Life proceeds in a normal way in Saudi Arabia, as another court sentences someone to death for “abusing Islam.” Emirates 24/7 reports, complete with mandatory groveling to the prophet.

A Saudi court sentenced a local man to death after he was found guilty of insulting Islam and its Prophet (PBUH), a newspaper reported on Monday.

The unidentified man, in his 20s, was also charged with ripping a copy of the Holy Koran, filming the act and publishing it on social networks, ‘Sharq’ said.

“The court sentenced the man to beheaded after finding him guilty in those charges,” the paper said in a report from the northeastern town of Hafr Albatin.

That’s some of that “violent extremism” we hear so much about, I guess.

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

In Raif Badawi news today –

Ensaf Haidar is meeting with the mayor of Montreal, who according to a tweet by Breakfast Television Montreal  is expected to introduce a motion at City Council condemning the flogging of Raif.

Elham Manea tweets

We call on his majesty King Salman to free #RaifBadawi and unite him with his family – (picture of @Amnesty_Schweiz )

That’s Elham in the middle, I think.

LiberalInternational tweets

Tomorrow, LI will jointly give the @GenevaSummit Courage Award to @raifbadawi #FreeRaif #humanrights

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

Ah the mayor of Rotterdam – what an admirable guy. A story from January 8, the day after the massacre at Charlie Hebdo.

Rotterdam Mayor Ahmed Aboutaleb appeared on television programme Nieuwsuur Wednesday night, and lashed out at Muslims living in this society despite their hatred of it. “It is incomprehensible that you can turn against freedom,” he said. “But if you do not like freedom, in Heaven’s name pack your bag and leave.”

“There may be a place in the world where you can be yourself,” he continued. “Be honest with yourself and do not go and kill innocent journalists,” Aboutaleb, a Muslim himself, said.

“And if you do not like it here because humorists you do not like make a newspaper, may I then say you can fuck off.”

Unimprovable.

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

The Beeb has more details on the three addled teenage girls who ran off to be with IS, and how much fun they can expect to have there.

Dr Erin Saltman, from the Institute for Strategic Dialogue, which offers independent expertise in counter-terrorism, said IS propaganda targets young women specifically with the promise of being part of a humanitarian movement.

She said: “They are the wives and mothers of the future jihadists so quite a lot of dedication and time has been put into trying to allure these younger women to come and join in these efforts.

“They are very much restricted to the house and home for the most part. There is strict sharia law in the region.”

Imprisoned in a house by themselves, in other words. No friends, no school, no shopping trips, no music, no films, no hanging out, no evenings at the pub…no anything. Just being raped, and doing household chores. I wonder how long it will take them to realize they ran away into a nightmare.

But if they and their families are very lucky they’ll be found before they cross into Syria.

BBC home affairs correspondent Daniel Sandford said it was “absolutely extraordinary” that four girls from the same year at the same school had travelled to Syria, with the apparent aim of joining IS.

He said “very difficult questions” were being asked about how friends, family and the police had not managed to dissuade the three girls from going to Syria when their best friend had travelled to the country in December.

Home Secretary Theresa May said it was important “to look at the whole question of the ideology that is driving these actions” and the government was working on extremism strategy.

But shadow home secretary Yvette Cooper said the idea of the schoolgirls travelling to Syria was “very disturbing” and showed more action was needed to counteract extremist recruitment messages.

“Extremism” blah blah “extremist” blah blah – that’s an empty word. Imagine if they were “extremist” humanitarians or “extremist” volunteers with MSF – how welcome that would be. The issue isn’t “extremism,” it’s what they’re extreme about.

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

Just as I said. Amir Taheri in the New York Post –

The three-day White House conference on “violent extremism” exposed anew Obama’s inability or unwillingness to understand the challenge of Islamist terrorism, let alone to lead the fight against it.

The conference was billed as a global event bringing together people of different views from more than 60 countries. In practice, however, it acted more as an echo chamber for Obama’s politically correct approach.

“Violent extremism” is misleading, to say the least. (Is there extremism without violence?) The generic term obscures the fact that we face a specific form of terrorism rooted, nurtured and waged in the name of Islam.

