Tag: Religious censorship

  • The required balance

    I want to take a more extended look at that gloating statement from “Family First.” The scare quotes are because it’s really from Bob McCoskrie, just as statements from “The Catholic League” are always really from Bill Donohue.

    Family First NZ has successfully applied for an Interim Restriction Order on the book Into The River by Ted Dawe – a book laced with detailed descriptions of sex acts, coarse language and scenes of drug-taking. The book came to public attention after it took top prize in the 2013 New Zealand Post Children’s Book Awards. Award organisers hastily sent “explicit content” stickers to booksellers after the book’s win. The latest decision of the Censor will also now be reviewed by the Board of Review.

    “In a strongly worded Order, the President of the Film and Literature Board of Review Dr Don Mathieson QC has accepted the concerns of Family First and the hundreds of families who wrote directly to the Censor’s office to protest the content, themes and availability of the book,” says Bob McCoskrie, National Director of Family First NZ.

    “The Order says that the classification of Into the River under the Act is a matter of wide public concern, that it was debatable and a matter of independent public interest whether the Chief Censor acted lawfully, and that it was highly arguable whether the Classification Office had reached the correct conclusion.”

    They’re pissed off that the “Chief Censor” (what a title!) lifted an age restriction on the book. They want that mofo restricted, dammit.

    “The Censor has tried to argue that freedom of expression was not taken in to consideration by the Board and that this freedom trumps the protection of young people. It is preposterous and down-right insulting for the Censor to suggest that the Board failed to achieve the required balance between the rights of the public have to be protected from the injurious impact of material deemed objectionable to young persons and children and the competing right that such persons have access to this material.”

    There are rights of the public to be protected from the injurious impact of material deemed objectionable to young persons? I don’t think there are, you know – I think those are “rights” that Bob McCoskrie made up. Those rights bear a disquieting resemblance to the “right” of people in Bangladesh and India and Pakistan to be protected from the injurious impact of material deemed to “hurt religious sentiments.” There is no “right” to be protected from things you think are oooky.

    “The author and his supporters in the Library service are focused on the ‘rights’ of adults to write this sort of offensive material under the guise of ‘freedom of expression’. But the Bill of Rights states that ‘freedom of expression’ and ‘freedom to access information’ considerations do not automatically trump the laws that were written to allow censorship to be applied to protect the public good.”

    Does it? Really? Or is that just something Bob McCoskrie made up again. It sounds made up.

    “We are also aware that the Censor has received over 400 emails of complaint about their latest decision from concerned kiwi parents. Their desire to protect their children must also be respected.”

    Family First is now preparing their submission for the Film and Literature Board of Review. The 400+ complaints made to the Censor will form part of their submission.

    Bullies on the march. Lock up your books.

  • Currently being pulled from libraries, schools and bookshops

    The Guardian has more details on the banning of Philip Dawe’s book Into the River.

    Ted Dawe’s Into the River has been banned from sale or supply by the Film and Literature Board of Review (FLBR) after a complaint from conservative lobby group Family First.

    It is currently being pulled from libraries, schools and bookshops around the country.

    Family First objected to sexually explicit content, drug use and the use of a slang term for female genitalia.

    Pussy? Cunt? Probably not twat, in New Zealand. Minge?

    Whatever – using slang words for the genitalia is just that. There’s nothing wrong with it. Using them as epithets is another matter (a distinction that is lost on surprisingly many people), but it’s still not a reason to ban a book.

    And it’s not just banned from sale, it’s being pulled from libraries and schools – which is a whole other level of shocking. What’s the matter with them?

    Into the River won the New Zealand Post Children’s Book award in 2013 and is aimed at a teenage, largely male audience. Dawe said this audience was hard to reach.

    “I have taught in secondary schools for the past forty years. Much of this time has been spent encouraging boys to read. Part of the challenge was to find books that ‘spoke’ to them. This meant books about issues that were relevant to them and written in a style that was authentic,” he said.

    “There are many issues that young adults can not take to other people. They want to do their own thinking about them. There is no better, no more private medium for this than the novel.

    “In this relatively safe context the teenager can navigate through issues such as race, sexual orientation, body issues, class discrimination and bullying and harassment. They can test their responses against the main characters and calibrate the differences without the need to discuss.”

    But Family First doesn’t want them to think about those things. I guess FF wants them to think about family, and nothing else.

  • Banned in New Zealand

    Welcome to a brave new world of censorship.

    From the New Zealand Herald:

    The author of the first book to be banned in New Zealand for at least 22 years is asking: “Will I be burnt next?”

    Ted Dawe, 64, the head of studies at Taylors College for international students in Auckland, is the unlikely subject of the first interim restriction order on a book under the Films, Videos and Publications Classification Act 1993.

    His award-winning book for teenagers, Into The River, has been banned from sale or supply under the order issued by the president of the Film and Literature Board of Review, Dr Don Mathieson, QC.

    The president of the what? What the hell is the Film and Literature Board of Review, that it has the power to ban books from sale or supply? Especially award-winning books for teenagers by teachers?

    It appears to be a government censorship board. It describes itself in bureaucratic gobbledygook that goes in circles:

    The Film and Literature Board of Review is the body that reviews publications that have been classified by the Office of Film and Literature Classification. It is an independent body carrying out quasi-judicial functions. Anyone seeking a review of a publication must do so within 30 working days of publication of the List of Decisions in which the classification appears.

