Butterflies and Wheels update

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Ophelia Benson

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May 2, 2012, 7:37:10 PM5/2/12
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Hello - time for another action-packed B&W update.
 

 

New in "Latest News"

Egyptian court upholds sentence for “insulting Islam”
The case brought against actor Adel Imam by an Islamist lawyer accused the actor of mocking the authorities in his films and plays, and offending Islam and its symbols.
Filed: April 24, 2012

Mali: armed groups in North are raping women
Increasing numbers of Malian women are being raped by Tuareg rebels and armed groups that have swept across the north of Mali since the beginning of year.
Filed: April 24, 2012

BBC will interview people at an abortion clinic
Opponents of the right to abortion are angry, saying this amounts to “free advertising” for abortion.
Filed: April 24, 2012

Who is bullying whom?
A Wiltshire MP has said he will not be bullied into cutting ties with a charity that sponsored an event where a "cure" for homosexuality was discussed.
Filed: April 24, 2012

James Randi on the hounding of Sanal Edamaruku
The threat to arrest a rationalist who has been exposing “miracles” in his own country for more than 30 years is a serious attack on freedom of expression, designed to harass and silence him.
Filed: April 24, 2012

The horror of girls married as children
Girls under 15 are five times more likely to die in childbirth than women in their 20s. Girls under 18 are also at much higher risk of pregnancy-related injuries, such as fistula.
Filed: April 25, 2012

Students coerced into signing anti-abortion petition
Catholic school says it wasn't coercion at all.
Filed: April 25, 2012

India: women airing their anger about FGM
A small Muslim sub-sect known as the Dawoodi Bohra continues to believe that the removal of the clitoris is the will of God. (Then why did god put it there in the first place?)
Filed: April 25, 2012

New laws proposed for Egypt
One would legalize the marriage of girls from age 14, the other permits a husband to copulate with the corpse of his wife within 6 hours of her death. Yes really.
Filed: April 25, 2012

Unicef: women and men in India think wife-beating is ok
“When girls are brought up with the message that a woman’s status in a family is inferior, she starts to accept whatever behavior is meted out by her husband or in-laws,” said Anuradha Gupta.
Filed: April 25, 2012

Illinois bishop Daniel Jenky compares Obama to Hitler
131 Notre Dame professors demand that he withdraw the comparison or resign from the university's Board of Fellows and board of trustees.
Filed: April 25, 2012

The brewing community has a gift for the Muslim community
Jesus likes it, at least.
Filed: April 25, 2012

Hurriyet on uproar in Egypt over sex with corpse law
Prominent Egyptian TV anchor Jaber al-Qarmouty criticized the whole notion of “permitting a husband to have sex with his wife after her death" on his show on April 24.
Filed: April 26, 2012

Add your voice to support Alexander Aan
The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) is organizing a letter-writing campaign on Aan’s behalf, and CFI urges you to take part.
Filed: April 26, 2012

The phony war on the nonexistent religion of secularism
There is no more effective way to organize against liberalism than to argue that liberals are invading the sacred precinct of the nuclear family.
Filed: April 26, 2012

Catholic church tells state-funded schools what to do
The Catholic church has written to every state-funded Catholic secondary school in England and Wales asking them to encourage pupils to sign a petition against gay marriage.
Filed: April 26, 2012

Boko Haram bombs newspaper office in Abuja
At least nine people were killed and more than a dozen wounded in the attacks on This Day newspaper, for which Boko Haram claimed responsibility.
Filed: April 26, 2012

New Statesman on Galloway’s conversion to Islam
Interviewer Jemima Khan reports he converted a decade ago in a ceremony attended by members of the Muslim Association of Great Britain.
Filed: April 27, 2012

Galloway denies the part about the ceremony
Or is it the part about Kilburn?
Filed: April 27, 2012

The Catholic League and suppression of the press
Donohue justifies the League’s aggressive behavior by claiming that it is culturally unacceptable for nonCatholics to criticize the Catholic Church.
Filed: April 27, 2012

Evolution sceptics disguise their cause as free inquiry
The Tennessee bill required the state’s education system to encourage students to “respond appropriately and respectfully to differences of opinion about scientific subjects.”
Filed: April 27, 2012

Mona Eltahawy and Leila Ahmed on misogyny
"The day my article came out, the Grand Mufti of Saudi Arabia said that marriage for ten-year-old girls is permitted."
Filed: April 28, 2012

Trial starts in faith-healing murder case
A state law that allows faith healing for Christian Scientists but not other religions is not arbitrary, an Okanogan County judge has ruled. O rilly?
Filed: April 28, 2012