Just exactly what I said. I said it on the 19th, Taheri said it on the 20th. No doubt I gave him the idea. (Kidding, kidding.)

Obama did defend his evasion: “Al Qaeda and ISIL [a k a ISIS] and groups like it . . . try to portray themselves as religious leaders, holy warriors in defense of Islam,” he said. “We must never accept the premise that they put forward, because it is a lie.” Operatives of al Qaeda and ISIS “are not religious leaders — they’re terrorists,” he said.

He says that as if the two are opposites, so opposite that it’s simply not possible to be both. That’s ridiculous. There have been many religious terrorists throughout history, and there are many of them now. The two are not opposites at all, but connected at the most basic level. The commands of religion are arbitrary, because there is no way to appeal them to their putative source. What could be more congenial to terrorism than arbitrary commands?

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

Leo Igwe points out that Africa badly needs the anti-blasphemy campaign.

On January 30 2015, the International Humanist and Ethical Union (IHEU) launched a campaign aimed at abolishing “blasphemy laws” worldwide. The campaign is gaining momentum across Europe and beyond. But there is still no significant support from groups in Africa. Meanwhile Africa is a continent where this campaign is urgently needed.

The campaign focuses on getting world leaders to understand that blasphemy laws are incompatible with human rights and democratic values in this 21st century. Campaigners plan to get states to repeal legislations that criminalize “insult to religion”, hurting religious sentiments, or any laws that restrict questions, criticism, or ridicule of religion or religious concepts. Blasphemy laws exist in many states across Africa. They are used as tools to oppress and discriminate against religious minorities.

The places that most need to get rid of blasphemy laws are the least likely to do so.

Unfortunately, many people across Africa may regard this campaign as a western issue, that has no social or cultural significance for the region. No, this is not the case. The abolition of blasphemy laws is in the interest of Africa and African emancipation. The campaign will be of immense benefit to the cause of African renewal. In fact, this campaign could become one of the defining moments of African intellectual awakening and rebirth, if only African humanist and human rights groups can seize the opportunity.

Read the rest.

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

Pakistan Today reports that FGM is very popular in Malaysia, and getting more so all the time.

Syahiera Atika, a 19-year-old Malaysian girl  has happily embraced western-style capitalism but in contrast strictly follows the local interpretation of Islam as she informed the Vice of her circumcision.

Female circumcision involves the surgical removal of all or part of a woman’s clitoris. The World Health Organisation (WHO) has classed this procedure as Female Genital Mutilation (FGM).

WHO also defines it as an operation that “involves partial or total removal of the external female genitalia, or other injury to the female genital organs for non-medical reasons.”

Syahiera however, rejects the notion that it is inhumane and says that ”I’m circumcised because it is required by Islam.” She refers to it as ‘wajib’, which means any religious duty commanded by Allah.

That’s your problem right there – this idea that there is such a thing as “wajib”; this idea that there is such a thing as a religious duty commanded by Allah aka God aka The Supreme and Sacred Boss; this idea that there is such a thing and that that’s all you have to know about it; this idea that there is such a thing and you have to obey it. That’s where the being fucked up comes in: this terrible destructive idea.

“I don’t think the way we do it here is harmful,” she said, adding that “it protects young girls from pre-marital sex as it is supposed to lower their sex drive. But I am not sure it always works.”

Well guess what, if it does “work” in the sense of lowering their sex drive, it’s not just “young girls” who are “protected” – because they stop being young girls, don’t they, and go on to be women, and that’s their ability to enjoy sex taken away for good.

WHO has declared FGM to provide no medical benefits whatsoever. It simply reflects the deep-rooted inequality between the sexes. For this reason, the United Nations General Assembly in 2012 unanimously passed a resolution calling it a “human rights violation” and urged states to ban the practice.

Some Malaysian medical practitioners also defend the practice by passing judgment onto other countries. “We are very much against what is going on in other countries like Sudan,”says Dr Ariza Mohamed, a Consultant Obstetrician and Gynecologist at KPJ Ampang Puteri Specialist Hospital in Kuala Lumpur.

