Posts Tagged ‘
FTB ’
Jan 19th, 2012 11:02 am |
By Ophelia Benson
Maryam says HOLD THE DATE:
One Law for All is calling for a rally in defence of free expression and the right to criticise religion on 11 February 2012 in central London from 2-4pm.
We are also calling for simultaneous events and acts in defence of free expression on 11 February in countries world-wide.
The call follows an increased number of attacks on free expression in the UK, including a 17 year old being forced to remove a Jesus and Mo cartoon or face expulsion from his Sixth Form College and demands by the UCL Union that the Atheist society remove a Jesus and Mo cartoon from its Facebook page. It also follows threats of violence, police being called, … Read the rest
(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)
Posted in Notes and Comment Blog
Tags: FTB
Jan 19th, 2012 9:56 am |
By Ophelia Benson
The president of UCL’s Atheist, Secularist and Humanist society, Robbie Yellon, has stepped down to be replaced by former vice president Michael Thor. Yellon quit because of all this mishegas about the Jesus and Mo image.
“Robbie stepped aside because he signed up as president to organise events and run a student society,” said Michael Paynter, secretary for the National Federation of Atheist, Humanist and Secular Student Societies.
“He did not appreciate the stress he would be under when dealing with a controversy like this, so he wanted to make way for someone else.”
A small but no doubt pleasant victory for the shit-stirrers. The BBC goes on to make the shit-stirrer case.
The Ahmadiyya Muslim Youth Association is continuing
…
Read the rest
(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)
Posted in Notes and Comment Blog
Tags: FTB, Jesus and Mo, Religious bullying, Religious censorship
Jan 18th, 2012 3:13 pm |
By Ophelia Benson
Oh hey, I’m excited now – Jessica Ahlquist is a speaker at the Moving Secularism Forward conference - which is exciting for Me Me Me because so am I. Yip!
The annual joint conference of CFI and the Council for Secular Humanism takes place March 1–4 at the Hyatt Regency in Orlando, FL and includes presentations from Daniel Dennett, Jamila Bey, PZ Myers, Ophelia Benson, David Silverman, Ronald A. Lindsay, and more.
New speaker announced: Jessica Ahlquist! Jessica, our volunteer high school coordinator, just won the case against her public high school’s display of a prayer banner. She’s participating in a Saturday morning session on “Outreach and Advocacy Strategies” moderated by campus organizer Debbie Goddard.
It’s fun having teenage … Read the rest
(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)
Posted in Notes and Comment Blog
Tags: FTB
Jan 18th, 2012 1:10 pm |
By Ophelia Benson
And then there’s this “Urgent – Calling all muslims” at Islamicawakening on Monday -
Brothers, the Queen Mary Athiest Society, sister of the shaytaani UCL Athiest Society (which published pictures of Rasoolullah(saw)) are holding an event today at Queen Mary University of London at 7:00 pm on ‘ Is Shariah in violation of human rights’.. We need your presence. Who gave these kuffar the right to speak?
The kuffar have no right to speak, at a university in London. That’s an interesting thought. Also the comment addresses “Brothers” – so apparently “all muslims” actually means only half of all muslims – and then the “kuffar” who was speaking at Queen Mary that evening is a woman, so her right to … Read the rest
(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)
Posted in Notes and Comment Blog
Tags: FTB, Religious bullying
Jan 18th, 2012 12:53 pm |
By Ophelia Benson
On Rhys Morgan’s (currently very busy) Facebook page – a guy called Safwan Ahmed, a graduate of Rhys’s school, posted to say
take that blog down before i fly kick you!
Rhys said no, Ahmed replied
inappropriate and offensive! take it down before you lose the remaining half of your penis.
Someone tried to tell Ahmed that threats are a serious matter and can be reported to the authorities. Ahmed replied
nah no argument cbf wasting time with u. sorry if you were looking for a rebuttal, i will deal with this matter personally.
