Author: Ophelia Benson

  • Canada Says No to Zakir Naik

    Yesssssss.

  • Tarek Fatah on a parting insult to Aqsa Parvez

    The Toronto Star sent a reporter who has for years celebrated the hijab and niqab to cover the trial of her father and brother.

  • Gita Sahgal’s speech at One Law for All rally

    Beware when you hear talk of balancing of rights. Generally, it a code for denying women rights.

  • The eyes of Texas are bloodshot

    The Texas Taliban Republican Party really is a hoot. Their new platform wants to set up an Inquisition, take the suffrage away from women and Nigras, send Jews to Iceland to do sumpin about that there volcano –

    Okay, I’m lying. No all the platform wants to do is, for instance,

    restrict citizenship to children born in the United States whose parents are citizens

    That’s all – it just wants to repeal the 14th Amendment, that’s all. You know – the one that was passed in the wake of the Civil War, that undid the infamous three fifths rule in the Constitution and the equally infamous Dred Scott decision. And you know what else that particular red-hot idea would do? You do if you’ve seen the latest News item, because I spilled it there already. Look at it. It would make the current president a non-citizen according to Texas. I find that fascinating – it makes my blood run cold.

    The platform would also like the reinstatement of laws banning “sodomy,” and to make gay marriage a felony. A felony! With jail time!

    I’m canceling that vacation trip to Lubbock right now. I don’t think I would feel cheerful there.

  • Texas Republicans go for broke

    Make gay marriage a felony! Legalize whuppin’ in public schools! Make Obama a non-citizen in Texas! Yee-ha.

  • 20 June a huge success against Sharia and religious laws!‏

    Several hundred people joined One Law for All on 20 June at Downing Street to show their opposition to Sharia and religious-based laws in Britain and elsewhere and to demand universal rights and secularism.

    A new report “Sharia Law in Britain: A Threat to One Law for All and Equal Rights” was published on the day to coincide with the rally. Human rights activist Gita Sahgal said of the report: “I think it is highly significant that in Britain there has been silence where there should have been condemnation. There is active support for ‘Sharia laws’ precisely because it is limited to denying women rights in the family. No hands are being cut off, so there can’t be a problem. Unfortunately for us, senior law officers will find that human rights expert bodies often have a similar attitude. They have done little research on the impact of family laws and the denial of justice caused by parallel systems of justice. That is why the findings of this report are so important. It is such dedicated work that changes the thinking of the experts.”

    She went on to say: “This campaign stands at the heart of a debate over the future of Britain. It also stands at the heart of global attempts to destroy the most basic rights, to invade liberty and to crush equality and to do this in the name of upholding and promoting human rights. We stand here today facing down forces of racism and fundamentalism as we struggle for secularism.”

    The pro-Sharia Al-Muhajiroun organised a counter-demonstration to the One Law for All rally. One of their members said: “We find many of these people who call for human rights and one law. They come and they say that they want equality. But what equality do you get when one man legislates over another?” In response, One Law for All Spokesperson, Maryam Namazie, said: “The fight against Sharia law is a fight against Islamism not Muslims, immigrants and people living under Sharia here or elsewhere. So it is very apt for the Islamists to hold a counter-demonstration against our rally. This is where the real battleground lies. With a few members of the far Right English Defence League also there to showcase their bigotry, it became abundantly clear to everyone why our Campaign is fast becoming the banner carrier for universal rights, equality, and one secular law for all in this country and beyond.”

    MC Fariborz Pooya of the Iranian Secular Society said: “The One Law for All Campaign has brought to centre stage an important debate about the kind of society we want to live in whilst defending the rights of everyone irrespective of religion, race, nationality…; this Campaign is truly the voice of the voiceless.”

    Women’s rights campaigner Yasmin Rehman said: “We Muslims have been a part of the UK for many, many years but the generations before me did not feel the need for or call for segregation in the way that is being demanded now. At the beginning of my career as a women’s rights advocate there was no need to apply for a certificate of Khula in divorce cases. Muslim women are now being told that divorces under the English legal system are not valued or recognised without a certificate of Khula – and should they remarry without this they will be committing Zina – a ‘crime’ punishable by death in many Muslim countries. This is not a view shared by all Islamic scholars but a view that is being pushed through the Islamic councils and tribunals across the UK.”

    Anna Waters of One Law for All’s Legal Team said: “Any reasonable interpretation of the Human Rights Act shows us that there are certain things that it doesn’t allow – and one of the things it doesn’t allow is for a woman to have an inferior or second class status when she stands before a judge in a court of law. This is exactly what is happening…”

    Sue Robson of the Gay And Lesbian Humanist Association said: “This is a human rights issue. Here in the UK, it’s an egalitarian issue; it’s a feminist issue. Elsewhere in our world, the issue is life – and death.”

