Offensivity

I've written about this irrational construct, whereas it is perfectly all right for some people to refer to Jews as apes and pigs but totally unacceptable for others to point out irrationalities and other incongruities in the Islamic mega-narrative known as the Quran.

Example:

"...al-Azhar is a university practicing institutional apartheid. The institution is banned for Jews and Copts, not only the department of theology, but also medicine, economics and agriculture. And speaking about offending religious sensibilities: al-Azhar has shown no willingness to abandon the part of the sharia providing Muslims with the obligation to insult non-Muslims’ religious feelings, while at the same time insisting that non-Muslims offending Muslims’ religious sensibilities should be punished."

Mick, a master in minimalist commentary, provides the goods, here:

"The editor and publisher of a top English-language Indian daily have been arrested on charges of "hurting the religious feelings" of Muslims.

The Statesman's editor Ravindra Kumar and publisher Anand Sinha were detained in Calcutta after complaints.

Muslims said they were upset with the Statesman for reproducing an article from the UK's Independent daily in its 5 February edition.

The article was entitled: "Why should I respect these oppressive religions?"

It concerns the erosion of the right to criticise religions.

In it, the author, Johann Hari, writes: "I don't respect the idea that we should follow a 'Prophet' who at the age of 53 had sex with a nine-year old girl, and ordered the murder of whole villages of Jews because they wouldn't follow him."

Mr Kumar and Mr Sinha appeared in court on Wednesday and were granted bail.

Angry Muslims have been demonstrating in front of the offices of the Statesman since its republication of the article.

Police have broken up the demonstrations using baton charges several times this week.

Here's Johann's original article. It's worth a read.":

"Last week, I wrote an article defending free speech for everyone – and in response there have been riots, death threats, and the arrest of an editor who published the article.

Here’s how it happened. My column reported on a startling development at the United Nations. The UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights has always had the job of investigating governments who forcibly take the fundamental human right to free speech from their citizens with violence. But in the past year, a coalition of religious fundamentalist states have successfully fought to change her job description. Now, she has to report on “abuses of free expression” including “defamation of religions and prophets.” Instead of defending free speech, she must now oppose it.

I argued this was a symbol of how religious fundamentalists – of all stripes – have been progressively stripping away the right to freely discuss their faiths. They claim religious ideas are unique and cannot be discussed freely; instead, they must be “respected” – by which they mean unchallenged. So now, whenever anyone on the UN Human Rights Council tries to discuss the stoning of “adulterous” women, the hanging of gay people, or the marrying off of ten year old girls to grandfathers, they are silenced by the chair on the grounds these are “religious” issues, and it is “offensive” to talk about them."