I wanted to draw your attention to the sex toy of Virgin Mary which I find highly offensive.  

Sex toys have become mainstream recently. It is not just the adult industry promoting them. Many celebrities, serious news sites and even doctors are talking about sex toys as something that can help couples build their relationship and lead a healthy sex life. Adult sites are using doctors and other experts to explain how sex toys work and their benefits. Most advertising campaigns concentrate have at least some sexual connotation.

Virgin Mary Sex Doll available is just the logical next step. Adult online store, passionshop.com, claims the item is sold out. [more arriving soon]

The 20th May is Draw Mohammed Day. This is a call to respond to censorship by death threat as inspired by the censorship of the recent South Park episodes featuring Mohammed in teddy bear suit.

There is a Facebook group, called Everybody Draw Mohammed Day! highlighting the event.

Now Pakistan has joined in support for publicising the event by blocking the Facebook page.

Update: Street protests in Pakistan

20th May 2010. Based on article from nation.com.pk

Supposedly blasphemous caricatures on the Facebook website sparked protests throughout Pakistan on Wednesday.

Thousands of people staged protests in major cities including Islamabad, Lahore, Karachi, Peshawar and Multan to vent their anger over the blasphemy.

Different political and religious parties, students, traders, labour organisations staged protest demonstrations demanding a permanent ban on Facebook.

In Lahore, students of University of Engineering and Technology staged a protest demonstration-cum-sit-in outside the Press Club against Facebook. The students sat on the road in scorching heat to block traffic and chanted slogans against the website operator and demanded of the young generation to boycott the said website. They also demanded of the government to end diplomatic relations with the countries involved in publication of the Mohammed caricatures.

Update: Facebook banned entirely in Pakistan until 31st May

20th May 2010. Based on article from dailymail.co.uk

A Pakistani court has ordered the government to block the popular social networking website Facebook over an online competition inviting users to submit images of Mohammed.

In an attempt to respond to domestic criticism, the Pakistani government ordered Internet service providers in the country to block the Everybody Draw Mohammed Day! page on Facebook.

But a group of Islamic lawyers went one further - and asked the Lahore High Court to order the government to fully block Facebook itself.

This was because the site had allowed the page to be posted in the first place, said the deputy attorney general of Punjab province, Naveed Inayat Malik.

The court complied with the request by the Islamic Lawyers Forum and ordered the government to temporarily block the site until May 31, Malik said.

Update: YouTube banned entirely in Pakistan

21st May 2010. Based on article from telegraph.co.uk

On Wednesday a Pakistani court ordered internet service providers to block customers from Facebook. The following day, YouTube was taken down in its entirety along with individual pages of Wikipedia and more than 450 websites that referred to the Everybody Draw Mohammed Day! protest group.

However, that did not stop Facebook members elsewhere in the world posting photographs and cartoons.

One showed a photograph of a pig with a speech bubble saying: Peace be upon me and my armies. Another showed Mohammed with a long beard, holding a bomb in one hand and a decapitated head in the other, wearing a T-shirt bearing the legend: I love Jihad.

Organisers said the page was set up to promote freedom of speech.

Update: Facebook page taken down

21st May 2010.

The Facebook page Everybody Draw Mohammed Day! is currently offline!

There is back up though:

Everybody draw muhammed day May 20th (back up)

Update: More street protests in Pakistan

22nd May 2010. Based on article 22nd May & article 21st May from thenews.com.pk

Angry protests continued on Thursday across Pakistan against the percieved blasphemy by Facebook, as a number of rallies and demonstrations were held demanding the Muslim rulers to either wage jihad against the blasphemers to stop this crime or resign.

Thursday saw a number of rallies, demonstrations and meetings in every big and small city and town where leaders held Muslim rulers responsible for the ongoing trend of blasphemies and asked them to display their love of Mohammed by taking concrete action to stop this ugly trend.

The Hizb ut Tahrir staged a demonstration outside Lahore Press Club. The participants were carrying banners and placards inscribed with slogans like: O Pak Army! Rise and deliver a teeth-shattering response to the blasphemers by establishing the Khilafah,

Addressing the protesters, the speakers said that the Western rulers were completely protecting and supporting the deliberate attacks on Islam and Mohammed. The criminal silence of the Muslim rulers encouraged an insignificant organization like Facebook to play with the emotions of one billion Muslims of the world. Had Muslim rulers mobilised their armies against Denmark in the past, there would not have been such an event today.

Pakistanis continued protests against blasphemy on Friday, the second day of two-day countrywide demonstrations, as religious leaders demanded the Muslim rulers to ensure international legislation for death punishment to blasphemers or step down.

Addressing rallies, clerics rejected an apology to the Muslim world by US cartoonist Molly Norris who initiated a blasphemous cartoon contest on Facebook and called for death punishment to her.

They also called for Jihad against blasphemers as the only way to stop recurrence of the crime by the West.

Update: Dreams of a sense of humour

22nd May 2010. Based on article from newstime.co.za

South African Mail & Guardian editor Nic Dawes, confirmed that he was standing by the Zapiro cartoon which appeared in the newspaper on Friday.

Asked whether in hindsight he would not have published the cartoon Dawes stated that the decision was an important part of freedom of speech in South Africa.

The Muslim Judicial Council and others have condemned the cartoon. According to Islam, it's blasphemous to depict the Prophet Mohammed in any way.

An urgent application for an injunction against the M&G publishing their Friday print edition, was brought by the Council of Muslim Theologians, but refused by a South Gauteng High Court Judge on Thursday evening. Judge Mayat, who is a Muslim, found that the cartoon was already in the public domain on the M&G website.

The cartoon depicts the Prophet on a psychiatrist's couch bemoaning the fact that all the other prophets have followers who have a sense of humour. It is drawn by award-winning satirist Jonathan Shapiro (Zapiro) in the M&G on Friday as part of a Facebook page campaign called everybody draw Muhammad day.

Zapiro has been receiving death threats while the newspaper has been flooded with angry calls.

Update: Facebook Page Restored

23rd May 2010. Based on article from yesbuthowever.com

On Thursday afternoon, during the middle of Everybody Draw Mohammed Day!, Facebook removed the page from its website.

What was thought to be an act of self-censorship by Facebook, under the fear of retaliation from Muslims, may in fact have been the act of an individual moderator of the group.

As of 7:00 am this morning the group's page is back up on Facebook with the following statement:

Back. This page was removed two days ago, after one of our moderators had his email and skype hacked. His personal data was revealed. He then got scared and deleted the page, the blog and the emails. The rest of us, are now back without him after he backed out. This is another scare tactic from the Islamic extremists. We won't fall.

Update: 800 Related Links Blocked

23rd May 2010. Based on article from groundreport.com

Pakistan has blocked an extra 800 pages and links related to the supposedly blasphemous Everybody Draw Mohammed Day!

Update: Another call for the UN to adopt a global blasphemy law

29th May 2010. Based on article from ptinews.com

Demanding a permanent ban on Facebook, over two dozen Pakistani religious groups working under the umbrella of the JuD have decided to contact the UN for enacting a global law against blasphemy of prophets and awarding death penalty to violators.

The decision to contact the UN and envoys from Muslims and non-Muslim states was made at a meeting of clerics belonging to the JuD, Jamaat-e-Islami, Jamiat Ulema-e-Pakistan, Tanzeem-e-Islami, Markaz-e-Ahlesunnat, Muslim Conference, Jamat-e-Ahlehadis, Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam, Pakistan Ulema Council and International Katham-e-Nabuwat.

The ambassadors of Muslim and non-Muslim states will be told that blasphemy against prophets not only hurts the feelings of one religion but also sows a seed of hatred against the people of other religions, the meeting observed.

Offsite: Zapiro's response to the Prophet Mohammed controversy

29th May 2010. Based on article from timeslive.co.za

Cartoonist Jonathan Zapiro Shapiro drew himself on the same therapist's couch as he put the prophet Muhammad on last week and poured his heart out on the difficulties of censorship on religious grounds, in his latest Mail & Guardian cartoon.

Tough week? asks the therapist, while Zapiro lying on a couch replies: You have no idea.

...Read full article

Update: YouTube partially restored

30th May 2010. See article from news.bbc.co.uk

Pakistan has partially unblocked the YouTube video sharing website, but hundreds of its links to blasphemous content remain barred, officials say.

The BBC's Aleem Maqbool in Islamabad says that YouTube is now working again, although internet downloads have been slower than usual.

Our correspondent says that the Facebook website remains completely out of action.

We have lifted the ban on only that part [of YouTube] which is not displaying any sacrilegious or profane material, Naguibullah Malik, Secretary of Information Technology and Telecom, told the Reuters news agency.

Update: A Blockage in Bangladesh

31st 2010. Based on article from news.bbc.co.uk

Bangladesh has joined the Pakistan tirade against the Everybody Draw Mohammed Day! campaign and blocked Facebook

One man has been arrested and charged with spreading malice and insulting the country's leaders with the images, an official told the AFP news agency.

Officials said the ban was temporary and access to the site would be restored once the images were removed.

A spokesman for the Bangladesh Telecommunications Regulatory Commission (BTRC) told AFP Facebook had hurt the religious sentiments of the country's majority Muslim population by carrying offensive images of Mohammed.

Some links in the site also contained obnoxious images of our leaders including the father of the nation Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, current Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and the leader of the opposition, said the commission's acting chair, Hasan Mahmud Delwar.

PVV party leader leader Geert Wilders has accused the Telegraaf newspaper of censorship for refusing to place two cartoons in the special election edition being published on Monday.

The PVV has two pages of the paper to fill and wanted to publish two drawings by cartoonist Gregorius Nekschot.

The Telegraaf said in a statement both the paper's editor and publisher felt the cartoons were unnecessarily offensive. There is no place for this in our paper and therefore not in our election special, the paper said.

The Mohammed cartoon artist, Kurt Westergaard, was supposed to appear in an interview on ZDF's popular Markus Lanz Show, but the interview with the Danish cartoonist has come to nothing.

The German media company decided to drop the footage due to fear for their employees lives and safety during and after the show, reports gallery owner Erik Guldager, who was also supposed to have participated in the program.

ZDF are supposedly under pressure by one or more groups. It's another example of censorship and self-censorship for fear of violent reprisals, which I deeply regret. The future looks darker than before in regard to openness, freedom and debate, says Erik Guldager of the Draupner Gallery in Skanderborg.

He thinks that violence and threats are increasingly making an impression in the debate on censorship, self-censorship and freedom of speech. So much so that the debate is often silenced.

The Jyllands-Posten don't mention it in this article, but Westergaard has meanwhile been forced to go on vacation from Jyllands-Posten for security reasons.

