Rahila Gupta discusses Amnesty International and Cage at Open Democracy.

[W[hen Asim Qureshi, Research Director of Cage, alleged that harassment from MI5 was responsible for Emwazi’s journey to IS (Islamic State) in a Channel 4 interview with Jon Snow, they overreached themselves and opened themselves up to general ridicule and incredulity.

The ensuing outrage at Cage’s arguments appears to have pushed Amnesty International (AI) to put more distance between itself and Cage than it has ever done before, even though it was widely called upon to do so at the time of Gita Sahgal’s suspension from her post as head of the Gender unit at AI in 2010.

In December 2014, Gita Sahgal again criticised AI for co-signing a

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The actor Frieda Pinto gave a speech at the New York premiere of India’s Daughter. The Huffington Post reports:

“Today in 2015 despite the vast improvements in the lives and rights of women across the world in the last century, there still seems to exist this very complex network of ideological and cultural norms that still plague our society and that make global misogyny, in my opinion, a great scourge and most pressing issue of our age,” Pinto said.

That’s why we’re still battling – because of that network of ideological and cultural norms. The ones that put women in various inadequate pigeonholes that all function to diminish and constrain them.

Pinto told the audience that gender inequality

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Shaun King at Daily Kos has more about Sigma Alpha Epsilon at the University of Oklahoma and elsewhere.

27 days ago, people on Reddit were talking about this exact same chant, and stating that it was a required chant to enter the SAE fraternity at the University of Texas. Before this controversy at the University of Oklahoma ever existed, here is how it was recounted in Texas,

For SAE context a few buddies of mine told me their favorite song to sing went-
“There will never be a n*gg*r SAE, there will never be a n*gg*r SAE, Abe set ‘em free but they’ll never pledge with me, there will never be a n*gg*r SAE.”

But even before this, SAE had

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Michael De Dora wrote this as a comment on a public Facebook post I did of the 2006 statement by Amnesty International. He gave me permission to publish it here, which is good, since this is his subject.

In particular, any advocacy of national, racial or religious hatred that constitutes incitement to discrimination, hostility or violence cannot be considered legitimate exercise of freedom of expression. Under international standards, such “hate speech” should be prohibited by law.

This is, for me, the most interesting part of the statement. It is actually true that international standards state “Any advocacy of national, racial or religious hatred that constitutes incitement to discrimination, hostility or violence shall be prohibited by law.” See Article 20 of … Read the rest

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Michael De Dora at the UN Human Rights Council today.

//www.youtube.com/watch?v=DBTLAlzlbgY… Read the rest

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Tarek Fatah wrote a column in the Toronto Sun in January that tells me something I didn’t know.

One of the reasons I avoid attending Friday congregations at mosques is a specific ritual supplication uttered by Imams at many mosques in Canada and around the world, just prior to our formal Friday community prayer, the Juma’a.

In the supplication, the cleric prays to Allah for, among other things, to grant “Muslims victory over the ‘Qawm al-Kafiroon,’” the Arabic phrase that lumps all non-Muslims — Jews, Hindus, Christians, Atheists, Buddhists and Sikhs — into one derogatory category, the “Kuffar”, or non-Muslims.

Well that’s gross. For one thing there’s the lumping, for another there’s the derogation, for another there’s the “victory” – … Read the rest

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Look at the nice treat Femina Believe sent out for International Women’s Day –

All you superwomen who shop at the mall, and clean the house, and keep men from being lonely. Happy International Women’s Day 1953.… Read the rest

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And one more, because it’s just so unchanged and so infuriating – the bait and switch. Yes you can have free speech, no you can’t say harsh things about religion. What’s the problem?

Of Course You Can, Except When You Can’t

February 4, 2006

Back to the real world, where cartoons ‘are’ representations of Mohammed – some depressing oxymoronism from Jack Straw. Of course we respect free speech, but you can’t say that; of course everyone has a right to free speech, but no one can insult religion. Well which is it, bub? It ain’t both! I’m not a free speech absolutist, as I’ve said many times, but this idea that free speech is okay as long as … Read the rest

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Then there’s one on February 4 2006 wondering what anyone even means by “images of Mohammed” anyway.