14 schools burnt down in Nigeria’s Borno state this year
In a video posted on YouTube in February, Boko Haram called on its followers to destroy schools providing Western education.
Filed: April 28, 2012

Kidnapped aid worker Khalil Dale beheaded in Pakistan
His body was found with a note saying he had been killed by the Taliban. They had asked for a very large ransom which could not be paid.
Filed: April 29, 2012

CNN on murder of Khalil Dale
Dale, a nurse who was managing a health program for the ICRC, was seized by armed men in the city of Quetta, near the Afghan border, the Red Cross said in January.
Filed: April 29, 2012

Pink News on Dan Savage and student walkouts
Savage was addressing a group of students at the National High School Journalist Conference in Seattle.
Filed: April 30, 2012

Who does Dan Savage think he is?
So what if he's right that nothing contributes more to the destruction of the lives of gay people than Christians using the Bible as an instrument of brutality?
Filed: April 30, 2012

Nigeria: suicide attack in Kano kills 11
Boko Haram's increasingly murderous campaign has killed more than 1,000 people since mid-2009.
Filed: April 30, 2012

Nigeria: church attacks kill 19 on Sunday
Four killed in Maiduguri, fifteen in Kano. Both attacks bore the hallmarks of Boko Haram.
Filed: April 30, 2012

Adele Wilde-Blavatsky: when anti-racism becomes anti-woman
The ‘excuse-making of cultural relativism’ and the politically correct face of anti-racism is ugly and dangerous.
Filed: April 30, 2012

Andrew Copson on state-funded “faith” schools
The Catholic church promoted to all pupils in its secondary schools a petition against gay marriage in a way unacceptable for any publicly funded body.
Filed: May 1, 2012

From minister to atheist: questions haunted her
Is Jesus the only way to God? Would a loving God torment people for eternity? Is there any evidence of God at all? And one day, she realized: "I'm an atheist."
Filed: May 1, 2012

Surly Amy says support women in secularism
She made limited edition Surly-Ramics necklaces as gifts for people who donate to student scholarships to the Women in Secularism conference.
Filed: May 1, 2012

PEN Festival panel discusses life and work of Hitchens
Salman Rushdie said he fit comfortably in the tradition of great essayists going back to the 18th century and his work would undoubtedly endure.
Filed: May 1, 2012

Women in Mali: no rights for you!
Under the new Family Code, a woman must obey her husband, men are considered the head of the family, and the legal age for marriage is 16 for girls and 18 for boys.
Filed: May 1, 2012

Helen Ukpabio cancels 2 US trips
Leo Igwe wrote that "efforts must be made to stop this evangelical throwback from spreading her diseased gospel in the US", while online campaigners called for her exclusion from the US.
Filed: May 1, 2012

Dan Savage on the fairness of citing the Old Testament
Is it just totes unfair to confront anti-gay Christian hypocrites with Leviticus 20:13? No.
Filed: May 1, 2012

Protesters plan to destroy GM test site
"Activist" group has pledged to carry out a “decontamination” at a test site where researchers are growing GM wheat that can repel insect pests with a smell. Hooray for crop failure!
Filed: May 1, 2012

New in "Articles"

The Excuse-making of Cultural Relativism
By Lauryn Oates
Call it culture, call it divine, call it neo-colonialism, but the thread of hatred is always there and often shrouded in the language of God’s law. God wants you to be submissive. God wants you to give in to your husband’s sexual appetite. God wants you to endure beatings. God wants you to be punished for venturing out in public; that is why you experience sexual harassment, sexual assault, or rape. This religion-based justification is not imposed from outside powers; it comes from within, and so it’s from within that it must be destroyed.
Filed: April 26, 2012

MP hosts Summit to end violent witchcraft abuse
By Press release
The London MP hosted the Summit in conjunction with AFRUCA, Africans Unite Against Child Abuse, to bring together policymakers, charities, faith leaders and community representatives in order to examine how best to curtail child abuse resulting from accusations of witchcraft or possession by evil spirits.
Filed: April 27, 2012

Day Five – Monday: Night of the Wankers…
By Bruce Everett
Before I go any further, I must confess that I once did a bit of interfaithy professional development in values education, run by UNESCO... ...WANKER!
Filed: April 27, 2012

The Feminist Wire censorship: An unpublished response
By Adele Wilde-Blavatsky
Women have been tortured and murdered for not wearing these clothes. However, you only refer to the Muslim women who have the freedom to exercise choice. What about the millions of Muslim women who don't? Are their voices and experiences not relevant in this debate at all?
Filed: May 1, 2012

New in "Notes and Comment Blog"

There you go - talk to you next week.
 
