There’s such a thing as being too “culturally sensitive”…

Shawn Shirazi is angry about cultural relativism and the growing unwillingness of people here to criticize radical Islam for fear of being labelled racist or Islamophobic.

Born in Iran, Shirazi immigrated to Vancouver where he became a founding member of Cirque de So Gay, an activist group of gay and transgender Middle Eastern men. For several years, the group marched in the Pride Parade and even won an award for their originality. But this year, its application was rejected as “culturally insensitive.”

The rejection is a microcosm of what Shirazi calls “hypocrisy” when it comes to global human rights, but what others argue is showing respect for other cultures and

Trump gave his Talk to The Mooslims today, telling them he’s fine with the oppression of women as long as they don’t set off the odd bomb in places we Americans like to hang out.

President Trump sought to rally leaders from around the Muslim world on Sunday in a renewed campaign against extremism, rejecting the idea that the fight is a battle between religions even as he promised not to chastise them about human rights violations in their own countries.

“Go ahead! Violate all the human rights you want to at home! Just don’t do bad things to us. Do it to her, not to me.” Such a noble sentiment.

While Mr. Obama and President George W.

Now for some literal oppression and violence:

A court in Indonesia has sentenced the capital’s Christian governor to two years in prison for blasphemy against Islam, in a decision that has cheered Muslim conservatives and crushed the hopes of advocates of a more pluralistic and tolerant path for their nation.

Jakarta Gov. Basuki Tjahaja Purnama, nicknamed “Ahok”, had not been expected to do time in jail, as prosecutors had sought only a suspended sentence.

But in Indonesia, few accused of blasphemy walk free. Reuters reports that Ahok was taken to a prison in east Jakarta where, according to his lawyer Tommy Sihotang, he would remain “despite his appeal process unless a higher court suspended it.”

There was no “blasphemy.” … Read the rest

Eiynah at Nice Mangos tells the story of the targeted bullying she’s been subjected to lately. It’s a very full record so not something you can read in a couple of minutes, but it’s good to have details.

For those asking over the past few days, wtf happened to start these mob attacks on me: Well…I’m not entirely sure, because they sort of came out of the blue. There’s a general rift in left-leaning atheists and right-leaning atheists. And ‘right-leaning’ is seen as some sort of slur, when it’s just an observation based on the politics coming from some of these types. If you’re anti-left on everything, and rarely ever anti-right…it says something. Especially today. Oh  – and there’s no

Sarah Haider on the SPLC and that list.

Nuance is lost where the religion of peace is concerned, and the SPLC paints its targets with a broad, clumsy brush.  Those profiled range from pundits who believe that radicals have “infiltrated the CIA, FBI, Pentagon, and State Department” to activists who offer compassionate, empathetic, and exceedingly balanced views on the faith. The latter is exemplified by the Muslim reformer Maajid Nawaz, who spent his formative years in the service of an Islamist organization working to re-establish a global caliphate. After disavowing his former associates, he has spent the past decade working to encourage reform and secularization in Muslim countries and communities.

Nearly every charge against him in the report is

Zineb El Rhazoui is still speaking out.

Zineb El Rhazoui was 1,500 miles away, on vacation in Morocco, when gunmen forced their way into the Paris offices of the French satirical weekly magazine Charlie Hebdo on January 7, 2015, fatally shooting nine people. As the publication’s religion writer, she would ordinarily have also been present at the editorial meeting which was targeted by terrorists Saïd and Chérif Kouachi — motivated, it is thought, by the magazine’s controversial depictions of Muhammad and various Muslim clerics.

For the 20 months since the massacre of her colleagues, El Rhazoui has remained steadfast in her critiques of extremist Islamism, including publishing two books — even in the face of death threats.

She has … Read the rest

Another talk courtesy of Paul: Gulalai Ismail, Founder and Chairperson of Aware Girls…which she established at the age of 16. I learned of her the day Malala was shot, and we’ve been social media-friendly ever since. She’s wonderful.