Tinkerbell

Wait, hold on – something has just crossed my tiny mind. These cartoons – that are so ‘offensive’ because they are cartoons of Mohammed – how do the people who are so offended know they are cartoons of Mohammed? There aren’t, like, photographs of him, right? Not to mention the fact that it’s a no-no to make pictures of him anyway, so that if there were photos of him, they’d all have been thrown away by now. But surely it’s much more likely that they weren’t taken in the first place, and that drawings, paintings, watercolours, engravings, etchings, and silhouettes were not … Read the rest

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A B&W post from February 2, 2006, to show how little has changed in 9 years.

Paul Goggins went on the Today programme on the day the religious hatred bill was passed in the Lords version not the government’s version, to explain why the bill (particularly, in the government’s version, with the language about ‘recklessness’, instead of the Lords’) was necessary and a good idea. After some pressing he articulated the basic (I take it) point.

Well I accept, Jim, and we always have accepted that there are fine balances to be drawn here, but religious belief is an important part of identity, and the expression of that religious belief is important to many people, and that others should

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KB Player wrote a post yesterday about a correspondence she had with Amnesty International UK.

I’m a member of Amnesty International and wrote expressing my concern about their association with CAGE.  I got this reply back:-

Amnesty International UK’s Director Kate Allen, said

“Amnesty no longer considers it appropriate to share a public platform with Cage and will not engage in coalitions of which Cage is a member. Recent comments made by Cage representatives have been completely unacceptable, at odds with human rights principles and serve to undermine the work of NGOs, including Amnesty International.”

But don’t go thinking they’re accepting that Gita Sahgal was right. Oh no. They’re not doing that.

At the time that Gita Sahgal left

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The ACLU of Oklahoma issued a statement yesterday on the expulsion of the two students involved in the racist chant on the bus.

The following is attributable to Ryan Kiesel, ACLU of Oklahoma Executive Director:

While the facts continue to unfold regarding the recent expulsions and continued investigations, we are closely monitoring the situation and urge the University to keep its attention focused on the larger issues of racism on the University of Oklahoma campus.

Universities are one of the primary battlegrounds for learning about free speech and understanding how to combat bigotry. The best antidote to hateful speech is the exercise of peaceful speech in return. We have seen remarkable examples of students, faculty, administrators, and Oklahomans from all

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Newsweek must be very clueless. They have a story about the “Islamic Human Rights Commission” and its “Islamophobia” awards in which they treat the “Islamic Human Rights Commission” as a genuine human rights organization.

The chair of an Islamic human rights group has defended its decision to give the staff of satirical French magazine Charlie Hebdo an award for Islamophobia.

The London-based Islamic Human Rights Commission (IHRC) held its annual Islamophobia Awards, which are voted for by members of the British Muslim community, on Saturday.

What are “members of the British Muslim community”? How are they different from British Muslims? What’s the membership process?

Anyway that appears to be wrong – it appears that anyone can vote just by clicking … Read the rest

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Jezebel has some new fodder for Christina Hoff Sommers: a Congresswoman actually expects the FBI to do something about Gamergate harassment. Brace yourselves for new videos from the “factual feminist” aka the former philosopher who now shills for a right-wing clubhouse.

[Katherine] Clark is the congresswoman for Brianna Wu, the Boston-based game developer who’s been relentlessly trolled for months by Gamergaters. Clark’s office, she says, has been “watching Gamergate unfold” for several months.

“We discovered this fall that Brianna was a constituent and reached out to her about what we could do,” Clark said. “That led us eventually speaking with the FBI about how they’re handling these cases.”

Wow. Imagine if Rebecca’s Congressional Representative had ever done that.

Or,

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