The things you happen on when stumbling around Twitter. I found an article by someone named Wardah Khalid, which says some strikingly unpleasant things about reformist Muslims and ex-Muslims.

The title, which may not have been her choice, is a bad start:

The Ayaan Hirsi Ali problem: why do anti-Islam Muslims keep getting promoted as “experts”?

That’s a stupid question. You can be opposed to X and be an expert in it. That’s not even unusual. Why shouldn’t people who are critical of Islam get promoted as experts?

And since she raised the question I tried to find out why she gets promoted as an expert, and I couldn’t find much reason. I think it’s probably because she’s a pro-Islam Muslim and that kind of thing is popular, just as reformist Muslims and ex-Muslims are (in different circles).

She starts with an Air Force white paper that she doesn’t like.

The writer is Tawfik Hamid a self-proclaimed “Islamic thinker and reformer, and one time Islamic extremist from Egypt.” He is currently a fellow at the Potomac Institute for Policy Studies and is the author of a number of books on radical Islam.

And? Is that an illegitimate thing to be? She would reply yes, it is.

But it’s not just this one report or this one author. Hamid is part of a long line of “pseudo-experts” on Islam, and he represents a much larger problem in which fringe Muslim Americans pushing an anti-Islam agenda are promoted as legitimate experts, thus mainstreaming ideas that are both offensive and incorrect.

What is “fringe”? Who defines “agenda”? Who says what is “legitimate”? And as for “offensive” – it’s well known by now that not everything someone calls offensive is necessarily bad or harmful or even illegitimate. Islam is an ideology, one with enormous power over a great many people’s minds, so it has to be open to criticism. Wardah Khalid doesn’t get to make it off limits.

These pseudo-experts typically argue some version of the idea that Islam is inherently violent and oppressive and needs to be reformed or defeated altogether. Their views are treated as legitimate by virtue of their religion; they are Muslim or formerly Muslim themselves, so they must know. This doesn’t just lead groups like the Air Force Research Laboratory to portray junk analysis as correct; it also promotes fringe ideologues as legitimate representatives of Islam and of Muslim Americans, when they are anything but.

But the whole idea of “legitimate representatives of Islam and of Muslim Americans” is an absurdity. Who could possibly represent all Muslim Americans? Obviously critics of an institution or ideology don’t “represent” all fans or adherents, but so what? That’s not what critics do.

It’s a bullying idea she’s working with, this idea that “fringe” means bad and wrong and not legitimate.

Most famous is Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a Dutch-American author and former Muslim who argues for a complete reformation of Islam, calling it “the new fascism” and “a destructive, nihilistic cult of death.” She demanded a Western-led war on the religion and was cited as a source of inspiration in the 1,500-page manifesto of Anders Breivik, the right-wing shooter who killed 77 people and injured 319 in Norway. Hirsi Ali later sympathized with Breivik’s argument that he “had no other choice but to use violence.”

Ah well now we know not to believe a word she says, because that last claim is a much-circulated lie. Hirsi Ali did not sympathize with Breivik’s argument, and that’s a dirty way to fight.

A fellow laureate of the Lantos Prize is Irshad Manji, who argues that the entire religion of Islam requires reform.

Again – and? Why shouldn’t she argue that?

Zuhdi Jasser, the founder and president of the American Islamic Forum for Democracy, was relatively unknown to the Muslim American community until he testified at Rep. Peter King’s extremely controversial homegrown Islamic terrorism hearings in 2011, where he stated that Muslims are “long overdue for an ideological counter-jihad.” He claimed that Muslim American leaders, including imams, are contributing to radicalization by not actively campaigning against political Islam or for the separation of mosque and state.

And? Is that just obviously false?

Asra Nomani, the co-founder of the Muslim Reform Movement, has called for government intervention in mosques for alleged “gender apartheid” and has denounced the hijab in mainstream media by calling it a “misinterpretation of Quranic verses,” putting her at odds with major Muslim schools of thought, which she rejects. She testified at the fifth King hearing in 2012 on the alleged Muslim denial and deflection of extremism, which she states is directly tied to Islam. Despite her fringe beliefs, she regularly receives mainstream media attention as a purported representative of the Muslim voice.

No she doesn’t. On the contrary, she’s seen as a liberal, reformist voice, which is not representative – and how tragic is that?

