Muslim Women’s Network UK has a statement on the murder of Asad Shah.

We at Muslim Women’s Network UK (MWNUK) are shocked at the brutal murder of Glasgow shopkeeper, Asad Shah, which was carried out by another Muslim. This murder sadly highlights the rising religious bigotry within our own communities.

Muslim Extremists seek to not only polarise different communities but also try and bring discord within their own communities.  Some religious zealots will castigate anyone who does not share their version of Islam. Muslims in Britain are from different ethnic backgrounds and are diverse in their perspectives and practice of Islam. They come from all walks of life, are from different denominations of Islam and are from across the

A Taliban splinter group says it did the Lahore bombing that killed more than 70 people (and more of the injured are expected to die).

Jamaat-ul-Ahrar said it had targeted Christians celebrating Easter, though police have said they are still investigating the claim.

There were scenes of carnage as parents searched for children amid the debris.

What a glowing advertisement for a religion: We Blow Up Children.

M Ilyas Khan of BBC News Islamabad offers analysis:

The bombing of the amusement park on Easter Sunday was the bloodiest attack on Christians in Pakistan since the 2013 Peshawar church bombing that killed more than 80 people.

But many believe there may be a wider context to the latest attack – 27

Sarah Peace on the so-leftwing-it’s-rightwing idea that it’s colonialist to oppose FGM.

I was to find out that my brazen anti-FGM stance is ‘regurgitating the hideous colonial project that imposed itself on the rest of the world on a civilizing mission to rescue the women of the third world from its savage men’. The rationale I am told, is that even as a Nigerian born woman, I cannot speak for other less privileged Nigerian women, how much less, a white woman on behalf of ethnic minorities.

It was at Goldsmiths University that I came to witness this betrayal first hand, which ascribes brutality onto people from other places as part of culture but fashions itself so self-righteously.

Goldsmiths – … Read the rest

The Andrew Wakefield “documentary” is no longer part of the Tribeca Film Festival.

In a statement, Robert De Niro, a founder of the festival, wrote: “My intent in screening this film was to provide an opportunity for conversation around an issue that is deeply personal to me and my family. But after reviewing it over the past few days with the Tribeca Film Festival team and others from the scientific community, we do not believe it contributes to or furthers the discussion I had hoped for.”

I don’t know what that “an issue that is deeply personal to me and my family” shit is supposed to mean. That’s an annoying thing to say, and I wish he’d left … Read the rest

Ah this is nice – Cubans in Havana are lining up in their tends of thousands for a free concert by the Rolling Stones, who used to be banned as “decadent.”

Fans travelled from many parts of Cuba and other countries to witness what some described as a historic moment.

“It was forbidden. We couldn’t have the Beatles or some singers from Latin America. Now we are allowed to hear what we want to hear,” a fan told the BBC.

“The visit from Obama [earlier this week], and now the Rolling Stones. It’s just unique and historic. So, yeah, nice to be here,” said another one.

The Rolling Stones released a short video saying their concert was a sign

Alice Dreger has posted an open letter to Tony Valenzuela, ED of the Lambda Literary Foundation.

She thought a tweet telling her about the nomination was a joke at first, because this nominating for an award and then rescinding the nomination routine has happened before. Dreger wrote about it in her book.

In my book—as in the earlier article that led to the misery that led to me to doing that book—I had traced out what happened in 2003 to J. Michael Bailey’s book, The Man Who Would Be Queen, when it had been named a finalist for a “Lammy”: A group of transgender activists upset with Bailey for writing about autogynephilia—a sexual orientation that reasonably

Mary Elizabeth Williams at Salon:

There are not two sides to every story. Not every issue requires us to legitimize an opposing view. Like, for instance, when the other perspective is totally crackpot. For example, if you’re a disgraced fraud, maybe you’re really not the best source for information about vaccines.

Totally crackpot and harmful as well. The crackpot in question is Andrew Wakefield.

This week the Tribeca Film Festival announced it’s debuting a provocative new documentary with the flamboyant name “Vaxxed: From Cover-Up to Controversy.” The film’s description promises, “Digging into the long-debated link between autism and vaccines, ‘Vaxxed: From Cover-Up to Catastrophe’ features revealing and emotional interviews with pharmaceutical insiders, doctors, politicians, parents, and one whistleblower

From last month – the Independent reports on a Danish aid worker who rescues Nigerian children who’ve been abandoned because someone thinks they’re “witches.”

An aid worker whose rescue of an emaciated two-year-old boy made headlines around the world has spoken about how she gave up everything in Denmark to help “the witch children of Nigeria”.

Anja Ringgren Lovén was pictured offering water and biscuits to a small and very thin little boy called Hope, who had been abandoned by his family because of local superstitions about witchcraft.

Ms Lovén took Hope in, and he is now one of 34 children being cared for at the African Children’s Aid Education and Development Foundation (ACAEDF) which she founded with her husband

Some nasty posturing self-righteous goon on Twitter is claiming to be one of the people who sabotaged Kate Smurthwaite’s Goldsmiths show yesterday, starting with a “statement” (actually just some screen grabs of a bunch of assertions) about how right they are and how much good they did by sabotaging Kate’s show.

Have you ever seen the like?

The goon is complaining that Kate didn’t RT that ridiculous “statement” and that no one is publicizing it so I told the goon I would publicize the fuck out of it. Here I am doing that now. There it is, in all its brainless glory.

First there’s the brazen claim that they didn’t intend to silence Kate by making sure she had no … Read the rest

The CBC reports (on its former employee):

Jian Ghomeshi has been acquitted on four counts of sexual assault and one count of choking by an Ontario Court judge who says the “deceptive and manipulative” evidence of the complainants raised a reasonable doubt in the guilt of the former CBC Radio host.

In a searing rebuke of the complainants, Judge William Horkins said the evidence from all three not only suffered from inconsistencies, but was “tainted by outright deception.”

“The harsh reality is that once a witness has been shown to be deceptive and manipulative in giving their evidence, that witness can no longer expect the court to consider them to be a trusted source of the truth,” Horkins said.

That … Read the rest