    Gerard Phillips of the National Secular Society said that Sharia Law was “nothing less than an attack on human rights and on equality.” He went on to say: “It undermines our democracy. It must be opposed.”
    The rally also heard from others including Naomi Phillips of the British Humanist Association, poets from the Anti-Injustice Movement and singer Adam Barnett.

    Protestors then joined a march organised by Iran Solidarity to the embassy of the Islamic regime of Iran. Patty Debonitas of Iran Solidarity UK said: “By coming today you are showing your solidarity with the people here who are victimised under Sharia law and people in Iran who are being victimised under the state power of Sharia.” The rally was held on 20 June to mark the killing of Neda Agha-Soltan at a protest in Tehran last year and link the fight against Sharia here with that in Iran and elsewhere.

    On the day, Maryam Namazie was interviewed on BBC 1 TV’s Breakfast Programme, and some other media outlets.

    Notes:

    1. The new One Law for All report “Sharia Law in Britain: A Threat to One Law for All and Equal Rights” can be downloaded free of charge or a paperback copy purchased from One Law for All for £5.00 plus £2.00 Shipping and Handling. To purchase the book or donate to the work of One Law for All, please either send a cheque to our address below or pay via Paypal by visiting donate. One Law for All wants to send the report to MPs, the Archbishop of Canterbury and others. It would be very helpful if you could buy extra copies for us to send on to others free of charge.

    2. Full speeches of speakers will be available on the website soon as will video footage of the day. Photos can be found here.

    3. The One Law for All Campaign was launched on 10 December 2008, International Human Rights Day, to call on the UK Government to recognise that Sharia and religious courts are arbitrary and discriminatory against women and children in particular and that citizenship and human rights are non-negotiable.

    4. For further information contact:
    Maryam Namazie
    Spokesperson
    One Law for All
    BM Box 2387
    London WC1N 3XX, UK
    Tel: +44 (0) 7719166731
    onelawforall@gmail.com
    www.onelawforall.org.uk

  • We try to keep the way we’ve been doing things for generations

    When “education” consists of nothing but studying one book, then not much is learned.

    For thousands of years the way that ultra-orthodox Jewish children are taught has changed little and is based almost entirely on study of the Torah – the Jewish Bible.

    But now a group of leading secular Israelis wants to force the ultra-orthodox, or Haredi, education system to modernise and adopt standard subjects like maths, science and English.

    The reason, they say, is that thousands of Haredi students are unable or unwilling to participate in wider Israeli society and are becoming an increasing economic burden.

    “Participate in wider Israeli society” looks a lot like “get a paying job.” The BBC is apparently reluctant to spell that out (why?) but it seems pretty clear that if all you have ever “studied” is the Torah, then nobody is going to hire you except someone who wants Torah-knowledge and has the money to pay you to provide it, which once again implies a job or some other source of income in the background. In short if everyone in a given society learns nothing but the Torah or the Koran or Harry Potter, then no one will be doing anything that produces material wealth, and all the Torah scholars or Potter scholars will sooner or later starve to death. In short there is something just a tad self-indulgent about infinite Torah-frotting unless one is already, like Mr Bingley, in possession of a large fortune.

    The rabbi acknowledges that most of the boys he teaches will never work or participate in “wider” Israeli society – dedicating themselves instead to a life of religious study.

    “We try to keep the way we’ve been doing things for generations – for hundreds, even thousands of years,” he says. “It’s the same idea of studying the Talmud, an explanation of the Torah. We see the success, the great success and don’t want to change a thing.”

    What success? At whose expense? Who provides the meals and the roof over the head? Who pays for all this success?

  • Jerry Coyne on one-sided dialogue

    Many people have discarded their faith because its tenets were either philosophically insupportable or in conflict with the palpable facts about the world.

  • Israel: Haredi schooling is under pressure

    All they study is the Talmud.

  • French world cup coach relies on astrology

    How’s that going for him?

  • Pakistan considering death penalty for Facebook CEO

    Pakistani penal code makes “defiling Muhammed” a crime punishable by death. And that applies globally?

  • Texas Republicans want to criminalize “sodomy”

    Also want to make it a felony to issue a marriage license to a same-sex couple.

