A few days ago Saudi Arabia sentenced lawyer and human rights defender Waleed Abu al-Khair to 15 years in prison. Amnesty International has details.

The Specialized Criminal Court in Jeddah convicted Waleed Abu al-Khair of a string of “offences” including “inciting international organizations against the government” and “breaking allegiance to the ruler” among others. He will also be subject to a 15-year travel ban after his release.

He is the latest in a long list of human rights activists who have been harassed, intimidated and imprisoned by Saudi Arabia’s authorities in recent months.

Waleed Abu al-Khair has represented many victims of human rights violations. His former client Raif Badawi, was sentenced to 10 years in prison and 1,000 lashes in May for setting up an online forum for public debate.

So allegiance to the ruler is mandatory by law in Saudi Arabia? How cozy.

Waleed Abu al-Khair’s wife, Samar Badawi, told Amnesty International she was saddened when she first heard the news, but is very proud of her husband: “It is an unjust and oppressive court ruling and Waleed’s position of refusing to recognize the legitimacy of this court and to appeal the decision are honourable,” she said.

“These are 15 years of shame on the Ministry of Interior Courts. I am honoured to be the wife of this free and noble defender. History will expose these masquerades against human rights defenders.”

Waleed Abu al-Khair has been detained since 15 April 2013. He has been moved between different prisons and is currently detained in Briman prison in the coastal city of Jeddah.

With every car that starts…

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

Oh good, another shiny new secular project. We just can’t have enough of those, all the more so if they’re all run by the same people who say the same things.

The mission of Openly Secular is to eliminate discrimination and increase acceptance by getting secular people – including atheists, freethinkers, agnostics, humanists and nonreligious people – to be open about their beliefs.

Ok, that’s fine. It’s good to eliminate discrimination and increase acceptance. I think their including should include theists, since some theists are also secularists according to one definition of secular, but perhaps they’re using a different definition. So, ok so far.

[Updating to add: Actually that was too hasty. I gave them that part mostly for rhetorical reasons, because I was going to disagree sharply with the next part. Well stuff rhetorical reasons. Not fine, not ok so far. Why? Because as Joe points out - this is what they've been doing all along, at least according to what they've been telling us.]

Openly Secular is the joint project of four of the best-known and respected secular organizations:

Richard Dawkins Foundation
Secular Coalition for America
Secular Student Alliance
Stiefel Freethought Foundation

Now less ok. Those aren’t my favorite secular organizations, to put it mildly. They’re too Dawkins-centered, too deferential to a handful of male pseudo-celebrities, too clueless, too right-wing.

We additionally seek to bring in Allies and Corporate Partners from outside of the movement: groups that support equality and fight discrimination such as LGBT groups, interfaith and civil liberties organizations, and other potential allied groups.

Note the conspicuous non-mention of feminist groups and anti-racism groups.

We will tell narratives of joy to demonstrate our values of Acceptance, Reason, and Love; express what we believe, show how love can flow despite differences, and that people are glad they became open. Ultimately, we strive to save relationships that might be lost to misunderstanding.

How You Can Help

All these exciting developments are why we need support of people like you. Doing these things costs money, especially to do them well and professionally. Working with a top-tier national PR firm and accessing celebrities is expensive work.

Interesting juxtaposition, isn’t it, from elevated slush complete with Capital Letters on Important Words, to “give us money.”

But more to the point (my point at least) – why do they need to “access celebrities” in the first place? Why even work with “a top-tier national PR firm”?

It’s just more of the same nonsense that made such a joke of the “Global Secular Council.”

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

Riada Asimovic Akyol points out one of the many genocides we get to commemorate.

In July 1995 in Srebrenica, the Bosnian Serb forces committed genocide, by killing 8,000 Bosniak men and boys. What is more shameful is that Srebrenica was a protected UN safe area, but the Dutch peacekeepers who had the responsibility to protect around 30,000 refugees in the area failed to prevent the mass slaughter.

This wasn’t a battle; it was rounding people up and murdering them; murdering them for genocidal reasons.