All of these so-called Muslim “reformers” are not accepted by most of the Muslim American community, yet media and government present them as authentic and authoritative Muslim voices. So why, with so many other credible, authentic, respected Muslim Americans they could choose to speak on Islam and extremism, do the government and media continue to rely on this small handful of anti-Muslim zealots?

See what she did there? She called them anti-Muslim, when she hasn’t established that. Being critical of Islam is not being anti-Muslim.

The reality is, Wardah Khalid is a religious reactionary, using the vocabulary of liberalism to try to discredit reformers. Someone talking to her on Twitter used the hideous phrase “comprador intellectuals” – which is reminiscent of Murtaza Hussain calling Maajid Nawaz a porch monkey.

The Muslim Reform Movement on Facebook:

Hizbut Tarir Australia has been found guilty of discriminating against women for making them sit at the back of PUBLIC POLITICAL meetings following a suit raised by progressive woman activist, Alison Bevege. Bevege has since been viciously subject to slurs such as “Islamophobe” and “bigot” by Hizbut Tarir members.

She writes on her twitter (@AlisonBevege): “progressive ‪#‎Muslims‬ and non-muslims together win – no forced gender segregation”

Video report

The Sydney Morning Herald:

Controversial Islamic group Hizb ut-Tahrir has been ordered to stop forcibly segregating men and women at its public events after a NSW tribunal found the practice constituted sexual discrimination.

Former NT News journalist Alison Bevege sued the organisation and five of its members for sexual discrimination after she was forced to sit in a designated women’s and children’s section at a public lecture hosted by the group on October 10, 2014.

Ms Bevege, then a freelance journalist, told the NSW Civil and Administrative Tribunal she attended the lecture, titled “the politics and plots of the American led intervention in Iraq and Syria”, with the intention of writing an opinion piece and asking questions of the speakers.

Goodness, what a hussy, thinking she gets to ask questions at a public event.

She went with a male friend.

Though the pair separately entered the lecture hall at the KCA Centre in Lakemba, when Ms Bevege attempted to join her friend in the men’s section “to be closer to the action” a female usher insisted she sit with the other women at the back of the room.

She told the tribunal that from the women’s section she struggled to read captions on a digital presentation accompanying the lecture and occasionally had to “crane my head to see.”

She doesn’t need to see. The men need to see, so that they can participate and even ask questions, but the women don’t.

While no representatives from Hizb ut-Tahrir attended the hearing, spokesman Ismail al-Wahwah disputed Ms Bevege’s account in documents supplied to the tribunal, claiming “she made no protestations at the time about such arrangements.”

Mr al-Wahwah said the segregated seating was “not a compulsory imperative” and Ms Bevege would have been allowed to “choose her own seat selection had she requested.”

While the separation of men and women was “a fundamental consideration in Islam” the event’s segregated seating plan was done as a practical measure, he said.

“The presence of women and children, and the noise that necessarily results from a child’s presence, necessitates seating away from the speakers.”

Because obviously the children aren’t going to sit with the men, and the men aren’t going to take care of any part of the childcare duties. Obviously women and children have to be bundled together and ostracized so that the men can get on with the important stuff.

“More importantly, having women and children closest to the fire exits is a safety priority we take very seriously.”

Right. Also women and children might go blind from the bright lights up front, don’t forget that one.

In its decision on Friday, the tribunal held Ms Bevege’s evidence was credible and found she was treated unfavourably on the grounds of her sex in contravention of section 33 of the NSW Anti-Discrimination Act.

It found her experience was “diminished” because “the men’s section did offer better seats than the seats in the women’s section because those seats were closer to the stage, speakers and the screen.”

Apparently the fundamental insult isn’t even worth discussing.

I cringe that this is my country. (I’m not very cis-American.) Donald Trump talks about the size of his penis in campaigning for president.

It’s “yuge” — or at least that’s what Donald Trump wants you to believe.

The leading contender in the GOP’s race for president made sure the size of his hands — and his manhood — were front and center during the Fox News debate on Thursday night.

“Nobody has ever hit my hands before. Look at those hands,” Trump said while holding them up, spread-fingered in a bid to address previous suggestions by rival Sen. Marco Rubio. “He referred to my hands — if they’re small, something else must be small.”

He added: “I guarantee you there’s no problem.”

Make it stop.

And then there’s India. Reuters via the Guardian:

India has denied visas for a delegation from the US government agency charged with monitoring international religious freedom.

The delegation from the US Commission on International Religious Freedom had been scheduled to leave for India on Friday for a long-planned visit with the support of the US state department and the US embassy in New Delhi, but India had failed to issue the necessary visas, the commission said.