More back and forth, culminating in Ahmed’s
hahahahha scott you amuse me in the sense that your a fucking sad prick! look at my avatar? id
…
Read the rest
(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)
Posted in Notes and Comment Blog
Tags: FTB, Religious bullying
Jan 17th, 2012 4:00 pm |
By Ophelia Benson
Ann Marie Waters on last night at Queen Mary College.
This week I was due to give a talk to students at Queen Mary College, London on sharia law and human rights. Rather fittingly – and as if to prove my point – my human rights were quashed by a person demonstrating one of the effects of sharia law; the threat of violence for criticising religion.
Or to put it another way, both are instantiations of theocracy. Both are what you get when you have theocracy. You get god-centered everything, with humans expected to obey the imagined god slavishly and harsh punishments if someone thinks god is being defied.
Just before I was due to start, a young man
…
Read the rest
(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)
Posted in Notes and Comment Blog
Tags: FTB, Religious censorship, Religious coercion
Jan 17th, 2012 11:56 am |
By Ophelia Benson
And then there’s Rhys. He had the contested Jesus and Mo image as his Facebook profile picture for a week, then took it down. He also received a lot of bullying.
I uploaded the image to Facebook and set it as my profile picture for about a week. I then changed back to another photo and went on my usual life.
Until today. Someone who is a Muslim discovered the picture and found it offensive. He politely requested I remove the image -
“…just a kind request to either hide it or completely delete the picture…”
a request I declined because I do not follow Islamic scripture or rules. This quickly descended into a bit of a debate as
…
Read the rest
(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)
Posted in Notes and Comment Blog
Tags: FTB
Jan 17th, 2012 11:17 am |
By Ophelia Benson
Yesterday evening, One Law for All Co-Spokesperson Anne Marie Waters was to speak at a meeting on Sharia Law and Human Rights at the University of London. Maryam continues:
It was cancelled by the atheist group organisers after police had to be called in due to Islamist threats. One Islamist filmed everyone at the meeting and announced he would hunt down those who said anything negative about Islam’s prophet. Outside the hall, he threatened to kill anyone who defamed the prophet. Reference was made to the Jesus and Mo cartoon saga at UCL.
The University’s security guard – a real gem –arrived first only to blame the speaker and organisers rather than those issuing death threats. He said: ‘If
…
Read the rest
(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)
Posted in Notes and Comment Blog
Tags: FTB, One Law for All, Religious censorship, Sharia
Jan 17th, 2012 10:58 am |
By Ophelia Benson
Now to look at each one in more detail, though not calmly.
Protests from “influential Muslim clerics” in India have prompted the organizers of a literary festival in Jaipur to take Salman Rushdie’s name off the list of speakers. He was scheduled to speak at three events during the five day festival.
The BBC explains in the way it invariably does.
Mr Rushdie sparked anger in the Muslim world with his book The Satanic Verses, which many regard as blasphemous.
No he didn’t. Mr Rushdie wrote a novel. Some people chose to become enraged about the novel and its author. He did not “spark” anything, nor did he do anything wrong. Many regard many things as blasphemous. If we take … Read the rest
(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)
Posted in Notes and Comment Blog
Tags: FTB, Religious censorship, Salman Rushdie
Jan 17th, 2012 10:35 am |
By Ophelia Benson
Damn. Things have gone crazy – so crazy that it’s hard to keep up. Just to give you the bare list -
Salman Rushdie
will miss the opening day of the Jaipur literary festival, organisers say, after protests by influential Muslim clerics in India.
A talk on sharia and human rights
organised by the Atheism, Secularism and Humanism Society at Queen Mary, University London, had to be cancelled after threats of violence. The talk was due to be given by Anne Marie Waters of the One Law For All campaign, which campaigns against the use of Sharia in the UK.
