The Council of Ex-Muslims of Britain tweeted a striking forum post from a year ago, titled Believing in Jihad and Martyrdom.

I lived my younger years wanting only one thing: martyrdom.

I wanted to die in battle, in the name of Allah.

I wanted the peaceful happy death that martyrs appear to experience with a smile on their face.

I didn’t care who I fought or why, as long as I was fighting for Allah under Islamically justifiable conditions.

Everything in this world was worthless in comparison. You die in the name of Allah, and you get a free pass from all the pain and suffering that awaits everyone else on Judgement Day. You go straight to heaven, and all

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

Nick Cohen ponders the absence of news coverage of the murder of Rafiq Tagi.

Emin Milli, a liberal Azerbaijani writer, told me that Tagi appeared to be recovering from his injuries in a state hospital and then took a turn for the worse. He wondered how that could be. He was as suspicious about the failure of westerners to take an interest in the murder of a writer, whose “crime” had been to speak his mind. He’d tried the BBC, newspapers… everyone he could think of and no one apart from Index on Censorship was interested. “Why don’t they care?”

Milli has a touchingly simple belief in the power of free speech, but his question was not as naive

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