Oh great, the return of the great push to enact global blasphemy laws. This time it’s not the OIC but a group of Arab countries.

Manama: Arab countries are working on a draft law that bans the defamation of religions and empowers them to take abusers to court even if they are not residents.

The draft, presented by Qatar, is being reviewed by delegates from several Arab countries at the Arab League.

Under its provisions, all forms of defamation, derision or denigration of religions and prophets will be considered crimes.

Is that sweeping enough? Under that wording, anything could be considered a crime – something that doesn’t explicitly mention religion could just be treated as allegory or sarcasm.

Oh … Read the rest

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It’s ironic. On the one hand we get Facebook going “no, a page that threatens a named college student is not a problem, we won’t take it down,” and on the other hand we get the LSE student union going “omigod tshirts with Jesus and Mo cartoons on them, you have to take them off or get out immediately.”

Wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong - completely backwards. Death threats and passive-aggressively veiled death threats are the thing to resist. Cartoons that make jokes about the tenets of religions are not the thing to resist.

It’s so simple. Do try to pay attention.… Read the rest

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So as I mentioned, this Mike Shaver, an engineering director at Facebook – he generated a whole bunch of tweets last night explaining that the title of the Facebook page, Should named person be murdered?, was not a threat. Offensive, yes, tasteless, yes, but not a threat.

A small sample of his explanations, in chronological order.

Mike Shaver @shaver

[to Miri and a couple of other people] I was disputing your point of it being necessarily a threat. law on threatening statements pretty clear here, IMO

[to Miri and a couple of other people] to be clear, I find the page title offensive too, but I don’t want my tastes mandatory for 1B people either

[to someone else] I

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Right. Facebook. Let’s take a look at that.

It has a Safety page, which has a Safety Philosophy page.

There we find:

Our Part
In reviewing reports of abusive content, we remove anything that violates the Facebook Terms or Community Standards.

So we look at the Rights and Responsibilities page, which is also a Terms page, aka a TOS page. I assume that “terms of service” means what it says – these are the terms on which we let you use the service.

Item 3 on that page is Safety.

Safety
We do our best to keep Facebook safe, but we cannot guarantee it. We need your help to keep Facebook safe, which includes the following

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More on that law that lets Iranian men marry and fuck their own adopted daughters, from the Guardian.

Parliamentarians in Iran have passed a bill to protect the rights of children which includes a clause that allows a man to marry his adopted daughter and while she is as young as 13 years.

In a bill to protect the rights of children? How…paradoxical.

To the dismay of rights campaigners, girls in the Islamic republic can marry as young as 13 provided they have the permission of their father. Boys can marry after the age of 15.

In Iran, a girl under the age of 13 can still marry, but needs the permission of a judge. At present, however, marrying

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The hinges of my jaw are not large enough to accommodate the drop it wants to do.

Support Dashboard

Here you’ll find the status of content you’ve reported, inquiries or requests you’ve made, or your content that someone else reported.

We’ll let you know if we need any information from you or when we’ve made a decision. History

• You reported Should Miri Mogilevsky be murdered ? for harassment.

  This page wasn’t removed

  Details

  Status	This page wasn’t removed
  Details	Thank you for taking the time to report something that you feel may violate our Community Standards. Reports like yours are an important part of making Facebook a safe and welcoming environment. We reviewed the page you reported for harassment

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Rory Fenton, president of the National Federation of Student Atheist, Humanist and Secularist Societies (in the UK), made a statement on the way officers of the LSE Student Union bullied the LSE ASH group on Thursday and Friday.

For the second day in a row our affiliated society, the LSE Atheist, Secularist and Humanist Society, have faced intimidation and threats from its students union and university for their refusal to remove t-shirts featuring the cartoon Jesus and Mo. Their statement on today’s events can be read below. For their statement on yesterday’s event please click here.

The LSESU’s statement, which omits any reference to the use of security guards, can be read here.

The National Federation of Atheist,

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A petition:

On 22 September 2013, one day before the start of the school year in Iran, the Islamic Republic of Iran’s Majlis or parliament passed a law permitting a stepfather to marry his adopted child.

In defence of the law, one Member of Parliament said: “According to Islam, every child who is accepted as an adopted child is not considered a real child. Islamic jurisprudence and Sharia law allow the guardian of the child to marry and have sex with his step-child.”

This shocking law will encourage child ’marriages’ and is nothing more than legalised paedophilia and child rape. It will further endanger the welfare of the child and violate her basic rights. It will deny the child any

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

Krishnan Guru-murthy went to Afghanistan to report on abused women for channel 4. He found it unsettling. He has a daughter, who is 8. He loves her.

So listening to a young woman in Kabul describe how her father stabbed her 16 times, slashed her throat and left her for dead because she refused to marry the man he’d chosen is an unsettling experience. I was in Afghanistan for Unreported World  making a film about how some fathers and husbands treat their daughters and wives.

