Author: Ophelia Benson

Chills the blood.

Iran’s most prominent political dissident talks to the philosopher.

It is forbidden to work as a teacher under the current puppet regime. Teachers must recieve a warning; next time, a beating; next, death.

Hundreds of Iranian online journals have been protesting against media censorship by renaming their blogs after pro-reformist newspapers and websites that have been banned or shut down by the authorities.

Cites sorrow and anger, demands apology for insult to honour of prophet.

Natalie Angier unimpressed by Bush’s assumption that prayer is some sort of miracle Vicks Vapo Rub for the national charley horse.

‘Today, the open society is challenged by Islamism’

Ibn Warraq on a one-eyed view of the relationship between the Arab and Western worlds.

Extracts from Humanist Philosophers’ Group pamphlet.

A shipowner was about to send to sea an emigrant-ship.

Is It Wrong Everywhere, Always, and for Anyone to Believe Anything on Insufficient Evidence?

TV is popular culture, the working class likes it, so put down that book.

It is never permitted to terminate the gestation of an anencephalic child as the means of avoiding psychological or physical risks to the mother.

Just look how she dresses, the bridge of her nose visible for all the world to see.’

Government and military officials are suspected of plotting, ordering, or carrying out more than a quarter of journalist murders over the past 15 years, CPJ’s analysis shows.

Subjecting Hindu women to Sharia courts is not justice.

Islamic officials seized her 15-month-old daughter from her Hindu husband, Suresh Veerappan, last month and handed the child to Revathi’s Muslim mother.

His book gives advice on wife-beating. Not too hard, not on the tender bits; do it right.

Driven to desperation by forced marriages and abusive husbands, more and more are seeking release through self-immolation.

Delegates from countries like Bangladesh, Iran, India and Sri Lanka – which have similar female suicide rates – discussed the problem at a conference in Afghanistan in November 2006.