Rhys Morgan was
called into a meeting with his head of year at his sixth form college, about the Jesus
…
Read the rest
(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)
Posted in Notes and Comment Blog
Tags: FTB, Religious censorship, Religious coercion
Jan 16th, 2012 4:35 pm |
By Ophelia Benson
The UCL Union has a statement on its attempt to meddle with the UCLU Atheist, Secularist & Humanist Society’s Facebook page.
UCLU (the representative body of UCL students) has a duty to foster and encourage freedom of expression among our members, ensure diversity of our membership is recognised[,] and pursue equal opportunities for our members.
Following a number of complaints from UCL students, UCLU requested that the UCLU Atheist, Secularist & Humanist Society (UCLU ASH) take down a cartoon from a Facebook event page advertising one of the society’s regular social events.
The society was asked to remove the image because UCLU aims to foster good relations between different groups of students and create a safe environment where all students
…
Read the rest
(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)
Posted in Notes and Comment Blog
Tags: FTB, Religious censorship
Jan 16th, 2012 3:11 pm |
By Ophelia Benson
I hadn’t kept up with developments in the UCL/Jesus and Mo fuss until I got that email. There were developments.
The New Humanist reported that the Atheist, Secularist and Humanist Society at UCL reported that progress had been made.
While debate raged online, however, both the UCL union and the atheist society have been working to resolve the matter, and the ASHS have this morning announced that progress has been made, with the union agreeing that they can not ask the society to take down the image. This is explained by the society’s president, Robbie Yellon, in a statement on their Facebook page:
Good, good. Except…wait. What’s that in the third paragraph of that statement?
Unfortunately, the Union
…
Read the rest
(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)
Posted in Notes and Comment Blog
Tags: Free speech, FTB, Jesus and Mo, Religious censorship
Jan 16th, 2012 12:01 pm |
By Ophelia Benson
This morning I received an email from the Secretary for the National Federation of Atheist, Humanist and Secular Student Societies (in the UK), Michael Paynter, saying he’d seen that I’ve commented on the “take the image of Mo from Jesus and Mo off your Facebook page please” fuss at UCL (the wording is mine) and that he wanted to provide some context because the media coverage has been distorted. I’ve heard from other people who received much the same email (or possibly exactly the same), so I feel free to quote from it.
UCL Union (UCLU) did make a request for the University College London’s Atheist, Secularist and Humanist Society (UCLUASHS) to remove an image of the prophet Muhammed after
…
Read the rest
(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)
Posted in Notes and Comment Blog
Tags: FTB
Jan 16th, 2012 9:54 am |
By Ophelia Benson
There’s a woman in the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt. Apparently she’s there to spread the word to women. She does that.
Speaking to the London based Asharq Al-Awsat newspaper Saturday, Abul Hassan argued that “When a woman marches to defend her rights, this affronts her dignity.”
She added that “Does she not have a husband, a brother or a son to defend her?”
Because, to the Muslim Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice Party, “dignity” for a woman means being passive and hidden and dependent on male relatives. That’s interesting, because to me that means degradation, not dignity at all. It means subordination, which implies inferiority. It’s hard to see how that can be “dignity.”
“This march was a sectarian one,
…
Read the rest
(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)
Posted in Notes and Comment Blog
Tags: FTB, God hates women, Patriarchy
Jan 15th, 2012 5:37 pm |
By Ophelia Benson
Meanwhile, in Jerusalem, the move to erase women wanders even deeper into Bizarroland.
The controversial exclusion of women from various settings in Israel because of pressure from ultra-Orthodox Jewish leaders reached a new level this week with a major conference on gynecological advances that is permitting only males to address the audience.
Yes you read that right. A major conference on advances in medical management of women’s plumbing excluded women. Well what’s it got to do with them, after all? If they don’t want a man’s arm up them, they shouldn’t have been born with female plumbing. If they don’t want men and only men telling them what’s what about their plumbing, they should…um…well they should sit down and shut … Read the rest
(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)
Posted in Notes and Comment Blog
Tags: FTB, God hates women, Patriarchy
