Many of us have opposed voucher systems as thinly veiled efforts to publicly fund religious schools in addition to a system that undermines our public school system. Republican lawmakers in Tennessee seem intent on confirming the religious motivations behind the system this week in opposing vouchers because it has occurred to them that Muslim schools might be able to receive funding with Christian schools. They are threatening to block Republican Gov. Bill Haslam’s school voucher bill unless they can find a way to deny it to Muslim schools — a suggestion that brings sectarian prejudices to the forefront of the debate.
Category: Religion
A Saudi court is prepared to carry out a sentence to have Ali Al-Khawahir surgically paralyzed in conformity with Sharia law’s “eye for an eye” traditions. Al-Khawahir was only 14 when he stabbed a friend and left him paralyzed. Now, his family has failed to pay the victim “blood money” to be released from jail. After ten years of negotiations over the blood money, Al-Khawahir faces total paralysis under the Kingdom’s medieval legal system.
Continue reading “Saudi Man Faces Paralysis Under Sharia “Eye For An Eye” Sentence”
Satirist Bassem Youssef has sometimes been called Egypt’s Jon Stewart — a refreshing uninhibited commentators in the increasingly restricted Egyptian public discourse. That ended last week as Egypt’s Islamic government added him to the spate of blasphemy arrests in defense of Islam.
Continue reading “Egypt Arrests Popular Satirist For Blasphemy”
Saudi Arabia has long shocked the world with its medieval Sharia justice system, but nothing prepared most of us for the recent execution in Jazan, Saudi Arabia. Faced with Mohammed Rashad Khairi Hussein, a Yemeni man accused of murder and sodomy, the Sharia court ordered him first beheaded and then crucified. This is not the first such sentence under Sharia law. A man in 2009 was ordered beheaded and then crucified for being a gang leader.
Continue reading “Over-Kill: Saudi Court Orders Man Beheaded And Then Crucified”
By Mike Appleton, Guest Blogger
Lawyers who do commercial litigation are familiar with the concept known as “piercing the corporate veil.” A principal purpose for doing business in corporate form is to avoid personal liability for business debts. But the veil of protection afforded by the corporate entity can be lost under certain circumstances, exposing a controlling shareholder to personal liability. Although the application of the concept varies a bit from state to state, the general rule is that “courts will look through the screen of a corporate entity to the individuals who compose it in cases in which the corporation was a mere device or sham to accomplish some ulterior purpose, or is a mere instrumentality or agent of another corporation or individual owning all or most of its stock, or where the purpose is to evade some statute or to accomplish some fraud or illegal purpose.” Biscayne Realty & Insurance Co. v. Ostend Realty Co., 109 Fla. 1, 148 So. 460, 564 (1933).
In short, no majority shareholder would concede that his company is his alter ego. Right? Well, maybe not. Recently some shareholders have been arguing, and successfully, that their companies are indeed mere instrumentalities.
Continue reading “The Corporate Veil Meets the First Communion Veil”
-Submitted by David Drumm (Nal), Guest Blogger
Al-Hayat al-Jadida, the official daily newspaper of the Palestinian Authority, published an Op-ed by Hassan Ouda Abu Zaher. The Op-ed states: “to the lie about Al-Qaeda and the Sept. 11 events, which asserted that Muslim terrorists committed it, and that it was not an internal American action by the Freemasons.” While there are many conspiracy theories about the Sept. 11 attacks, there are usually relegated to fringe websites. Unsurprisingly, no evidence is presented to support such a fanciful claim.
Continue reading “Palestinian Authority Newspaper: Freemasons Behind Sept. 11 Attacks”
It appears that, while Saudi Arabia will kill citizens for blasphemy, they do not appear to have much respect for Islamic history or preservation. Photos snuck out of Mecca show wholesale destruction of ancient sections of holy sites as part of an expansion project. What is astonishing is the lack of any effort of preservation due to . . . you guessed it, Wahabi clerics who declared that the sections are better destroyed in the name of Islamic principles. It is ironic that, as a non-Muslim, I am outraged by the loss of such historical areas. Photos of the destruction were published here by The Independent.