“That is very different from what we practice in Malaysia,” she said adding “and there is a big difference between circumcision and female genital mutilation.”

Nope, there is not. “Circumcision” is simply a euphemism for mutilation.

All Malaysians however, do not support the practice. Syarifatul Adibah, who is the Senior Programme Officer at Sisters in Islam, a local women’s rights group, insists that female circumcision isn’t once mentioned in the Quran.

Instead she points to its popularity as a stemming from an increasingly conservative interpretation of Islam. “Previously it was a cultural practice but now because of Islamisation, people just relate everything to Islam. And when you link something to religion, people here follow it blindly, they don’t enquire,” she explained.

And what does that mean? It means that most people become more Islamist, without necessarily being actual Islamists, as in members of Islamist organizations and so on. It means that the normal, mainstream Islam has become sharply more reactionary and peremptory and intrusive, and thus the whole society becomes all that. It happened in Pakistan, and it’s happening in pretty much all majority-Muslim countries.

The practice is not banned in Malaysia, although public hospitals are prevented from performing the surgery. More concerning however is that in 2009 the Fatwa Committee of Malaysia’s National Council of Islamic Religious Affairs ruled that female circumcision was obligatory for all Muslim women, unless it was harmful.

But of course it is harmful, of its nature. But the Fatwa Committee of Malaysia’s National Council of Islamic Religious Affairs isn’t going to see it that way.

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

Three teenage girls from London went traipsing off to Syria to play house with IS last Tuesday. Sara Khan says it’s grooming, just as it’s grooming when teenage girls go into prostitution.

As the prime minister expressed deep concern over the disappearance of the three east London schoolgirls who are thought to be on their way to join Islamic State (Isis) fighters in Syria, the head of Inspire, a human rights organisation working with Muslim women, called on schools to do more to burst the “romanticised notion” of Isis that is being peddled to young people by a slick online propaganda machine.

The head of Inspire, Sara Khan, said the tactics used by those luring young girls to Syria and Iraq to marry them off to jihadis or force them into domestic servitude, were the grooming methods of paedophiles.

“We need to stop using the phrase ‘jihadi brides’,” she said. “This is grooming, a child safety issue, and we need to make that distinction. These are normal teenage girls who should be in school, with their families, and have sacrificed everything to run off and join this crazed group.”

Normal teenage girls are full of pubertal longings that they don’t know what to do with. It isn’t just sex – it’s more generalized than that. It’s adventure, escape, wider horizons – it makes them suckers for grooming.

Khan added: “They are getting all their info online where it’s so glorified and romantic. Like it’s all one big happy family out there. Well it isn’t. Parents need help and the most practical suggestion I can make is keep your daughter’s passport under lock and key.” Inspire launches a campaign on Monday called Making a Stand, to help parents cope with the Isis threat.

The three missing girls, Shamima Begum, 15, Kadiza Sultana, 16, and 15-year-old Amira Abase, all attend Bethnal Green academy where they are said to be top students.

They left the UK unchallenged on a lunchtime flight to Istanbul on Tuesday and security camera images of them at Gatwick airport were released on Thursday by police. Commander Richard Walton said there was still a chance the girls could be found and stopped from crossing into Syria, especially as snowstorms were affecting transport out of Istanbul.

It’s so pathetic. If they get there they’re in for such a horrible shock.

At the East London Mosque worshippers were shocked at the girls’ disappearance. Bil Hassan, 27, from Tower Hamlets, said: “You look at the pictures and they look like lovely girls. That’s the shocking element of it. These aren’t scary faces, theses are young girls. There are a lot of theories of why they went – grooming, love for Isis – but people are driven by a sense of adventure and that is part of it.”

Dr Zaza Elsheikh said: “They want a sense of belonging and seek excitement in the same way that people join gangs. They believe going to Syria is better than their lives here. They are small fish and they want something bigger.”

Exactly. I remember that want from when I was fifteen. I was lucky; I lived an hour by bus from New York so I could easily just run away from home for an afternoon and spend it noodling around Greenwich Village, doing nothing in particular. But Shamima and Kadiza and Amira were already in London, so I guess just running away to Chelsea or Bloomsbury or Oxford Street didn’t quite do the trick.

