Bengal blogger arrested for comments on Islam

In India it is very easy for the State to put you in jail for expressing your thoughts. This is especially true when the thoughts are critical of religion. This happened in India’s state of Bengal.

A freethinker blogger from Bengal, Tarak Biswas was arrested on Thursday for posting updates on the social media for criticising Islam religion. On Thursday, minutes after Biswas posted a message on the social media, one Sanaullah Khan registered a complaint with the Cyber Police Station of the Howrah Police Commissionerate demanding his arrest. According to the locals, Khan is a local leader from the ruling- Trinamool Congress party.

From http://aaablogs.uoregon.edu/mian/2011/07/11/censorship/

From http://aaablogs.uoregon.edu/mian/2011/07/11/censorship/

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This Atheist Youtuber is asking to vote for Trump

A popular American atheist Youtuber who calls himself ‘Amazing Atheist’ proved why he is amazing. He declared his support for Trump in the coming Presidential election.

Martin Hughes has written about it well. He writes:

Not only did he encourage them to vote for Trump — he proudly said that he won’t vote. Which galls me. How the fuck are we supposed to ensure separation of church and state if we don’t vote? And how do you endorse a candidate who says he’ll violate that boundary with statements like, “When I’m President, we are going to start saying ‘Merry Christmas’ again, that I can tell you”? I mean…what?!

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17 Indian soldiers killed in terrorist attack in Kashmir

Islamist terror strike from across the border on an Indian Army camp in Kashmir resulted in deaths of 17 soldiers. All four terrorists were killed later in a gun battle.

Terrorists have killed 17 Army soldiers and injured 19 in a suicide attack on an Army camp in Kashmir. Four terrorists struck the camp close to the headquarter of the 12th Brigade at Uri in Baramulla District . This makes it one of the deadliest terrorist strikes on security forces in recent times.
To put the death toll in perspective, seven military personnel had been killed in the Pathankot terror attack in January 2016. The attack on the Indian Air Force base there has since become a major international diplomatic incident.
The high number of casualties in the Uri terror attack could be attributed to the fact that a large number of soldiers, from the Dogra Regiment, had been stationed at the camp in tents and other temporary structures. Some of these tents caught fire during the attack, and the fire spread to other parts of the barracks. The soldiers had been stationed there as they were turning over from a tour of duty.

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Credit – BBC

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Ex Muslim atheist leader faces death threat in India

He is arguably the strongest critic of Islam in this part of the world. He is an ex Muslim atheist who is very knowledgable about the religion. He lives and propagates his ideas in a district in Kerala with a Muslim majority. He is the leader of Yukthivadi Sangham, a rationalist organisation of Kerala. This brave freethinker is E A Jabbar, a retired school teacher from Malappuram.

Now he is facing death threat. A blog in malayalam has named him along with some other freethinkers as enemies of Islam and has threatened to silence him.

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Glorifying stalking results in horrific murders

Young men in India are taught not to take no as an answer from girls they fall in love with. This result in horrific murders.

A 23-year-old woman was allegedly stabbed to death by a man for rejecting his proposal, in fourth such killing in Tamil Nadu in the last three months.
A 23-year-old woman was allegedly stabbed to death by a man for rejecting his proposal, in fourth such killing in Tamil Nadu in the last three months.

Jahir (27) attempted suicide after killing Dhanya last night at Annur near here. He is in a critical condition, police said.

Dhanya, who worked in a private firm, was allegedly being harassed for some time by the accused to marry him though she had spurned his proposal, police said.

This is the fourth fatal attack on young women in the state, who had spurned proposals of their stalkers, since the killing of software professional Swathi at a railway station in Chennai in July.

Last month, an engineering student was clubbed to death in her classroom in a private college by her senior in Karur while a 25-year-old teacher was killed in a church by a man, who later ended his own life, for spurning his love.

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Canadian PM proves he does not care about universal gender equality

The Canadian PM Justin Trudeau indicated that he do not care for gender equality in cultures and communities other than his own.

He attended a gender segregated function in a mosque in Ottawa and actually seemed to praise the gender segregation as diversity and as a source of strength.