Update: Rescheduled

31st May 2010. Based on article from earthtimes.org

Kurt Westergaard is to appear on German talk show after all. He said he believes that complaints from television viewers helped lead to his appearance on a German talk show.

German broadcaster ZDF had earlier this month planned an interview with Westergaard, known for his caricature of Mohammed with a bomb in his turban, but then cancelled the appearance on the talkshow Markus Lanz.

ZDF cited editorial reasons for not conducting the interview. Westergaard called it self-censorship at the time.

Viewers reportedly were upset over the decision and their protests helped sway ZDF, Westergaard told the Danish news agency Ritzau.

Morocco has expelled foreign Christians who supposedly tried to convert Muslims because, as an Islamic state, it wants to enforce order and calm and avoid a clash between faiths, its Islamic affairs minister claimed.

The government has expelled around 100 foreign Christians since March, many of them aid workers, in what Western diplomats have called an unprecedented crackdown on undercover preaching.

These incidents (expulsions) were prompted by the activism of some foreigners who undermined public order, Religious Endowments and Islamic Affairs Minister Ahmed Toufiq told Reuters in an interview. There are some who hide their proselytism and religious activism under the guise of other activities, he said.

Converting Muslims is a crime in Morocco, punishable by up to six months in jail, but the authorities generally expel foreigners accused of proselytizing.

Toufiq said Morocco was eager to foster respect and coexistence between its different faiths...BUT...was also protecting its religious community. Morocco wants to prevent a clash or conflict between religions. It is not necessary that one religion converts believers of another religion, he said, adding that he had explained this position to representatives of other faiths.

Tvärdrag, the paper of the Swedish Social Democratic Youth League (SSU), published a cartoon in their latest edition, portraying the Pope as a pedophile.

The Catholic Church in Sweden is not happy, and Johan Ingerö, editor of the liberal magazine Neo, has lodged a complaint about the cartoon to the Chancellor of Justice.

Daniel Suhonen, Tvärdrag editor, explains it wasn't meant as an accusation against the Pope, and that there's a political conspiracy against the attacks within the Catholic Church.

Låtern barnen komma till mig presumably means something along the lines of: suffer the little children to come unto me

A Californian couple accused of beating their 7-year-old adopted daughter to death have appeared in court at a preliminary hearing.

Kevin and Elizabeth Schatz face one count of murder, one count of torture and one count of child abuse. The torture count alleges that the parents beat their 11-year-old adopted daughter so severely she ended up in the hospital with kidney failure. The child abuse charge is for bruising authorities reportedly found on the couple's 10-year-old biological son.

Seven-year-old adopted daughter Lydia died of blunt force trauma in February. According to authorities, she was beaten for several hours with a quarter-inch plumbing supply line as her parents took turns holding her down and using the instrument. The blows reportedly cause Rhabdomyolysis, which is a breakdown of muscle tissue which fatally damaged her vital organs. The 11-year-old was allegedly beaten in a similar manner the previous night.

According to Butte County District Attorney Mike Ramsey, the parents appeared to be following the methods of Michael and Debi Pearl, founders of a controversial fundamentalist religious group, No Greater Joy Ministries.

They also wrote a controversial parenting book To Train Up a Child. In their literature, the Pearls encourage parents to use a quarter-inch plumbing supply line (or other items like rulers, paddles Advertisement or tree branches) as a rod to train up their children. Though they tell parents not to injure their children, they also encourage constant switching or licks for not only disobedience but also for things like spilling nuts or being foolish. Additional licks are recommended when the child cries out.

The excommunication of Sister Margaret McBride in Phoenix underscores all that to me feels morally obtuse about the church hierarchy. I hope that a public outcry can rectify this travesty.

Sister Margaret was a senior administrator of St. Joseph's Hospital in Phoenix. A 27-year-old mother of four arrived late last year, in her third month of pregnancy. According to local news reports and accounts from the hospital and some of its staff members, the mother suffered from a serious complication called pulmonary hypertension. That created a high probability that the strain of continuing pregnancy would kill her.

In this tragic case, the treatment necessary to save the mother's life required the termination of an 11-week pregnancy, the hospital said in a statement. This decision was made after consultation with the patient, her family, her physicians, and in consultation with the Ethics Committee.

Sister Margaret was a member of that committee. She declined to discuss the episode with me, but the bishop of Phoenix, Thomas Olmsted, ruled that Sister Margaret was automatically excommunicated because she assented to an abortion.

The mother's life cannot be preferred over the child's, the bishop's communication office elaborated in a statement.

Let us just note that the Roman Catholic hierarchy suspended priests who abused children and in some cases defrocked them but did not normally excommunicate them, so they remained able to take the sacrament.

An advert offering abortion services will be shown for the first time on British television next week.

Last year the authorities changed their code of practice to allow condoms to be advertised on television in an attempt to reduce teenage and unwanted pregnancies. However, they postponed a decision on whether to allow abortion, or post-conception, services to advertise because the issue was too controversial.

The new advert shows images of various women whose period is late and are wondering what to do. The first advert will run at 10.10pm on Channel 4 on Monday and the campaign will continue until the end of next month.

The organisation that pre-vets TV ads, Clearcast UK, has not imposed any restrictions on the time of day it can be aired except that it is not to be shown around children's programmes.

Marie Stopes International, a charity that carries out about 65,000 terminations a year at its British clinics, said that it wanted to encourage people to speak more openly about abortion, and reach the widest possible audience with information about its services.

Julie Douglas, marketing manager at Marie Stopes, said that the advert made clear that termination was one of the services that Marie Stopes offered, although the term abortion was not used. The ad features ordinary women who are not sure what to do if their period is late. All women will recognise that message. We do not use the term 'abortion' because we would never assume someone wants an abortion.

Anti-abortion campaigners said they deplored the campaign. I can only express utter disbelief that this is being allowed, said Michaela Aston, a spokeswoman for Life.

To allow abortion providers to advertise on TV, as though they were no different from car companies or detergent manufacturers, is grotesque. By suggesting that abortion is yet another consumer choice, it trivialises human life and completely contravenes the spirit of the 1967 Abortion Act. Whatever your opinion of the procedure . . . it is ending a human life.

Campaigners also claim that the availability of abortion has encouraged more teenagers to have sex without contraception, and prevented progress in reducing the number of teenage pregnancies. The British rate is among the highest in Europe.

Vivianne Pattison of Mediawatch UK, said: We are not a pro-life group but we do have issues with this because women with an unplanned pregnancy are in a vulnerable position.

Based on article from dailymail.co.uk

Channel 4, as a publicly-funded broadcaster, needs to reassure people that it is not going to take sides on one of the most controversial issues in British culture, said Simon Calvert, of The Christian Institute.

He added: The public and Parliament are split right down the middle on this. Why on earth can't the regulator stop the advertising of abortion services on TV until there has been proper consideration?

Calvert said: People will be shocked to know how much public money is given to Marie Stopes to carry out abortions for the NHS: They will be more shocked some of that money is being used to promote the pro-abortion agenda.

Comment: Nutters 'Shocked'

From Dan

"Marie Stopes should not be allowed to 'ride roughshod over the widely held and deeply felt objections of a very large section of the British public', said Mr Calvert".

Yeah a bunch of God botherers who think their religious beliefs gives them the right to dictate what women can and cannot do with their bodies makes up a very large section of the British public.

"People will be shocked to know how much public money is given to Marie Stopes to carry out abortions for the NHS".

Or rather they might be reassured that the NHS is helping an organsation give help to young and frightened women who need help!

Update: ASA receive 300 complaints

29th May 2010. Based on article from guardian.co.uk
See also video from youtube.com

The first totally innocuous UK TV commercial offering advice on abortion services has generated 350 complaints to the advert censor, the ASA.

Launched on Monday night on Channel 4 at 10.10pm, the ad for sexual health charity Marie Stopes simply asks the question Are you late? in reference to how missing a period could mean pregnancy.

The Advertising Standards Authority has received 350 complaints from viewers 'offended' by the commercial. The ASA will assess the complaints to see if there is grounds to investigate whether the TV commercial breached the advertising code.

No doubt the ASA simply won't want to get involved in the ongoing moral argument.

The Dean of Newcastle, the Very Reverend Dr James Rigney, has closed a three-panel artwork hanging in Christ Church Cathedral depicting naked boys being beckoned by St Nicholas, deeming it inappropriate.

He will consult parishioners tomorrow on the move and the painting's future place in the cathedral.

The painting by John Montefiore, which hangs in the St Nicholas Chapel, depicts St Nicholas's three miracles. It has hung in the Anglican cathedral for 30 years. The central panel shows the miracle of the pickled boys, when St Nicholas, the patron saint of children, resurrected boys who had been killed and pickled for human consumption. It also shows male genitalia.

Dr Rigney said he closed the artwork because he thought it was inappropriate to display an image of that kind in light of revelations of child abuse by members of churches in the Hunter. We are in a different place [to when it was painted] and we need to think if it reflects how we feel today, he said.

The 20th May is Draw Mohammed Day. This is a call to respond to censorship by death threat as inspired by the censorship of the recent South Park episodes featuring Mohammed in teddy bear suit.

There is a Facebook group, called Everybody Draw Mohammed Day! highlighting the event.

Now Pakistan has joined in support for publicising the event by blocking the Facebook page.

Update: Street protests in Pakistan

20th May 2010. Based on article from nation.com.pk

Supposedly blasphemous caricatures on the Facebook website sparked protests throughout Pakistan on Wednesday.

Thousands of people staged protests in major cities including Islamabad, Lahore, Karachi, Peshawar and Multan to vent their anger over the blasphemy.

Different political and religious parties, students, traders, labour organisations staged protest demonstrations demanding a permanent ban on Facebook.

In Lahore, students of University of Engineering and Technology staged a protest demonstration-cum-sit-in outside the Press Club against Facebook. The students sat on the road in scorching heat to block traffic and chanted slogans against the website operator and demanded of the young generation to boycott the said website. They also demanded of the government to end diplomatic relations with the countries involved in publication of the Mohammed caricatures.

Update: Facebook banned entirely in Pakistan until 31st May

20th May 2010. Based on article from dailymail.co.uk

A Pakistani court has ordered the government to block the popular social networking website Facebook over an online competition inviting users to submit images of Mohammed.

In an attempt to respond to domestic criticism, the Pakistani government ordered Internet service providers in the country to block the Everybody Draw Mohammed Day! page on Facebook.

But a group of Islamic lawyers went one further - and asked the Lahore High Court to order the government to fully block Facebook itself.

This was because the site had allowed the page to be posted in the first place, said the deputy attorney general of Punjab province, Naveed Inayat Malik.

The court complied with the request by the Islamic Lawyers Forum and ordered the government to temporarily block the site until May 31, Malik said.