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

Andrew Gilligan at the Telegraph spots another mess – another case of a government body tangling itself up with an Islamist group, either cluelessly or…not. Oxfordshire County Council has hired a group called Street UK to “mentor” people.

The contract is part of Oxfordshire County Council’s response to Operation Bullfinch, which saw seven men convicted of 59 sex crimes against children and sentenced to a total of 95 years in prison. Five were of Pakistani origin and two were North African.

The trouble is, Street UK is an Islamist group.

…the council has engaged Street UK, which it describes as a “national youth charity,” for a “pilot mentoring programme” in Oxfordshire’s Muslim communities to “work closely with those at risk of perpetrating child sexual exploitation and divert them away from such activity.” Street UK is in fact a group which had its government grant cancelled in 2011 after paying for the publication of a booklet by Salafi Manhaj, which issues regular fatwas enforcing a Salafist, or ultra-literal and conservative, view of Islam.

What’s the thinking here? That Salafists will be really good at this “mentoring” thing because they hate women and girls so fiercely?

Street UK’s website published advice on clothing and music from anti-Semitic and extremist Salafi clerics. Its founder, Abdul Haqq Baker, an ultra-conservative Salafist, was chairman of Brixton Mosque, attended by Richard Reid, the shoe bomber, and Zacharias Moussaoui, 9/11’s “twentieth hijacker”. He says he tried to warn the authorities about them and opposes violence.

“This form of Salafism is strongly opposed to terrorism but promotes an extreme and separatist view of Islam,” said Haras Rafiq, director of Quilliam, an anti-extremism think tank. “They are not the right people to be working with potential abusers – or anyone else.” Despite this, Oxfordshire is far from the only public authority to employ the group. The Sunday Telegraph has established that Street UK has secured work to prevent child abuse from at least three other local safeguarding boards: Staffordshire, North Yorkshire and the east London borough of Havering.

See, terrorism isn’t the only problem. Opposition to terrorism is necessary but not sufficient. Misogynist puritans who oppose violence are not the right people to be mentoring anyone.

However, it is not clear where the money paid to the group has gone. Street UK does not appear to be a charity and has no connection to the charity of the same name, which deals with financial services. It was a company, but published its last accounts in 2010 and has now been dissolved. Its website is no longer operational.

Uh oh…could all these government bodies have been confused into paying a lot of money to one Street UK simply because it thought it was a different Street UK? Could the wrong Street UK have named itself that in order to create such a confusion?

I’m guessing they could have.

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

Raquel Evita Saraswati posted a couple of photos from the Oslo demonstration of solidarity.

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

The Guardian reports on the peace vigil in Oslo today.

Norwegian Muslims organised a peace vigil in Oslo on Saturday in a show of solidarity with Jews a week after fatal shootings in Denmark targeted a synagogue and free-speech seminar.

As the mainly elderly Jewish congregation filed out of the synagogue after Shabbat prayers, a group of young Muslims, many of them teenage girls wearing headscarves, formed a symbolic ring outside the building to applause from a crowd of more than 1,000 people.

It’s good that many of them were girls, with or without hijab. It’s good to see girls and women out front.

…a traditional Shabbat ceremony was held in the open air with many demonstrators adding their voices to the Hebrew chants.

Norway’s chief rabbi, Michael Melchior, appeared visibly moved when he said it was the first time the ceremony had taken place outdoors with so many people.

Ervin Kohn, a Jewish community leader, said: “It is unique that Muslims stand to this degree against antisemitism and that fills us with hope … particularly as it’s a grassroots movement of young Muslims,” adding that the rest of the world should “look to Norway”.

Go young Muslims. Take over.

The initiative by Norway’s Muslim youth to link arms with Norwegian Jews in a circle around Oslo’s synagogue was an effort to denounce recent violence by jihadis against Jewish communities in France and Denmark.

Impetus for the vigil came from some young people among Norway’s Muslims, who make up roughly 3% of the nation’s 5.3 million population.

They wanted to demonstrate support for the country’s estimated 1,300 Jews, following one of the attacks in Copenhagen last weekend that killed a 37-year-old volunteer security guard outside the city’s synagogue.