  • The Missionaries of Charity

    I worked as a volunteer in one of Mother Teresa’s homes in Calcutta, India for a period of two months at the end of 2008. It was during this time that I was shocked to discover the horrific and negligent manner in which this charity operates and the direct contradiction of the public’s general understanding of their work.

    After further investigation and research, I realized that all of the events I had witnessed amounted to nothing more than a systematic human rights violation and a financial scam of monumental and criminal proportions.

    Workers washing needles under tap water only to be reused again. Medicine and other vital items being store for months on end, expiring and eventually still applied sporadically to patients. Volunteers with little or no training carrying out dangerous work on patients with highly contagious cases of Tuberculosis, leprosy and other life threatening illnesses, while the workers of the charity patently refuse to accept and implement machinery and equipment that would safely automate processes and save lives.

    It was Mother Teresa’s own admission during an interview that more than 23,000 people had died in the halls of one of the missions home; boasting at the number if you will and missing entirely the point of the enormous compilation of unnecessary deaths.

    Not once in its sixty year history, have the Missionaries of Charity reported the money they’ve taken in donations, what percentage they use for administration and where the rest has been applied and how. Since its inception, defectors of the organization and other journalists have placed the figure upwards of one billion dollars and counting. The mission currently operates 450 plus homes and maintains an average of 4,000 workers.
    If any other organization did this systematically for six decades, there would be arrests and criminal charges; so why the exception here?

    Many followers of Mother Teresa and her charity have irrationally argued in her defense while completely ignoring the actual deaths caused by the organization which in it of itself is quite troubling. While I agree that poverty is ugly, grueling and heartbreaking and it won’t go away in two months or a year I have also seen how easy it is for many to swipe a credit card or send a check and in return spend hours claiming the good that’s done with it but in this case, it couldn’t be more inaccurate.

    Mother Teresa herself had also repeatedly admitted that she was not a social worker, and her followers continue to assert the same. So under what motives do they tend to the poor you may ask? The mantra of the operation rests solely on the belief that suffering and poverty are ways of loving god, something that when explained to even people of faith makes no sense at all! In short, they are there to move people to their deaths rather than actually looking for ways to fix the problem that is poverty.

    I have started this group and other projects to denounce the Missionaries of Charity and their work and bring worldwide attention to the acts committed by them on daily basis. I strongly believe that as humans we most help our fellow humans in need with 100% transparency and not in return of those we help having to agree with whatever spiritual path we may choose.

    Continuing to air these facts about Mother Teresa’s Missionaries of Charity and organizations like hers bring attention to the fraud and manipulation that exists and helps point good people everywhere to other charities that work to empower men, women and children in need the world over.

    About the Author

    Hemley Gonzalez is the creator of the Facebook group STOP the Missionaries of Charity, whose goal is to hold the Missionaries of Charity accountable for their negligence and misuse of donations.

  • How to do dialogue

    Chris Mooney is in praise of dialogue again.

    The fact is, journalism (and dialogue) about science and religion are pretty difficult to oppose.

    Case in point: Last week, here in D.C. (my old, new home), I attended an event at the American Association for the Advancement of Science to reintroduce its Dialogue on Science, Ethics, and Religion…At the close of the session, I rose and posed a question. One can never remember exact words, but in essence, it was this: “I’m glad you’re trying to foster dialogue between scientists and the religious community, and I’m sure you’ll succeed. But here is a harder question–how will you foster dialogue with the New Atheists?”

    Oh that dialogue about science and religion – the one where everybody gets together and hates on “the New Atheists.” And if they’re slow to get around to that, fortunately, Chris Mooney is there to remind them to get down to it – Mr Communication, Mr Framing, Mr Can’t We All Get Along himself. Chris Mooney is a friend to everyone – except the evil marginal non-mainstream people he insists on calling “the New Atheists” as if that were a known classified species rather than a sloppy journalistic catch-all pejorative.

    Good to have you back Chris. You’re a real piece of work.

  • Chris Mooney incites new round of atheist-bashing

    “I rose and posed a question…how will you foster dialogue with the New Atheists?”

  • Teach children the bible and protect them from ethics!

    Once kids have a strong grounding in what “the gospel is all about, they won’t be so easily falling for the ethics material.”

  • We notice things selectively

    We don’t see everything there is, and we need to keep that in mind.

  • Results of Cherie Blair inquiry ‘were covered up’

    Office for Judicial Complaints told the public one thing, the NSS another.

  • Margaret Drabble on Jane Austen

    Finds Virginia Woolf on Austen almost as imbecilic as E M Forster ditto.

  • Julian Baggini reviews Marilynne Robinson

    What might look like subtlety is too often plain sloppiness.