The two main masterminds of the genocide are currently on trial at The Hague Court: The former president of Republika Srpska, Radovan Karadzic and Ratko Mladic, war general of the Army of Republika Srpska, also known as the butcher of the Balkans among those who don’t glorify him as war hero.

While trials continue and survivors of the genocide wait for just verdicts, ghastly statements re-emerge. On July 9, justicereport.com published news about the latest horrifying racist remarks by Colonel Luka Dragicevic during his testimony in Mladic’s trial. Dragicevic was an assistant commander in the VRS Sarajevo-Romanija Corps from November 1994 to the end of the war.

He said that “Serbians are genetically stronger, better, more beautiful and smarter” than Bosnian Muslims – whom he called poturice, a derogatory term for Balkan Muslims who converted to Islam after the Ottoman conquest.

This is why language matters, why ideas matter, why ideology matters, why media portrayals matter. This is why that whole huge difficult-to-track detailed category of human behavior is so crucially important, and why it’s such a mistake to treat it as “mere” anything. Ideas and words are what motivate actions and justify them afterwards.

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

The things people worried about in the 19th century…

One such was the risk that women who rode bicycles would get – wait for it – bicycle face.

Instead, some late 19th century doctors warned that — especially for women — using the newfangled contraption could lead to a threatening medical condition: bicycle face.

Because…what? They were facing forward and paying attention, so they wouldn’t look all languorous and dreamy and fragile, as the fashion was?

“Over-exertion, the upright position on the wheel, and the unconscious effort to maintain one’s balance tend to produce a wearied and exhausted ‘bicycle face,’” noted the Literary Digest in 1895. It went on to describe the condition: “usually flushed, but sometimes pale, often with lips more or less drawn, and the beginning of dark shadows under the eyes, and always with an expression of weariness.” Elsewhere, others said the condition was “characterized by a hard, clenched jaw and bulging eyes.”

Yeah that’s wrong. Just for one thing, it’s only an effort to maintain balance on a bicycle when you haven’t learned to ride one yet. Once you catch on it becomes completely automatic and effortless, and you wonder why it was so difficult before then.

Anyway. It’s always interesting to see people trying to make women feel anxious about what they look like. Such a healthy pastime – unlike that dreadful bicycle thing.

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

Former Congressional Rep Todd Akin, Very Republican-Missouri, famous solely for being the guy who said “if it’s a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down,” has regrets.

He has regrets about saying that ridiculous and insulting thing?

Oh no. No no no. He has regrets about apologizing for saying that ridiculous and insulting thing.

Sean Sullivan at the Washington Post tells us about the regrets.

Akin explains himself in a soon-to-be-released book, “Firing Back: Taking on the Party Bosses and Media Elite to Protect Our Faith and Freedom.” 

Let’s pause for a second to admire that string of clichés. Bosses, media elite, faith, freedom; enemy enemy, good good. Imagine what the book must be like.

Politico obtained a copy early and reported on a passage in which Akin suggests that he shouldn’t have apologized in a TV ad.

“By asking the public at large for forgiveness,” Akin writes,  “I was validating the willful misinterpretation of what I had said.”

Akin ran for the U.S. Senate in 2012. He stoked widespread controversy that derailed his campaign when he remarked in a local interview: “First of all, from what I understand from doctors, [pregnancy from rape] is really rare.” He added that “if it’s a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down.” He later apologized in a television commercial, saying, “I used the wrong words in the wrong way, and for that I apologize.”

But now, well, he’s realized that he didn’t use the wrong words in the wrong way and that his duty to protect faith and freedom from the party bosses and the media elite requires him to say he was right the first time.

Ok. He really meant to say that raped women don’t get pregnant because the female body has a way to prevent that from happening. Sly, scary, powerful women, eh? Be afraid.

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

Back in 2008, in Cairo, another discussion of rape.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nDqWGtykYNE

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

Why, why, why.

Obama goes to Texas to chat with Rick Perry about immigration.

Obama delivered remarks after he met in Dallas with local elected officials, faith leaders and nonprofit leaders to discuss how to handle the flood of illegal immigrants, many of them unaccompanied minors from, crossing the southern border.

Why? Why did he meet with “faith leaders”? What have they got to do with anything? Why not limit it to nonprofit leaders, some of whom could well be religious? Why give “faith leaders” a seat at the table? Why can’t the government just stop doing this?