    The Classification Office maintains a Register of Classification Decisions. This records all of the classification decisions made by that Office, as well as the decisions of the Board. This register is by law the official repository of classification records. If you want to know the classification of any publication you should contact the Classification Office. Each month the Classification Office also releases a listing of all new classification decisions in its List of Decisions, to which anyone with an interest may subscribe.

    Yes but what does “reviews” mean here? What does “classified” mean? What does “quasi-judicial functions” mean? What kind of “decisions”?

    It appears to mean censorship. I’ll dig more later. Back to the Herald:

    In the meantime, media law expert Professor Ursula Cheer has said it was illegal to supply the book even to a friend.

    “Having it for your own personal use is okay. Passing it around to your friends is not,” she said.

    As if it were a dangerous drug. Wtf? How did it win an award if it’s such a horrifying book?

    Mr Dawe said he was “blindsided” by the ban, which was sought by lobby group Family First after deputy chief censor Nic McCully removed a previous R14 restriction on the book on August 14, making it totally unrestricted.

    “Family First”…so that will be Christian theocrats then?

    Yes.

    Hi, I’m Bob McCoskrie

    Are you concerned about rising family breakdown and the decline in standards and responsibility? I know I am.

    Having spent several years teaching in secondary schools and tertiary institutions, working as a social worker with young people in South Auckland for more than 15 years, and engaging with the issues of the day on talkback radio, I am all too aware of the social cost of family breakdown.

    In New Zealand, the married two-parent family is increasingly sidelined while the divorce rate skyrockets.

    etc etc etc

    Family First will:

    • be a voice for the family in the media speaking up about issues relating to families that are in the public domain
    • promote and advance research and policy supporting marriage and family as foundational to a strong and enduring society
    • participate in social analysis and debate surrounding issues relating to and affecting the family being promoted by academics, policy makers, social service organisations and media, and to network with other like-minded groups and academics
    • produce and publish relevant and stimulating material in newspapers, magazines, and other media relating to issues affecting families
    • speak from a family friendly perspective with an emphasis on the Judeo-Christian values which have benefited New Zealand for generations.

    Emphasis added.

    So a Christian pressure group got an award-winning novel for teenagers banned from sale and distribution.

    They’re bragging about it.

    Family First NZ has successfully applied for an Interim Restriction Order on the book Into The River by Ted Dawe – a book laced with detailed descriptions of sex acts, coarse language and scenes of drug-taking. The book came to public attention after it took top prize in the 2013 New Zealand Post Children’s Book Awards. Award organisers hastily sent “explicit content” stickers to booksellers after the book’s win. The latest decision of the Censor will also now be reviewed by the Board of Review.

    “In a strongly worded Order, the President of the Film and Literature Board of Review Dr Don Mathieson QC has accepted the concerns of Family First and the hundreds of families who wrote directly to the Censor’s office to protest the content, themes and availability of the book,” says Bob McCoskrie, National Director of Family First NZ.

    Back to the Herald:

    “It’s extraordinary,” Mr Dawe said. “I’ve had quite a few emails from people who share that sense of outrage. Do we live in a country where books get banned? I’ll get burnt next.”

    He said Family First director Bob McCoskrie and Dr Mathieson, who wrote a dissenting view advocating an R18 restriction when the majority of the board rated the book R14 in 2013, were overstepping the rules of a democratic society.

    “Those two individuals are united in their determination to establish this as a line that will not be crossed. I feel they have wildly overstepped the whole mechanism of looking at art and making judgments on it,” he said.

    “New Zealand has taken a giant step towards that sort of regulatory moralising that I think most people felt we had left far in our past.”

    It’s just astonishing. It sounds more like Bangladesh than New Zealand.

    He said it was not easy to write a book that teenagers would want to read, or to get it published.

    “People involved with teaching boys, especially English teachers, know how important books like this are because they speak to boys about the things that other boys’ books don’t have the firepower or the vitality to do effectively,” he said.

    “The book was never about sex and drugs, it was always about bullying people and how that damages people for the rest of their lives. That is really the underlying theme, everything else is just the trappings that go along with that.”

    Oh well no wonder the Christian bullies don’t like it.

  • Designs by a wonderfully acid British cartoonist

    Nick Cohen has a piece in the Observer on censorship at UK universities. He starts, as he should, with Chris and Abhishek.

    On the morning of 3 October, Chris Moos and Abhishek Phadnis put on joke T-shirts, of the kind students wear the world over, and went to man the Atheist, Secularist and Humanist Society stall at the London School of Economics freshers’ fair. The bullying the university authorities visited upon them for the next 36 hours should provoke the most important free speech court case to hit British universities in years. It certainly deserves to.

    Damn right.

    Both the left and the right complain about censorship, both engage in it, Nick points out.

    The Moos and Phadnis case cuts through the hubbub of charge and counter-charge. It shows that  authoritarians of all stripes share the same vices, and not just because you know without needing to wait for their careers to “progress” that today’s repressive student union politicians will be tomorrow’s repressive human resources managers and Labour home secretaries.

    The students wore Jesus and Mo T-shirts with designs by a wonderfully acid British cartoonist, who wisely never discloses his real name. Jesus and Mo are holding a banner that says:  “Stop drawing holy prophets in a disrespectful manner NOW!” Mo also has a placard that reads: “Religion is NOT funny” and is saying: “If this doesn’t work, I say we start BURNING stuff.”

    Are you offended? Really? Oh dear that’s a pity, because if you cannot take a satirical reference to real religious censorship, your fragile sensibilities should be your problem and no one else’s.