 “Diversity is a source of strength, not just a source of weakness, and as I look at this beautiful room — sisters upstairs — everyone here, (I see) the diversity we have just within this mosque, within the Islamic community, within the Muslim community in Canada.”

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Thank you for the overwhelming support for Shirin Dalvi

Few days ago I had posted a request for donations for starting an online publication to give voice to the jobless and hounded Urdu journalist Shirin Dalvi. There was very good response, especially through Twitter with many sharing the link to my article. I am happy to announce that we have now reached the targeted amount.

A big thank you for all who helped out a woman journalist silenced by religious censorship of free speech.

Sacked and hounded Urdu journalist needs your help

Shirin Dalvi, the sacked and hounded Urdu journalist needs your help.

Last year, in January, she was sacked from her post of editor of Mumbai edition of Urdu daily Avadhnama. Her crime was re-publishing of a Charlie Hebdo cartoon on the front page,  ten days after the horrific killing of Charlie Hebdo journalists by Islamic fundamentalists. This was a drawing by the assassinated French cartoonist Cabu published in 2006 cover of the magazine titled “Mohammed Overwhelmed by Fundamentalists,” in which a bearded man is shown covering his face and saying that “it’s hard to be loved by idiots.” It is still not clear whether the publishing of cartoon was a mistake or an honest attempt to criticise fundamentalists who killed cartoonists. Looking at her past record I tend to believe the latter, though faced with death threats she said it was a mistake.

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Image credit – Indiatimes

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Hindutva and the hypocrisy of beef politics

Police in the Indian state of Haryana is very busy nowadays. It is not because of a sudden spurt in robberies or rapes. Those crimes are always there but no one is much bothered about it. They are currently busy sniffing out presence of beef in Biriyani, a rice  and meat preparation.

 The National Crime Record Bureau’s latest data shows that Haryana has the second highest number of complaints being lodged at police stations after Uttar Pradesh in the country.
Police officials in the state’s Mewat district, however, have been given a different priority collecting biryani samples from street vendors to check for beef.
Mewat is Haryana’s only Muslim-dominated district and the diktat from the state government’s Gau Sewa Ayog (Cow protection commission) has come just ahead of Bakri Eid, the Muslim religious festival, on September 12.
Bharti Arora, DIG in charge of the special task force to check cow smuggling and slaughter, and Mewat SSP Kuldeep Singh along with Ayog chairman Bhani Ram Mangla met locals in Mewat on Tuesday to discuss the issue. Mangla said the directions to the police were issued in the wake of a number of specific complaints that the biryani vendors were serving beef. After Mewat, sampling will be done in other districts as well.

Haryana has one of the most stringent cow slaughter acts in the country with a maximum jail term of 10 years.

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Only incitement to violence against state is sedition

Police arresting Indian citizens on charges of sedition has been increasing recently. The latest being the cases against Amnesty International and movie actress and Congress leader Remya. Though most of the cases are finally dismissed, the accused are put into lot of hardships and the process of defending the charge itself has become a punishment. The Indian Supreme Court has now reiterated that only incitement to violence and public disorder can be prosecuted under Sedition law.

The Supreme Court on Monday asserted that “making a strong criticism of the government” is not even defamatory, let alone seditious. The court also directed all authorities, including police and trial judges, to follow its Constitution Bench ruling which stated that only incitement to violence and public disorder could form the basis of a sedition charge. A bench of Justice Dipak Misra and Justice Uday U Lalit maintained that it would not be within the fold of criminal jurisprudence to issue uniform guidelines for registration of FIRs under sedition charge, but underscored that a larger bench has already provided necessary safeguards that should be followed by all authorities. “Suppose somebody makes a strong criticism of the government… even a case of criminal defamation cannot be filed, let alone a case of sedition. Every magistrate is bound by what we said in the Kedar Nath (case),” said the bench. In Kedar Nath Singh vs State of Bihar, 1962, a Constitution Bench had ruled in favour of the constitutional validity of Section 124A (sedition) in the IPC, but had added a vital caveat: that a person could be prosecuted for sedition only if his acts caused “incitement to violence or intention or tendency to create public disorder or cause disturbance of public peace”.

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