Month: May 2015

The week in “blasphemy” news #17

In Pakistan, alleged “blasphemy” results in anti-Christian violence and in calls to repeal blasphemy laws. Washinghton DC subway decides to ban political ads on the Metro after controversy over a cartoon proposed by US anti-Muslim group.

In Bangladesh, another secular blogger fears for his life and the government bans Islamist group accused of blogger attacks. In India, Punjab language department relaunches a “blasphemy” book and hurriedly withdraws the order. Hundreds of youths protest in Kano, Nigeria against a Muslim cleric accused of “blasphemy”.

In the UK, former Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams defends “blasphemy” as ‘the language of protest’.

This is our seventieth round-up of “blasphemy” news and views from the past seven days. Continue reading »

The week in “blasphemy” news #16

Authors call for justice in Bangladesh. Further sentencing in Afghanistan lynch mob case, but is it justice? Cartoonists face injustice in many parts of the world. In Pakistan there’s limited justice for a couple burnt to death last year, and the assassin of politician Salman Taseer appeals justice on the highly legally sophisticated grounds that he thought his victim was a blasphemer so murder’s fine then isn’t it?

This is our sixteenth round-up of “blasphemy” news and views from the past seven days.

Support “Esha”, 24, detained on “blasphemy” charges since 2012

In yet another Pakistan blasphemy case, this time dragged out over multiple years, a young woman known by the pseudonym Esha has been languishing in jail since 2012 after being accused of “desecrating” the Koran by a friend following an argument. Maryam Namazie and others have been highlighting this case against recently, and there is a fundraising appeal for Esha’s legal fees. Continue reading »

The week in “blasphemy” news #15

This week, the terror against Bangladesh’s atheist, humanist and secularist intellectual community deepens, with another shocking assassination of an atheist blogger, the third such killing in 2015 alone.

Also, Egypt features heavily, with blasphemy law being used to detain or imprison several Christians in three separate cases.

And in Pakistan, a senior politician is accused of “blasphemy” for criticising certain religious schools as “centers of ignorance”. Continue reading »

One down… The final abolition of “blasphemy” law in Norway

As we reported last week, Norway’s “blasphemy” law has finally been abolished.

The law had actually been voted down in 2009, but computer systems used by police and prosecutors had yet to be updated. Continue reading »

The week in “blasphemy” news #14

Since we’re called “End Blasphemy Laws”, let’s start with the good news: Can you guess which European country has – technically – just repealed its “blasphemy” law this week?

Meanwhile in not-so-good news, a foiled gun attack in Texas; Egypt arrests children of Coptic background for blasphemy – after mocking ISIS of all things!; India convicts a hand-chopping blasphemy mob; Charlie Hebdo gets that award from PEN America!; Pakistan issues a 25-year sentence for “desecrating sacred scriptures”; and the west continues to protest Raif Badawi’s sentence, but it’s not enough.

Our fourteenth weekly round-up of “blasphemy” news and views starts right here. Continue reading »

The week in “blasphemy” news #13

An Al-Shabab Sharia court in Somalia orders and executes one Mohamud Mursal Muse for “blasphemy”.

A liberal social activist and sometime challenger of “blasphemy”, Sabeen Mahmud, is gunned down in Pakistan.

A journalist in Egypt, Beshoy Armia, already jailed on unjust charges relating to his journalism, faces fresh charges of “blasphemy” because “the manner in which Armia converted to Christianity from Islam was blasphemous” and “insulting to religion”.

And the free speech campaign group PEN America is suffering from writers’ block…

This is our thirteenth weekly round-up of news and views relating to “blasphemy” accusations, prosecutions and related outrages. Continue reading »