    To fill out the claim a bit more: there is such a thing as religious censorship; it’s active and widespread in the world right now; the cartoon skewers it neatly and economically; it’s a thing worth skewering, and skewering it causes real harm to no one. (What about religious censors?! Spare a thought for them. The cartoon might convince some people that what they do is not a good thing to do. Yes, it might. That form of “harm” is a risk of doing things that are not good things to do.)

    The political hacks of LSE’s student union, who are studying at a university that Sidney and Beatrice Webb founded in 1894 to promote “modern” education on “socialist lines,” knew nothing of basic principles. They decided that the modern and socialist thing to do was silence freethinkers.

    Student union officials told them to “lose the T-shirts” and pulled atheist literature from the stall. When the young atheists asked why they should submit to this impertinent demand, the hacks replied that the T-shirts were “of course, offensive”. They did not say why. The LSE’s security guards arrived and threatened to expel the atheists. Wearing the T-shirts was an act of “harassment” that could “offend others”, they said.

    Student union officials and security guards teaming up against the atheists. Heart-warming, ain’t it.

  • Xianityophobia

    Right right right, I’m an “Islamophobe,” and criticizing Islam is punching down because Muslims are a despised group. (The second part is true, but the first part doesn’t follow. Punching Muslims is punching down, but punching Islam isn’t, because Islam itself is what punches down. Islam has huge, illegitmate power in many many parts of the globe. Punching Islam does not equal punching Muslims. Yes one can be a stalking horse for the other, but that doesn’t make them identical.) So allow me to be a Christianityophobe for a few minutes. Not that I wouldn’t be anyway, but I feel like pointing it out.

    Russia. Russia seems to be getting more and more priest-ridden and believer-whipped. This time it’s believers shouting about a production of Jesus Christ Superstar, and getting it shut down.

    A theatre in the south Russian city of Rostov has dropped a production of Jesus Christ Superstar after protests by Orthodox Christians.

    A Russian company was due to stage the Andrew Lloyd Webber rock opera at the Rostov Philharmonic next month.

    Protesters had complained the opera projected the “wrong” image of Christ.

    News of the cancellation baffled members of the cast and caused indignation among commentators wary of Church interference in public life.

    Exactly. Church interference in public life. This is why I’m phobic about theocratic religions – because they interfere.

    Local Russian Orthodox protesters lodged their complaint with prosecutors in Rostov-on-Don, a city of one million, and also wrote a letter to the management of the Philharmonic, according to the Rostov Times newspaper.

    Citing a “new law protecting the rights of believers”, they described the musical as a “profanation” and said any such production should be submitted to the Russian Orthodox Church for approval.

    It is unclear to which law the protesters were referring. The lower house of the Russian parliament, the State Duma, is currently considering a bill which would make it a crime to offend the “religious feelings of citizens”.

    They want everything submitted to the relevant theocrats for approval. That’s what they all want, and that’s why we have to push back.

  • Pakistan tells the world

    Via Paul Fidalgo’s Morning Heresy – the Prime Minister of Pakistan says the UN “should frame laws to stop blasphemous acts.”

    Oh, yes, absolutely, because that kind of thing is working out so well in Pakistan. Asia Bibi for instance, accused of “blasphemy” by a petulant neighbor. Salman Taseer, the governor of Punjab, murdered for attempting to help Asia Bibi. A homeless man beaten to death by a mob after he was accused of “blasphemy” and arrested. A Christian girl arrested for “blasphemy” and a few days later an imam arrested and charged with framing the girl for a “blasphemy” that never happened, and a whole neighborhood full of Christians in Islamabad is emptied as a result.

    And Raja Pervez Ashraf wants that kind of thing all over the world. Brilliant.

    The Prime Minister Raja Pervez Ashraf has called upon the world community to declare blasphemy despicable and a criminal act.

    Addressing Ishq-e-Mustafa Conference held at the Prime Minister House, he said denial of holocaust is met with punishment but Muslims’ sentiments are absolutely disregarded, adding it is incumbent upon all as a Muslim to protest against any insult to the Holy Prophet (PBUH).

    No, it isn’t. An insult to the prophet is not comparable to Holocaust denial.

    Non-Muslims are not required to be polite to the prophet.

    He said if denying Holocaust is a crime then demonizing holiest personalities is not less a crime. Prime Minister Pervez Ashraf said an attack on the Prophet Hazrat Mohammad [Peace Be upon Him] is an attack on the core belief of 1.5 billion Muslims.

    This is something that is unacceptable. Our faith remains incomplete without total devotion and reverence to the holy Prophet (PBUH).

    No. That’s wrong. The Holocaust has nothing to do with “holiest personalities”; it’s a matter of human body counts. [Expressing skepticism about an evidence-laden]* genocide is not equivalent to an attack on the core belief of no matter how many people. It is not unacceptable to dispute or contradict or mock a core belief. You are free to give total devotion and reverence to the prophet if you want to, but nobody else is required to. (You shouldn’t be required to yourselves. It should be an option, not a mandate. It’s slavish to make it a mandate. If your religion makes it a mandate then it’s a slavish religion. Sorry, but it is.)

    The PM Raja demanded disrespect to the prophet hood be declared as an international offence, adding Pakistan seeks resolution of this issue in concert with the international community.

    But, again, that’s your religion, it’s not everyone’s religion. It’s not legitimate to attempt to force all people to obey the rules of your religion. And as I hinted at the beginning…your country doesn’t present a very attractive model of this. We don’t look at Pakistan and envy its way with people accused of “blasphemy.” So, in short –

    No.

