The other 15 women

However, one piece of better news – though I can’t really call it good news, given the eight years wasted…

A pardon granted by El Salvador’s Parliamentary Assembly to a young woman imprisoned after suffering a miscarriage is a triumph of justice and gives hope to the other 15 women languishing in jail on similar charges, said Amnesty International.

In 2007 “Guadalupe” received a 30 year jail sentence after authorities wrongly suspected she had terminated her pregnancy. She was only 18 years old.

Now she’s 25 or 26. She lost eight years because she had a miscarriage. [Read more…]

What Amnesty actually said

Hm. We have a discrepancy in what people are saying about Raif. As I posted a few hours ago, Amnesty says the doctors have said he shouldn’t be flogged again, but they also said

Raif Badawi is still at risk, there is no way of knowing whether the Saudi Arabian authorities will disregard the medical advice and allow the flogging to go ahead.

But the BBC is reporting that as Amnesty saying “Saudi Arabia has postponed the flogging” – which is inaccurate. Did the Beeb just misread it?

They go on –

Amnesty said the decision was made after doctors advised against this week’s 50 lashes on health grounds.

But Amnesty didn’t say that. They said the opposite, and I’m not seeing any update on their site.

Confusing.

Known for his analytic approach to the complex plight of humanity

Michael Shermer is on the book tour for his new book explaining morality.

Morality? Shermer?

Yes. Bemusing, isn’t it.

Known for his analytic approach to the complex plight of humanity, New York Times bestselling author Michael Shermer (Skeptic Magazine) brings his characteristic insight to the nuanced relationship between science and morality in his latest book, The Moral Arc. From paying ransom to Somali pirates and the dilemmas of being a Nazi, to an analysis of the Bible’s basic principles, Shermer unpacks the philosophies behind some of today’s greatest moral questions. He’ll explain how beginning with The Age of Reason and the Enlightenment, scientific ways of thinking have made society more moral and in turn, created a freer, more just world.

Not by themselves they haven’t.

The subtitle of his book is

How Science and Reason Lead Humanity toward Truth, Justice, and Freedom

They don’t; that’s how. Not on their own. They can help; they can help a lot; they can correct a lot of mistakes. But they don’t just lead humanity toward justice, like a beacon in the night. Science and reason on their own can’t, for instance, convince someone that it’s immoral to get someone drunk and then steer her into your hotel room and then have sex with her. You need more than science and reason for that.

Shermer on morality. Funny old world, isn’t it.

 

That offend the Prophet of mercy

Now have some revolting kakk from the International Union for Islamic Scholars.

(That’s not “scholars” as normally understood, of course. It means not people who have read and understood many books, but people who have read and memorized one book.)

IUMS calls for the Islamic nation to continue in the legal peaceful demonstrating to defend the great messenger, and calls for the West to protect Muslim communities from attacks.

Defend him from what? He’s dead. It’s too late to defend him because he has no life to defend any more. [Read more…]

She will greet him at the Montreal airport

The Guardian talks to Ensaf Haider.

A few days before his birthday, the liberal Saudi blogger Raif Badawi received 50 lashes in front of a mosque in Jeddah, his hometown. Thousands of miles away, in her modest basement flat in Québec, his wife decided to avenge his cruel treatment with a birthday party. She put a piece of cake aside to be frozen for him, just in case.

“I feel destroyed. But I don’t want to sit in a corner and cry,” says Ensaf Haidar softly, sitting on her eldest daughter’s bed. “That would be letting Raif and my children down.”

I so badly want him to get to eat that piece of cake…before it gets freezer burn. [Read more…]

At the King Fahd Hospital in Jeddah

The doctors have again said Raif should not be whipped tomorrow, Amnesty reports.

The planned flogging of Raif Badawi is likely to be suspended this Friday after a medical committee assessed that he should not undergo a second round of lashes on health grounds. The committee, comprised of around eight doctors, carried out a series of tests on Raif Badawi at the King Fahd Hospital in Jeddah yesterday and recommended that the flogging should not be carried out.

Nothing surprising about the assessment – deep cuts caused by repeated blows of a stick would of course not heal completely in two weeks.

“Instead of continuing to torment Raif Badawi by dragging out his ordeal with repeated assessments the authorities should publicly announce an end to his flogging and release him immediately and unconditionally,” said Said Boumedouha, Deputy Director of Amnesty International’s Middle East and North Africa Programme.

“Raif Badawi is still at risk, there is no way of knowing whether the Saudi Arabian authorities will disregard the medical advice and allow the flogging to go ahead.”

The authorities should release him immediately and unconditionally and let him leave the country and join his wife and children in Québec.

Attention people in or near Ottawa

CFI Canada is holding weekly protests at the Saudi embassy in Ottawa in conjunction with Amnesty International  Canada.

CFI Canada calls its volunteers and supporters to join or lend support to weekly 30-minute demonstrations at the Saudi embassy in Ottawa (201 Sussex Drive).  Amnesty International  Canada  is leading this initiative on Thursday January 15, 2015  at 4:00 pm.  Raif Badawi is expected to receive lashes every Friday for a total of twenty weeks.    For further information, contact the CFIC office at ned@cficanada.ca.

That’s from last week but theobromine tells us there is one today:

Note to anyone in or near Ottawa, Canada: Atheist and Humanist groups (CFI-Canada and Humanist Canada) are joining the weekly protests sponsored by Amnesty international – next one is this Thursday at 4pm in front of the Saudi Embassy (dress warmly – the high tomorrow will be -10C).

This Thursday is now today. You have a few hours to pile on the sweaters.