In Hollywood, Sahar Thabit, 35, appears vying to replace Joan Crawford as the reigning “Mother Dearest” in Hollywood. Thabit is a devout Muslim who is charged with burning her seventeen-year-old daughter for corresponding with a boy when she was already promised to a cousin for marriage. The honor burning was discovered by the girl’s school.
We have yet another tell-all book from an ex-Scientology member recounting many of the same abuses of forced labor, cruel conditions, and slavish service for scientology celebrities. This book however is written by the niece of church leader David Miscavige. Miscavige has previously been accused of physically beating followers and requiring virtual slavish service to the Church’s celebrities from Tom Cruise to John Travolta to Fox News’ Greta Van Susteran. Continue reading “Niece of Scientology Head Publishes Book Detailing Alleged Abuses By Church”
Just when you thought that blasphemy laws could not get any worse, the Muslim Brotherhood has come up with a new idea: citizen arrests of tourists for blasphemy. The Middle East is replete with cases of mobs killing people accused of the slightest offense toward Islam. Now, according to Internet reporting, the Egyptian prosecutor general for the Muslim Brotherhood has pushed through a new law permitting ordinary Egyptians to arrest those who offend Islamic law.
Continue reading “Egypt’s Government Moves Toward Blasphemy Citizen Arrests”
-Submitted by David Drumm (Nal), Guest Blogger
Damon Linker doesn’t see the need of another book about atheism. This time it’s British philosopher A.C. Grayling’s The God Argument – The Case against Religion and for Humanism, to be published on March 26. Linker quotes honest atheist and philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche when Nietzsche proclaimed that the death of God would be an “awe-inspiring catastrophe” for mankind. Although numerous gods from humanity’s past have lost their imagined effect on the human condition without catastrophic results, Nietzsche seems to think the passing of this god will be different.
A local sharia court has added a stoning death to this year’s record after a Pakistani soldier was found to have had an affair with a local woman in Northwesterd Kurram. To make matters worse, Anwar Din, 27, is a Sunni and Intizar Bibi, 19, is a Shiite girl.
The bizarre world of Iranian extremism was evident again this week as clerics in Iran raised a hue and cry over a picture where President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is shown consoling Hugo Chavez’s mother with a hug. Clerics called the picture a sin and abomination against Islam. They also attacked another cleric, Iranian Vice President Mohammad Reza Mirtajeddini, who felt no moral difficulty in lying about the hug and saying that the photo was doctored.
Continue reading “Iranian Clerics Attack Ahmadinejad For Hugging Chavez’s Mother”
The hope for reforms in Saudi Arabia remain a roller coaster ride for civil libertarians. On Saturday, a Saudi Arabian court sentenced two prominent political and human rights activists to at least 10 years in prison for protesting the policies of the Kingdom and speaking with the media. Mohammed Fahd al-Qahtani (shown right) and Abdullah Hamad are founding members of the banned Saudi Civil and Political Rights Association, known as Acpra, which documents human rights abuses. The group also has called for a constitutional monarchy and elections. The exercise of basic rights of free speech and association that led to the banning of the group and now the sentencing of its leaders.
Continue reading “Saudi Arabia Sentences Two Leading Civil Libertarians To Long Prison Stints”
Lech Wałęsa won the Noble Prize for fighting for Polish independence against the Soviet bloc, a move that ultimately helped bring down the wall dividing East from West. However, he seems to have rediscovered the comfort of a wall in his latest comments calling for homosexual members of parliament to be placed behind a wall to remind them that they are a minority and should adapt themselves to smaller things.”
Continue reading “Wałęsa’s Wall: Lech Wałęsa Calls For Gay Lawmakers To Sit Behind Wall”