The BBC has a story on Raif.

Raif Badawi, 31, was flogged 50 times last week and has been told he will receive another 50 lashes on Friday.

His wife Ensaf Haidar, who has sought asylum in Canada, noted that Western powers had condemned the punishment.

But she said she would like them to “do more” for Badawi by appealing to the Saudi government directly to free him.

The Gulf kingdom has so far not responded publicly to the protests.

They’re busy. So many liberals and infidels to whip.

Haidar praised the criticism of the flogging by the governments of the US, Canada, Germany and Norway and others, but said she wanted them to put further pressure on the

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Kiran Opal has a brilliant sarcastic post about kuffarsplaining. I know this person she’s talking about. I’ve encountered this person. This person is ridiculous.

Kuffarsplaining:

• Telling Muslims (or Ex-Muslims) that you, as a Western Non-Muslim know what Islam “really says”.
• Converting to Islam, then using your white privilege to talk over non-white Muslims, while denouncing non-white Ex-Muslims as being ‘native informants’ and ‘Uncle Toms’.

Seriously. I have encountered that person.

• Insisting that Islamists who murdered over a dozen people in Paris, or over 2000 people in Nigeria, or over 135 children in Pakistan were all somehow disaffected with your Western hedonistic countries’ ways, and had no agency or thoughts beyond thinking of you and how much they hate

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The pope says we can’t insult religion.

Well he would, wouldn’t he. Anyway he does.

In provocative remarks which may cause consternation in France, the Pope said that freedom of expression had its limits, especially if it involved insulting or ridiculing religion.

He made the forthright comments to journalists on board his official plane as he flew from Sri Lanka to the Philippines, the two stops on his week-long visit to Asia.

That would be convenient for the Catholic church, wouldn’t it – but it’s wrong. Religion is one of the institutions that most needs insult and ridicule (as well as criticism and defiance). The pope’s religion undertakes to give us all orders, and we all get to answer … Read the rest

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Amnesty International has satellite photos that show the damage done by Boko Haram in Baga and Doron Baga last week.

Satellite images released by Amnesty International today provide indisputable and shocking evidence of the scale of last week’s attack on the towns of Baga and Doron Baga by Boko Haram militants.

Before and after images of two neighbouring towns, Baga (160 kilometres from Maiduguri) and Doron Baga (also known as Doro Gowon, 2.5 km from Baga), taken on 2 and 7 January show the devastating effect of the attacks which left over 3,700 structures damaged or completely destroyed. Other nearby towns and villages were also attacked over this period.

“These detailed images show devastation of catastrophic proportions in two towns,

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Raif’s wife, Ensaf Haider, thinks he won’t survive the second set of lashes tomorrow, the Huffington Post reports.

Last Friday he endured the first round of lashes — 50 strikes on the back of his body by a long, hard cane — in a public flogging held in the city of Jiddah. This Friday, he will reportedly be subjected to a second round of 50 lashes.

“Raif told me he is in a lot of pain after his flogging, his health is poor and I’m certain he will not be able to cope with another round of lashes,” Badawi’s wife, Ensaf Haider, told Amnesty International.

It’s too bad the UN High Commissioner for human rights didn’t issue his … Read the rest

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Sky News prevents Caroline Fourest from showing the Charlie Hebdo cover immediately after she explains that it’s a “very sweet drawing that puts Mohammed outside this crime.” They jerk the camera upward and then shift away altogether to the presenter, who apologizes to anyone who may have been Offended.

Cowardly obsequious crawling assholes. They endorse the stupid claim that the cover is “Offensive” and they endorse the fiction that Charlie Hebdo was to blame. C’est dégueullasse.… Read the rest

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A ray of hope? The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights – who is Jordanian – has told Saudi Arabia to stop flogging Raif Badawi. Ok has asked, urged, called on, whatever – he’s not in a position to tell. But still.

The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights called on Saudi Arabia on Thursday to stop the serial flogging of an atheist and civil rights blogger sentenced to receive 1,000 lashes over an extended period.

Raif Badawi, who set up a website called “Free Saudi Liberals”, received 50 lashes after Friday prayers last week and global rights groups say he is expected to be submitted to a second round on Friday.

“Flogging is in my view at

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Guest post by Saba Farbodkia. Originally a post at British Muslims for Secular Democracy on Facebook, published here by permission.

Dear offended religious people,

Please stop the hypocrisy. The right to offend is not exclusively yours.

If you know the holy scriptures of the religions that you uphold so dearly, you already know how offensive parts of them are to people.

Yet, some of you still continue to publish them. Some of you buy those publications and read them. Some of you recite them to your children. Some of you force your children to uphold them as sacred and act upon them as far as they can. And all of you regard those scriptures beyond questioning and criticism, otherwise why … Read the rest

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AFP at the Guardian reports on the arrest of Dieudonné.

Notorious French comedian Dieudonné M’bala M’bala has been arrested for being an “apologist for terrorism” after suggesting on Facebook that he sympathised with one of the Paris gunmen, a judicial source has said.

Prosecutors had opened the case against him on Monday after he wrote “Tonight, as far as I’m concerned, I feel like Charlie Coulibaly” – mixing the slogan “Je suis Charlie”, used in tribute to the journalists killed at magazine Charlie Hebdo, with a reference to gunman Amédy Coulibaly. Dieudonné was arrested on Wednesday.