OB
 
 

Ophelia Benson

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May 9, 2012, 6:59:18 PM5/9/12
to butterflies...@googlegroups.com
Hello - it's time for another B&W update.
 

New in "Latest News"

Measles outbreak on Merseyside: more than 200 cases
There are 210 confirmed cases, 39 of which needed hospital treatment. About 50% of the cases are in children under five years old.
Filed: May 2, 2012

Cardinal Brady will not resign over BBC disclosures
This World found Cardinal Sean Brady had names and addresses of children being raped by priest Brendan Smyth, but did not pass details on to police or parents.
Filed: May 2, 2012

Obama proclaims May Day as “Loyalty Day”
Workers? What workers? There are no workers, so they don't need a workers' holiday.
Filed: May 2, 2012

Jesus proves to Mo about the miracles
He's all like dude, yes I can.
Filed: May 2, 2012

Malaysia: Federal court dismisses Kashgari’s appeal
A five-man panel unanimously dismissed his appeal against a Kuala Lumpur High Court decision which struck out his writ of habeas corpus.
Filed: May 3, 2012

Nutella’s misleading advertising
A healthy spread made with "simple, quality ingredients like hazelnuts, skim milk and a hint of cocoa”? Uh...you forgot to mention the sugar.
Filed: May 3, 2012

Michael De Dora on the war on women
State lawmakers set a record in 2011 for the most anti-reproductive rights provisions enacted in a single year, according to the Guttmacher Institute.
Filed: May 3, 2012

Telling the truth about the bible is not bullying
The manufactured outrage at Dan Savage is an attempt to redefine acceptable discourse so that statement of uncomfortable facts is considered off-limits.
Filed: May 3, 2012

Birmingham: 2 men arrested in FGM investigation
The men were arrested on suspicion of offences relating to the Female Genital Mutilation Act 2003.
Filed: May 4, 2012

Tory Louise Mensch gets called slut, whore, bitch etc
Some tweets: Louise Mensch really is an absolutely Rancid cunt isn't she? Louise Mensch Political Whore!! We asked some crusties if they'd have sex with Louise Mensch
Filed: May 4, 2012

High school yearbook runs story about being a gay student
And all hell breaks loose.
Filed: May 4, 2012

Kuwait parliament approves death penalty for “blasphemy”
Under the amended bill, any Muslim found guilty of insulting God or Mo or his wives will be punished by death. Non-Muslims get a mere 10 years in prison.
Filed: May 4, 2012

Calls for Sean Brady to resign
Northern Ireland Deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness has said the Vatican must "move out of denial mode."
Filed: May 4, 2012

India court: Insisting on condom not grounds for divorce
The Bombay High Court judges said arranged couples should get to know each other before marrying.
Filed: May 5, 2012

Mauritania: anti-slavery activist arrested
After some youths demonstrated outside the Presidency, demanding the arrest and detention of Biram Ould Dah Ould Abeid over alleged contempt for their beliefs.
Filed: May 6, 2012

More on arrest of abolitionist Biram Ould Dah
He was arrested after members of his organization burnt a religious book that, in their view, is in favor of slavery practices.
Filed: May 6, 2012

Ndesanjo Macha on modern slavery in Mauritania
A CNN special report titled “Slavery's last stronghold” reveals that an estimated 10% to 20% of the population lives in slavery.
Filed: May 6, 2012

Protesters to picket near Berean Baptist Church
The Military Atheists and Secular Humanists filed an "intent to picket" from 9 a.m. to noon Sunday; other groups are joining them.
Filed: May 6, 2012

Dublin archbish wants Smyth inquiry
All-Ireland primate Sean Brady had the names and addresses of five children who were abused by Smyth; police and parents were never informed.
Filed: May 7, 2012

Hawa Akther Jui is learning to write with fingerless hand
Women's rights activists in Bangladesh point out that the brutal attack on Ms Akther is part of a growing trend of violence against educated women.
Filed: May 7, 2012

Valerie Tarico on atheism, religion and stigma
It may be almost impossible to avoiding causing offense while challenging the religious status quo.
Filed: May 7, 2012

Robert Fisk on “appalling racism” in the Arab world
In the Arab Gulf, the treatment of migrant labour – male as well as female – has long been a scandal.
Filed: May 8, 2012

New in "Flashback"

The victimization of moderate Muslims
There has been a concerted campaign by many Muslims to remove Usama Hasan from his post as Imam of Masjid al-Tawhid in Leyton because he is too liberal.
Filed: May 7, 2012

New in "Notes and Comment Blog"

That's it! Catch you next week.
 
OB
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