Two of the four atheist bloggers arrested in Bangladesh recently are out of jail on bail, but that does not mean they are out of danger. As we’ve seen in Pakistan, Indonesia and other Muslim-dominated countries, those accused of blasphemy are often attacked by angry mobs. HuffPo interviews one of them about it:
Category Archive: Religious Authoritarianism
May 21 2013
Saudi Wingnut: Twitter Leads to Hell
A Saudi cleric who leads that country’s religious police — how’s that for a dangerous concept? — has declared that using Twitter will condemn someone to an eternity in hell. Why? They don’t say. Some weird mixture of Islamic fundamentalism and Luddite philosophy, perhaps.
May 19 2013
Humanist Weddings Controversial in Britain
It appears that non-religious weddings are more controversial than same-sex weddings in Britain, where members of parliament are running into opposition in trying to add recognition for humanist weddings into a bill that would legalize same-sex marriage.
May 17 2013
Another Virginia Republican Theocrat
On Tuesday, Al Bedrosian won the Republican primary for a seat on the Roanoke County Board of Supervisors. He ran largely on a platform of being in favor of opening that board’s meetings with prayer, which has been a matter of some controversy. The Roanoke Times reprints an article Bedrosian wrote in 2007 where he …
May 14 2013
Moroccan Atheist On the Run
In yet another example of Muslim totalitarians trying to destroy anyone who dares to question or criticize their religion, Moroccan atheist Imad Eddin Habib is now on the run and hiding from the police, who want to arrest him for the “crime” of “shaking a Muslim’s faith.”
Apr 30 2013
Israeli Court Rules in Favor of Women at the Wall
I’ve written several times about the ongoing controversy in Jerusalem, where a group called Women at the Wall have been challenging the custom and law that has prevented them from praying at the Western Wall in traditional prayer shawls. Ultra-Orthodox Jews there think that only men should be allowed to do that and the police …
Apr 18 2013
Extremist Jews Open Segregated Public Park
An ultra-orthodox Jewish sect that runs their own town in New York has opened what is reportedly the first sex-segregated public park in the United States, which is almost certainly unconstitutional and illegal under federal statute even if it were a private park.
Mar 24 2013
Company Settles Religious Discrimination Case
The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has agreed to a settlement with Voss Lighting, an Oklahoma company that actively discriminated against non-Christians in their hiring. The facts of this case are about as blatant a violation as one can imagine:
Mar 15 2013
FRC: Single People Have No Right to Have Sex
A lot of people know about Griswold v Connecticut, which said states can’t ban the use of contraception by married couples. But a few years later, in Eisenstadt v. Baird, the court extended that to non-married people. Pat Fagan, a senior fellow at the Family Research Council, went on Tony Perkins’ radio show and said …
Feb 27 2013
Bangladeshi Rioters Demand Fascism
Thousands of rioters took to the streets of the capitol of Bangladesh on Friday, demanding death for atheist bloggers who dare to write things that they find insulting toward Islam. The resulting clash with police resulted in a great deal of violence and mayhem.
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