Now I’ve often linked from the newspaper on many occasions, but today is a special honor. In January of last year, a young Afghan journalist was sentenced to death for distributing a report criticizing the treatment of women under Islamic Law. Sayed Pervez Kambaksh was sentenced in a 4 minute trial that was closed to the public, but luckily, the Independent got wind of the story and thanks to their efforts and a lot of international pressure, Sayed has been released.

Of course, not all is well in Afghanistan, and conservative clerics are reacting with anger over what they see as Western interference in their domestic policy. They want him punished for his blasphemy, and only death will appease them.

Luckily, not everyone in the country is out for blood. Many young citizens are happy that the situation has been resolved peacefully, and if there’s any hope for the future of this nation, it lies with the new generation.

So if you aren’t yet a fan of the Independent (I’ll admit that there is a bit too much fucking gossip on this damn site), you should at least give them props for helping to save this man’s life.

Does this cartoon offend you? Personally it’s poorly done, there’s no joke there, and in general it’s insultingly terrible. Still, it’s a fucking cartoon, and should be no big deal, right? Well, not so much. Remember a few years back when a Danish Newspaper published cartoon depicting Mohammed, and the Muslim community basically had a fucking meltdown? Well, it seems as though there was another bit of news going on in the background at the time worth mentioning. The Arab European League published a cartoon during the affair with the intent of offending Jews by denying the Holocaust. Their goal was apparently to show that it’s not only Muslims that get upset over free speech issues, and sure enough it worked; the group is now being prosecuted under Holocaust denial laws.

I’ve always said Holocaust denial laws are both pointless and dangerous; while I am personally repulsed by the notion certain individuals choose to deny the atrocities committed by the Nazis, trying to use the long arm of the law to silence these people has exactly the opposite effect. It demonstrates Europe is incapable of living by the principle of free speech. The truth is when people are allowed to say what they want, occasionally they will say something horrible and offensive; it’s inevitable. How can we blame Muslims for overreacting to simple cartoons when we are prepared to jail people for making a few shitty scribblings?

I received a message to check out a story floating around the blogosphere about a huge wedding involving hundreds of child brides in Gaza (I thought it a bit weird that the mainstream media had missed that big story). Naturally I wanted to know more, but as I dug a little deeper, I realized the real story was the deep distrust of Muslims in general, and powerful Islamophobia that exists on the web.

OK, maybe I’m partly to blame here; after all, I’m not exactly the biggest fan of the religion. I consider Mohammed a morally reprehensible character, but then again I think the same thing of Moses, David, Noah and all the men of old world religions. These guys are normally genocidal maniacs interested only in their own flock, content to murder the world to make their ideologies the only truth. But Mohammed’s 9 year old wife Aisha is not something you can ignore very easily, and child brides are not isolated incidents.

Still, the “webs” had a gigantic freak out, with rumors of hundreds of little girls being wed simultaneously floating around, all from a bunch of pictures that seem, at least in hindsight, to be fairly innocent (although the moms need to go a little easy on the damn makeup). Everyone is so ready to jump on the hate bandwagon that any amount of impropriety invariably leads people to assume the very worst. There was a wedding and little girls were there? They must have been all sex slaves I tell you!

Can we all calm down and take the time to check our facts people? And this is “The Good Atheist” talking here; I don’t exactly have the most stellar reputation when it comes to fact checking (hey, you try recording funny podcasts without going out on a few limbs), but even I can smell a rat that big. Let’s not look like total bigots, shall we?

If you’re a feminist and care deeply for the plight of women, you need to take a look at Saudi Arabia and the painstakingly slow and awkward way they are modernizing. In the news today, a group of 26 women were given special training to allow them to sell lingerie.

The government isn’t too happy about allowing these women to work, but because only men are currently selling underwear, this impropriety takes precedence over the fact women aren’t allowed to do much else beyond stay home barefoot and ‘preggers’.

Personally I find Saudi Arabia to be the most backwards place in the world. Here is one of the wealthiest countries on earth, but because all of its money comes from oil, they have never been required to modernize like other industrialized nations. It’s almost as though an empire from the 12th century is still in existence, and has the financial power of a 21st century country.

You’ll recall this is the same dusty shithole where women aren’t allowed to leave their homes unless they are dressed in suffocating burqas, and are accompanied by a man (that they have to walk behind, of course). When will this world stop treating women like second class citizens?

Remember the old saying that for people to do evil things, you need religion [note: ok, the quote is actually from Steven Weinberg and is “Religion is an insult to human dignity. With or without it, you’d have good people doing good things and evil people doing bad things, but for good people to do bad things, it takes religion.”, but I wanted to save the space! Sue me!]? Well, here’s another great example of why this is true. You’ll find our usual moral compass can often be hijacked when following the code of ethics of now extinct civilizations.