The Indian embassy in Washington hasn’t responded to a request for comment.

Last year, despite a much-heralded fresh start in US-India ties under Indian prime minister Narendra Modi, the United States ran into problems arranging visits by the head of its office to combat human trafficking and its special envoy for gay rights.

Well there’s your problem right there – Modi is a Hindu nationalist, not a secularist or a liberal. He doesn’t believe in religious freedom.

A state department official referred queries on the visa issue to the Indian government, but highlighted remarks by president Barack Obama on a visit to Delhi last year, in which he made a plea for freedom of religion in a country with a history of strife between Hindus and minorities.

In its 2015 report, the bipartisan USCIRF said incidents of religiously motivated and communal violence had reportedly increased for three consecutive years.

It said that despite its status as a pluralistic, secular democracy, India had long struggled to protect minority religious communities or provide justice when crimes occur, creating a climate of impunity.

Because it’s not really a pluralistic, secular democracy in practice.

Non-governmental organisations and religious leaders, including from the Muslim, Christian, and Sikh communities, attributed the initial increase in violence to religiously divisive campaigning in advance of the country’s 2014 general election won by Modi.

The report said that since the election, religious minorities had been subject to derogatory comments by politicians linked to Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party and numerous violent attacks and forced conversions by Hindu nationalist groups.

In that context, the withheld visas are not a big surprise.

Mehreen Zahra-Malik reports at Reuters:

A powerful Pakistani religious body that advises the government on the compatibility of laws with Islam on Thursday declared a new law that criminalizes violence against women to be “un-Islamic.”

Thus throwing a massive spanner into the project of liberal secular Muslims who argue that it’s violence against women that’s un-Islamic.

The Women’s Protection Act, passed by Pakistan’s largest province of Punjab last week, gives unprecedented legal protection to women from domestic, psychological and sexual violence. It also calls for the creation of a toll-free abuse reporting hot line and the establishment of women’s shelters.

But since its passage in the Punjab assembly, many conservative clerics and religious leaders have denounced the new law as being in conflict with the Muslim holy book, the Koran, as well as Pakistan’s constitution.

That’s such an astonishingly ugly and indefensible position to take. Those conservative clerics and religious leaders are saying that the Koran is cool with violence against women, or perhaps even that it mandates it. Do they really want to say that?

Why would anyone ever want to worship a god who approves violence against any set of people? Why would anyone ever want to worship a god of hatred and domination?

The 54-year-old council is known for its controversial decisions. In the past it has ruled that DNA cannot be used as primary evidence in rape cases, and it supported a law that requires women alleging rape to get four male witnesses to testify in court before a case is heard.

The council’s decision this January to block a bill to impose harsher penalties for marrying off girls as young as eight or nine has angered human rights activists.

“Controversial” isn’t the right word for those decisions. Immoral, misogynist, sadistic, abusive are better fits.

Fazlur Rehman, the chief of one of Pakistan’s largest religious parties, the Jamiat-i-Ulema Islam, said the law was in conflict with both Islam and the constitution of Pakistan.

“This law makes a man insecure,” he told journalists.

And that’s all wrong, because it’s women who should be insecure, and beaten, raped, married off in childhood, denied education, killed at whim. Men must be secure in their power to inflict all that with impunity.

If the conservative clerics and religious leaders are right that that’s Islam, then Islam is a horror.

More from Sheffield University ASH. A later comment on that Facebook thread explaining why they were afraid to invite Maryam to speak:

Ellen Woods I ran this society several years ago (with a fairly “hardline” approach) and we had an ever increasing membership. I am frankly embarrassed by this statement.
I met Maryam Namazie at an event with Sheffield Humanist society a few years ago as well as rallies in London and think she, and everything she stands for, is fantastic.
I have honestly no idea who runs or is involved in the University society now but I apologise on behalf of myself and previous members. What a shame.

And a reply by the ASH Secretary, who is probably the author of the post, since the clumsiness of language is similar in both:

Jack R. Dowling If you’re done with your puffed up sophistry, Ellen, I’ll be happy to correct you.
We have seen great success with students and active membership since the society has been going in the direction outlined in our statement. And this is partly due to dropping the ‘hardline’ approach you seem to be quite proud to tout.
I have also met Maryam, and agree with her on many things; she was an ally, not an enemy. And we would have been very happy to have her to speak.
Unfortunately she has a narrative of victim hood which you all seem to have bought into quite nicely.
You’re talking to one of those people now, Ellen. And I’d like to apologise to you too. I’m sorry that the idea of promoting ideas of humanism and interfaith is an affront to you. Fortunately you aren’t here anymore; not a member who’s concerns we would take on board. So no harm no foul as I see it.