Update: YouTube banned entirely in Pakistan

21st May 2010. Based on article from telegraph.co.uk

On Wednesday a Pakistani court ordered internet service providers to block customers from Facebook. The following day, YouTube was taken down in its entirety along with individual pages of Wikipedia and more than 450 websites that referred to the Everybody Draw Mohammed Day! protest group.

However, that did not stop Facebook members elsewhere in the world posting photographs and cartoons.

One showed a photograph of a pig with a speech bubble saying: Peace be upon me and my armies. Another showed Mohammed with a long beard, holding a bomb in one hand and a decapitated head in the other, wearing a T-shirt bearing the legend: I love Jihad.

Organisers said the page was set up to promote freedom of speech.

Update: Facebook page taken down

21st May 2010.

The Facebook page Everybody Draw Mohammed Day! is currently offline!

There is back up though:

Everybody draw muhammed day May 20th (back up)

Update: More street protests in Pakistan

22nd May 2010. Based on article 22nd May & article 21st May from thenews.com.pk

Angry protests continued on Thursday across Pakistan against the percieved blasphemy by Facebook, as a number of rallies and demonstrations were held demanding the Muslim rulers to either wage jihad against the blasphemers to stop this crime or resign.

Thursday saw a number of rallies, demonstrations and meetings in every big and small city and town where leaders held Muslim rulers responsible for the ongoing trend of blasphemies and asked them to display their love of Mohammed by taking concrete action to stop this ugly trend.

The Hizb ut Tahrir staged a demonstration outside Lahore Press Club. The participants were carrying banners and placards inscribed with slogans like: O Pak Army! Rise and deliver a teeth-shattering response to the blasphemers by establishing the Khilafah,

Addressing the protesters, the speakers said that the Western rulers were completely protecting and supporting the deliberate attacks on Islam and Mohammed. The criminal silence of the Muslim rulers encouraged an insignificant organization like Facebook to play with the emotions of one billion Muslims of the world. Had Muslim rulers mobilised their armies against Denmark in the past, there would not have been such an event today.

Pakistanis continued protests against blasphemy on Friday, the second day of two-day countrywide demonstrations, as religious leaders demanded the Muslim rulers to ensure international legislation for death punishment to blasphemers or step down.

Addressing rallies, clerics rejected an apology to the Muslim world by US cartoonist Molly Norris who initiated a blasphemous cartoon contest on Facebook and called for death punishment to her.

They also called for Jihad against blasphemers as the only way to stop recurrence of the crime by the West.

Update: Dreams of a sense of humour

22nd May 2010. Based on article from newstime.co.za

South African Mail & Guardian editor Nic Dawes, confirmed that he was standing by the Zapiro cartoon which appeared in the newspaper on Friday.

Asked whether in hindsight he would not have published the cartoon Dawes stated that the decision was an important part of freedom of speech in South Africa.

The Muslim Judicial Council and others have condemned the cartoon. According to Islam, it's blasphemous to depict the Prophet Mohammed in any way.

An urgent application for an injunction against the M&G publishing their Friday print edition, was brought by the Council of Muslim Theologians, but refused by a South Gauteng High Court Judge on Thursday evening. Judge Mayat, who is a Muslim, found that the cartoon was already in the public domain on the M&G website.

The cartoon depicts the Prophet on a psychiatrist's couch bemoaning the fact that all the other prophets have followers who have a sense of humour. It is drawn by award-winning satirist Jonathan Shapiro (Zapiro) in the M&G on Friday as part of a Facebook page campaign called everybody draw Muhammad day.

Zapiro has been receiving death threats while the newspaper has been flooded with angry calls.

Update: Facebook Page Restored

23rd May 2010. Based on article from yesbuthowever.com

On Thursday afternoon, during the middle of Everybody Draw Mohammed Day!, Facebook removed the page from its website.

What was thought to be an act of self-censorship by Facebook, under the fear of retaliation from Muslims, may in fact have been the act of an individual moderator of the group.

As of 7:00 am this morning the group's page is back up on Facebook with the following statement:

Back. This page was removed two days ago, after one of our moderators had his email and skype hacked. His personal data was revealed. He then got scared and deleted the page, the blog and the emails. The rest of us, are now back without him after he backed out. This is another scare tactic from the Islamic extremists. We won't fall.

Update: 800 Related Links Blocked

23rd May 2010. Based on article from groundreport.com

Pakistan has blocked an extra 800 pages and links related to the supposedly blasphemous Everybody Draw Mohammed Day!

Update: Another call for the UN to adopt a global blasphemy law

29th May 2010. Based on article from ptinews.com

Demanding a permanent ban on Facebook, over two dozen Pakistani religious groups working under the umbrella of the JuD have decided to contact the UN for enacting a global law against blasphemy of prophets and awarding death penalty to violators.

The decision to contact the UN and envoys from Muslims and non-Muslim states was made at a meeting of clerics belonging to the JuD, Jamaat-e-Islami, Jamiat Ulema-e-Pakistan, Tanzeem-e-Islami, Markaz-e-Ahlesunnat, Muslim Conference, Jamat-e-Ahlehadis, Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam, Pakistan Ulema Council and International Katham-e-Nabuwat.

The ambassadors of Muslim and non-Muslim states will be told that blasphemy against prophets not only hurts the feelings of one religion but also sows a seed of hatred against the people of other religions, the meeting observed.

Offsite: Zapiro's response to the Prophet Mohammed controversy

29th May 2010. Based on article from timeslive.co.za

Cartoonist Jonathan Zapiro Shapiro drew himself on the same therapist's couch as he put the prophet Muhammad on last week and poured his heart out on the difficulties of censorship on religious grounds, in his latest Mail & Guardian cartoon.

Tough week? asks the therapist, while Zapiro lying on a couch replies: You have no idea.

...Read full article

Update: YouTube partially restored

30th May 2010. See article from news.bbc.co.uk

Pakistan has partially unblocked the YouTube video sharing website, but hundreds of its links to blasphemous content remain barred, officials say.

The BBC's Aleem Maqbool in Islamabad says that YouTube is now working again, although internet downloads have been slower than usual.

Our correspondent says that the Facebook website remains completely out of action.

We have lifted the ban on only that part [of YouTube] which is not displaying any sacrilegious or profane material, Naguibullah Malik, Secretary of Information Technology and Telecom, told the Reuters news agency.

Egypt's Minister of State for Family and Population Moshira Khattab said the marriage of underage girls is considered slavery and legal prostitution, adding that the first verdict of its kind by the Criminal Court of Giza this week, which sentenced a 77-year-old Saudi Arabian man to jail for marrying an Egyptian minor is a step in the right direction.

The minister added that the government would also seek jail time for brokers who oversee such marriages as a deterrent toward such marriages.

She described such marriages as sexual exploitation, adding that the opinion of Egypt's Grand Mufti Ali Gomaa that the father who marries his daughter, in the case referred to unchaste and is not fit to be a reliable father, the marriage is, void and should be applied in all Muslim countries.

Khattab pointed out that provisions to the Egyptian law had been issued against the husband and the father as well as the lawyer who signed the marriage contracts. She hopes that such cases will make all parties reconsider before such marriages are entered into.

The Minister for Family and Population, in a statement, stressed that death rates due to marriage of minor girls is still high in Egypt due to early marriage and giving birth in a young age.

Street preacher Dale Mcalpine was held in a cell for seven hours and charged with a public order offence after telling a gay police community support officer that homosexuals were going against the will of God.

He said he would fight to have the charge - usually used to tackle rioters or football hooligans - dismissed.

Mcalpine was spouting nonsense to shoppers and handing out leaflets when he was allegedly warned he was committing an offence by PCSO Sam Adams - who introduced himself as his force's lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender liaison officer.

When he continued preaching, Mcalpine was arrested while debating his views with a passer-by.

I think justice will be served and this will be found to be a ridiculous charge, he said. He told how he was speaking to a woman about behaviour that he believed the Bible regarded as sinful, including blasphemy, adultery, drunkenness and homosexuality, while being watched by two PCSOs.

After she walked away, he claimed Adams approached to warn him they had received complaints and that if he made any racist or homophobic comments he would be arrested. I told him homosexuality is a sin, and he told me "I am a homosexual, I find that offensive, and I'm also the liaison officer for the bisexual-lesbian-gay-transsexual community", he said yesterday. I told him it was still a sin.

While he talked to a passer-by the PCSO radioed for assistance and he was arrested by uniformed officers. He was taken to a police station, had his pockets emptied and his mobile phone taken along with his belt and shoes, and was kept in the cells for seven hours where he sang hymns to keep his spirits up.

He was later charged with using abusive or insulting words or behaviour contrary to the Public Order Act 1986 and released on bail, appearing before magistrates in the town last week.

The self-proclaimed born-again Christian insists he has a right to express his views. It's not just my right I'm fighting for, it's everyone's,' he said: We're going down the route of a police state. Some people in the homosexual community may not like me after this. But it would be very intolerant of them to not allow me to have my say.

Update: Video of Street Preacher's Arrest

15th May 2010. See video from youtube.com

Yet more examples of the police abusing their incredibly wide powers under the Public Order law. This law grants draconian powers to deal with unruly situations. Somehow it is now being applied to normal peaceful life.

Interesting to see that the hidden video camera footage arrest has now been posted on YouTube and that the Crown Persecution Service have decided to drop the case.

Prosecution Dropped

Based on article from christian.org.uk

Dale Mcalpine was arrested on 20 April after a conversation with a police community support officer in which Mcalpine said the Bible calls homosexual conduct a sin.

This week crown prosecutors decided to drop the case after reviewing the evidence.

Mcalpine was assisted by The Christian Institute. He says he is relieved that the prosecution has been dropped. He said: It was a ridiculous charge, I should never have been arrested. I'm relieved that they have seen sense. I'm a Christian man, I forgive the police. But it is important this doesn't happen to someone else. We are now looking at the legal options that we have got, and we will take it from there.

Christian Institute spokesman Simon Calvert said the police must be held to account. He said: Cumbria police can't just walk away from this. They have arrested and charged an innocent man for no other reason than he peacefully expressed his religious beliefs. And it has happened in other parts of the country too. So there is clearly a problem with the system and it has to be put right.

Chief Superintendent Steve Johnson, police commander for West Cumbria, said: Our officers and staff often have to make difficult decisions while balancing the law and people's rights. This is not easy especially when opinions and interpretations differ. We would like to reassure the public that we respect, and are committed to upholding, the fundamental right to freedom of expression...[BUT]...We are just as committed to maintaining the peace and preventing people feeling alarmed or distressed by the actions of others in public places.

The Crown Prosecution Service has carefully assessed the evidence in the case and has decided to discontinue the prosecution of Mr Mcalpine.