Asking for a friend.

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

Another from the annals of video game weirdness.

The plot of Akiba’s Trip: Undead & Undressed, a new Japanese adventure game making its way to the PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, and PS Vita this year, is pretty straightforward: As a young man, you’re tasked with identifying and eliminating bloodthirsty demons that have invaded Tokyo. The concept seems harmless, if a bit tired, until you realize that the “demons” in question seem to primarily take the form of young girls, and your best method of combating them is to strip off their clothing and expose them to the sun.

So, instead of battling grotesque enemies like you can in so many games involving demons, you’re stripping what appears to be a teenage girl down to her panties. There’s even a new and exciting game mechanic being introduced in this sequel (yes, a sequel) that lets multiple players strip an enemy together. Yikes.

The word is underpants. But anyway, yes, yikes.

Also, what if you’re not a young man? Is the game just for (straight, cis) young men?

And just in case you were about to defend the game as a totally-not-inappropriate demon fighting adventure, the PlayStation 4 version of Akiba’s Trip even lets people watching the game control the panties of the random female characters that inhabit the world. When streaming the game using the PS4’s Twitch and UStream broadcasting features, viewers can type “panty” in chat to cause a random young girl on screen to drop her underwear. “Panty jump” causes ladies underthings to rain down from the sky, and “panty around” surrounds the player in—you guessed it—a ring of panties.

At a time when gaming is struggling to grow up and become a more inclusive hobby, a sexual assault simulator—sorry, “game”—like this is a great example of just how much work there is left to be done.

/blockquote>
Ok.

Now – take your pants off.

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

Have a red panda.

Have I ever told you about the evening the male red panda somehow went for walkies and ended up lounging in the smaller (and fortunately empty) outdoor gorilla enclosure? Yes I probably did.

Have a red panda.

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

The pastor of a California church and a couple of other guys pleaded guilty on Monday to charges of beating and threatening the life of a 13-year-old boy.

Some unpleasant details ahead.

Lonny Lee Remmers, 56, Nicholas James Craig, 24, and Darryll Duane Jeter Jr., 30, tortured the boy in the church-run group home where he lived, according to a witness report in affidavits for search warrants.

…

The March 2012 incidents included Craig and Jeter driving the victim to the desert and forcing him to dig his own grave. They then made him get in and threw dirt on him. They were responding to Remmers’ instruction to “scare” the boy, according to the affidavits.

While the boy was showering, one of the men rubbed salt into the cuts on his back, according to Steven Larkey, who lived in the group home and provided the witness report in the affidavit. He told investigators he could hear the boy screaming and saw blood all over the shower the next day.

The victim was later tied to a chair with zip ties and placed in the shower. Mace was sprayed on his face, causing it to bleed, and he was not allowed to rinse off for about 30 minutes, according to the victim’s account in the affidavit.

At a Bible study later that evening at Remmers’ home, Remmers asked the boy to sit in the middle of the group and then squeezed his nipple with pliers.

It’s always good to see the way religion makes people kind and compassionate.

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

I’ve spent one half of today arguing with people who think I’m too ideologically pure and the other half arguing with people who think I’m not ideologically pure enough.

I can’t decide if that’s hilarious or annoying.

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

I got an idea from Katha Pollitt on Twitter – she’s making suggestions for sidewalk counseling. Like:

Can i sidewalk counsel women on their way to Mormon temple? Stay away from that sexist place where 12 year old boys have more power than you.

Let’s play.

Can I sidewalk counsel people on their way to a yoga place? Hey, don’t go in there, you can’t twist yourself into a pretzel like that!

Can I sidewalk counsel people on their way to a rock concert? Stay away from that place, you’ll damage your hearing!

Can I sidewalk counsel people on their way to get a haircut? Don’t waste your money in there, get a friend to cut it for you!

Can I sidewalk counsel people on their way to a basketball game? Go home, those people are way taller than you!

Can i sidewalk counsel people on their way into McDonalds? ARE YOU KIDDING, you don’t want to eat that shit!

Your turn.

