Human Rights Watch says Tunisia’s draft constitution needs improvement. Now there’s a surprise.

The shortcomings in human rights protections largely concern the status of international human rights conventions ratified by Tunisia, freedom of expression, freedom of thought and belief, equality between men and women, and non-discrimination, Human Rights found in an analysis of the proposals.

Quite a few things, in other words. Quite important things.

Article 3 threatens freedom of expression by stipulating that, “The state guarantees freedom of belief and religious practice and criminalizes all attacks on the sacred.” This provision, which defines neither what is “sacred” nor what constitutes an “attack” on it, opens the door to laws that criminalize speech, Human Rights Watch said.

Anything for … Read the rest

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

Egypt’s Prime Minister wants the US government to do all it can to “stop people insulting Islam.”

Time out while I sigh a huge sigh.

No. Shut up. Fuck off.

First of all, there’s no such thing as “insulting” a religion to begin with. “Insult” is a human term. You can’t “insult” socialism or libertarianism or skydiving or birdwatching or apricots or cats.

What you mean is “disparage” or similer. We’re allowed to do that. Everyone should be allowed to do that.

If you tried to persuade the US government to do all it can to stop people disparaging Islam, you would still be doing a silly and bad thing. There’s a lot about Islam that cries out for disparaging, … Read the rest

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

Kristina Hansen demonstrates her aversion to bullying again by turning me into an Amish crone in a bonnet. Hahahahahahahahaha she is one witty blogger.

… Read the rest

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

Bernard Hurley did a very informative comment about the law under which Azhar Ahmed was found guilty of  “posting an offensive Facebook message.” It’s too informative to hide in comments so here it is.

Bernard Hurley

Ahmed was prosecuted under clause 127(1)(a) of the Communications Act 2003. The purpose of the act is to define the rôle of OFCOM and to regulate such things a local radio and indeed any services running over publicly funded or partially publicly funded electronic networks. Section 127 is buried in the middle of it and reads:

127 Improper use of public electronic communications network (1) A person is guilty of an offence if he—

(a) sends by means of a public electronic communications network

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

Well there’s one thing about the ElevatorGATE stalker’s obsessive stalking and Storifying, which is that it makes it easy to point to some crazy.

I can’t remember why I decided to look at his Storify just now, but I did, to find that he’d storified a conversation I was still having with Amy and Glendon and Melody. Whew! Don’t I feel special! Being watched every second…yeah, that rocks.

But he also Storified this one, in which two people who have lived in totalitarian countries earnestly testified that yes indeed “they” really are totalitarians.

• @Metamagician @philosophyexp @notungschwert They hate being likened to totalitarianism, but their behaviour speaks for itself.
• @PaulaSKirby @Metamagician @PhilosophyExp @NotungSchwert This isn’t really hyperbole. I lived in

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

Jacques Rousseau has a good post on The Bumblebee Affair and assigning blame and when bullying is what’s called for. (Spoiler: never.)

The takeaway:

No matter how you assign blame for past actions, or what your character judgements are in relation to all the players in this soap opera, we should all remember to include ourselves in those character judgements also, and try to be objective when thinking of our roles in causing or facilitating harm to others. In this instance, Ms Bumblebee has no defence – in the knowledge that Jen McCreight has been jeered off the stage, and had a long-standing depression triggered, she doesn’t take the option of silence (never mind sympathy). Instead, she broadens the net

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

A bit of housekeeping. I asked Chris Stedman about that whole business of my doing something not 100% unlike what Booly Wumblebee did the other day in the matter of Jen and her father. He replied honestly that he thought my self-repudiation should have been more public than comments. Fair enough!

It was June last year. The title was Helicopter parents. It was not my finest hour. I hadn’t even remembered it when I wrote the post about Kristina Hansen’s version. That’s one time when the obsessed haters who monitor my every word actually did get something right, and taught me something.

There are a lot of comments on the Helicopter parents post, but never mind that; they … Read the rest

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

Parents in Virginia can prevent their children from getting any education at all if they want to, provided their reasons are religious. What a great arrangement.

Nearly 7,000 Virginia children whose families have opted to keep them out of public school for religious reasons are not required to get an education, the only children in the country who do not have to prove they are being home-schooled or otherwise educated, according to a study.
Virginia is the only state that allows families to avoid government intrusion once they are given permission to opt out of public school, according to a report from the University of Virginia’s School of Law. It’s a law that is defended for promoting religious freedom and

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

Stephanie has a good collection of items in her post Within the Movement - items that are more than just “trolls on the internet.”

• If announcing a conference about the role of women in secularism on your organization’s site is met with charges of misandry or comments on a report of the conference have to be shut down, with the problems coming from registered users, that happens within the movement.
• If a speaker and writer hosts a discussion for about a year that is devoted to tearing down those who call harassment an issue, posting personal information and lies, tracking everything said or tweeted in obsessive detail, that happens within the movement.
• If an atheist organization’s leader declares publicly

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