In other words it was a demonstration, not a literal move to “protect” the synagogue. It was a symbolic gesture.

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

Hurriyet reports on a protest in Istanbul’s Taksim Square in which men wore skirts to protest violence against women.

“I would walk around in Taksim wearing a skirt, if you can do that…”

For many Turkish men, this is a common phrase they use when they want to assert a claim or make a bet. It has turned into reality when a group of men went to Istanbul’s iconic Taksim Square wearing skirts, keeping their word they have been pledging for the past few days on social media.

On Feb. 17, Erkan Doğan had donned a skirt in Istanbul’s Asian side neighborhood of Kadıköy to demonstrate in memory of slain 20-year-old student Özgecan Aslan.

Doğan’s individual action had inspired social media calls for a massive “skirt-wearing” march over the weekend to show Turkish men’s support for the women who were victimized by the recent wave of male violence in Turkey.

Work it, guys.

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

As Harald said – not everything is shitty in Europe now. Reuters reports:

More than 1000 Muslims formed a human shield around Oslo’s synagogue on Saturday, offering symbolic protection for the city’s Jewish community and condemning an attack on a synagogue in neighboring Denmark last weekend.

Chanting “No to anti-Semitism, no to Islamophobia,” Norway’s Muslims formed what they called a ring of peace a week after Omar Abdel Hamid El-Hussein, a Danish-born son of Palestinian immigrants, killed two people at a synagogue and an event promoting free speech in Copenhagen last weekend.

“Humanity is one and we are here to demonstrate that,” Zeeshan Abdullah, one of the protest’s organizers told a crowd of Muslim immigrants and ethnic Norwegians who filled the small street around Oslo’s only functioning synagogue.

“There are many more peace mongers than warmongers,” Abdullah said as organizers and Jewish community leaders stood side by side. “There’s still hope for humanity, for peace and love, across religious differences and backgrounds.”

Indeed. Warmongers can cause terrible destruction, even working alone, but that doesn’t make them the majority. Let’s monger a bunch of peace & love.

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

A friend comments –

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

Oklahoma is not widely seen as one of the most salubrious of the united states in terms of its climate or geography or political culture or friendliness to the arts or promotion of science. It’s seen more as the state that combines the worst aspects of Texas and Arkansas, along with its fame as the spot Andrew Jackson chose as the destination for all the Native Americans he kicked out of fertile farmland in the southern states.

So I guess they decided to put a big ribbon on all that, by voting to ban advanced history classes in Oklahoma public high schools.

Unaware that their state has become a satire on the folly of man, an Oklahoma legislative committee overwhelmingly voted to ban Advanced Placement U.S. History classes because these classes “only teach what is bad about America” and fail to teach “American exceptionalism.”

Which variety of American exceptionalism? That long period when America was an exceptional slave state?

It would appear that irony has also been banned in the state, as Education Week has ranked Oklahoma 48^th out of fifty states for overall education.

Hey, why settle for 48^th place when you can aim for dead last?

They want Oklahoman exceptionalism, I guess.

Now there’s another bright idea.

The Oklahoma government, which has essentially become Sally Kern spinning a wheel and selecting random things to ban, is moving forward on legislation that bans government employees from issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples.

…

When asked about the anti-gay bills, Rep. Kern, who once claimed that gay people were a bigger threat to the U.S. than terrorism, had this to say: “We work for the people of Oklahoma, not the federal courts. We need to stand for those who believe in the time-tested institution of marriage, which is one man and one woman, and who believe in a foundation for what is right and wrong. We have men and women in black robes taking away our rights.”

Well she’s right, she and her colleagues don’t work for the federal courts, but oddly enough that doesn’t mean they’re not bound by federal court rulings. It’s a slightly different thing. I don’t work for gravity, but I still have to pay attention to the law of it.

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

Brendan O’Neill explains about identity politics at the Spectator. In other news, birds fly north for the summer and water is wet.

His occasion for the surprise-free explanation is the Twitter-mobbing of Peter Tatchell and Mary Beard for signing an open letter about free speech and no-platforming.