    *Amended in response to comment.

  • It’s OK, we’re on the 10th floor

    Alom Shaha notices an excess of timidity about discussing Islam.

    “We can’t publish this, we’ll get firebombed.” Apparently this was the response from one of the staff at Biteback Publishing, the UK publishers of my book, The Young Atheist’s Handbook, when it was first presented to them. Thankfully, Iain Dale, the managing director, laughed at the idea, saying, “it’s OK, we’re on the 10th floor” and went on to publish the book anyway.

    It’s not just staff at Biteback who may have been concerned about publishing my book — according to a senior editor at one of the largest international publishers, who claimed to be personally keen to give me a deal, she was unable to convince her colleagues to agree because a “number of people” in the company would be “uncomfortable” about it. She then went on to explain that by “uncomfortable” she really meant “afraid”.

    Yes, I’ve been there. Remember that? More than three years ago? The sudden delay in the imminent publication of Does God Hate Women?

    About this non-ecumenical book that Jeremy and I wrote, that is due out at the end of this week. Yes, what about it, you’re thinking, all agog. For reasons which I will explain another day, the publisher became nervous about it last Friday. The publisher phoned us on Friday, and talked of changes, or delays, or would we like to drop a chapters. We would not like to drop a chapter, and if we had liked to drop a chapter, the time to discuss that would have been several months ago, not now, a week before the book is supposed to appear. The publisher sent the can-we-drop-it chapter to an ecumenicist to get his opinion.

    There was a reason for the publisher’s sudden nervousness.

    An academic book about religious attitudes to women is to be published this week despite concerns it could cause a backlash among Muslims because it criticises the prophet Muhammad for taking a nine-year-old girl as his third wife…This weekend, the publisher, Continuum, said it had received “outside opinion” on the book’s cultural and religious content following suggestions that it might cause offence.

    Suggestions that came from the reporter who wrote the article reporting the suggestions. Really: that’s what happened.

    And there was pretty much no outrage about the book once it was published. There was an irritated little Facebook group for awhile, but that’s it. Alom hasn’t had even that.

    I’ve encountered the idea that Muslims will be offended by my book from numerous people — from the publishers who looked at my proposal to the people who have interviewed me since publication and even from some friends. The only people who have not suggested that the book might be offensive to Muslims are Muslims themselves. Not a single Muslim has come forward to say that he or she has been offended by my book. The most strongly worded email I’ve received is one that expressed pity that I had “lost the one truth path” and the hope that “Allah would guide [me] back to it”.

    Publishers should ease off on the nerves, it seems to me.

  • My useful advice

    Career advice: don’t do anything book-related in Malaysia. They bust people for managing bookstores that distribute Irshad Manji’s book.

    KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia – A Borders bookstore manager in Malaysia has been charged with distributing a Canadian writer’s book that was banned as being against Islam.

    The government in the Muslim-majority country regularly bans books it considers threats to religious stability. “Allah, Liberty and Love” was banned in late May.

    …

    Nik Raina Nik Abdul Aziz could face a two-year prison sentence and fine if convicted of the charge that was filed Tuesday.

    For managing a bookstore that distributes a book, a decent book, a hopeful book, a book by a Muslim. She’s a progressive, liberal, reformist Muslim, yes, but she is nevertheless a Muslim. Managing a bookstore that carries that book doesn’t seem like a crime worthy of a two-year prison sentence. Well it doesn’t seem worthy of any sentence, or of being charged.

    So don’t go into the book trade in Kuala Lumpur.

     

  • Insulting Islamic values in Twitter messages

    Another entry in the annals of Persecuting and Prosecuting People For Having an Opinion That Reactonaries Dislike.

    A court here on Friday charged Fazil Say, a classical and jazz pianist with an international career, with insulting Islamic values in Twitter messages, the latest in a series of legal actions against Turkish artists, writers and intellectuals for statements they have made about religion and Turkish national identity.

    Mr. Say, 42, who is also a composer, is accused of “publicly insulting religious values that are adopted by a part of the nation,” the semiofficial Anatolian news agency said. A trial is scheduled to begin on Oct. 18, with Mr. Say facing up to 18 months in prison if convicted.

    Charged with insulting Islamic values – there it is again – that bone-headed idea that nonsentient nonconscious nonalive abstractions like “values” can be “insulted” and that “insulting” them is a serious crime. An idea so bone-headed and so primitive that it’s as if the very concept of free speech and inquiry had never been formulated. An idea that, enshrined in law, would seem to make any kind of public discussion and investigation and forward motion impossible. An idea that belongs in a frozen static stonelike thoughtworld, where “yes” is the only word in the language.

    And all this over tweets, for fuck’s sake.

    It is unusual for Twitter posts to be the subject of an indictment in Turkey. Some of the messages were written by Mr. Say, but one, which poked fun at an Islamic vision of the afterlife, was written by someone else and passed along by Mr. Say via his Twitter account. Likening heaven’s promise of rivers of wine to a tavern and of virgins to a brothel, it referred to a poem by the 11th-century Persian poet Omar Khayyam, Mr. Say said in a text message from Slovenia, where he had just arrived for a concert.

    Retweeted, in other words. It’s faintly risible that the Times thinks it has to spell that out, but it’s also faintly risible that adults spend their time tweeting and retweeting – and yet we do. It’s an odd world we live in.