Police to be Sued

Based on article from news.bbc.co.uk

The Christian preacher who told police homosexuality was a sin is planning to sue for wrongful arrest.

Dale Mcalpine was charged with a public order offence after speaking to a community support officer (PCSO) in Workington, Cumbria, in April.

The charge was later dropped by Cumbria Police, which claimed it respected freedom of expression.

Mcalpine said he would launch a civil action against the arresting officer and the chief constable.

He also intends to sue for false imprisonment and unlawful interference with his right to freedom of expression and freedom of religion.

Mcalpine denies making any mention of homosexuality in his sermon. He said: As a Christian man, I forgive the police for their actions...HOWEVER...I also want to protect others who may face similar problems in the future. This can't just be brushed under the carpet, freedom of speech is too precious for that.

The Christian Institute, which acts to defend religious liberty for Christians, is supporting Mcalpine and financing his legal action.

Egypt's musician's union has rejected plans for British singer Elton John to perform a private concert scheduled for May 18, because of his controversial remarks attacking religions.

How do we allow a gay, who wants to ban religions, claimed that the prophet Eissa (Jesus) was gay and calls for Middle Eastern countries to allow gays to have sexual freedom, head of the Egyptian Musician Union, Mounir al-Wasimi told the German Press Agency dpa.

The pop superstar stirred controversy after his remarks to US celebrity news magazine Parade in February, where he said Try being a gay woman in the Middle East - you're as good as dead, after saying he believed Jesus was gay.

Al-Wasimi said that he has begun coordinating with security bodies to ban John's concert, saying that the union is the only body authorized to allow performances by foreign singers in Egypt.

Update: Concert Goes Ahead in Morocco

28th May 2010. Based on article from azcentral.com

Elton John will be the highlight of Morocco's biggest music festival despite calls by the country's main Islamist party to shelve the British singer because of his homosexuality, organizers said.

The public spat between organizers for the Mawazine Festival and the Justice and Development Party, or PJD, the country's largest authorized Islamist group, illustrates the growing rift between Morocco's Western-leaning authorities and the more conservative Muslim movements that are on the rise in the North African kingdom.

This singer is famous for his homosexual behavior and for advocating it, said Mustapha Ramid, a leader and spokesman for the PJD, the biggest opposition party with 40 lawmakers in parliament.

We're a rather open party...BUT...promoting homosexuality is completely unacceptable, Ramid said in a phone interview, stating is was against Muslim values. Ramid feared the singer would encourage the phenomenon and be a bad influence for Morocco's youth.

While Egypt recently canceled an Elton John concert because of remarks he made on homosexuality, Moroccan officials ignored calls to ban him. We deal with artists and intellectuals for what they do, without taking into account their private life, Mawazine Festival organizer El Hassan Neffali told reporters. Somebody's private life is one thing, and their art or creative activities are another.

Religious police in Indonesia's Aceh province have been issued with 20,000 long skirts and ordered to cover up women deemed to have broken Muslim dress codes, an official said.

The province on northern Sumatra island has banned Muslim women from wearing figure-hugging clothing such as tight trousers, under Islamic by-laws.

Vice and virtue officers in West Aceh district have been told that they should ask women wearing the wrong clothes to put on the government-issue skirts on the spot.

West Aceh district chief Ramli Mansur said that one day he would have to answer to God about what he did to enforce sharia or Islamic laws, so residents should expect increased vigilance and raids by the morality squad, known as the wilayatul hisbah.

The Islamic police do not have the power to arrest women for violations of the dress codes but they regularly stop them and demand they change their clothing. The force can however arrest people for other religious offences such as gambling, adultery and drinking alcohol, for which the punishment is caning.

Javier Krahe is one of the most popular left wing singer-songwriters in Spain, but he also likes to express himself in other artistic ways. In 1978 he recorded a clip called Cooking Christ. Christ is taken off a crucifix and is cut up, spread with butter and put into the oven, before becoming a delicious dish!

On 15 December 2004, Spanish channel Canal+ showed the clip as a part of an interview with Krahe. According to right wing site HazteOir, Canal+ received more than 10,000 letters protesting about the broadcast.

Now the Thomas More Law Studies Center has presented a criminal prosecution stating that broadcasting such material goes against Article 525 of the Spanish Penal Code, which punishes offending religious beliefs. The court now asks Krahe to pay €192,000, and the TV channel to pay €144.000.

Two christian women converts in Iran were acquitted of all charges and rapidly departed for another safer country.

Maryam Rostampour and Marzieh Amirizadeh were cleared of apostasy, anti-state activity, and participating in illegal gatherings, reported Elam Ministries, an Iran-focused ministry that has followed the case since the beginning. But Iranian authorities warned them that they will face serious consequences if they continue their Christian activities in Iran.

Rostampour and Amirizadeh were arrested in March 2009 on charges of anti-state activity and for taking part in illegal gatherings, or in other words, for participating in house church activities. They were detained in the notorious Evin prison, a facility known for its human rights violations and capital punishment, while their trial took place in Tehran.

During an Aug. 9 court hearing, they told the judge, We love Jesus, Yes, we are Christians, and We will not deny our faith. Then in October they learned that a third charge was added, apostasy.

In Iran it is illegal for Muslims to convert to Christianity, although Christians are allowed to convert to Islam.

A new family law has raised tension in Mali. This controversial law, intended to give greater freedoms and rights to women, has been sent back to the National Assembly for a second reading after protests from Muslim groups.

These Muslim are threatening to make the country ungovernable if the law is enacted in its original form as voted by Parliament in August 2009.

Those who oppose the new family law have started threatening legislators, railing against them in sermons and organising protest meetings. They're also using newspapers and radio since they learned that the law is on the agenda of the current parliamentary session, Salimata Kouyaté told IPS. Kouyaté is an activist with the Malian Network of NGOs and Women's Associations.

Emblematic of the struggle is the legal definition of the relationship between a married couple. Historian Bintou Sanankoua told IPS that Article 32 of the old law on marriage and guardianship stated that the husband was responsible to protect his wife, and the wife had to obey her husband.

The new law says that, Spouses owe each other fidelity, protection, relief and assistance. They commit themselves to the community of life on the basis of affection and respect.

Elsewhere, the new law states that women and men have equal inheritance rights, while in Muslim tradition a woman is entitled to only half the share given to her brothers. Another change is that women would no longer need their husbands' permission to work.

Armed assailants in black masks burned and vandalised a UN summer camp site and left three bullets next to written death threats against UN officials.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack on the UN camp site on the Gaza shore, near Gaza City.

However, Islamic extremists, including Hamas hard-liners, have repeatedly railed against the UN as being a bridgehead for the West and for corrupting Gaza's youth by teaching un-Islamic subjects in schools and summer camps.

The UN summer programme offers sports, crafts and other activities to some 250,000 Gaza children and teenagers. Hamas, which seized Gaza by force three years ago, has set up rival camps with a heavy emphasis on Islamic teachings.

About 30 assailants in black uniforms and masks arrived at the camp site in jeeps at about 2:30am, said the night watchman, Ibrahim Alawi. The guard said the vandals slashed or burned eight tents and set fire to 30 large plastic water tanks and other facilities.

A UN spokesman said the damage would be repaired and all 143 camps would open on 12 June, as scheduled.

The EU parliament has called on Pakistan to guarantee minority rights, claiming that its blasphemy laws could be used to murder members of political, racial and religious minorities.

In a resolution adopted in Strasbourg, the assembled Euro MPs expressed deep concern at the Pakistani blasphemy laws, calling for a thoroughgoing review of the legislation which is open to misuse.

The laws can carry the death sentence and are often used to justify censorship, criminalisation, persecution and, in certain cases, the murder of members of political, racial and religious minorities, the parliament said in a strongly-worded statement.

The texts in question are misused by extremist groups and those wishing to settle personal scores, the EU deputies said.

They had also led to an increase of violence against members of religious minorities, particularly Ahmadis, but also Christians, Hindus, Sikhs, Shiites, Buddhists, Parsis, Bahais and critical citizens who dare to raise their voice against injustice, they added.

The Dutch sex shop, De Condoomfabriek (The Condom Factory), will be giving away 2,000 Pope condoms this weekend in a dig at the Roman Catholic Church.

The shop said it wanted to make a point about sexually transmitted diseases, unwanted pregnancies and the Vatican's opposition to contraceptives.

The condom wrapper carries the image of a papal figure with an unmistakable general likeness to Pope Benedict and the words I SAID NO! We say YES!

When a Saudi religious policeman questioned a young couple walking together in an amusement park he got a painful surprise - when the woman suddenly attacked him.

The officer asked the pair to confirm their identities and relationship to one another.

The young man immediately collapsed for reasons that have not been made clear, the Jerusalem Post reported. But before the policeman could do anything else, the woman - believed to be in her mid-twenties - laid into him.

He was punched repeatedly about the head and upper torso during the attack in the eastern city of Hofuf Mubarraz. The beating was so severe and sustained, the officer was eventually taken to hospital suffering from severe bruising.

Neither religious nor local police have commented on the incident, which was widely played out in the Saudi media. If the woman is charged with assaulting the officer, she could face a lengthy prison term, or a lashing, or both. But public opinion appears to have been firmly behind her.

People are fed up with these religious police, and now they have to pay the price for the humiliation they put people through for years and years, Saudi human rights activist Wajiha Al Huwaidar told the Media Line news agency.

To see resistance from a woman means a lot... This is just the beginning and there will be more.

The French cabinet have approved a draft law to ban garments designed to hide the face in the country.

The bill will now go before parliament in July. President Nicolas Sarkozy told assembled ministers: In this matter the government is taking a path it knows to be difficult, but a path it knows to be just, according to his office. He said France was an old nation united around a certain idea of personal dignity, particularly women's dignity, and of life together. It's the fruit of centuries of efforts.

As the issue grows ever more contentious it has led to isolated incidents of violence in the country.

The police intervened after the debate, held at an elementary school in Montreuil in the eastern suburbs of Paris, organised by the feminist movement Ni Putes Ni Soumises (neither whores nor submissives) and attended by more than 100 people, was disrupted by members of the pro-Palestinian group Sheikh Yassin. Blows were exchanged before the police arrived and blocked the exits to the school, and asked the victims to identify their attackers.

On Saturday, France experienced its first official case of burka rage when a 60-year-old female lawyer is alleged to have tried to pull a Muslim woman's veil from her face.

Congratulations to Reverend David Gilmore receiving a Pioneering Award for good neighbourliness (nicely ironic):

The Rector of St Anne's Anglican Church, Soho, who, in 2009, stood up for the Soho sex workers in court in their defence, saying their house did not cause any public nuisance.

The result: they got let off!

We were delighted that he accepted his nomination, another sign of his openness to sexuality, and he says he feels honoured. They should make him an Archbishop for his exemplary attitude.