How do we explain this tirade of abuse against someone I would describe as the grandfather of gay rights if I wasn’t [weren’t] worried that the use of such a gender-specific title might earn me a tsunami of online abuse? Why are people so incredibly thin-skinned? I think it’s down to the politics of identity. I think the more we’ve made the personal political, the more we define our social and political outlook with reference to what’s in our underpants or what colour our skin is, the more we experience every criticism of our beliefs as an attack on our very personhood, our souls, our right to exist. The problem here is the terrifying wrapping together of the biological and the political, the packaging up of the accident of your gender or race or sexuality with your political persona, to the extent that debate itself comes to be seen as a form of hatred, a ‘phobia’.

Fascinating, and yet – I can’t help noticing he’s not subject to any of the particular forms of hatred he is so magisterially looking down on.

I can’t help thinking that might hinder him from being able to grasp what it’s like to be chronically belittled and/or overlooked because you have the bad taste not to belong to the preferred “identity.” I can’t help thinking that should motivate him to be a little more cautious with the contempt.

But more substantively, what I think is really wrong with what he says there is that he’s overlooking all the other reasons there are for people who act like assholes on Twitter. I would say the chief reason is not “identity politics” at all but just the fact that lots of people are assholes. Second only to that as an explanation, I think, is that lots of people are stupid. Put those two demographics together (of course they overlap a good deal) and there’s your Twitter mobbing explained with very little need to rumble about identity politics or underpants.

As it happens, I think the feminists complaining about No Platform, and possibly even Tatchell himself, unwittingly helped to nurture this censorious tyranny of identity politics with their old slogan ‘the personal is political’. But no matter. For what Tatchell also had, back in the day, was a commitment to the politics of liberation, which encouraged gays to come out and live and engage. Now, we have the politics of identity, which invites people to stay in, to look inward, to obsess over the body and the self, to surround themselves with a moral forcefield to protect their worldview — which has nothing to do with the world — from any questioning. We need a new politics of liberation, one which liberates the personal from the political and reminds people that, no, political debate is not an act of violence against your poor, weeping little self — it’s just political debate.

But what do you liberate people from if “identity” is off the table? What are you talking about if there is nothing to liberate yourself and others from? Liberation from what?

Nope, I think he’s full of shit. I get that what he calls identity politics can get very annoying and grating in the hands (and on the keyboards) of stupid people, but that’s true of anything, isn’t it. You can’t even pick out a favorite movie without a bunch of other people who don’t have your fine, discriminating, subtle intellect joining in and ruining it. There are always stupid people around; often we’re the stupid people ourselves. We’re all stupid about some things. Twitter is a vast engine for magnifying the voices of people at their stupidest – and I think that’s a much better explanation for what O’Neill is complaining about than “identity politics.”

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

Another horrendous piece of news – from Tom Porter at the International Business Times (which so far seems to be the only English news outlet reporting it) –

Isis supporters call for Charlie Hebdo survivor Zineb el-Rhazoui to be murdered by terrorist lone wolves

So that’s appalling.

Isis supporters have called for lone wolf terrorists to target Franco Moroccan cartoonist Zineb el-Rhazoui, who survived the attacks on the offices of satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo last month.

Thousands of supporters of the jihadist group have tweeted under the hashtag translated as #MustKillZinebElRhazouiInRetaliationForTheProphet, reports Vocativ, posting her personal details, pictures of her husband and sister, and a map showing places she had visited taken from her Facebook account, as well as pictures of Isis beheadings.

Money has also been offered in reward for information on her or her husband’s homes or places of work, reports Alyaoum24.com.

What can we do. Murderers can defeat us, because they’re happy to murder.

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

See update at the end.

Chris Stedman wrote a public Facebook post a couple of days ago about a little misunderstanding between him and the people at The National, an English-language newspaper based in the United Arab Emirates. They invited him to write an opinion piece.

I decided to use this opportunity to look at what I think are the most constructive aspects of a UAE-sponsored UN resolution that calls for interfaith dialogue, free expression, and the open debate of ideas.