Confused, rude, and fatuous, all at once.

It’s sad for the ASH students of Sheffield.

Surprised not surprised – it turns out that contraceptives reduce the abortion rate. Women’s Health reports:

The new analysis from the Guttmacher Institute, which was just published in the New England Journal of Medicine, reveals that the unintended pregnancy rate declined by a whopping 18 percent between 2008 and 2011, bringing it to the lowest it’s been in 30 years.

The study’s authors also found that 42 percent of unintended pregnancies in 2011 ended in abortion, as compared with 40 percent in 2008—meaning that although the number of abortions has declined (due to the lower rate of unintended pregnancies), the proportion of unintended pregnancies that end in abortion has actually remained about the same (and even increased slightly).

“These findings provide significant new clarity for the U.S. abortion debate,” Joerg Dreweke, author of the Guttmacher policy analysis accompanying the study, said in a press statement. “We now know that abortion declined primarily because of fewer unintended pregnancies, and not because fewer women decided to end an unwanted pregnancy.”

Women are so obstinate, aren’t they? Insisting on deciding for themselves whether they want to be pregnant or not?

 

Another study recently revealed that when low-income women were denied access to Planned Parenthood clinics, their use of long-acting reversible contraceptives dropped, and their rates of unintended pregnancies rose dramatically.

“In short, supporting and expanding women’s access to family planning services not only protects their health and rights, it also reduces abortion rates,” Dreweke said. “The clear implication for policymakers who wish to see fewer abortions occur is to focus on making contraceptive care more available by increasing funding and stopping attacks on all family planning providers.”

On the other hand if the goal is to remove all autonomy from women, keep whittling away at abortion rights.

That icon of progressivism and social justice, Caitlyn Jenner, wants to be Ted Cruz’s trans ambassador.

To The Advocate, Jenner revealed that she wants to be Cruz’s “trans ambassador” should he become president. Here’s the relevant excerpt from Dawn Ennis’s Jenner profile:

Jenner reveals she met Cruz prior to her transition, more than a year ago, “and he was very nice.”

“Wouldn’t it be great, let’s say he goes on to be president,” she tells me in relating a conversation on the tour bus. “And I have all my girls on a trans issues board to advise him on making decisions when it comes to trans issues. Isn’t that a good idea?” she asked me.

“You’re going to be Ted Cruz’s trans ambassador?”

“Yes, trans ambassador to the president of the United States, so we can say, ‘Ted, love what you’re doing but here’s what’s going on.’”

She wasn’t joking.

I don’t see what could possibly go wrong.

The new issue of Free Inquiry is online, and my column is one of the items not subscribers-only this time. It’s about the odd fact that we consider Islamic State an enemy while we consider Saudi Arabia a valuable ally. (By “we” of course I mean Anglophone countries at government level.)

Saudi Arabia is officially an ally of many liberal democracies, yet it spurned the UDHR in company with newly apartheid South Africa and authoritarian communist states. This should seem stranger to us than it does. The hostility toward human rights of apartheid South Africa eventually made it a pariah state, and its pariah status in turn forced an end to apartheid. The stark absence of human rights in the Soviet Bloc eventually helped cause it to crumble. Why has nothing similar happened to Saudi Arabia? Why has global outrage not made something similar happen to Saudi Arabia? Why were conditions in South Africa and East Germany treated as human-rights issues while those in Saudi Arabia were not? Why now is the Islamic State a dreaded enemy while Saudi Arabia is still an ally? I would really like to know.

The two are not radically different, after all. Islamic State beheads people, and so does Saudi Arabia. Islamic State enslaves women, and so does Saudi Arabia. Islamic State kills people for “apostasy” and “blasphemy,” and so does Saudi Arabia. Islamic State considers Sharia law absolute and binding, and so does Saudi Arabia. Islamic State hates the Jews, and so does Saudi Arabia. Islamic State considers itself a legitimate state, and so does Saudi Arabia.

More.

More on the University of Sheffield Atheist Secular & Humanist Society, and that post on their Facebook page.

