Raif Badawi

From CFI:

30-year-old Raif Badawi, a Saudi Arabian writer and activist, was sentenced last year to seven years in prison and 600 lashes. Badawi’s crimes? Founding a website, Liberal Saudi Network, dedicated to fostering open discussion of religion and politics; and calling on his country to respect freedom of religion, belief, and expression, and women’s rights.

According to the Saudi court, Badawi was guilty of ridiculing Islam. In the midst of his appeals process, Badawi could soon be charged with apostasy. The penalty for apostasy in Saudi Arabia is death.

To make matters worse, a Saudi court recently jailed Badawi’s lawyer, Waleed Sami Abu Al-Khair, for his human rights activism.

There are global protests May 3. [Read more…]

Pogu Yaga wept

From the Washington Post, more on those “marriages” in Nigeria.

Village elder Pogo Bitrus told Agence France Presse locals had consulted with “various sources” in the nation’s forested northeast. “From the information we received yesterday from Cameroonian border towns our abducted girls were taken… into Chad and Cameroon,” he said, adding that each girl was sold as a bride to Islamist militants for 2,000 naira — $12. [Read more…]

With faith and gratitude to Allah the almighty

The sultan of Brunei is going ahead with the introduction of ferocious punitive “sharia” despite objections from people who aren’t savage theocratic monsters.

“With faith and gratitude to Allah the almighty, I declare that tomorrow, Thursday 1 May 2014, will see the enforcement of sharia law phase one, to be followed by the other phases,” the absolute monarch said in a royal decree on Wednesday.

Plans for the sharia penalties – which will eventually include flogging, severing of limbs and death by stoning – triggered condemnation on social media sites in the tiny sultanate earlier this year.

Well, Mohammed didn’t say anything about social media, so fuck all that. [Read more…]

Requirements of the Islamic Shari’a applicable to family and children

That Telegraph article mentioned a “Sharia Law event at the Law Society’s headquarters on Chancery Lane, central London on June 24” and provided a link but the link is a dud. However I found a link that works, and thus the event.

Developing services for Muslim clients – An introduction to Islamic Shari’a law for small firms

It’s not law. It’s not law. It’s not law. Stop calling it law. It’s not law.

Does your sole practice or small firm have a Muslim client base and practice in the following areas of law?

• Wills and inheritance.
• Family and children.
• Corporate and commercial (non-listed firms).

Do you want to better understand and serve the needs of your Muslim clients and build your business?

Designed as a forerunner to a planned future seminar series on Islamic law, this event will set you thinking on an important area of client service as our expert and authoritative speakers highlight some basic concepts and requirements of the Islamic Shari’a applicable to these practice areas.

That’s actually alarming. If they’re serious, and they really think “basic concepts and requirements of the Islamic Shari’a” are applicable to laws relating to for instance family and children – then they’re a fucking menace.

The event is fully booked.

It’s not “law”

The Telegraph reported a few days ago that the Law Society will be giving a training course in sharia this summer.

Wtf?

A new training course being run by the Law Society this summer is described as an “introduction to Islamic Sharia law for small firms”.

What the hell. Sharia is not law in the UK. Period. In the UK, law is what is enacted by Parliament, it’s not any old thing that’s called “law” by one group or another. Sharia is a religious thing, not a legal thing. It’s not something the Law Society should be giving “training” in. [Read more…]

A police officer, not a doctor, by her bed

In El Salvador, a nightmare I can’t even read about without quaking with fury.

Cristina Quintanilla was 18 years old in October 2004 when, seven months pregnant with her second child, she collapsed in pain on the floor of her family home. “I felt like I was choking, like I couldn’t breathe,” she says, shaking at the memory.

Quintanilla, who lives in San Miguel, El Salvador, fell unconscious and, bleeding heavily, was taken to hospital by her mother. When she woke up, dizzy from blood loss and anaesthetic, and having lost her child, she says she was startled to find a police officer, not a doctor, by her bed. [Read more…]