Brights News Feed

Dr Evan Harris MP (Lib Dem), Frank Dobson MP (Lab) and David Wilshire MP (Con) have tabled an amendment that would effectively abolish Britain’s archaic blasphemy law. The vote is tomorrow.

From New Humanist:

A letter published in today’s Daily Telegraph makes the case for repealing the law: “As the Law Commission acknowledged in 1985, when it recommended repeal, it is uncertain in scope, but lack of intention is no defence, and the law is unlimited in penalty.

This, together with its chilling effect on free expression and its discriminatory impact, leaves it in clear breach of human rights law. In the end, no one is likely to be convicted under it.”

The letter is signed by a host of honorary associates and distinguished supporters of the Rationalist Association, the BHA and the NSS, including Richard Dawkins, RA President Jonathan Miller, philosopher and regular New Humanist contributor AC Grayling, historian David Starkey and author Philip Pullman. It’s even been signed by former Archbishop of Canterbury Lord Carey, with the letter pointing out that “the Church of England no longer opposes its abolition on principle”.

The NSS point their members and subscribers to www.theyworkforyou.com where you can write to your MP in support of the amendment. The BHA have a specific “Write to your MP” page with a pre-set message about the law. Don’t delay! MPs will vote on the amendment as early as tomorrow.

In October 2000 a Pakistani, Dr Younus Sheikh, was arrested on the charge of “blasphemy” and he was later found guilty and sentenced to death. He had been an active humanist and campaigner, and only after a concerted effort on behalf of humanist and other NGOs and rights groups was he finally freed in 2004, after three years spent mostly in solitary confinement.

This week, another man who by coincidence is also named Younus Sheikh — a writer who has criticized Islam — has been found guilty of “blasphemy” and sentenced to life in prison. And once again, the media outrage is limited — at this moment there are just two related news stories on Google, one from Pakistani newspaper The News, and the other from the UK’s National Secular Society.

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According to the press release:

A British branch of a new Europe-wide phenomenon is to be launched on Thursday 21 June in London. The Council of ex-Muslims of Britain is building on the stunning success of other branches already operating in Germany, Finland, Denmark, Norway, and Sweden. The British Humanist Association and National Secular Society are sponsoring the launch and support the new organisation.

The Council will provide a voice for those labelled Muslim but who have renounced religion and do not want to be identified by religion.

• Read the manifesto at Maryam Namazie’s blog
• The website (still under construction at the time of writing) is www.ex-muslim.org.uk
• Also see AC Grayling back on Comment is Free
• Islamophobia Watch have already dismissed the organization on the basis of one comment made on Maryam Namazie’s blog

The government of Pakistan has today added its voice to the official condemnation against the British government’s honouring of novelist Salman Rushdie (now “Sir Salman”) in the bi-annual British hounours ceremony. Iran had already passed a resolution of condemnation yesterday.

Of course, the rent-a-mobs are back out for their now-traditional bi-annual effigy burning photo opportunity. There have been renewed calls for Rushdie’s death.

(Iran’s official position as of 1998 is that Ayatollah Khomeini’s fatwa against Rushdie was void, but the Iranian state media famously followed the announcement with news that leading clerics considered the fatwa irrevocable, leaving the actual state position somewhat ambiguous.)

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Philosopher A. C. Grayling famously believes that the current upsurge in religious news coverage, protest, and renewed political assertion, is a symptom of decline: religion is in its “death throes”.

This week he twisted the knife, exploring the responses to the recent wave of successful secularist publishing (”Tome truths“). Basically, he makes a fairly convincing case that the backlash of protest doth protest too loudly.

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Richard Dawkins, Enthusiastic Bright, author of The God Delusion and now of Richard Dawkins Foundation fame has a guest contributor spot in the Times of London today.

Objectively judged, the language of The God Delusion is less shrill than we regularly hear from political commentators or from theatre, art, book or restaurant critics. The illusion of intemperance flows from the unspoken convention that faith is uniquely privileged: off limits to attack. In a criticism of religion, even clarity ceases to be a virtue and begins to sound like aggressive hostility.

More here: “How dare you call me a fundamentalist“

A budding editor at Clare College, Cambridge (UK) has faced harsh disciplinary action over re-publishing a Jyllands-Posten Mohammed cartoon in his college newspaper, Clareification. The cartoon was used to illustrate a special issue on religious satire. The National Secular Society respond:

We are shocked that the staff and even the students union at this supposedly liberal college have joined the attack on this student because he had the temerity to poke fun at religion. Free expression is such a precious commodity and is under such ferocious attack at present from religious interests that it is disgraceful that no-one is standing up for this young man’s right to be rude about religion – even about Islam.

(Also see MediaWatchWatch.) GagWatch also points out that from France there is some:

good news. The state prosecutor has called for the dismissal of the court case brought by two French Muslim groups against satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo, saying that the cartoons denounce terrorists’ use of the Muslim faith but do not damage Islam. A verdict was expected March 15.

Is Google-aquisition YouTube censoring some videos that are critical of Islam? Slashdot notes that YouTube banned “popular atheist commentator Nick Gisburne” recently. Gisburne was Flagged as Inappropriate by users — by a “pressure group”, he speculates — in response to a video he posted consisting only of disagreeable quotes from the Qu’ran. This lead to the closure of his account. He opened a new account, and re-posted all his videos, but the Qu’ran-quoting video was again deleted by administrators. A very similarly formatted video of disagreeable quotes from the Bible was left in place. (The Qu’ran video can still be seen, mirrored by another user… for now? He talks about the account deletions here.)

In another emotional video response (”CENSORED again“) Gisburne thanks other YouTubers for re-posting his content, putting their own accounts on the line, but knows he cannot upload the video again or he will face the closure of his new account.

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After decades of campaigning that BBC Radio’s infamous flaship morning god-spot, Thought For the Day, should be open to non-religious thinkers, the British Humanist Association (BHA) and the Humanist Society of Scotland (HSS) have decided to go ahead and share their own thoughts on meaning, ethics and life, regardless. The HSS says:

Ethical insights into the issues of the day are not the sole preserve of religious people but the BBC have always denied humanist and secular thinkers a slot on BBC Radio’s Thought for the Day. Now, on a new website specially created for the purpose, the Humanist Society of Scotland is pleased to bring to you a series of podcasts entitled Humanist Thought for the Day, to be launched on Darwin Day (12 February 2007).

Humanist Thought For the Day launches tomorrow at www.ThinkHumanist.org, on Darwin Day, and will feature regular downloadable podcasts. Thoughts are scheduled from various BHA supporters — Stewart Lee (“Jerry Springer the Opera”, TMWRNJ); Julian Baggini (The Philosophers’ Magazine); Nigel Warburton (”Thinking from A to Z”); A.C. Grayling (the Meaning of Things series); HSS celebrant, Gillian Stewart; and chair of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, Kate Hudson.

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Robert Redecker, the French teacher of philosophy who was threatened with death after heavily criticising the content of the Qu’ran and modern Islam, has now resigned from teaching. The resignation comes despite the arrest of two suspects. His criticisms were originally published in Le Figaro, September last year. Although his views are more extreme than many mainstream thinkers usually find comfortable, the French intellectual community has rallied around Redecker in defence of free expression.

(See DNA. Via.)