While we talked, Jenny, from Minsk in Belarus, offered me everything, what you like, all night for the equivalent of about £500. It was better if I was staying in the luxurious hotel where we were drinking, she said, but if not she knew another one, cheaper but friendly. I turned down the offer.

This was not Amsterdam's red-light district or the Reeperbahn in Hamburg or a bar on Shanghai's Bund. This was in the city centre of Dubai, the Gulf emirate where western women get a month in prison for a peck on the cheek; the Islamic city on Muhammad's peninsula where the muezzin's call rings out five times a day drawing believers to prayer; where public consumption of alcohol prompts immediate arrest; where adultery is an imprisonable offence; and where mall shoppers are advised against overt displays of affection, such as kissing.

Ayman Najafi and Charlotte Adams, the couple recently banged up in Al Awir desert prison for a brief public snog, must have been very unlucky indeed, because in reality Dubai is a heaving maelstrom of sexual activity that would make the hair stand up on even the most worldly westerner's head. It is known by some residents as Sodom-sur-Mer.

...Read full article

France's top legal advisory body has once again raised questions over the legal viability of an imminent bill to ban full Muslim veils in public.

The Council of State, which advises on the preparation of new laws and orders, earlier this year said introducing such a ban would threaten rights guaranteed under both the constitution and the European Convention on Human Rights. The Paris daily Le Figaro reported that the advisory body had again come to the same conclusion after a meeting with government officials: A comprehensive and absolute ban on wearing the full veil could not have any legally unchallengeable justification and (it would) be exposed to great constitutional uncertainty.

The head of the UMP parliamentary group Jean-Francois Cope, who is fighting for the broadest possible ban, said that the panel's conclusions were not a surprise, but that other legal experts had opposing views. I, like many, have a difference of opinion with the Council of State, Cope told a news conference. It's an interpretation. But today there are comprehensive and absolute bans existing such as you can't wander around naked in the road.

A Swedish artist noted for a Muhammad roundabout dog cartoon was assaulted by a group of muslims as he delivered a university lecture.

Lars Vilks says he was head-butted by an audience member as he spoke about the limits of artistic freedom. The cartoonist's glasses were broken, but he was not injured.

The artist said a group of about 15 people had been shouting and trying to interrupt the lecture, which was attended by about 250 people: A man ran up and threw himself over me. I was head-butted and my glasses were broken, Vilks was quoted as saying by the AP news agency.

A video clip of the attack was posted on the website of a Swedish newspaper. It showed police using pepper spray and batons to control an angry crowd shouting God is great in Arabic as Vilks was led away. Two people were detained.

Update: Hacked

15th May 2010. Based on article from thelocal.se

The website of artist Lars Vilks was hacked on the day after he was attacked as he gave a lecture at Uppsala University.

Instead of gaining access to the artist's controversial drawing of Muhammad as a dog, which sparked outrage in parts of the Islamic world after its publication in Swedish newspapers in 2007, visitors to Vilks.net were greeted by a message from a hacker with the signature Al Qatari.

An aggressive greeting charging the artist with still talking about the Prophet Muhammad, is followed by a warning that the site will remain a target: We really never stop hacking your site and I will show you how can I hacking your computer.

Update: Arson Attempt

16th May 2010. Based on article from uk.news.yahoo.com

Swedish artist Lars Vilks, who angered Muslims by portraying the Prophet Mohammad as a dog, has suffered a failed arson attack on his house, but was not home when it happened, the artist and police said.

Vilks told Reuters that people smashed windows at his house and tried to light petrol that they threw inside. But the attack resulted only in small damage in the kitchen and on the facade.

Probably I can't live there any more, said Vilks.

Update: Interrupted Lecture to be Rescheduled

28th May 2010.  See article from mediawatchwatch.org.uk

Lars Vilks has been invited to have another go at giving his lecture at Uppsala University.

The Department of Philosophy's director of studies, Rysiek Sliwinski said: Violence and intimidation will not silence people at the university or elsewhere in society.

Update: Convicted

21st June 2010.  Based on article from thelocal.se

A muslim teenager was convicted by a Swedish court for assaulting a police officer during an attack on Swedish cartoonist Lars Vilks, who courted controversy with a drawing of Muhammed.

The officer was hit by the 16-year-old as he tried to prevent the teenager from assaulting the cartoonist at a lecture at Uppsala University last month.

The teenager was sentenced to 20 days community service and ordered to undergo a psychological assessment and pay damages of 500 kronor ($75) to the officer.

Australian shadow parliamentary secretary, Cory Bernardi, has called for Islamic women to be banned from wearing the burqa.

Writing on his blog, he argued his case on law and order grounds and the basis of respect for women. The burqa is no longer simply the symbol of female repression and Islamic culture, it is now emerging as a disguise of bandits and n'er do wells, he wrote. He was responding to a police report describing a hold-up in Sydney by a suspect in a burqa and sunglasses and said the garb could be used as a disguise.

Perhaps some of you will consider that burqa wearing should be a matter of personal choice, consistent with the freedoms our forefathers fought for. I disagree, the senator wrote: New arrivals to this country should not come here to re-create the living environment they have just left. They should come here for a better life based on the freedoms and values that have built our great nation.

Both PM Kevin Rudd and Liberal leader Tony Abbott dismissed the comments and said they would not support a ban.

Update: Nutter Niles

16th May 2010. Based on article from islamophobia-watch.com

The Reverend Fred Nile will introduce a Bill to parliament calling for a ban on the Islamic burqa head and body veil.

The Christian Democrats MP wants NSW to follow France and other European countries, which have moved to ban women from wearing the full head and body covering in public. The private member's Bill will likely be introduced very soon.

Niles said: We should establish that in Australia we are an open society, that people don't cover up their faces. If they are involved in criminal activity they do. They do it with the burqa, it is not part of our culture and tradition.

Nile's private member's Bill will almost certainly not succeed because he lacks the required numbers.

Planet Earth has not (yet) been destroyed by a terrifying Boobquake experiment - one Indiana student's response to Iranian cleric Hojatoleslam Kazem Sedighi's insistence that immodestly dressed women provoke earthquakes.

Sedighi recently declared: Many women who do not dress modestly ... lead young men astray, corrupting their chastity and spread adultery in society, which increases earthquakes.

Jennifer McCreight declared: On Monday, April 26th, I will wear the most cleavage-showing shirt I own. Yes, the one usually reserved for a night on the town. I encourage other female skeptics to join me and embrace the supposed supernatural power of their breasts. Or short shorts, if that's your preferred form of immodesty. With the power of our scandalous bodies combined, we should surely produce an earthquake.

Needless to say the girls failed to induce an earthquake. Inquiring minds need to know why

Experimental Analysis

Based on article from independent.co.uk
Based on article from telegraph.co.uk

Kazem Sedighi sparked widespread derision with his pronouncements in a prayer sermon last month linking earthquakes with women's dress. In a new sermon yesterday, he has defended and elaborated on his claim.

Some ask why (more) earthquakes and storms don't occur in the Western world, which suffers from the slime of homosexuality, the slime of promiscuity and has plunged up to the neck in immorality, he said.

Who says they don't occur? Storms take place in the US and other parts of the world. We don't say committing sin is the entire reason but it's one of the reasons.

Sometimes, God tests a nation. (God says) if believers sin, we slap them because we love them and give them calamity in order to stop their bad deeds.

And those who have provoked God's wrath, He allows them (to commit sins) so that they go to the bottom of hell.

A gay couple who were turned away by a Christian bed and breakfast owner because it was against her convictions to let them share a double bed are suing her for damages.

Michael Black and John Morgan have brought in human rights organisation Liberty to help take legal action against Susanne Wilkinson.

The start of legal proceedings comes two months after Black and Morgan reported Mrs Wilkinson to police for refusing them a room. They said she was breaching discrimination laws and that they were horrified by the former air hostess's outdated and abhorrent views.

But Mrs Wilkinson and her husband Francis, a former city worker, insisted they were simply living according to their values and Christian beliefs. Mrs Wilkinson said she would have offered the couple two single rooms, but the guest house was fully booked. Susanne and Francis Wilkinson

Last night her husband said: Ours is a faith position and hasn't changed. This response seems completely disproportionate-We feel the law is wrong and needs to be amended.

But James Welch, legal director of Liberty, said: Liberty defends the rights of religious groups to preach their beliefs, even when we disagree with them, but not to discriminate in the provision of goods and services.

The Wilkinsons have been helped by the Christian Institute pressure group. Spokesman Simon Calvert said: This comes down to the rights of a gay couple to have a holiday where they choose against the right of a Christian couple to act in accordance with their conscience.

A Catholic schoolgirl has been labelled a truant after she refused to wear a headscarf during a compulsory trip to a mosque.

Amy Owen and fellow girl pupils at a Catholic secondary school were told to cover their heads and wear trousers or leggings out of respect for their Muslim hosts.

But when her mother objected, saying she did not want her daughter to dress as a Muslim, she received a sternly worded warning letter from the headmaster saying she had no choice.

Peter Lee, head of Ellesmere Port Catholic High School in Cheshire, informed her that the local diocese requires pupils to have an understanding of other religions.

In the letter - with words in block capitals and underlined - Lee said the visit was as compulsory as a geography field trip: There are two reasons for these visits. One is that the scheme of work in religious studies REQUIRES children to have knowledge and understanding of other world religions. The second is that the school is REQUIRED to promote tolerance respect and understanding. This is known as community cohesion. A failure to do this could result in an unwelcome inspection judgement. None of us would relish that. Whilst I may not require you to pay for this I must require your child to participate.

Amy's mother Michelle Davies refused to back down and, after being told no teachers would be back at school to keep an eye on her daughter, she kept her at home, citing religious objections - as did as many as ten other families.

A muslim taxi driver told a woman passenger he couldn't take her home with her shopping because carrying alcohol was against his religion.

The woman had been shopping in Sainsbury's in Oxford city centre. However, when the Royal Cars driver arrived he refused to take her.

He said, 'I'm sorry, I can't take you because it's against my religion'. He was looking at the alcohol, she said.

A second Royal Cars taxi picked Mrs Russell up instead and took her to her destination.

Niaz Mohammed, manager of Royal Cars, apologised and said that it would not happen again: He is one of the new drivers. I think it was his first or second day and he didn't realise that he had to pick up shoppers that carry alcohol, but he will do in future.

He added that it was not his company's policy to refuse lifts because customers were carrying alcohol - and that had been made clear to the driver.

A nutter Muslim organisation in India,  Darul Uloom Deoband, has issued a fatwa forbidding female members the Religion of Peace to work for a living.