We are in no way abandoning Maryam Namazie. This year the society has shifted it’s focus from hard line atheism as it tends to stagnate numbers and decrease membership, to focus on humanism, which has had the opposite effect. We had a slow start in this and managed after a lot of hard work to be invited to events ran by the CU and Isoc. These are important because we feel that better relations mean they will feel more comfortable joining events that we host, making the society more diverse and the atmosphere more comfortable. We would be terrified of hosting Maryam and having her expirience what happened at Goldsmith’s after the society had enjoyed some success with Isoc, and having invited her feeling confident that the atmosphere would be a welcome one from all in attendance not just SASH members.

We would be delighted to host her at the University if this is something that is unlikely to happen. We really really don’t want her to feel undervalued or in some way unwelcome. The only thing unwelcome is the treatment she has expirienced at Goldsmith’s.

Yes but the right way to deal with that is not to refuse to invite her to speak. That just gives the Goldsmiths Isoc what it wanted: to shut her up.

Also…what exactly is the source of the terror in

We would be terrified of hosting Maryam and having her expirience what happened at Goldsmith’s after the society had enjoyed some success with Isoc, and having invited her feeling confident that the atmosphere would be a welcome one from all in attendance not just SASH members.

Is it terror of yet more bullying of Maryam? Or is it terror that Isoc will be mad at them, and all their efforts to make friends with Isoc will be for naught? It looks as if it’s the latter – and that’s pathetic.

Why do they want to be friends with Isoc in the first place? Islamists and atheists / humanists are not natural friends. Why is this ASH group trying so hard to be not an ASH group?

Maryam responded to that silly post.

The issue is not about an invitation to me. The point is that you are saying you cannot invite me to your uni at the suggestion of a student because of what happened at Goldsmiths University Atheist, Secularist and Humanist society. What happened? The ISOC there tried to cancel my talk, came and intimidated and even threatened the audience and I am to blame? You forgot to issue a statement of solidarity with the ISOC like the Goldsmiths Feminist and LGBTQ+ societies. Are you saying if I come, your ISOC might have to behave badly? And if so, why am I to blame for it. The politics of cowards. Always siding with Islamist narrative at the expense of dissenters.

She got a reply as silly as the post was:

We are simply saying that we do not know what will happen. There have been some incidents that suggest there are some members who may react in a negative way. They also may not. In order to find out, we wanted to improve relations between the Islamic Society to create a conversation that allows for us to ask whether issues may occur.

We in no way condone that behaviour and are obviously actively trying to prevent it from happening to you again at this university.

Rather as if Jews had tried to “improve relations” with the Nazis to create a conversation that allowed for them to ask whether the Nazis were planning to murder them all. Isoc is an Islamist organization, so of course it’s not going to be friendly to Maryam’s views. There’s no need to crawl to them to find that out, and crawling to them won’t make them any more likely to be reasonable about anything.

Meanwhile, in the getting shit done department –

The Peace Corps announced on Wednesday that it had more than doubled the number of countries participating  in the Let Girls Learn initiative, which aims to address the challenges that prevent 62 million adolescent girls from attending school and completing their educations.

Launched by the U.S. president and first lady on March 3, 2015, the government effort has since — with the help of corporate partners and individual donors throughout America — funded nearly 100 Let Girls Learn projects in 21 countries in Africa, Asia, Eastern Europe and Central America, and trained more than 800 Peace Corps volunteers to become catalysts for community-led change. Another 23 countries have been added this year. “In just one year, we’ve doubled the number of Peace Corps countries participating in Let Girls Learn, ensuring that even more girls around the world will have the resources and opportunities they need to succeed,” First Lady Michelle Obama said. “I am so inspired by how many Peace Corps volunteers are committed to Let Girls Learn. Their efforts exemplify our resolve to help girls everywhere get the education they need and deserve.”

Let them soar.

Is this peak cis? From the Telegraph:

A new startup is reinventing smartphone design, turning phones from rectangles to circles. The circular smartphone, called Cyrcle, is aimed at women, whose smaller pockets often can’t accommodate large phablets.

Ah yes, women and their biological smaller pockets.

The company behind the phone is called Dtoor – which stands for “Designing the opposite of rectangle” although the Cyrcle smartphone is currently their only proposed product. The founders Christina Cyr and Linda Inagawa are ex-Microsoft employees…

So everything right-angled will be designed into circularity to accommodate poor woolly women who can’t handle corners? Books will be round, magazines will be round, doors will be round, paper currency will be round?