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

CFI urges:

Help Fix What Hobby Lobby Broke: Tell Your U.S. Senators to Protect Women’s Access to Birth Control

Yes do that, even if you think this is just window-dressing by the Democrats.

Trying to repair the damage done by the Court, U.S. Senators Patty Murray (D-Wash.) and Mark Udall (D-Colo.) today introduced the “Protect Women’s Health from Corporate Interference Act of 2014.” The bill states that employers cannot refuse to cover any health coverage – including contraceptive coverage – promised to employees and their dependents under federal law. It includes the exemption for houses of worship and the accommodation for religious non-profits already put into place by the Obama administration.

We at the Center for Inquiry believe that the Court’s decision in Hobby Lobby requires lawmakers to address the root cause of the problem: that RFRA may now be interpreted to grant for-profit corporations broad religiously based exemptions, such as from anti-discrimination laws. But we also believe that this bill is a necessary short-term fix which willensure millions of women do not lose access to birth control simply because of their bosses’ religious beliefs.

Women must have the ability to make their own reproductive choices without interference from religious members of society who believe their beliefs trump other individuals’ personal freedoms.

We urge you to write or call your U.S. Senators immediately and tell them to support the Protect Women’s Health from Corporate Interference Act of 2014.

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

The Advocate has more on the organizations dropping their support for the current version of the Employment Non-Discrimination Act.

Following the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force’s announcement this morning that it would no longer support the current version of the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, the American Civil Liberties Union announced this afternoon that it would also drop its support for the bill.

The announcement was also cosigned by Gay and Lesbian Advocates and Defenders, Lambda Legal, the National Center for Lesbian Rights, and Transgender Law Center. A joint statement from the groups says that the current version of the bill, allowing religiously affiliated employers the ability to discriminate based on sexual orientation and gender identity, has “long been a source of significant concern to us,” but the Supreme Court’s decision on Burwell v. Hobby Lobby has made it clear that religious exemption provisions are “no longer tenable.”

Because if you open that door a crack, the religious boffins will smash it wide open and then take it off the hinges and batter you to death with it.

The organizations say that after decades of introducing multiple versions of a bill to ban discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity, the country is due for a suitable one. They say that if this bill were to be passed and signed into law in its current state, it would still leave many LGBT workers without workplace protections.

“Moreover, it actually might lessen non-discrimination protections now provided for LGBT people by Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and very likely would generate confusion rather than clarity in federal law,” they wrote Tuesday. “Finally, such a discrimination provision in federal law likely would invite states and municipalities to follow the unequal federal lead.”

And for that matter it also gives it a kind of imprimatur, a stamp of approval. It tells citizens that discrimination is bad except when goddy people do it, and then it’s ok.

“Federal legislation to protect LGBT people from workplace discrimination is way beyond overdue, but Congress has no place giving religiously affiliated employers a license to discriminate against LGBT workers,” said Laura W. Murphy, director of the ACLU’s Washington Legislative Office. ”We can no longer support a bill that treats LGBT discrimination as different and somehow more legitimate than other forms of discrimination.”

And religious discrimination as somehow more legitimate than secular discrimination.

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

In a press release today:

WASHINGTON – The American Civil Liberties Union today announced that it is withdrawing its support for the Employment Non-Discrimination Act in a statement also signed by Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders, Lambda Legal, the National Center for Lesbian Rights, and Transgender Law Center. The ACLU objects to a provision in the bill that would allow religiously affiliated employers to continue to discriminate based on sexual orientation and gender identity.

“Federal legislation to protect LGBT people from workplace discrimination is way beyond overdue, but Congress has no place giving religiously affiliated employers a license to discriminate against LGBT workers,” said Laura W. Murphy, director of the ACLU’s Washington Legislative Office. “We can no longer support a bill that treats LGBT discrimination as different and somehow more legitimate than other forms of discrimination.”

President Obama has announced his intention to sign an executive order that would ban discrimination against LGBT people employed by federal contractors. The ACLU opposes any inclusion of a discrimination exemption in this executive order.

The full statement announcing the withdrawal of support can be found here: https://www.aclu.org/lgbt-rights/aclu-statement-withdrawing-support-enda

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