    But anyway, the point is, he’s being prosecuted partly for retweeting something. For retweeting something. People often retweet things because they’re so stupid or wrong or nasty; it’s not always an endorsement! It’s certainly not law enforcement’s job to decide it is. (But in Turkey it is. I know. Turkey is wrong.)

    The pianist, who has frequently criticized the pro-Islamic Justice and Development Party government over its cultural and social policies, publicly defines himself as an atheist — a controversial admission in Turkey, which is overwhelmingly Muslim.

    And bossy. Incredibly, searchingly bossy.

     Many intellectuals and writers have faced similar charges in recent years, including Orhan Pamuk, the Nobel laureate, who last year was fined $3,700 for saying in a Swiss newspaper that Turks “have killed 30,000 Kurds and 1 million Armenians.”

    The European Union, which Turkey is seeking to join, and other international organizations have criticized such actions as violations of free speech.

    Little bit.

     

  • Banned as it contradicted the Quran and Hadith

    More squalid airless stupidity from Malaysia: banning Irshad Manji’s book and confiscating copies from bookstores.

    The Home Ministry has banned  the controversial book by liberal Muslim  activist Irshad Manji as it could cause confusion among Muslims.

    In a statement yesterday, Deputy Home Minister Datuk Abu Seman Yusop said  the book Allah, Liberty and Love and its translated version Allah, Kebebasan dan  Cinta was banned as it contradicted the Quran and Hadith.

    The fact that a book “could cause confusion” is an imbecilic reason to ban it. The fact that it could cause confusion among a particular brand of theists is even more so. The fact that it contradicts the Quran and Hadith is an appalling reason to ban it. It represents obedience to arbitrary rules and demands written down many centuries ago in the guise of Roolz from Godd; not being allowed to contradict something so absurd at this late date is pathetic, tragic, horrible.

    He said the decision was made following a report by the Islamic Religious  Development Department (Jakim).

    “Based on the report, it says that the book promotes mixed marriages between  Muslims and non-Muslims. This could lead to pluralism.

    “It also contains insulting elements towards the prophet, which were  described in such a way that could pollute the sanctity of Islam.”

    The deputy minister also said that the book defended secularism by confusing  the Islamic faith.

    Worse and worse and worse. Religious xenophobia and anti-pluralism; brainless worship of a long dead man; brainless worries about pollution and sanctity (cue Jonathan Haidt explaining why it’s not brainless at all, only different); anti-secularism and dogma preferred to putative “confusion” (which clearly means just dissent).

    “The book also says the five fardhu prayers can be done in various movements  and languages more than five times a day. This statement may confuse the  public.”

    He said the ban was made according to Section 7(1) of the Printing Presses  and Publication Act 1984 as its content could cause disturbance to the  public.

    In a related development, Jawi enforcement division senior principal  assistant director Wan Jaafar Wan Ahmad said they would monitor book stores to  prevent them from distributing the books.

    I’m embarrassed to be a human being.

    And then there are the foul comments underneath the article…

  • Donohue’s success

    Useful background on the Catholic League.

    The Catholic League was founded in 1973 by Jesuit priest Virgil Blum. William Donohue assumed leadership in July 1993. Since then, the membership has grown from 27,000 to 200,000. According to Donohue, the League has “won the support of all of the U.S. Cardinals and many of the Bishops as well…We are here to defend the Church from the scurrilous assaults that have been mounted against it, and we definitely need the support of the hierarchy if we are to get the job done.” Thus it can be considered an arm of the Church. It supplements or replaces priest-controlled organizations of the past described by Blanshard and Seldes. The League apparently has a single mission: suppression of all mainstream criticism of the Roman Catholic Church.

    …

    There are many recognizable principles governing the behavior of the League. One is revealed in a vicious 1994 attack against the New London newspaper, The Day, for an editorial critical of the Catholic Church: “What is truly ‘beyond understanding’ is not the Catholic Church’s position, it is the fact that a secular newspaper has the audacity to stick it’s nose in where it doesn’t belong. It is nobody’s business what the Catholic Church does.”

    Orilly? It’s the Catholic church’s business what everybody does but it’s nobody’s business what the Catholic church does? They’d like that, wouldn’t they. They can meddle as much as they want to while we have to leave them strictly alone.

    And then people wonder why atheists sometimes get grumpy.

    A second basic premise is the League’s commitment to canon 1369 of the Code of Canon Law: “A person is to be punished with a just penalty, who, at a public event or assembly, or in a published writing, or by otherwise using the means of social communication, utters blasphemy, or gravely harms public morals, or rails at or excites hatred of or contempt for religion or the Church.” Canon law is the law of the Catholic Church. All criticism of the pope or the Church is in violation of this law in one way or another. This chapter will make clear that the League follows this canon to the letter and demands that all others conform—or pay the price for their violation.

    There it is again already – they want their “Canon” law to apply to all of us, but they don’t want our secular free speech and unhindered mockery to apply to them. Nope; no can do.

    Donohue also justifies the League’s aggressive behavior by claiming that it is culturally unacceptable for nonCatholics to criticize the Catholic Church. “Perhaps the most cogent remark of the day,” he asserts, “came from the former Mayor of New York, Ed Koch, who politely remarked that his mother always advised him not to speak ill of other religions. It is a lesson that apparently few have learned….Non-Catholics would do well to follow the advice of Ed Koch’s mom and just give it a rest. Their crankiness is wearing thin.” This cultural norm is widely accepted in America, to the enormous benefit of the Vatican.

