Category Archives: Freedom of Expression

Irshad Manji’s Questions for Imam Rauf

By Faisal | Published: August 27, 2010
Irshad Manji attempts to re-centre the raw, emotional polarised sentimentalism of Park51 here. The underlying point is that offence or sensitivity is not a basis for what can or cannot be built nor for criticising aspects of religion or religious customs. The Park51 debate has now spilled over into the doomed territory of visceral offence taking. [...]
Also posted in Freedom of Religion | 5 Comments

religious people need to recommit to and engage with critical thinking

By bananabrain | Published: August 23, 2010
following an unusually thoughtful broadcast last week by richard dawkins (he’s obviously trying to take on board how much his militancy turns people off by some of the pleas he made on behalf of sacred texts as fine language, cultural literacy and so on) i am grappling again with some of the issues raised by [...]
Also posted in Anti Muslim bigotry, Antisemitism, Blogosphere, Christian Evangelical Nutters, Democracy, Exegesis, Freedom of Religion, Hate Speech, Hermeneutics, Human Rights, Interfaith, Islamism, Jewish Extremism | 16 Comments

“So, you’re offended? So fucking what?”

By Faisal | Published: August 20, 2010
I am amazed that the Park 51 Community Centre or the so called “Ground Zero Mosque” debate in still chundering on, with no end in sight, despite the paucity of cogent arguments on why it should be opposed by those who oppose it. Alex Massie’s comment on the “Ground Zero Mosque” is spot on: One of the [...]
Also posted in Anti Muslim bigotry, Freedom of Religion | 76 Comments

Is this the “counter-Enlightenment”?

By bananabrain | Published: August 6, 2010
i’ve not posted for a while, mostly because of pressure of work, but there are a number of things which are currently causing me to more or less lose sleep. recently, i gave up posting on pickled politics, partly because of the level of personal animosity i was facing, but mostly just in frustration at my [...]
Also posted in Anti Fascism, Anti Muslim bigotry, Antisemitism, Blogosphere, Christian Evangelical Nutters, Civil Rights, Democracy, Entryism, European Fascism, Freedom of Religion, Human Rights, Identity Politics, Interfaith, Islamism, Jewish Extremism, Moral relativism, Multiculturalism, Obscurantism, Sectarianism, Secularism, The Far Left, The Regressive Left, UK Politics | 37 Comments

It is wrong to ban the good, the bad and Maududi

By Faisal | Published: July 17, 2010
The Bangladeshi government has banned the works of Maududi and has ordered mosques and libraries to remove all books written by the Islamic scholar and South Asia’s pre-eminent formulist of Islamic clerical fascism. From a BBC news report: The Bangladeshi government has ordered mosques and libraries across the country to remove all books written by a controversial [...]
Also posted in Islamism | 12 Comments

When Hate speech Trumps Free speech

By Faisal | Published: June 21, 2010
This is a very interesting article by Sadanand Dhume in the WSJ. Dhume commends Britain’s decision to ban Zakir Naik and criticises India for failing to do the same in regard to his record of hate speech. Dhume identifies two reasons why the Indian Left has failed to apply its own rules on the boundaries between [...]
Also posted in Anti Fascism | 5 Comments

Zakir Naik is Banned from the UK

By Faisal | Published: June 18, 2010
The Spittoon’s sources tell us that the Home Office has issued an exclusion order on Zakir “Every Muslim should be a terrorist” Naik. This decision pulls the chain conclusively on the controversial PeaceTV tele-evangelist’s lecture tour in the UK. The itinerary included Sheffield Arena, London’s Wembley Arena and Birmingham’s LG Arena. We discussed the nature of Naik’s hate incitement here. [...]
Posted in Freedom of Expression | 55 Comments

The Cost of Free Speech

By Faisal | Published: June 16, 2010
Inayat Bunglawala used his latest foray on CiF to call for “consistency” of liberal values so that the clerics of the Islamic far-right, Bilal Philips and Zakir Naik, may be allowed into the country. We already have a sufficient number of laws on the statute books to deal with incitement to hatred and violence, and the fact is [...]
Also posted in Islamism | 27 Comments

Now Bangladesh bans facebook

By Effendi | Published: May 30, 2010
It’s official: banning facebook in Southasia is now a nationally transmitted contagion. Bangladesh has imposed a “temporary ban” on facebook. The official statement used the Pakistani pretext. The government banned facebook because it had “hurt the religious sentiments of the country’s majority Muslim population” by carrying “offensive images” of Mohammed. Go a little further and it transpires [...]
Posted in Freedom of Expression | 2 Comments

Pakistan’s jihad against the Internet

By Faisal | Published: May 23, 2010
As you may have read, facebook is banned in Pakistan. Shiraz Maher discusses the dangerous implications: The Lahore High Court banned Facebook after the social networking site was used to promote a viral campaign called: ‘Everyone draw Mohammed day’. Muslims generally regard any artistic depiction of Mohammed as blasphemous. But why stop there? Pakistan rarely does things [...]
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