The makers seem to be serious about launching this specialist “feminine-forward” phone, despite its completely tone-deaf promotional material. For instance, they claim to be custom-building for women, because current phones make women look “unattractive”, describing it as, “moms at a volleyball practice pecking like chickens into their mobile phones.” The Cyrcle is pegged as a more discreet and lady-like way of communicating.

Since the designers are women, I would pretty much call that cis – taking the stereotypes at face value and treating them as charming bits of personality as opposed to confining belittling limiting stereotypes.

Anyway, I struggle more with circles than I do with rectangles. When I go to pick up something circular I just can’t seem to figure out where the edge is.

Maryam tells us about a new installment in the ongoing saga of…of…I don’t even know what to call it now, because it’s become so tangled and contradictory since Sam Harris’s worshipers joined the fray. Of bizarro-world reasons students come up with to claim she’s an Unapproved Person.

A student at Sheffield University messaged the University’s Atheists, Secularists and Humanists Society to suggest inviting Maryam to speak there. Here is the ASH president’s response:

Can you believe it?

“The discourse in the zeitgeist” – meaning the chatter on the bit of social media the writer is aware of, which hardly amounts to the discourse in the zeitgeist, if there even is such a thing. But it makes for an official-sounding “reason” for shunning someone, and that’s what counts.

But much more to the point is the writer’s squeamishness at a “hard anti-Islamist” approach. Should we be pro-Islamist instead? Or neutral? Does the writer realize that Islamism means sharia and all that that entails? Has the writer taken a look at Islamism in Saudi Arabia for example?

Then there’s the hopeless confusion about the conversation with Sam Harris – as if Sam Harris had been pro-Islamism and Maryam had been “divisively” against it.

And then – this is the Atheist, Secularist and Humanist society – and it’s worried about relations with the Islamic Circle? But it’s an Atheist, Secularist and Humanist society. Can’t atheists have any place where they’re allowed to be atheist?

Then there’s the mention of “what happened at Goldsmiths” – as if that had been Maryam’s doing, when it was members of Isoc who disrupted her scheduled talk. The president of Sheffield ASH seems to want to give Sheffield Islamists a pre-emptive veto on inviting atheists to speak.

They had a conversation on Facebook.

“We really really don’t want her to feel undervalued or in some way unwelcome” – what do they mean “in some way unwelcome”? Obviously she is unwelcome – because Sheffield Islamists might go to her talk to disrupt it and try to bully her.

What a train-wreck.

Originally a comment by Josh Spokes on “We hope discussions on trafficking would not disproportionately focus on sex work”.

The reversal of meaning that’s happened to the word “stigmatizing” in this context is disturbing. I think it’s worth unpacking. I also think well-meaning people are accepting a perverse use of the term because it’s become de rigeur. Please reconsider.

“Stigmatizing sex workers” in a harmful way has always been understood to include things like:

• calling women whores and streetwalkers
• jeering at prostitutes
• treating them as unrapeable
• Trying to sweep them away like untidy garbage (you know, like how we do the homeless)

I think most of you would agree that this is a sensible, ordinary use of the term.

But look at how it’s being used here, by contrast:

• Advocating for an end to the conditions that force women into prostitution
• Calling the sex trade what it clearly is: Exploitative, and almost always paid rape. (Notice the “almost always” before you comment, anyone, because I won’t be nice if you gloss over it for a chance to ‘correct’ me)
• Urging other liberals not to ignore the rape and exploitation of the vast majority of women in prostitution. Urging them not to sweep it under the rug because some more well to do Western women had a lark doing lap dances for money in a choosy-choice way

Does anyone still think that this is a reasonable way to frame “stigmatization” of prostitutes? Does anyone else notice that linguistic legerdemain, and how insidious it is?

I hope some people will contemplate this and change their minds.

Behold the gruesome corruption, sleaze, and all-round disgustingness of US politics.

Back when Dodd-Frank mandated the creation of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, an agency proposed by Elizabeth Warren with the goal of protecting American families from predatory lending practices, few probably imagined the agency would face pushback from the chair of the Democratic National Committee. And yet, here we are in 2016, in the midst of one of the most bizarre election seasons on record, and Wasserman Schultz, along with several other Floridians in Congress, is challenging the CFPB’s forthcoming payday lending regulations.

Because what could be more worth protecting from regulation than an “industry” that preys on poor people by charging sky-high interest rates on payday loans?

