused to condemn Isis on the grounds that is would justify Islamophobia. Shams believes that this kind of gesture and the NUS decision last month to lobby alongside Cage, the militant Islamic prisoners pressure group, undermines the position of dissenting Muslims. “What it does is to say to reformists and secularists, you’re not really Muslims.”

And Shams is not the only one who believes that, to put it mildly.

He believes Muslims face an identity crisis.

“We don’t know who we are. There’s a feeling of insecurity as a brown person, often for good reason. I went to school in a really white school. My nickname was “Terrorist”. The kids didn’t know better. I grew up in that narrative. I was very religious. I believed there was a caliphate and we should fight for that. I had a strong sense of justice. One of the things that people do not understand about radicals is that they’re often guided by a sense of justice.”

But as often with abstractions, you can apply the word “justice” to anything. The word is only as good as it is. Mr Biblical Gender Relations thinks his prattle of ownership and cows and authority is “justice,” because he understands justice within his theocratic framework. Certainly Islamists are guided by a sense of justice, but what they mean by that is primarily justice to Allah and the prophet, and to the people who do the most to submit to [what they take to be the laws of] Allah. They are hugely exercised about justice to Muslims; they’re not so exercised about justice to Jews or infidels.

Fully aware of the mental stress so many dissenting Muslims suffer, he has been working to get appropriate therapy for those going through the emotional dislocation of leaving Islam.

“One ex-Muslim I know went to get therapy from a white female therapist and in the end she referred him to a Muslim support network.”

Too often, he believes, non-Muslims are unable or unwilling to see beyond the religious identity of Muslims. They are increasingly trained to understand religious needs but are frequently flummoxed by those who reject those needs.

“If you’re a secular or atheist Jew,” says Shams, “no one is going to say you’re not allowed to say anything about your community. Of course you are. But with Muslims it’s different – white people think you’re not really Muslim. That’s exasperating.”

I see that all the time, from obviously well-meaning people who think they’re doing the right-on thing.

Nasreen, Vali and Shams all agreed that it will only be by bringing greater attention to Muslim apostates in British society that their predicament will improve. It would also help, they say, if they could rely on the progressive support that was once the right of freethinkers in this country.

“Attitudes need to change,” says Cottee. “There has to be a greater openness around the whole issue. And the demonisation of apostates as ‘sell outs’ and ‘native informants’, which can be heard among both liberal-leftists and reactionary Muslims, needs to stop. People leave Islam. They have reasons for this, good, bad or whatever. It is a human right to change your mind. Deal with it.”

Honestly, that’s been one of the core goals of this blog – my blog – from nearly the beginning. If nothing else, I can help with this project of bringing greater attention to Muslim apostates in British society so that their predicament will improve.

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)