I would still rather see more secular dialogue (which of course religious people can perfectly well engage in) than interfaith dialogue (which excludes non-religious people). But if the UAE is a fan of free expression and the open debate of ideas that has to be a good thing. Maybe they can exert some pressure on their neighbors to let Raif Badawi and Waleed Abu al-Khair out of prison.

Oh wait.

My piece originally opened with the stories of Raif Badawi and Waleed Abu al-Khair, two Saudi prisoners of conscience. (I wrote more about their situations here: http://bit.ly/1zlUVkB) As you will see if you click the link below, their names do not appear in the published piece. I was informed of this decision shortly before the publication deadline; I asked about putting their names back into the piece, but that did not happen.

Well that would have been the moment to say “no piece then.”

While I remain grateful that I had the opportunity to write about the importance of dialogue and free speech, I also believe that Raif and Waleed’s stories and struggles are important—so I plan to donate what I will be paid for this piece to their families, and I hope people will continue to speak out about what they are going through.

Hmm. I have to disagree with Chris here. I don’t think he should be grateful, since in fact the pretense of giving him the opportunity to write about the importance of dialogue and free speech is pretty laughable given the reality. I think he should be indignant rather than grateful, since the people at The Nation did not in fact give him the freedom to discuss a grotesquely savage and cruel punishment for free speech next door to the UAE, but instead cut it out of his article without his consent. I think he should have pointed out the cynicism of the discrepancy to them, and refused to help them with their charade.

Muhammed Syed of EXMNA left a sharp comment about what can be expected of the UAE given their legal code…

The irony of a piece talking about dialogue which is censored to remove mention of a person jailed for creating a website which promoted dialogue is not lost on me, and I hope others as well.

For the future keep these facts in mind as well,

“The government prohibits proselytizing and the distribution of non-Islamic religious literature under penalty of criminal prosecution, imprisonment, and deportation. The law prohibits proselytizing for any religion other than Islam. The government sometimes threatens to revoke the residence permits of persons suspected of proselytizing for a religion other than Islam.

The law prohibits blasphemy, swearing, profanities, insults, and all types of vulgar language and behavior. Offenders are subject to fines, imprisonment, and deportation. The law provides penalties for using the Internet to preach against Islam, proselytize Muslims, “abuse” a holy shrine or ritual of any religion, insult any religion, and incite someone to commit sin or contravene “family values.”

Conversion from Islam to another religion is not recognized, and no data is available detailing the number of conversions. The legal punishment for conversion from Islam is death, although there have been no known prosecutions or legal punishments for apostasy in court.”

http://www.state.gov/…/2012religiousfreedom/index.htm…

Also, check out
http://www.vice.com/video/the-slaves-of-dubai

I think this is one time when interfaith dialogue was not the way to go.

Update: I tweeted at Chris about this and he told me it happened very fast, while he was traveling. I make terrible decisions under those conditions, so I’ll put all the blame on the people who got him into this. It’s very damn sleazy of them.

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

A terrible event in Afghanistan.

Be warned.

From Afghan Zariza:

In a first-of-its-kind incident in Kabul, which has shaken the collective conscience of the nation, a 23-year-old man set himself ablaze to protest against the harassment of women in this country.

Afghanistan is not a good place to be a woman, or a man who loves a woman.

Feroz, a student of law at Rahnaward University in northern Mazar e Sharif, loved Zohra, a student at Ariana University in Kabul.

They had been seeing each other for many years and had decided to settle down after graduation from university. Everything was going well until the hell broke loose.

Zohra, 19, was abducted by a group of local gangsters in Kabul recently and taken to an undisclosed location. She was allegedly gang-raped for 15 days before allowed to go.

Feroz tried to get government and security officials to do something, and got nowhere.

Disillusioned and devastated, Feroz decided to end his life. He left a note for his family that he is setting himself on fire in protest against official callousness and indifference.

A few days ago, he walked to presidential palace in the highly-fortified zone of Kabul and set himself ablaze. Despite the efforts to save him, Feroz succumbed to death.

…

His father, Abdul Saboor, says he sacrificed his life to send a strong message across that women in this country continue to suffer harassment and persecution.

“His death is a wake-up call to all those who believe everything is hunky dory in this country, and who chose not to speak against women’s harassment,” says the victim’s father.