    The Vatican and other theocratic organizations and individuals. Hence occasional grumpiness and inability to oblige.

    One final element makes clear the objective of the Catholic League—protection of the papacy against all criticism. Writes Donohue, “It is the conviction of the Catholic League that an attack on the Church is an attack on Catholics.” He offers no rationale to support this theory. Obviously, millions of liberal American Catholics would disagree outright, for it is they who have been attacking the Church.

    While at the same time supporting it and validating it. They would do better to abandon it. They would do better to remove the tacit support it gives by not leaving, so that the pope and his henchmen can see that reactionary dogma exacts a price. They could have fewer but better Catholics.

    The suppression of all criticism of the Catholic Church and its hierarchy is the goal of the Catholic League. The visit of the pope to the U.S. in October 1995 was a major media event. Given all the gravely serious problems faced by the Church and the enormous amount of dissent by American Catholics, as well as the growing hostility from non-Catholics as a result of the Church’s interference in American policy making, one would expect wide coverage of these realities in the media during his visit. Instead, it was treated as a triumphant return.

    The Catholic League believes that it played a major role in this great public relations success—and with good reason. In August 1994, it launched a campaign to intimidate the press in an astounding advance warning to media professionals preparing for the pope’s visit to New York in late October. A letter signed by Donohue announced a press conference to be held just prior to the pope’s visit that will present “10′s of thousands of petitions from active Catholics” that have been collected over the past year. The petition speaks for itself. What else but intimidation of the press is the intent of this campaign?

    The November 1995 issue of the League’s journal, Catalyst, is headlined, “Media Treat Pope Fairly; Protesters Fail to Score.” Donohue writes, “By all accounts, the visit of Pope John Paul II to the United States was a smashing success. Media treatment of the papal visit was, with few exceptions, very fair. Protesters were few in number and without impact. From beginning to end, this papal visit proved to be the most triumphant of them all.” A month later he writes, “The relatively few cheap shots that were taken at the Pope by the media in October is testimony to a change in the culture.” And of course the desired “change in the culture” is the elimination of criticism of the pope and his hierarchy. The Catholic League is succeeding on a grand scale far beyond what all but a handful of Americans realize.

    If that’s true it explains something that has puzzled me for years, which is precisely the reverential way the US media report on the pope and his doings. I didn’t know they’d been overtly bullied into it.

     

  • A bargain

    It can seem strange how entirely alien the whole idea of free discussion can seem to people who (I suppose) have never had any experience of it.

    A Bangladesh court on Wednesday ordered authorities to shut down five Facebook pages and a website for blaspheming the Prophet Mohammed, the Koran and other religious subjects, a lawyer said.

    Judges at the high court in Dhaka ordered the telecommunications regulator, home ministry officials and police to block the offending pages immediately.

    “These pages contain disparaging remarks and cartoons about Prophet Mohammed, the Muslim holy book of Koran, Jesus, Lord Buddha and Hindu gods,” Nawshad Zamir, a lawyer of the petitioner who brought the case, told AFP.

    “They mostly targeted the prophet and the Koran. These pages hurt the sentiments of the country’s majority Muslim population and the followers of other religions.”

    One, no they don’t, not necessarily. It’s not as if “these pages” by existing force themselves on the notice of all people everywhere. Two…well it’s Minchin’s fucking obvious again, but ok: if that’s your standard then nobody can say anything about anything, including you. The prophet and the Koran “hurt” my “sentiments,” but I don’t get to block them. I get to make disparaging remarks about them, instead.

  • Nick Cohen on a culture that pretends to be brave

    At the Rally for Free Expression.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2lffXO_LLWo

  • Lawyers for Liberty are pissed

    At Malaysia’s Home Minister, for one.

    Lawyers for Liberty is simply astonished and outraged at Home Minister Hishamuddin Hussein and PDRM’s continuing attempt to spin further lies and deceit over the illegal and unconstitutional detention and deportation of Hamza Kashgari by now alleging or insinuating that he is a “criminal” or “terrorist” wanted by his home country.

    The truth is Hamza had sent a few tweets on the Prophet Muhammad which he has since deleted and apologized. It must be noted a similar poem on the prophet was published on his blog a year ago but did not receive any negative reaction from anybody. More importantly, he belongs to a group of emerging young pro-democracy activists which among others had supported the Arab Spring. Just days before he fled Saudi Arabia, the police stopped him and his group of young activists from organizing a series of forums to show solidarity with the Syrian uprising. He has also been said to have been monitored by the Saudi Intelligence more than 8 months ago.

    …

    The cold hard truth is that Malaysia has bent over backwards to please Saudi Arabia, breached international law by not allowing Hamza to seek asylum and instead handed him on a silver platter to his persecutors and condemned him to torture and near certain death.

    Keep the pressure on. Make it hot for them.

     

  • Interpol as theocracies’ little helper

    Interpol has said it had nothing to do with the extradition of Hamza Kashgari, but Dennis McShane MP apparently didn’t get the memo – or got the memo and didn’t believe it.

    The charge of apostasy was maintained, his home was attacked and, again, sensibly enough, Kashgari decided it was time to leave Saudi Arabia. The response of the Saudis was to approach Interpol and ask them to issue an international search and arrest warrant.

    Interpol is meant to be tackle serious crime, not act as the little helper for régimes that want to kill journalists.

    Maryam too finds the memo not entirely convincing:

    If it says so – though I am skeptical especially since its has done this before.

