A 70-year-old man has been convicted of blasphemy and sentenced to death in Rawalpindi.

Muhammad Asghar was arrested in 2010 after writing letters to various people claiming to be a prophet, reports say.

His lawyers argued for leniency, saying he has a history of mental illness, but this was rejected by a medical panel.

Disgusting in every way. So what if someone wrote a bunch of letters claiming to be a prophet? What a harmless inconsequential who could possibly care action. Giving him a ticket comparable to a parking ticket would be a ludicrous abuse of state power; sentencing him to death is just off the charts. Ignoring his mental illness for the sake of sentencing him to death is another step down into the pit of sadistic shitness. [Read more…]

There was an open meeting of the Cambridge Student Union last night at which the Liberal Democratic MP for Cambridge Julian Huppert gave a talk. Tehmina Kazi reports one thing he said (and is fine with my quoting her):

Best quote from Cambridge MP and highly-regarded Lib Dem Julian Huppert at last night’s Graduate Union talk: “The chances of Maajid Nawaz being deselected as a parliamentary candidate as a result of the petition are approximately… ZERO.”

GOOD.

It’s still bad that they issued that very un-liberal statement about not hurting people’s feelings by tolerating satire of their religions, but it’s good that they’re not scouting for a nice cliff to drop him off.

You know how people keep telling us – over and over, with an air of patient “everybody knows this” superior wisdom – that “cunt” is not a sexist epithet in the UK? It’s used solely for men, so much so that it would sound weird to call a woman it? That it’s lost its original meaning i.e. female genitalia?

As in this comment by “Minow” on January 8 for instance:

What offensive word? “Cunt” obviously. The others wouldn’t be “offensive” enough to be worth mentioning.

No it was ‘bitch’ according to press reports. Nimmo is British and it is quite rare in Britain to use ‘cunt’ for a woman, it sounds a bit peculiar, like calling a woman a ‘cock’. This might be changing as we Americanize in that way but I think it is still generally true. ‘Cunts’ have to be blokes, usually hard-arses in a bad way.

I call Rachel Bailey to the stand.

Scott and Bailey, Season 3 episode 5. [Read more…]

Well here’s a good thing I didn’t know about – a talk that Charlie Klendjian of the Lawyers’ Secular Society (he was on that Big Questions episode, sitting I think next to Maajid) did in December, in which he does a fine job of needling Universities UK.

Well, well, well. Who would have known?

In the year 2013, in a western liberal secular(ish) democracy, segregation is not segregation
as long as it’s…driven by “genuinely-held” religious beliefs. [Read more…]

Luke Brinker at Media Matters wonders if NBC will cover the role of US conservatives in Russia’s anti-gay crackdown.

As the Kremlin launched its anti-gay crackdown last summer, NBC News largely ignored the issue, even as it hyped the upcoming Winter Olympics. [Read more…]

There’s a thing called the British Muslim Awards, which I don’t think I’d heard of until now. But now I have. Why? Because they dropped the Quilliam Foundation as a finalist yesterday.

FINALISTS FOR THE ‘SPIRIT OF BRITAIN’ CATEGORY have been adjusted to the below:

Christian Muslim Forum

Muslim Jewish Forum

In light of recent activity, The British Muslim Awards, after careful consideration, have come to the decision that it can no longer promote the Quilliam Foundation as a finalist, and thus it’s nomination has been removed with immediate effect.
#britishmuslimawards

Bad, stupid, regressive move.

The MAB has a formulaic blurb at the end of its horrible press release.

Notes to Editors:

MAB is a British organisation dedicated to serving society through promoting Islam in its spiritual teachings, ideological and civilising concepts, and moral and human values. MAB has local branches across the UK that provide a wide range of events and activities.

MAB actively seeks to dispel the misconceptions about Muslims and helps to act as a bridge to promote better understanding between the UK and the Muslim World.

You know what? No it doesn’t. It doesn’t do that at all. It does the opposite. It entrenches the misconceptions that Muslims must by nature be dogmatic and authoritarian and fundamentalist and touchily aggressive.

If it really wanted to dispel the misconceptions about Muslims it would stop acting like the stereotype Angry Muslim and do the other thing. But it doesn’t. It’s a pathetic joke that it says it actively seeks to dispel the misconceptions about Muslims.

Muslims couldn’t have a more dedicated enemy than organizations like the MAB.

The Muslim Association of Britain, which is a branch of the Muslim Brotherhood (so it’s even more reactionary and theocratic than the Muslim Council of Britain, which is saying something) issued a press release on Jesus and Mo a couple of days ago. It’s as mindless and bullying and illiberal as you’d expect.

Even the title is like that.

Abusive website promoted by prospective Liberal Democrat candidate

Jesus and Mo is not abusive. It’s a satirical comic strip; it satirizes religion. That’s not abusive.

That’s blindingly obvious but we have to keep saying it, 400 times a day if that’s what it takes. [Read more…]

At the ACLU blog, an exceptionally nasty example of theist bullying in the public schools.

…when my stepson, who has been raised a Buddhist, enrolled in the sixth grade at our local school, Negreet High, it became personal, and I could no longer turn a blind eye to the very real harms that occur when school officials violate the separation of church and state.

My stepson started at Negreet in the same class as one of my children. By the end of the first week of school, he was having serious stomach issues and anxiety. We couldn’t figure out why. In the mornings, my wife would pull over on the side of the road as they approached school so he could throw up. [Read more…]

There’s no need to worry, it’s all taken care of.

Evidence of Harm by Religion:

[Read more…]