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Article wrote:Sayed Pervez Kambaksh, the student journalist sentenced to death for blasphemy in Afghanistan, has been told he will spend the next 20 years in jail after the country's highest court ruled against him – without even hearing his defence.

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Mr Kambaksh was found guilty of blasphemy and sentenced to death last year for circulating an essay on women's rights which questioned verses in the Koran.

[...]

in October 2008 a Kabul appeals court lifted the death sentence. The court ruled however that he should serve 20 years, which his lawyers contested on the grounds that it was unconstitutional.

Article wrote:At the United Nations Council on Human Rights in Geneva, the OIC [Organisation of the Islamic Conference] is trying again to have "defamation of religion" banned. The aim is a universal gag on free speech, blocking the right of anyone to criticise the too frequently negative effects of religion on individuals and society.

Article wrote:And here is another thing we might not be able to discuss [if the OIC succeeds]. The Pope's iteration of his church's doctrine on contraception, while on his way to visit Africa where 21 million people in sub-Saharan countries are infected with HIV, millions have died of Aids, and millions of Aids orphans live in frightful conditions of semi-slavery and destitution, has been rightly condemned by many around the world.

Article wrote:The Pope's attitude to sex is mainly informed by having to deal with child-abusing priests (latest reports say that in the US complaints against abusive priests rose to 800 in 2008: that's more than a dozen a week), which is why his advice to them – abstinence – seems to be the only thing he can think to suggest to everyone else, and most of all as a guard against HIV infection. Plenty of people lack insight into the deep imperatives of human nature, so let us not blame the Pope for adding this particular deficit to his already rich repertoire of them: but let us ask whether a marrying clergy might not be part of the solution to sexually abusing priests, if there has to be a clergy at all. Best of all as a policy for the Pope and his church on matters of sex might be silence. To adapt Wittgenstein, "Wherof you know nothing, shut up."

The chief point is that Vatican policy on contraception is in every sense a hideous crime against humanity and ought to be treated as such.

Article wrote:[The OIC has tried to introduce] its own version of "(Hu)Man Rights": it is an instructive read, and illustrates the importance of abating the nuisance of religion in today's world. How is this to be done consistently with the right to believe stupid things? By entrenching, and making effective, the principle that whereas you can believe as many stupid things as you like, you are not free to act on those beliefs in ways that harm others.

Article wrote:A United Nations forum on Thursday passed a resolution condemning "defamation of religion" as a human rights violation, despite wide concerns that it could be used to justify curbs on free speech in Muslim countries.

The U.N. Human Rights Council adopted the non-binding text, proposed by Pakistan on behalf of Islamic states, with a vote of 23 states in favor and 11 against, with 13 abstentions.

Article wrote:What exactly is it the drafters of the council resolution are trying to outlaw? To judge from what happens in the countries that lobbied for the vote—like Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Pakistan—they use the word “defamation” to mean something close to the crime of blasphemy, which is in turn defined as voicing dissent from the official reading of Islam.