Case in point: It is against Iranian law to execute a girl if she is a virgin. That’s why any young woman facing execution in Iran are typically ‘married’ to the prison guards who are then instructed to rape them. This is how the Ayatollahs want things to be run, and because they have religious infallibility on their side, they get their way.

I won’t even get into the details of why these women are killed in the first place; it could be from accidentally killing her male attacker (this is a fairly popular one, as it seems these are not the types of women you want to be messing with), or being a political dissident. The disturbing thing here is the guard being interviewed in this article doesn’t even sound like he wanted to do this at all. In fact, if anything, he seems most disturbed by his actions. How could he not be?

I could tell that the girls were more afraid of their ‘wedding’ night than of the execution that awaited them in the morning. And they would always fight back, so we would have to put sleeping pills in their food. By morning the girls would have an empty expression; it seemed like they were ready or wanted to die.

“I remember hearing them cry and scream after [the rape] was over,” he said. “I will never forget how this one girl clawed at her own face and neck with her finger nails afterwards. She had deep scratches all over her.”

Instinctually, there are bound to be certain religious doctrines we find morally repulsive, but the unfortunate thing here is our cultural and religious traditions discourage us from abandoning these terrible and dehumanizing practices.

France sure thinks so; President Sarkozy is backing moves to make it illegal in his country, and according to this article, Britain should follow suit. Saira Khan is a devoted Muslim woman who says the burqa not a religious tradition, but rather an ultra fundamentalist practice originating in Saudi Arabia that has no place in modern society. She believes these outfits are a type of female oppression, robbing women of their ability to interact with society and alienating them. Even worse, the practice has caused some women to develop rickets (a softening of the bones due to a lack of vitamin D) due to a lack of exposure to sunlight.

Many of my adult British/Muslim friends cover their heads with a headscarf – and I have no problem with that.

The burqa is an entirely different matter. It is an imported Saudi Arabian tradition, and the growing number of women veiling their faces in Britain is a sign of creeping radicalization, which is not just regressive, it is oppressive and downright dangerous.

The burqa is an extreme practice. It is never right for a woman to hide behind a veil and shut herself off from people in the community. But it is particularly wrong in Britain, where it is alien to the mainstream culture for someone to walk around wearing a mask.

I’m normally uncomfortable with the idea of banning anything; it doesn’t really set a precedent I’m too happy about (after all, what’s to prevent people from banning other religious symbols and practices, or even non-religious ones), but in the case of burqas, I can understand why it’s necessary. After all, although I’m sure many Muslims claim the decision to wear them is entirely up to women, we all know the ‘choice’ to do so was never theirs to begin with. The burqa has come to symbolize the fundamental incompatibility of conservative Islam with modern society, and is a repressive tool to control and segregate women.

I think it’s important to mention not all forms of traditional Muslim clothing are being targeted here: just burqas. The custom has no place in a country where women are treated as equal members of society. Banning anything isn’t something we should take lightly, but we cannot allow an obviously sexist and demeaning tradition from taking place on our soil. Being tolerant of religion does not mean we must accept every single tradition and ritual of any religion. We don’t allow many voodoo ceremonies for both health and animal cruelty reasons. Forcing women to completely veil themselves and act in a submissive manner towards men does not reflect the values that define our modern society. There are plenty of places where this sort of thing is allowed; to those who object to the burqa being banned, might I suggest relocating there.

The Kunduz province in northern Afghanistan is in turmoil. Although there is a German military base there, 600 soldiers have to patrol and defend an area the size of Massachusetts. The Taliban has been gaining ground rapidly, threatening to kill school girls if they try to attend class. School administrators are powerless to do anything about it, and scared parents are capitulating to the treats.

If you recall, the Taliban takes a very literal approach to the Qur’an, which discourages the education of women. The region right now is a mess, and if this trend continues, it is only a matter of time before these guys take over again.

Afghanistan is a complete mess of a country. The place has never (and I mean never) had a stable government for more than 60 years since the 11th century. Because each province is almost a miniature country in itself, small yet organized religious/paramilitary forces can impose their will on the population with little resistance.

All of this violence and conflict is entirely based on religion. Softies like Karen Armstrong might try to tell you that at their core, all religions preach peace, compassion and tolerance, but the true purpose of religion is control; Islam means submission, not compassion. In this case, the ability to control the population of Kunduz with fear, intimidation, and murder. Wow, what a religion of peace, eh?