The fatwa, issued this week by a trio of Sunni clerics, declared:

It is unlawful [under the sharia law] for Muslim women to work in the government or private sector where men and women work together and women have to talk with men frankly and without a veil.

Well-known Shia cleric Maulana Kalbe Jawwad justified the fatwa:

Women in Islam are not supposed to go out and earn a living. It's the responsibility of the males in the family. If a woman has to go for a job, she must make sure that the sharia restrictions are not compromised.

He cited the example of Iran, where Muslim women work in offices but have separate seating areas, away from their male counterparts.

Update: Death Threats

17th May 2010. See article from masala.com

Eminent lyricist and writer Javed Akhtar has claimed that he has received death threats by e-mail and telephone for his views on issues concerning the Muslim community.

Though he declined to elaborate, some television reports claimed that Akhtar has been threatened by unknown persons sympathetic to the Darul-Uloom Deoband, an apex body of the Deobandi sect of the Sunni Muslims.

Recently, the sect had issued fatwas (edicts) prohibiting Muslim men and women from working together in offices, saying Muslim men should not live off their wife's salaries, and most recently, prohibiting Muslims from opting for life insurance.

These edicts have been viewed with concern in the community and many have expressed their reservations about accepting them and Akhtar had also expressed his views on the issue.

Perth's Town of Vincent is embroiled in a tiff over its decision to allow a play about the history of Israel to be presented at a town hall, despite the production being branded anti-Semitic by Perth's Jewish leaders.

Seven Jewish Children: A Play for Gaza is a 10-minute, six-page play by British playwright Caryl Churchill covering events over 70 years such as the Holocaust, Palestinian suicide attacks and the 2008 Gaza invasion.

Throughout the play Jewish adults discuss what, if anything, their children should be told of the events.

Plans by Friends of Palestine Western Australia to have a reading at the North Perth Town Hall have been attacked by the Jewish Community Council of Western Australia, which is petitioning the local council to cancel the booking.

Council president Tony Tate, who yesterday admitted he had not read the play, said it was offensive and in parts based on the libel that Jewish people killed children in order to use their blood for religious rituals.

But Friends of Palestine WA convenor Alex Whisson and director Vivienne Glance disagreed the play was racially vilifying, saying attempts to block the play were an attack on free speech and artistic liberty.

Town of Vincent chief executive John Giorgi, who said he had received threatening phone calls over the matter, said the production met booking requirements and it was not the role of local government to act as a censor.

With a shocking nod towards sharia law, the American Academy of Pediatrics is advocating for a lesser form of female genital mutilation.

In hopes of preventing Muslims from taking their daughters out of the U.S. into other nations to get the barbaric procedure done, the AAP advocates for federal and state laws to enable doctors to just go ahead and give girls a ritual nick right in the USA.

International human rights organization Equality Now is stunned by the new policy statement issued by the American Academy of Pediatrics which essentially promotes female genital mutilation and advocates for federal and state laws [to] enable pediatricians to reach out to families by offering a 'ritual nick', such as pricking or minor incisions of girls' clitorises.

The Policy Statement Ritual Genital Cutting of Female Minors, issued by the AAP on April 26, 2010, is a significant set-back to the Academy's own prior statements on the issue of FGM and is antithetical to decades of noteworthy advancement across Africa and around the world in combating this human rights violation against women and girls.

Update: Australia

1st June 2010. Based on article from dailytelegraph.com.au

Australian doctors are considering a controversial form of genital mutilation on baby girls. The practice involving cutting a girl's genitals, sometimes with razors or pieces of glass, could be allowed in a clinical setting to stem illegal backyard procedures which are leaving young girls scarred for life. The Royal Australian New Zealand College of Obstetricians will next month discuss backing ritual nicks, a modified form of genital mutilation.

Three men who stabbed a man and doused him with acid over an online affair have been jailed at the Old Bailey.

Awais Akram was disfigured after being attacked in Leytonstone last July for a relationship with Sadia Khatoon.

Her brother Mohammed Vakas was given a 30-year sentence for conspiracy to murder. Mohammed Adeel and Fabion Kuci got 13 and eight-year sentences for conspiracy to cause grievous bodily harm.

The victim was targeted for his relationship with Mrs Khatoon, who he met on social networking website Facebook.

The court heard that when her husband Shakeel Abassi found out about it he persuaded her to lure Akram to the attack scene. He was then beaten and stabbed before sulphuric acid was poured over him. It left the victim with 47% burns and he nearly died, the court heard.

Judge Brian Barker said: The facts of this case are horrifying. This was a remorseless and a heartless plan. It was to punish and kill Mr Akram in the most cruel and sadistic way. This was a terrible crime and all right-thinking citizens reject the premise on which it was done. There is no honour, and plots and actions such as this have no place in our society. Few of us will have seen anything like that before and we must all hope we don't see anything like that again.

Both Sadia Khatoon and Shakeel Abassi have since disappeared and are believed to be in the Islamabad area of Pakistan. The judge said they were central to this plan and should have been in the dock.

Religious people are more racist than average [edit: this is in the USA. It probably also applies to Europe, but not necessarily to the rest of the world]. That fact has been known for decades, and it's rather surprising given that mainstream religions are unanimous in preaching racial tolerance. Just why this should be is not well understood.

Does religion really cause racism, or is it that are racists drawn to religion? Three recent studies have shed a little light on that question, with fascinating results.

...Read the full article

A Shari'ah court in, Bauchi State,Nigeria has sentenced a 35-year-old man, Sani Sallau, to death by stoning for having sexual intercourse with a minor.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the accused was arraigned before the court by hisba officials (religious police).

The prosecutor, Mohammed Abdullahi, a hisba official, told the court that the accused person was caught having an affair with the almajiri. He said the accused was charged with sodomy, which contravened the Shari'ah law being enforced in the state.

Sallau pleaded guilty as charged. The judge, Muhammad Muhammad, ordered the accused be stoned to death since he had confessed to the offence, in line with the provision of the Shari'ah law.

Congratulations to Dr Antony Lempert

A GP in rural Wales who also runs the Secular Medical Forum. The Forum aims to abolish all forms of ritual genital mutilation including non-therapeutic male circumcision, improve access to emergency contraception and abortion and generally keep religious tendrils from interfering with people's sex lives. He works very hard and expresses his views in a gentlemanly, logical yet relentless manner.

He says: I hold to account those people and organisations who espouse potentially dangerous views or who are engaged in harmful practices. This is particularly the case in the sphere of religion, where entrenched traditional religious privilege so often conflicts with other people's dignity, autonomy and safety.

See more at www.secularmedicalforum.org.uk

The Secular Medical Forum campaigns for a secular approach to current major health issues.

We are opposed to religious influences in Medicine where these affect the manner in which medical practice is performed.

Members of the Forum believe that this life is the only one of which we have any definite knowledge: therefore, all human efforts must be directed to its improvement.

The French parliament has voted to condemn the full Islamic face veil, calling it an affront to the nation's values of dignity and equality.

The non-binding resolution was passed unanimously, although 30 communist deputies walked out in protest.

Legislation to ban the full-face veil in public is expected later this year.

President Nicolas Sarkozy ordered parliament to debate a ban last month. He has described veils that conceal the face as oppressive to women and not welcome in France.

The Dutch public prosecutor has appealed against a court ruling acquitting a Muslim group of insulting Jews with a cartoon suggesting they invented the Holocaust, in a case testing the bounds of free speech.

The court ruled last month the cartoon published by the Arab European League (AEL) showed bad taste and was exceptionally offensive, but it acquitted the group on charges it insulted Jews because of the context in which the cartoon was published.

The court ruled that the context of its publication removed its criminally offensive nature. The AEL had argued that the cartoon was meant to show how other religious groups were also sensitive about certain images.

In announcing its appeal, the public prosecutor said it was essential to determine whether the cartoon was unnecessarily offensive, adding it was not certain whether the cartoon was designed as a contribution to the social debate.

A British woman jailed for kissing a man in public in Dubai has spoken of the hypocrisy of the Emirate's strict decency laws.

Charlotte Adams was arrested with Ayman Najafi last November after a local woman complained they had been seen kissing on the mouth in a restaurant.

Adams and Najafi insisted they had given each other only a peck on the cheek but were sentenced to a month in prison by a Dubai court last month.

Adams served 23 days and was freed on Friday and deported. Najafi, a management consultant from north London who has lived in Dubai for the past 18 months, is understood to be continuing his fight against the conviction after being backed by his employers.

I love (Dubai) and it makes me sad that I'll never come back, although I think I'd struggle to ever feel free here again. The laws need to evolve to match the culture here. At the moment, it's all just hypocrisy.

She said hotels in Dubai regularly offer free alcohol, particularly to women, though drinking in public is still officially illegal in the Gulf state: Everyone gets so drunk they forget where they are, particularly the westerners, which is when their behaviour can become dangerous legally.

An Indonesian court has jailed a 70-year-old man who claimed to have been to heaven twice and declared himself a prophet. The sentence handed down was one year in jail

Bakri Abdullah was arrested in October last year and charged under the country's blasphemy law.

He reportedly told his small group of followers that he had ascended from a mountain into heaven in 1975 and again in 1997.

His claims eventually angered his neighbours on the Muslim island of Lombok, who reported him to police.

The Sharjah Sharia Court of First Instance sentenced an Arab man to 100 lashes, one year in jail and deportation while his partner will be jailed for six months for adultery and one month for staying illegally in the country, followed by deportation.

The Syrian man, identified as BM, was accused of committing adultery with a Filipino woman, identified as RS Both of them were also accused of having a child outside wedlock.

According to court documents, police had received a tip off that a Filipino woman identified as JL was raising a child who is not her own baby. Police arrested RS, who confessed that she committed adultery with BM several times and she had given birth to a baby from him. BM,.

According to the court documents, the punishment for committing adultery is lashing if the persons are not married while it will be stoning if they are married and committed adultery.

A German theologian has vowed to take to the Vatican his battle against the church tax that is deducted from the salaries of all employed German Christians.

Prof Hartmut Zapp, a retired canon law professor from Freiburg, was taken to court by Germany's Catholic Church for challenging existing procedures for collecting the church tax.

The tax is calculated as up to 8% of income tax. German Christians may stop their church tax payment by going to their town hall and filling in a form which, when passed on to the church authorities, is interpreted as a Kirchenaustritt or church exit. The person's name is struck from the church register and they are excluded from church services and sacraments.

Prof Zapp, a practising Catholic, challenged this interpretation two years ago by altering his church exit form to read exit from the Catholic Church, a public corporation. When challenged by church authorities, he said he was still a believer but was no longer interested in paying an obligatory tax.

As he anticipated, the case landed him in court. An appeals court in Mannheim last ruled in favour of the church, saying disputes over the tax were an inner-church matter to be resolved by canon law. Prof Zapp has waived his right to go to Germany's highest appeals court, saying: All that remains now is the road to Rome.