She particularly highlighted Pakistan’s hostility to women, which she sees as a direct product of its rejection of free expression and secularism in favor of the Islamisation of society. Dr. Ismail discussed the Council of Islamic Ideology, which advises and guides official parliamentary legislation based on fundamentalist religious beliefs. It recently pushed for the rejection of a law written protect women from domestic abuse, something that seems like an obvious good.

Not to them. Instead they offered a new version, allowing

Fascist theocratic Saudi Arabia is having good success in making over Kosovo in its own hideous image. They’ve funded the building of scores of Wahhabi mosques since Kosovo was rescued from Serbian oppression in the 90s.

Since then — much of that time under the watch of American officials — Saudi money and influence have transformed this once-tolerant Muslim society at the hem of Europe into a font of Islamic extremism and a pipeline for jihadists.

Kosovo now finds itself, like the rest of Europe, fending off the threat of radical Islam. Over the last two years, the police have identified 314 Kosovars — including two suicide bombers, 44 women and 28 children — who have gone abroad to

Nick Cohen said yesterday “I told you so you fucking fools.” He did, yes. Today his article on identity politics appeared at Standpoint.

Everyone everywhere apologises to everyone else. Everyone demands the banning of everyone else. Societies where citizens bite their tongues and retract honestly-meant statements are neither particularly free nor particularly happy. And I don’t think our one will last.

Well racism can be honestly-meant, as can antisemitism. Some statements merit retraction. But I take Nick to mean that there’s a limit you fucking fools, and I agree with him there.

He points out the (absurd) absence of class in most identity check lists, and that an ex-miner with black lung disease is not obviously more privileged than say … Read the rest

From January, Eiynah of Nice Mangos talks to the CBC.

Pakistani-Canadian blogger Eiynah says there is an important group left out of these conversations: Muslim and ex-Muslim women who see misogyny and oppression in Islam. She argues those critiques of Islam are ignored by the Canadian left, and hijacked by the Canadian right to further anti-Muslim narratives.

Eiynah is a pseudonym. She has asked for anonymity because of the frequent threats she has received for her writing.

Many Ex-Muslims are pseudonymous for reasons of safety.

It’s a very nuanced point of view that you have, and you can see it in your own self-description: a “critic of Islam who loathes anti-Muslim bigots.” Walk us through that. 

Oh come on. … Read the rest

A petition to Zuckerberg, which is apparently getting through to Facebook and improving the situation, so worth signing.

This week only, more then 9 of the biggest Facebook groups of atheists and secular Arabs were closed after reports campaigns led by Islamist groups containing hundreds of thousands of members. They are abusing the Facebook report facility to remove all pages that oppose their ideology.

While Arab atheists, with absolutely no exaggeration, already face all kinds of oppression, torture, restriction of speech and even sentences to death in their countries (we mention Raif Badawi, Mohamed Cheikh, Achraf Fayad as examples ), Arab atheists are facing a huge risk of losing the remaining freedoms that are practiced secretly or online, wich

CFI on the arrest of Samar Badawi:

The Center for Inquiry has learned that Saudi human rights activist Samar Badawi has been arrested for allegedly operating the Twitter account of her husband, jailed human rights attorney Waleed Abu al-Khair. Ms. Badawi is also the sister of jailed dissident Raif Badawi, and Mr. al-Khair was Mr. Badawi’s lawyer before he himself was jailed.

The Center for Inquiry emphatically demands that Saudi Arabia immediately and unconditionally release Ms. Badawi, and drop any charges brought against her. Samar is a valued ally and friend of the Center for Inquiry. CFI has worked closely with her to promote freedom of thought and expression in Saudi Arabia, and to fight for the release of

Women’s rights and feminism has come a long way in the past 100 years. Many women worldwide now have the right to vote, to travel freely without a male companion, to get an education, to work, to marry and divorce out of choice, to take control of reproduction, sex and family planning and get a decent wage for their work. There is still much work to be done though, with some countries still suffering from unacceptably low levels of gender equality and human rights for females.