H/t Lauryn Oates

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

The IHEU provides a great roundup of blasphemy and anti-blasphemy news, The week in blasphemy.

One item I haven’t yet flagged up here –

In Egypt, a student Sherif Gaber, was sentenced on Monday to a year in prison for making “atheist” Facebook posts in 2013 on the charge of “contempt of religion”.

“Sherif Gaber, 22, was studying at Suez Canal University in 2013, when teaching staff and fellow students reported him via a petition to the institution’s President. They said he had made posts supporting atheism on Facebook, and suspected him of being behind a page called ‘The Atheists’.

Subsequently, the university’s then-president Mohamed A. Mohamedein personally filed a legal complaint against the student to the local prosecution on the grounds of contempt of religion.”

Gaber is out on bail pending an appeal against the sentence.

An asylum case, if you ask me.

Unfortunately, some news we reported last week with cautious optimism as “good” news, has begun to crumble. It concerns the state government decision to review and, hopefully, work toward true justice for numerous people languishing in jail having been convicted of “blasphemy” in Punjab state. This week it emerged that the list of cases to be reviewed excludes any Christians and other minorities!

Oh great! They’re only the ones who are most vulnerable to charges of blasphemy, so it totally makes sense to exclude them – saves the trouble and expense of doing anything.

They quote an anonymous government source who says they’re afraid of the Islamists and that’s why the chief victims are excluded.

Revealingly, the anonymous government source put the exclusion of Christian and other “blasphemy” convicts from the lists in terms of a practical necessity, putting the threat of violence before the principles of justice, and in a sense proving his own point about the authorities being terrorised by “blasphemy” law proponents:

“”We know that most of the cases registered under blasphemy laws are fabricated,” the official said, “but unfortunately our police and justice system is weak and cannot withstand Islamists’ pressure.” He acknowledged that several Christians “have fallen victim to the extremist mindset and were killed during or after their trials.”

Sounds like a failed state.

Also in Pakistan, the Islamist party Jamaat-e-Islami made new calls for an international death penalty for blasphemy at an all-party conference, which apparently agreed to its terms:

“They demanded of the government to hold an Islamic summit in Islamabad against the publication of blasphemous sketches by the West and decide a common line of action by the Muslim Ummah to discourage this trend.

They said Islamabad should have convened an OIC [Organisation of Islamic Cooperation] moot after the repeated publication of sketches and raised the issue at the UN to calm down the feelings of one-and-a-half billion Muslims in the world. However, they said the government had not fulfilled its responsibility under the fear of the US and Europe.

If only Jamaat-e-Islami could take a time-travel ship back to the 8th century. They’d be so much happier, and so would we.

In Bangladesh, a publisher has received death threats for publishing a book by an Iranian author which reportedly calls for putting freethought ahead of blind faith and may also criticise specifically Shiite traditions:

“Hardline religious groups, mainly Hefazat-e-Islam, have called on authorities to prosecute publishing house Rodela Prokashoni over the translation of “23 Years: A Study of the Prophetic Career of Muhammad.” Rodela Prokashoni’s website appeared to be hacked on February 14, 2015, and their office in Banglabazar was attacked on Sunday, according to a report in the Bangla Tribune. No one was injured.

Following the uproar, the publishing house pulled the book from the shelves at the Ekushey Book Fair and from their website, and publisher Riaz Khan reportedly apologized, saying he wasn’t aware that the book was considered offensive.”

Thy hand, Great Anarch…

Reporters Without Borders, which responded rightly and decisively to the Charlie Hebdo killings, proved themselves excellent allies in our vision of a world without “blasphemy” laws. The organisation released its annual report which headlined a marked decline in press freedoms across the globe, and on “blasphemy” and related laws stressed that:

“Stretching sacrilege prohibitions in order to protect a political system is an extremely effective way of censuring criticism of the government in countries where religion shapes the law.”

Censuring it and shutting it down completely.

Last item –

And in the same week as the Copenhagen shooting, the satirical cartoon strip Jesus and Mo has been published in Denmark, in Danish translation, for the first time.

So there.

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