Church authorities ordered Prof Zapp to start paying church tax again – including back payments to 2007. However, the professor says he will wait it out, confident that he has forced Germany's Catholic Church on to a collision course with Rome.

He is confident that Pope Benedict will see things his way. In March 2006 the Vatican expressed concern that German bishops, with their church exit rule, were effectively outsourcing excommunications to German state employees.

A Swiss canton has passed legislation preparing the groundwork for a possible ban on the Islamic burqa.

The local council in Aargau, a canton (state) voted overwhelmingly to work on a state initiative to make wearing the burqa in public places illegal. Most major parties backed the move.

Pushing the motion forward, the centrist and right wing parties in favour said the garment was a symbol of male dominance over women, according to the Swiss news agency SDA. The parties also said the full body veil prevents the integration of migrants into Swiss society.

Bans on the burqa are being mulled in other Swiss cantons, including Bern.

Pakistani Taliban facing a fierce government military operation in a tribal area severed the right hands of three alleged thieves after a Taliban Islamic court found them guilty.

The amputees, who were brought to a hospital in the northeastern city of Kohat for excessive bleeding, accused the Taliban of victimizing them for belonging to the area of a former Taliban commander who broke away from the group, according to media reports.

The nutters of the All-Polish Committee for the Defence Against Sects is going singer Dorota Rabczewska.

Better known as Doda, she gave a TV interview last year in which she said of the Bible:

it is hard to believe in something written by people who drank too much wine and smoked herbal cigarettes.

This was too much for APCDAS. The chairman Ryszard Nowak said:

It is clear that Doda thinks that the Bible was written by drunkards and junkies. [...] I believe that she committed a crime and offended the religious feelings of both Christians and Jews.

If convicted, Doda faces up to two years in prison.

Egyptian Christians have called for government action against the author of a widely read novel they say insults Christianity, in an unusual case that puts freedom of expression in Muslim-majority Egypt under fresh scrutiny.

Government investigators are looking into the complaint filed by a group of Egyptian and some foreign Copts against Youssef Ziedan, a Muslim who wrote the 2008 award-winning novel Azazeel (Beelzebub).

Egyptian law prohibits insults against Islam, Christianity and Judaism, and Ziedan could be sent to jail for up to five years if prosecuted and found guilty.

They accuse me of insulting Christianity ... It's a serious crime and this is a big shock to people, especially since the novel has been so successful, Ziedan said.

Azazeel, which won the 2009 International Prize for Arabic Fiction, backed by the Booker Prize Foundation, tells the story of a 5th-century Egyptian monk who witnesses debates over doctrine between early Christians.

Mamdouh Ramzi, a Coptic lawyer who is among the group that have complained about Ziedan, said the novel is offensive to Christians: He insulted priests and bishops and said many things with no proof or evidence from books or history ... He is not a Christian man, what does he know about the Church?

The case has been joined by Coptic groups in the United States, the Netherlands, Canada and Austria.

In 1983, George Rekers joined James Dobson and a handful of others in founding the Family Research Council (FRC).

The FRC has featured on several Melon Farming pages for publishing anti porn propaganda research; campaigning against Marriott hotels having in room porn channels and speaking against gay rights legilsation.

Last month, Rekers was reportedly discovered returning from an overseas trip with a rent boy:

On April 13, the rent boy (whom we'll call Lucien) arrived at Miami International Airport after a ten-day, fully subsidized trip to Europe. He was soon followed out of customs by an old man pushing an overburdened baggage cart.

That man was George Alan Rekers, of North Miami — the callboy's client and, as it happens, one of America's most prominent anti-gay activists.

Rekers, a Baptist minister who is a leading scholar for the Christian right, left the terminal with his gay escort, looking a bit discomfited when a picture of the two was snapped with a hot-pink digital camera.

Reached by New Times before a trip to Bermuda, Rekers said he learned Lucien was a prostitute only midway through their vacation. I had surgery, Rekers said: and I can't lift luggage. That's why I hired him. (Though medical problems didn't stop him from pushing the tottering baggage cart through MIA.)

An unpublicised reading of the cancelled Sikh play proved excuses for its continued censorship have been demolished

Behzti, a play about sex abuse and murder in a Sikh temple, was cancelled in 2004 after the Sikh community stormed the theatre.

Last Friday, British theatre took a small step in the direction of free speech. At the Soho Theatre, in the heart of London's west end, Gurpreet Kaur Bhatti's Behzti was performed in the UK for the first time since it was controversially cancelled in 2004.

Let us be clear: this was no great stride for freedom, more an anxious shuffle. The performance was a rehearsed reading, not a full production, and received no publicity whatsoever. It was completely absent from the theatre's website, and was only advertised to those who had been to see Behud, Bhatti's most recent play. Buying a ticket felt a little like purchasing bootleg liquor from under the counter, and the atmosphere in the auditorium was, I imagine, how dissidents must have felt in the 1640s, when religious puritans closed the theatres and drama was performed illegally. Proper free speech has to be more open than this.

...Read full article

The Aceh Provincial office of the Indonesian Broadcasting Commission said it has proposed a draft regulation to ban non-islamic contents of broadcasting in the province. journalists.

In a discussion held by the Alliance of Independent Journalists a member of the Provincial Broadcasting Commission Muhammad Yusuf said the specific law or Qanun will authorize the regional authorities to impose further censorship on all film or television and radio production despite having past the National Censorship Body.

The draft regulation will also allow regional government to ban all forms of show of programs ranging from fund-raising, educational, documentaries, films, soap operas, dramas, features and investigative news, songs, music, advertising, health service messages, quizzes, and religious programs which do not serve the interests of Islam.

The Alliance of Independent Journalists, organizer of the discussion said it rejected the regulation and will file a judiciary review to the legal basis of the regulation.

A man is about to walk the length of Ireland to protest against the blasphemy law introduced in the Republic.

Former social worker and English teacher Paul Gill says that making blasphemy a crime undermines freedom of speech: It is a draconian, oppressive tool to use against people in a so-called vibrant democracy and it is unenforcable. Laws should be to protect people, not ideals.

Gill will set out from Mizen Head on the 625km trek and will walk 25km a day, sleeping most nights in a tent on the roadside. He expects to arrive at Ireland's most northerly point of Malin Head in Co Donegal in 25 days' time.

Along the way there will be public debates and forums for discussion at various venues organised by Atheist Ireland, which is sponsoring the event.

Gill hopes that debate and discussion would encourage the electorate to repeal the law in a referendum later in the year.

A Jehovah's Witness, Kwabena Afum and his wife, Margret Afum, after creating a chaotic scene at New Edubiase Government Hospital in a bid to prevent medical officers from giving blood to their son.

Kwabena Afum was arrested and granted police bail for causing panic and chaos by allegedly mobilizing some members of his church to foment trouble at the hospital.

He has since disowned five-year-old Jepheth Asamoah, who is currently in the custody of the Social Welfare Department in the district, even after his release.

According to Dr. Manye Mensah, Medical Superintendant Officer at the hospital, Jepheth was brought to the hospital in an anaemic weak condition.

He said upon examination, he discovered the young boy had lost lots of blood which needed urgent replacement and therefore decided to stable his condition with a medication and oxygen that did not work. He informed the couple about the need for a blood transfusion to replace the lost blood, which the couple resisted, citing their religious belief.

Bent on saving the life of the little boy, the Medical Superintendant began the process of transfusion. Kwabena Afum and some members of Jehovah Witnesses besieged the theatre room in a bid to prevent them from carrying out their professional duties.

The police, upon hearing the story, rushed to the place to restore law and order and arrested the boy's father in the process.

He has since disowned the poor boy for having received blood, as lawyers from the church intervened and secured his bail.

Unrelated couples caught together in the same vehicle will not automatically face prosecution in Saudi Arabia as the conservative Muslim kingdom relaxes repressive rules prohibiting mixing of the sexes, the Saudi Gazette reported.

Under the new rules, unrelated men and women caught in the same vehicle could be pardoned if the circumstances in which they are found do not suggest immoral activities and neither has previous convictions, the local newspaper said.

However, any unrelated couples caught in the same vehicle can be held in custody for up to five days, the newspaper said.

The Saudi Gazette said the Commission for Investigation and Prosecution (CIP) has begun implementing the new rules.

A Tunisian-born woman has been fined in Italy for wearing a burqa, the first time such a penalty has been imposed in the country.

Amel Marmouri was stopped by carabinieri officers in a spot check outside a post office in Novara in northern Italy and given a 500 euro (£431) fine, payable within 90 days. She at first declined to lift her veil to be identified because the officers were male, but agreed when a municipal police patrol which included a woman officer was summoned.

The fine was imposed under a city ordinance introduced in January in Novara banning any clothing which prevents the immediate identification of the wearer inside public buildings, schools and hospitals. It marked the first time the regulation had been enforced.

Massimo Giordano, the Mayor of Novara, said the regulation was based on a 1975 national anti terrorist law making it illegal for men or women to be in public place with their faces covered.

Ben Salah Braim, the woman's husband and a building worker, said he would respect the regulation, but would have to confine his wife at home since the Koran forbade other men to see her face.

Isabella Bossi Fedrigotti, a novelist and social commentator, said any husband who forced his wife to stay at home would pay the price by having to take the children to school or the doctor, do the shopping, pay the bills and go to the bank or post office.

Rally Against Sharia
Richmond Terrace junction with Whitehall opposite Downing Street
20th June 2010, 2-4pm

Join us on June 20 to break that silence and take a stand against Sharia law and Islamism and in defence of universal rights and secularism. Be there to stand in solidarity with people living under and resisting Sharia law everywhere and demand an end to racism and cultural relativism.

June 20 is particularly poignant because it is the first anniversary of Neda Agha-Soltan's cold-blooded murder in broad daylight by the Islamic regime of Iran at a protest there. All Neda wanted was freedom.

Fundraising concert

Tickets are now available for a two-hour fundraising concert on 26 September 2010 at Conway Hall from 1800pm for 1830pm by top flight international musicians Olivier Pons, violin; Helen Linden, cello; and Folke Graesbeck, piano.

Art competition

After a successful 2009 art competition, One Law for All is organising a second edition to expose the discriminatory nature of Sharia and religious-based tribunals and/or promote equal rights for all citizens.

President of Pakistan Asif Ali Zardari on April 19 signed the 18th Constitutional Amendment Bill.

Under article 91(3) of the constitutional amendment no non-Muslim can become prime minister of the country. The article states: After the election of the Speaker and the Deputy Speaker, the National Assembly shall, to the exclusion of any other business, proceed to elect without debate one of its Muslim members to be the Prime Minister.