For some on the bourgeois ‘Liberal­-Left’, or what feminists like Aayan Hirsi Ali accurately call the Regressive Left, the reason why women of colour still lag behind on human rights and freedom in … Read the rest

Speaking of Al Jazeera…last January it had some issues with Charlie Hebdo. National Review saw the emails.

As journalists worldwide reacted with universal revulsion at the massacre of some of their own by Islamic jihadists in Paris, Al Jazeera English editor and executive producer Salah-Aldeen Khadr sent out a staff-wide e-mail.

…

Khadr urged his employees to ask if this was “really an attack on ‘free speech,’” discuss whether “I Am Charlie” is an “alienating slogan,” caution viewers against “making this a free speech aka ‘European Values’ under attack binary [sic],” and portray the attack as “a clash of extremist fringes.” “Defending freedom of expression in the face of oppression is one thing; insisting on the right to be

Jamie Palmer takes a long hard look at the pro-Islamist left and its shameful behavior to Maryam and other ex-Muslims, secular Muslims, apostates, refuseniks.

And so it was that when ISOC misrepresented the event as an unhappy tale of marginalization and Islamophobia, both the Goldsmiths Feminist Society and the LGBTQ+ Society quickly released statements pledging their support and solidarity with ISOC.

“We support them,” FemSoc soberly declared:

…in condemning the actions of the Atheist, Secularist and Humanist Society and agree that hosting known islamophobes at our university creates a climate of hatred. 

Two days later, the LGBTQ+ Society came up with this:

We condemn AHS and online supporters for their islamophobic remarks, attitudes, and harassment. If they feel

Tom Owolade has some thoughts on the Goldsmiths feminists and LGBTQ+ activists.

Before examining the underpinnings of the Atheist and Humanist society ideology, one should first examine Goldsmiths’ Islamic society.

In 2011, they invited to speak at their annual dinner Abdurraheem Green and Hamza Tzortzis. Green believes that a husband is permitted to beat his wife if she misbehaves, and that homosexuality should not be permitted in society; Tzortzis has supported child-marriage.

In 2014, Goldsmiths Islamic society invited Cage Prisoners – a group whose dalliance with terrorism and extremism is well-documented. CAGE has supported a wide range of Islamist terrorists – from Abu Hamza to Anwar al-Awlaki. The deputy director of CAGE, Asim Qureshi, has twice

More comments from the Goldsmiths LGBTQ+ post declaring solidarity with Goldsmiths Isoc and condemnation of Goldsmiths ASH.

One.

I understand your wish to show solidarity, but I don’t understand your choice to necessarily take sides in this matter, nor do I understand the side you’ve chosen.

Try investigating what Maryam mentions several times as one of the central issues – conflating Islam, Islamism and Muslims – making it impossible to criticize an ideology without being called a bigot by people who can’t tell apples from oranges.

There are real people suffering very real pain right now. They are partially suffering because we in the west fail to identify and point out the actual problems, and hide behind political correctness

Eiynah at Nice Mangos is feeling more than annoyed at the way ex-Muslims are ignored by nearly all political directions.

As the Canadian federal election date draws closer, I can’t get my mind off the niqab debate. I can’t stop thinking about the fact that this one issue demonstrates how voices like mine – fromwithin the Muslim community are routinely ignored, cast aside, betrayed by the illiberal ‘liberal’ West …simply for the crime of not fitting the simplistic tribalist narratives.

Zunera Ishaq – a Pakistani immigrant to Canada just like myself ….took on the government regarding the issue of niqabs during the citizenship oath and won the right to wear a mask in court when no one else is

Julie Bindel in the Sunday Times:

I have been “no platformed” on and off by the various factions of the National Union of Students (NUS) since 2009. My crime? In 2004 I wrote a column in a national newspaper about the case of Kimberley Nixon, a male-to-female transsexual who had sued Vancouver Rape Relief, a feminist support service, after it declined to take her on as a counsellor for rape victims. In the article I made facetious comments about Nixon, and immediately came under fire for my alleged “transphobia”.

I have since apologised for the tone of my article. But no matter, the piece from 2004 has followed me around ever since, with a small cabal picketing and disrupting