    In 2009, a number of us wrote to its office complaining about Iranian opposition leaders being included on its wanted list at the request of the Islamic regime of Iran!

    McShane has suggestions:

    Pressure is important. This time last year the Egyptian military police arrested an Egyptian blogger. Maikel Nabil. He was jubilant about the fall of Mubarak but as he saw the increasing role of the military he criticised the soldiers. A military tribunal sentenced him to three years in prison but an effective international campaign got under way and on Saturday I got a letter from the Egyptian ambassador announcing that Nabil has been freed and pardoned.

    So once again it is time to write to the Saudi Ambassador, and to William Hague so that our Ambassador in Riyadh can make protest. The Commonwealth Secretary General should get involved to as it is to Malaysia’s shame that they send this harmless young man to the possibility of a dusty public square and the executioner’s sword. The Home Secretary too should ask why Interpol is acting as an agent for the most blood-thirsty and cruel of régimes. Might Twitter pay for his legal defence. And when of our Royals takes tea with one of their Royals perhaps a few whispered words might be muttered about why in the 21st century Royals — Muslim, Christian, whatever —  should not chop off heads because of a tweet.

  • Known for his reformist views

    PEN International on Kashgari.

    PEN demands his immediate and unconditional release, in accordance with Article 19 of the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights. It also calls upon the Saudi authorities to provide him with immediate and effective protection.

    According to PEN’s information, Kashgari, a 23-year-old writer from Jeddah, tweeted a series of messages addressed to the Prophet Mohammed on the anniversary of the Prophet’s birth on 4 February 2012, some of which conveyed questions about his faith. Twitter registered more than 30,000 responses to his tweets, many of which accused him of blasphemy and called for his death. On 5 February 2012 Nasser al-Omar, an influential cleric, called for Kashgari to be tried in a Sharia court for apostasy, which is punishable by death, and the Saudi King Abdullah called for his arrest, vowing to seek extradition if Kashgari left the country. On 6 February Kashgari issued an apology and deleted his feed, but to no avail. Someone posted his home address in a YouTube video, and people searched for him at his local mosque. On 7 February 2012, Kashgari fled to Malaysia. He was arrested two days later in Kuala Lumpur on 9 February as he was trying to continue his journey to New Zealand, where he planned to request asylum. He was deported to Saudi Arabia on 12 February 2012.

    Note especially that King Abdullah called for his arrest and swore to seek extradition if he escaped the country. “Reformist” King Abdullah.

    It’s a great pity that Kashgari didn’t get a flight directly to New Zealand or at least to some secular country. It’s a great pity that he went first to Malaysia. I wonder if he had to for some reason – perhaps because he would have needed a visa for other countries.

    Kashgari is a poet and former columnist with the daily newspaper Al Bilad, and he is known for his reformist views. On 7 February 2012 Al-Bilad issued statement saying that they had fired Kashgari five weeks earlier “because of the inadequacy of his general views for the approach of the newspaper.”

    Yes because we can’t be having reformist views. All reform was accomplished by the prophet, so anything done after that is anti-the prophet and blasphemous and evil. Stasis is the only way to go.

  • Those who are wanted by their countries of origin

    Malaysia today is defending its extradition of Hamza Kashgari back to Saudi Arabia where he could easily be executed for saying he has questions about Mohammed.

    International rights groups have slammed the deportation but Home Minister Hishammuddin Hussein said Malaysia was not a safe haven for fugitives.

    Jiddah-based newspaper columnist Hamza Kashgari, 23, was detained Thursday at the Malaysian airport while in transit to New Zealand. He was deported Sunday despite fears from rights groups that he may face the death penalty if charged with blasphemy over remarks he tweeted that many considered offensive.

    “I will not allow Malaysia to be seen as a safe country for terrorists and those who are wanted by their countries of origin, and also be seen as a transit county,” Hishammuddin said.

    “Those who are wanted by their countries of origin” is it. What if they are ”wanted” by their countries of origin for being gay? For being critical of their government? For leaving the religion of their parents? For marrying without the permission of their parents? For not wearing the hijab? For using an electrical switch on “the sabbath”? For laughing at the wrong moment? For not bowing low enough?

    Is there any reason too stupid, too vicious, too trivial, for a country to “want” people and Malaysia to obey that “want”?

    Probably not, given the profound triviality and viciousness and stupidity of Saudi Arabia’s reasons for “wanting” Kashgari.

    He said the deportation followed a request from the Saudi government. Allegations that Kashgari could be tortured and killed if he was sent back home are “ridiculous” because Saudi Arabia is a respectable country, he said.

    Oh is it. Is it really. Tell that to foreign domestic workers there. Tell it to people executed for “adultery.” Tell it to women arrested for driving cars. Tell it to convicts sentenced to having their hands and feet amputated. Tell it to everyone who has been hassled by the Mutawwa’in.

    Local rights group Lawyers for Liberty said Kashgari arrived in Malaysia on Feb. 7 from Jordan and was leaving the country two days later to New Zealand to seek asylum when he was detained.

    “The cold hard truth is that Malaysia has bent over backwards to please Saudi Arabia, breached international law by not allowing (Kashgari) to seek asylum and instead handed him on a silver platter to his persecutors,” it said.

    For shame, Malaysia.

  • Free Hamza Kashgari

    You know the drill – same old same old. Join this Facebook group. You know the media report it when causes get big support on Facebook, so join. I added a few people, because you can’t just invite any more – but I’m shy about adding because it seems so presumptuous, so if I neglected to add you, add yourself. And all your friends. Don’t be shy!