Furthermore, the constitution already bars non Muslims to contest election for president of the country.

A Parliamentary Constitutional Reforms Committee (PCRC) was set up in June 2009, composed of 27 cross-party parliamentarians, to review the constitution. The committee did not have a single non-Muslim member.

There is one positive development that occurred though, for the first time in the history of Pakistan 4 seats are allocated constitutionally in the Senate for minorities.

A bit of fun doing the rounds. A ditty by Tim Minchin about the motherfucking pope.

...See video

A muslim protester who daubed a war memorial with graffiti glorifying Osama Bin Laden and proclaiming Islam will dominate the world got off lightly after prosecutors ruled his actions were not motivated by religion.

Tohseef Shah sprayed the words Islam will dominate the world – Osama is on his way and Kill Gordon Brown on the plinth of the memorial in Burton-upon-Trent, Staffordshire.

Shah could have faced a tougher sentence if the court had accepted that the graffiti – which included a threat to kill the Prime Minister – were inspired by religious hatred.

But the Crown Prosecution Service chose not to charge him with that offence and he escaped with only a two-year conditional discharge and an order to pay the council £500 compensation after admitting causing criminal damage. It was decided there was not enough evidence to prove this, and they decided it was politically motivated.

The CPS said Shah's offence could not be charged as a hate crime because the law requires that damage must target a particular religious or racial group: While it was appreciated that what was sprayed on the memorial may have been perceived by some to be part of a racial or religious incident, no racial or religious group can be shown to have been targeted.

There is now a Facebook group demanding that Shah be jailed then deported to a more suitable country.

A Pakistan stage drama Burqavaganza has been condemned and banned by members of the Senate Standing Committee on Culture. The majority of whom had not even seen the drama.

Ajoka Theatre director Madeeha Gauhar argued that her play is a voice against oppression and intolerance. A humorous, light-hearted depiction of the problems that plague our society.

At first glance, the case in favour of Gauhar would seem strong. Ajoka has been around for 26 years, their productions are widely acclaimed and Burqavaganza has been previously staged in Lahore, Islamabad and Karachi.

However, none of this mattered for the senators because the ministry of culture's additional secretary S M Tahir told them that the play was a conspiracy against Islam and ridiculed religious ideologies. The magic words had been spoken, the spell, cast. PPP's Nawabzada Ghazanfar Ali, MQM's Abdul Khaliq Pirzada and PML's Gulshan Saeed did not watch the play to determine if these allegations were true.

A single letter from the head of the women's wing of the JI who took offence to Burqvanganza was enough to ban Ajoka from performing. This move has now officially been backed by government representatives and a committee is to be formed that will vet all Ajoka Theatre plays before granting permission.

Men could be fined £13,000 and jailed for a year for forcing their wives to wear a burka under proposed laws in France, leaked documents reveal.

Ministers hope to vote on a total ban on anyone hiding their face in public in July, it is claimed.

The French law would create a new offence of incitement to cover the face for reasons of gender, the newspaper Le Figaro reported.

According to the paper, the legislation would state: No-one may wear in public places clothes that are aimed at hiding the face.

While men will incur steep fines and prison sentences for forcing their wives to hide their face, women would receive a much smaller fine of around £130 because they are often victims who are not given any choice, one of the proposed law's authors said. Women would not be unveiled in the street but instead taken to a police station to be formally identified, the draft legislation states.

The law would also apply to Muslim tourists - including the thousands of wealthy Middle Eastern visitors to Paris every year.

After Belgium's parliament voted to ban Islamic full-face veils, the German vice-president of the European Parliament has called for a ban of the burka throughout Europe.

Silvana Koch-Mehrin called the full-body veil an attack on the rights of women in a guest editorial in the Bild am Sonntag newspaper. I would like to see all forms of the burka banned in Germany and in all of Europe, wrote the politician, a member of Germany's pro-business Free Democratic Party (FDP).

She called the burka a mobile prison, saying that those who veil women take away their faces and therefore their personalities. The complete veiling of women is a blatant acknowledgement of values that we here in Europe do not share, she wrote.

Police in New York are investigating whether a car bomb in Times Square was targeted at the makers of South Park, the animated television series, because of a controversial depiction of Muhammad.

The device, which failed to detonate, was left near the offices of Viacom, which broadcasts the provocative cartoon on its Comedy Central network.

Last month, a posting on the U.S.-based Revolution Muslim website warned the creators of South Park, Matt Stone and Trey Parker, that they could face violent reprisals after an episode featured Mohammed in a bear suit.

Detectives were understood to be investigating similarities between the New York bomb and two car bombs planted by Islamic terrorists outside the Tiger Tiger nightclub in London in 2007. In both cases, the devices comprised cylinders of propane gas and cans full of gasoline intended to be ignited by electronic detonators.

A Christian barber in Pakistan is recovering from broken bones and other injuries sustained earlier this month after eight Muslims allegedly beat and sodomised him for cutting a young Muslim's beard.

Marwat Masih initially refused to cut 19-year-old Qandeel Cheema's beard, knowing that Sunni Muslims in the area believe the Koran prohibits it. But Cheema, a high school student, told Masih that he had lived and studied in Lahore and therefore wanted a more modern look. I refused to shave his beard, but he showed me his packed bags and said that he would leave the town straight after the shave, and so no one would ever know that I had shaved it.

Eyewitnesses said that as Masih was cutting Cheema's beard, the client's older brother – local radical Muslim land owner, Shakeel Cheema – spotted what was happening.

Witnesses said that Shakeel Cheema shouted orders to his companions to tie Masih up and throw him into the wagon attached to his tractor, and that he ordered his younger brother to leave for Lahore at once.

Masih said that he was blindfolded with a black cloth and taken to an unknown place where he was locked in a room. An hour later, Shakeel Cheema and seven others arrived and began striking him with clubs, breaking his ribs, a wrist and leg bones.

Masih claimed that Cheema and seven others sodomised him after Cheema said: Now we are going to teach you a real lesson for shaving the beard of a Muslim man.

South Park – We'd stand beside you... if we weren't so scared."

The trouble with terror is that it can be terrifying. Just ask Molly Norris, a cartoonist from Seattle.

As far as we know, she hasn't been explicitly threatened by Islamic extremists, but evidently she feared she might be.

Her error was to post on her website an illustration with many different household objects with speech bubbles all claiming to be the likeness of Mohammed, including a tea cup, a domino and a box of pasta. It was part of a mock campaign to dedicate May 20 as Everybody Draw Mohammed Day!

Ms Norris pinged her cartoon to a few bloggers and talked to local radio, saying she it was a cartoonist's job to be non-PC.

Norris was therefore inspired to let her own genie out of the bottle. Within a few days there were 8,000 members of a Draw Mohammed Day! group on Facebook. A counter group, Ban Draw Mohammed Day, started up. Bloggers picked up the campaign.

Thoroughly overwhelmed by the response, and realising that the ideological battleground was no place for coffee-guzzling Seattleite, Ms Norris removed the cartoon and its campaign.

Revealing something of her reasons, her newest cartoon is a mock advertisement: Try the New Diet of Fear! ... All you have to do is tick off a few million Muslims and you'll be too afraid to eat!

Editorial Comment: A Narrow Perspective

Clearly people are a little afraid to poke fun at islam but this is a minor matter. Why should people take risks when there is a better way.

It wasn't so many years ago that society as a whole was very tolerant of religion. Even disbelievers chose not to rock the boat, feeling perhaps that belief is at least benign, but probably good for society even if it's all nonsense.

But things changed as the West came up against islam. Here was a religion that was totally unacceptable in many (but not all) of its social mores. And the tolerance bubble seems to have burst. Now society is no longer giving religion an easy ride.

It is not just about mockery, it is about reasoned debate along the lines of Dawkins, it is about criticising church leaders for covering up child abuse, it is about not standing for homophobic attitudes, it is about not standing for nonsense arguments against condoms.

Society is rapidly withdrawing its support for the very fundamentals of all religion. And really, belief in nonsense requires an awful lot of community support.

As Reverend Ian Gregory said: “People are fed up with religion. The bar-room talk is that it causes too much trouble in the world”

Belgium's lower house of parliament has voted for a law that would ban women from wearing the full Islamic face veil in public.

The vote was almost unanimous with 134 MPs in support of the law and two abstentions.

The law would ban any clothing that obscures the identity of the wearer in all buildings or grounds that are meant for public use or to provide services, including streets, parks and sports grounds. Exceptions could be made for certain festivals.

Those who break the law could face a fine of 15-25 euros (£13-£27) or a seven-day jail sentence.

The BBC's Dominic Hughes in Brussels says MPs backed the legislation on the grounds of security, to allow police to identify people. Other MPs said that the full face veil was a symbol of the oppression of women, our correspondent says.

The law now goes to the Senate, where it may face challenges over its wording. It is expected to pass through the Senate without being blocked though, with initial reports saying it could come into law as early as June or July.

The Muslim Executive of Belgium has criticised the move, saying it would lead to women who do wear the full veil to be trapped in their homes.

Amnesty International said a ban would set a dangerous precedent. In a statement, the human rights group said it would violate the rights to freedom of expression and religion of those women who wear the burqa or niqab as an expression of their identity and beliefs.

Shadi Ghadirian has unveiled a series of compelling images portraying Iranian women wearing the traditional chador, a full-length veil permitted under Iran's hijab laws. But the women's faces are obscured by common household objects.

Irons, dish-washing gloves, pots, pans and other items associated with domestic chores replace women's faces in the portrait series, titled Like Every Day.

Marriage showed me how a large segment of women in our society are bound by these objects, Ghadirian told the Daily Telegraph. I wanted to know how Iranian women go through life with these items, and how things are different for women from other countries. I believe these are important questions.

Ghadirian has complained of her country's strict religious laws and government censorship which go so far as to bar her from photographing women's hair: I have had many photographs which show women as second-class citizens or depict the censorship of women. I wish to continue speaking of women because I still have a lot to say.

...unless you are old or ill or live in Haiti

Rev Mark Binney, vicar of St Andrew's Church, Hampton, Worcs, said he had been told he needed planning permission if he wanted to fly a flag advertising Christianity in future.

 The flag was put up outside the church in the week preceding Easter Sunday displaying the words This is Holy Week and an image of Jesus on the cross.

Binney said the warning was appalling, and he felt it was part of a gradual erosion of Christianity in Britain.

A Wychavon council said it investigated a complaint from a member of the public and decided no consent was required. He said flags other than national flags, county flags, or flags for patron saints, required advertisement consent if they were flown from a vertical freestanding flagpole. He said the council would consider allowing the flag to be flown for a week in future if it was approached by the church.

Presumably if flags are classed as adverts, then they also have to be honest and truthful.