Wasserman Schultz is listed as a co-sponsor on the bill that would stall CFPB’s regulations and give states the opportunity to opt out of them.

Wasserman Schultz has plenty of support in this endeavor, much of it from Republicans, as The Huffington Post’s Zach Carter points out. But Wasserman Schultz, who has received over $30,000 from the payday loan industry, will lend legitimacy to the Democratic minority that supports the bill.

Sleazy sleazy sleazy.

The Women’s Liberation Group within the Edinburgh University Student Association is worried that there is going to be an event on human trafficking at the university. The group issued a statement.

Recently, it was brought to the Women’s Group attention that there is an event being organised within the university on Human Trafficking. The Women’s Group have a few concerns with the event.

Any conflation of human trafficking with sex work is incredibly harmful and damaging to both sides. We hope discussions on trafficking would not disproportionately focus on sex work, as from the statistics provided (an estimated 28 million are trafficked and 4.5 million are part of the sex trade) this would make up around 1/6 of trafficking. We would hope the conversation would address all forms of forced labour, including those such as domestic and manual labour.

But maybe that’s what the event is about – sex trafficking. Trafficking is not identical to forced labor, and there are different kinds of forced labor which can all be addressed separately. I don’t see it as particularly women-liberating to say don’t talk about sex trafficking, talk about all forced labor instead. A form of slavery that very disproportionately victimizes women ought to be a feminist concern, I should think. It’s odd to see feminists saying ALL forced labor matters.

However, we are concerned that the two speakers included in the event are from the same ideological wing and support an “end demand” model for prostitution through criminalisation. One of the speakers is from an organisation which equates child abuse and lap dancing as examples of violence against women. Their stance is: “All prostitution is exploitative of the person prostituted, regardless of the context, or whether that person is said to have consented to the prostitution.” This is directly at odds with EUSA policy to condemn anti sex work campaigns.

Because libertarian fun-feminism has eaten all their brains.

A statement by Inspire:

Inspire is shocked and disappointed that some British imams, Muslim groups and individuals in our country have expressed their support and paid tribute to Mumtaz Qadri following his execution* yesterday in Pakistan, by declaring him to be a “martyr” who defended the honour of the Prophet Muhammad (Peace Be Upon Him)

Mumtaz Qadri assassinated Punjab Governor Salman Taseer in January 2011 for his stance against Pakistan’s blasphemy laws and his robust defence of Aasia Bibi, a Christian woman who is currently on death row for allegedly insulting the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH). 

Governor Taseer pointed out in November 2010 in an interview with CNN that the blasphemy law is not a religious law but a political tool implemented in 1979 when he stated: 

“The blasphemy law is not a God-made law. It’s a man-made law. It was made by General Ziaul Haq and the portion about giving a death sentence was put in by Nawaz Sharif. So it’s a law which gives an excuse to extremists and reactionaries to target weak people and minorities.” 

Also in 2010, during an interview with Newsline Governor Taseer made the following statement:

 “The thing I find disturbing is that if you examine the cases of the hundreds tried under this law, you have to ask how many of them are well-to-do? Why is it that only the poor and defenceless are targeted? How come over 50 per cent of them are Christians when they form less than 2 per cent of the country’s population. This points clearly to the fact that the law is misused to target minorities.” 

Such remarks angered Qadri enough to murder Governor Taseer in cold blood. Yet today in Pakistan thousands of supporters cheered and threw flowers at the casket of Mumtaz Qadri. Here in the UK since yesterday, a number of imams, Muslim groups and individuals have praised and defended Qadri’s act of murder.
 

We believe there is absolutely no justification – whether religious, moral or ethical – for supporting individuals like Qadri, least of all from an Islamic perspective. Qadri’s supporters have argued that he honoured the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) by murdering Taseer when in fact Qadri and his supporters have tainted the name of the Prophet and dishonoured his teachings by murdering a man in cold blood who showed solidarity with minority communities, as did the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH).  As Governor Taseer rightly pointed out: “Islam calls on us to protect minorities, the weak and the vulnerable.“ 

This Islamic position was recently re-emphasised at the historic Marrakesh Declaration which was attended by Muslim theologians from 120 countries in February 2016 and can be read here

We at Inspire believe that we must stand for equality, human rights and the rule of law. We also recognise we must challenge those who seek to bring our faith into disrepute by justifying violence and death in the Prophet’s name.

1st March 2016

*Inspire do not support the death penalty