Coulibaly killed four people at a Jewish supermarket on Friday and a police officer the day before.

In the US that wouldn’t get him … Read the rest

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Pliny the in between offers a helpful algorithm for the offended:

… Read the rest

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So. Someone whose case does not fall under the statute of limitations is pursuing criminal charges against Cosby.

A model who claims Bill Cosby drugged and sexually abused her at the Playboy Mansion met with Los Angeles police on Wednesday to pursue criminal charges against the comedian over the 2008 incident.

An attorney for Chloe Goins said after the meeting that his client is the first woman accusing Cosby of sexual misconduct whose case may fall within the statute of limitations.

More than 15 women have accused Cosby of sexual misconduct, including several who say the comedian drugged and raped them in incidents dating back at least four decades.

Quick, somebody make a joke about women not drinking around … Read the rest

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Lliana Bird also objects to the whole “Charlie Hebdo is racist!” thing.

[O]ne thing I’ve found difficult to ignore is the growing voices of those who knew little of the cartoonists and journalists saying terrible things about them, which are quite frankly unsettling.

“Racist”, “Islamophobic” and “hypocritical” have been the most common accusations. Many seemingly educated friends and social media buddies seemed to be merely glancing at a few cherry-picked Charlie Hebdo covers without making any effort in understanding their true meaning or impetus (or often even of the French translation of the accompanying captions).

And that’s not enough, especially when the subject is people who were just murdered by two fanatical bigots for reasons that are beneath contempt.

Charlie

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Salty Current has further thoughts on the failure of many to make the effort to understand Charlie Hebdo before declaring it racist.

I’ll repeat briefly the major point I’ve been making for the past several days: that I hate the approach that many people with basically good motives seem to be taking, which consists of a hostile-prosecutorial attitude that begins by assuming the worst, even on the basis of the most skeletal evidence and biased reports, and proceeds through various stages of half-listening to and then minimizing or dismissing evidence that contradicts or at least challenges the original impression.

Not the history of the publication and its political commitments or those of its staff, not the statements of the

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On page 10 of the new issue of Charlie Hebdo – under the subhead Allah Akbar! –

The killers shouted twice before executing the team – “God is the greatest!” Bah, no, fuckhead, if he existed, you really think he would have let your bottomless stupidity murder the brilliant intelligence of Wolinski, Cabu, Honoré, Charb, Tignous, Bernard Maris, Elsa Cayat and Mustapha Ourrad?

It actually says “he wouldn’t have” rather than “he would have” but I figure that’s an idiom I’m not aware of.

“Allah Akbar” was Charb’s cri de guerre, his salutations in emails and texts – “Allah Akbar, do you think you can manage to get your article in tomorrow?” One day at the magazine, for a laugh,

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On Twitter –

FranceBleuLoireOcéan @bleuloireocean · 15 hours ago
5h20 ce mercredi : plus aucun #CharlieHebdo au kiosque de la gare de #Nantes. Les 106 exemplaires sont partis en 5′

5:20 a.m. this Wednesday: not a single #CharlieHebdo left at the newsagent’s at Nantes station. The 106 copies were gone in 5 minutes.

I like that photo because you can see how CH is still all over all the papers. I especially like the cover of Libération.… Read the rest

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I knew it wouldn’t be enough. I knew 3 million wouldn’t be enough just for France, let alone everywhere else.

The print run has been raised to 5 million, but that won’t be enough either.

I want a copy, but apparently it’s not even distributed here outside New York.

The Guardian reports:

The planned print run of the first Charlie Hebdo magazine since last week’s deadly terrorist attack has been increased to 5m as many newsagents in France sold out of stocks within minutes of it going on sale.

“The publisher has decided this morning to bring the print run to 5m,” Véronique Faujour, president of the distributor MLP, told AFP. The figure is 2m more than

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Via Twitter –

Nakul Shenoy ‏@nakulshenoy Jan 13
Eh?! RT @girishmallya: Bought my copy of one part Woman to support freedom of expression http://www.amazon.in/One-Part-Woman-Perumal-Murugan-ebook/dp/B00GZQDISO/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1421146193&sr=1-1&keywords=one+part+woman … #IAmPerumalMurugan

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There’s a new party standing in the next UK general election in May.

An anti-feminism party called Justice for Men and Boys (And the Women Who Love Them) is standing for parliament in May’s general election.

The party, which hands out “Lying Feminist of the Month” awards to female journalists, will be fielding three candidates in the Nottingham area, including one candidate who will attempt to unseat shadow women and equalities minister Gloria De Piero.

The party was founded by retired businessman Mike Buchanan, who told BuzzFeed News it’s his party’s ultimate aim to “make feminism a dirty word”.

That’s already happened.

Buchanan used to work as a business consultant for the Conservative party, but quit in 2009 when David

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A beautiful new Jesus and Mo today.

I just love that last panel – it expresses what I’m always struggling to express in words – the notional quality of the putative “love” for the putative prophet.

I also love the presence of the Charlie cover.

The J and M Patreon is here.… Read the rest

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They are the same. Ce sont pareils.

Iman @1GodlessWoman · Jan 12
They are indeed but one in the same #ParisShooting #RaifBadawi #saudi #NotInMyName

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