    And sign the petition.

    And say harsh things about Malaysia as well as Saudi Arabia.

  • “Open to all” does not mean “pleasing to all”

    The LSESU Atheist, Secularist and Humanist Society issued a statement yesterday.

    It starts with thanks for support from various groups (including One Law for All) and a chronology of the exciting events of the last couple of weeks, the first being an invitation from the SU to come in for a chat.

    Friday 20th

    In the meeting, the LSESU advanced that we were not providing a safe space for Muslim students to interact, as the pictures on our Facebook page were offending Muslims.

    But again – why is an Atheist, Secularist and Humanist Society expected to provide a safe space for Muslim students to interact? Why is that an issue? Are all student societies expected to provide a safe space for their own opposites to interact? Wouldn’t such an expectation render all student societies utterly meaningless and void? Or is it only the Atheist, Secularist and Humanist Society that is expected to do that? But in that case…why the fuck?

    On the 25th the SU clarified this point somewhat:

    When activity comes under the banner of the Student’s Union it should be open to all members…….. The images which are posted there present a clear barrier to entry for a large number of students at LSE……. the cartoons has caused not only reflects negatively on the LSE SU brand but more importantly has caused significance offence to our members.

    So there we have the fundamental confusion: the confusion of being open with having no “barriers” when barriers are understood as “anything some students might dislike.” The activity is open to all members, but that doesn’t require it to be attractive to all members. At that rate there could be no musical society, because some people dislike music; there could be no socialist society, because socialism would “present a clear barrier” to free-market libertarians; there could be no feminist society, for reasons which there’s no need to spell out.

    ASH made the same point crisply in response to the SU:

    Disagreeing and even being offended by some of the contents of a social space do not represent a barrier to entry.

    It must be dispiriting to be at university with people who have to be told that.

    January 30th

    We asked the SU to “cite the relevant literature that shows conclusively that “Muslim students cannot look at pictures of the prophet Muhammad”.” No answers received.

    The LSESU Socialist Workers Society posted the posters on campus that included the following statement:

    “The Atheist Society’s efforts to publish inflammatory “satirical” cartoons in a deliberate attempt to offend Muslims serve to highlight a festering undercurrent of racism.”

    Budding George Galloways, all of them.

    …we have now changed the name of the Facebook group back to “LSESU Atheist, Secularist and Humanist Society”.

    During the two weeks of the on-going investigation, the LSESU has not been able to justify their request to remove the ‘Jesus and Mo’ cartoons from our website and their request to change the name of our Facebook group with reference to the LSESU constitution or bye-laws.

    The SU answered our letter, but was still unable to state explicitly the effective and binding bye-laws on which their request has been based. Therefore, we are back to our old name, and will stay with our name until the SU can prove to us that we are in violation of any of their regulations or bye-laws.

    We await further developments.

     

  • Richard, Nick, Salman, Ayaan

    Richard Dawkins has a response to “Froborr.”

    Ok I’m lying, he doesn’t really, but it might as well be. Plus it’s a response to all the “oh won’t you please think of the poor fragile believers?” wails that keep being wailed.

    Actually he’s talking specifically about the Jaipur Festival (where he was one of the speakers) and Salman Rushdie and Nick Cohen’s new book – but he’s also talking generally, as is only natural, since all of those items have wide implications.

    I have just returned from the Jaipur Literary Festival, infamous for the recent reprise of the 1989 threats against Sir Salman Rushdie by Muslims the world over, lamentably applauded by leading churchmen, politicians, historians and otherwise liberal journalists. Coincidentally, I am reading You Can’t Read this Book, Nick Cohen’s brilliant broadside against ‘censorship in an age of freedom’.

    I’ve already read Nick’s book, because I read it as it was being written. I’ll be reading it again though. Anyway the point is, the subject of Nick’s book keeps being re-enacted, more absurdly and invasively and threateningly all the time.

    Richard said at Jaipur:

    Our whole society is soft on religion. The assumption is remarkably widespread that religious sensitivities are somehow especially deserving of consideration – a consideration not accorded to ordinary prejudice. . . I admit to being offended by Father Christmas, ‘Baby Jesus’, and Rudolf the Red Nosed Reindeer, but if I tried to act on these prejudices I’d quite rightly be held accountable. I’d be challenged to justify myself. But let somebody’s religion be offended and it’s another matter entirely. Not only do the affronted themselves kick up an almighty fuss; they are abetted and encouraged by influential figures from other religions and the liberal establishment. Far from being challenged to justify their beliefs like anybody else, the religious are granted sanctuary in a sort of intellectual no go area.

    Froborr take a bow.

    Richard quotes Nick on the new atheists:

    The new atheists thought that the best argument against Islamist terror, or Christian fundamentalism, or Hindu or Jewish nationalism, was to say bluntly that there is no God, and we should grow up. Fear of religious violence also drove the backlash against atheism from those who felt that appeasement of psychopathic believers was the safest policy; that if we were nice to them, perhaps they would calm down. Prim mainstream commentators decried the insensitivity and downright rudeness with which the new atheists treated the religious. The complaints boiled down to a simple and piteous cry: “Why can’t you stop upsetting them?”

    The answer is simple. If the criterion for what is allowable in public discourse becomes “that which will not upset anyone” then public discourse will be a vast desert of nothingness. We can’t have thought or inspiration or development or change without the risk of upsetting some people. “Not upsetting” is simply the wrong criterion for permissible discourse.