Column: Trump’s Chicago rally and freedom of speech
Source: Chicago Tribune Rose Hamid is a middle-aged Muslim who in January went to a Donald Trump rally in Rock Hill, S.C. Wearing a hijab and a T-shirt with the […]
Church may canonize Shahbaz Bhatti
Source: Aleteia By John Burger Church Begins Gathering Evidence for Possible Canonization of Pakistani “Martyr” Shahbaz Bhatti fought “blasphemy laws,” defended Asia Bibi It has been five years since a […]
Pakistan hangs Mumtaz Qadri the murderer of Governor Salman Taseer
Epigraph: And there is life for you in the law of retaliation, O men of understanding, that you may enjoy security. (Al Quran 2:179/180) Source: BBC Pakistan has hanged the […]
Saudi man gets 10 years, 2,000 lashes over atheist tweets
Source: Associated Press RIYADH, Saudi Arabia (AP) — A court in Saudi Arabia has sentenced a man to 10 years in prison and 2,000 lashes for expressing his atheism in hundreds of Twitter posts. Al-Watan online daily said Saturday that religious police in charge of monitoring social networks found […]
The blasphemy law and terrorism
Source: Daily Times By Saad Hafiz Asking for the repeal of the blasphemy laws is not about wishing to deny people the right to feel offended or to defend their beliefs; these rights should be available for the religious and the non-believer alike. And this is what it finally comes […]
PERMANENT BLOCK Beijing is banning all foreign media from publishing online in China
Source: Quartz This article was updated at 6pm in Hong Kong with additional analysis of what the new rules may mean. In the latest sign that China’s long-touted “opening up” is reversing into a “closing down,” a Chinese ministry has issued new rules that ban any foreign-invested company from publishing […]
Georgia Scraps “Blasphemy Bill”
Source: Eurasianet Georgia has dropped a proposed anti-blasphemy bill ardently opposed by freedom-of-speech activists. With a stated goal of protecting the feelings of Christian believers, the bill pitted civil liberties […]
Georgia proposes ‘blasphemy bill’ to outlaw religious insults
Source: The Guardian Georgia is planning a “blasphemy bill” that will make religious irreverence punishable by law, prompting concerns about freedom of expression in the devoutly Orthodox Christian society. Critics […]
Freedom going into reverse
Source: CNN CNN)The arc of history is bending backward, away from freedom and justice. It’s not what was supposed to happen, but it’s the troubling reality revealed in a new […]
Egyptian writer Fatima Naoot jailed for insulting Islam
Source: Indian Express In October, Naoot described in a post on her Facebook account Eid Al-Adha’s tradition of slaughtering sheep as the “greatest massacre committed by human beings”. An Egyptian […]
Documentary on radical Islam raises hackles in France
Source: Yahoo News Paris (AFP) – A documentary on radical Islam has struck a nerve in France two-and-a-half months after a devastating jihadist attack in Paris and sparked a debate […]
Egyptian writer Fatima Naoot jailed for insulting Islam
Source: The Indian Express An Egyptian court has sentenced secular writer Fatima Naoot to three years in prison and a fine of $2,550 after being found guilty of insulting Islam, […]
The blasphemy law, Islam and the state
Source: Daily Times By Yasser Latif Hamdani The blasphemy law, as enacted in Pakistan in 1986, militates first and foremost against the Islamic principles of justice and here is why: if it is conceived as an Islamic law, is it subject to hadd? Five years ago today, Salmaan Taseer, the […]
New York Times: The Words That Killed Medieval Jews
Source: New York Times By Sara Lipton DO harsh words lead to violent acts? At a moment when hate speech seems to be proliferating, it’s a question worth asking. Attorney […]
Minority matters an Op-Ed from Dawn
Source: Dawn.com By Reema Omer; who is a legal adviser for International Commission of Jurists “I AM the prime minister of all Pakistanis, whether they are Hindu, Muslim, Sikh, Christian, […]
Saudi Arabia Sentences Palestinian Poet To Death For Apostasy
Source: Huffington Post His conviction was based on a witness who claimed to have heard his cursing God, as well as his poems. RIYADH, Nov 20 (Reuters) – A Saudi […]
Book Review: Religious Difference in a Secular Age: A Minority Report
Source: Princeton Press By Saba Mahmood, who is professor of anthropology at the University of California, Berkeley. She is the author of Politics of Piety: The Islamic Revival and the […]
Blasphemy and the death penalty: Misconceptions explained
Epigraph: The hypocrites say, ‘If we return to Medina, the one most honorable will surely drive out therefrom the one most mean (Muhammad);’ while true honor belongs to Allah and […]
Bangladesh writers stage freedom rally despite fear of attack
About 1,000 Bangladeshi authors and teachers marched through the streets of the capital on Tuesday, asserting their right to free speech days after a suspected Islamist group attacked writers and […]
Call for improvements in blasphemy law not objectionable: Supreme Court Pakistan
Source: Dawn ISLAMABAD: The Supreme Court has held that a call for improvements in the blasphemy law in order to provide safeguards against its misuse by levelling false allegations should […]