There is all sorts of cultural history and religious pressure to explain how women have been deprived basic rights in Afghanistan. But this kind of violence? I can’t pretend to understand how anyone can do

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Deeyah’s documentary film about the “honor” murder of Banaz Mahmod won the 2013 Emmy for Best International Current Affairs Documentary Film on Tuesday. That’s fantastic news, because it will obviously bring more attention to the subject.

Well done Deeyah, and congratulations.… Read the rest

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Facebook pages can be reported. Facebook pages that threaten people can and should be reported. I was being quiet about this in public in case Miri wasn’t aware of it, but she is aware of it now, so if you’re on Facebook and you have a minute, you could report this.

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Should-Miri-Mogilevsky-be-murdered-/465247246924802… Read the rest

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Rebecca has a transcript of the ThunderfQQt video at Skepchick.

I know all of this seems very silly to those of you who don’t know as much about preventing rape as Thunderfoot, but let me tell you, I’ve done a lot of research into this and a lot of what Thunderfoot says in his video is indistinguishable from the words of wisdom offered by actual admitted rapists in prison. There have been several studies looking into their stories and what they have to say and let me tell you Thunderfoot has done a great job of sounding exactly – exactly- like those rapists.

For instance, there was a study done in 1984 that included in-depth interviews with rapists

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Wuhey, Rebecca’s back at the video game – and it’s a corker. It’s about ThunderfQQt and his Excellent Advice About Rape.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S8TBz5OCxYI

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Abhishek Phadnis and Chris Moos report:

The following is an account of the events at the LSE Freshers’ Fair on Friday, October 4th:

We (Abhishek Phadnis and Chris Moos) arrived at the Fair at 10 am. In silent protest at our treatment the day before (see account of events of October 3rd), and still unsure as to what parts of the t-shirts had allegedly caused “offence”, we put tape (with the words “Censored”, “This has been censored” and “Nothing to see here”) over the faces of the “Jesus and Mo” figures on the t-shirts.

Shortly after midday, the LSESU Deputy Chief Executive Jarlath O’Hara approached us, demanding we take the t-shirts off as per his instructions of the previous day. … Read the rest

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Joint statement from LSE and LSE SU (it says, although at the bottom it’s signed only by the SU General Secretary).

At the LSE Students’ Union Fresher’s Fair on Thursday 3 October two students from the LSE SU Atheist Secularist and Humanist Society (ASH) wore t-shirts that were clearly designed to depict Mohammed and Jesus in a provocative manner.

The Students’ Union, which runs the event, received a number of complaints from other students.

The SU asked the students to cover the t-shirts in the interests of good campus relations. The society remained free to share their literature and views.

One member of the society declined to do this. The student was attended by a cameraman and it was feared … Read the rest

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Chris Moos and Abhishek Phadnis report:

The following is an account of the events at the LSESU Freshers’ Fair on October 3rd

On Thursday 3rd of October, we (Abishek Phadnis and Chris Moos) were at the LSESU Freshers’ Fair, manning the stall of the LSESU Atheist, Secularist and Humanist Society to meet other non-believing students. At around noon, we were approached by LSESU Community and Welfare Officer Anneessa Mahmood, Anti-Racism Officer Rayhan Uddin, and Deputy Chief Executive Jarlath O’Hara and several others who identified as LSESU staff.

Without explanation, Anneessa Mahmood started removing material from the stall. When challenged, she claimed that it was “offensive”. In addition, the LSESU staff members demanded that we remove our t-shirts. We were told … Read the rest

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I don’t think I knew that Christopher Hitchens was a defender of David Irving, even after Irving failed in his attempt to censor the historian Deborah Lipstadt by suing her for libel. That’s all the more revolting since the reason Irving failed is because the historian Richard Evans demonstrated that Irving had systematically falsified evidence in his books. Irving wrote “history” that was a tissue of lies. No responsible intellectual should defend that.

An “antifascist, otherwise known as Soupy” I encountered on Twitter, @InTheSoupAgain, alerted me to this, and since I don’t think I knew it and I think it matters, I feel obliged to point it out.

Hitchens wrote a piece on the subject for the Wall Street … Read the rest

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At the fair. Chris Moos, Abhishek Phadnis and a guy I won’t name. Chris and Abhishek you already know.

… Read the rest

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To the London School of Economics Student Union’s bullying of the LSE student Atheism Secularism and Humanism group at LSE’s freshers’ fair yesterday.

Take it away, Jesus and Mo.

 … Read the rest

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When in doubt, kill the woman. Brace yourself: Emma Batha’s special report in the Independent begins with a horror.

Two months ago, a young mother of two was stoned to death by her relatives on the order of a tribal court in Pakistan. Her crime: possession of a mobile phone.

Arifa Bibi’s uncle, cousins and others hurled stones and bricks at her until she died, according to media reports. She was buried in a desert far from her village. It’s unlikely anyone was arrested.  Her case is not unique. Stoning is legal or practised in at least 15 countries or regions. And campaigners fear this barbaric form of execution may be on the rise, particularly in Pakistan, Afghanistan and Iraq.

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