Russia: worst place to live?

Having just done a three week car trip in Russia, from Vladivostok in the Russian Far East to Moscow, I found this article interesting.

Russia is an appalling #30 in the overall results, with only Brazil, Chile, Mexico, and Turkey below it. If, as I would, you choose one factor from each of the four groups as your litmus test (income, health, civic engagement and life satisfaction, the four I'd say are most salient), Russia stunningly emerges as the very worst nation on the planet to live in, something that's consistent with the experience of many foreigners who live in Russia. Doing this, Sweden is the best place on earth, followed by Australia and the USA.  

Read more

The interactive chart on the OECD site is fun.  Australia comes out very well, as do the US and Canada; UK is the best of Europe, but Europe itself not a top performer...

"Elon Musk is the coolest rich guy on earth"

I've been following Elon Musk for some time now.  It's quite a story!  Immigrant to US from South Africa, computer nerd, entrepreneur, with his brother since pre-teenhood, father of many kids...  all-round polymath, and I agree with the headline in McLeans: "Elon Musk is the coolest rich guy on earth".
And look at the Tesla stock zoom!!  200% in 12 months!...

Nato Withdrawal from Afghanistan: it's a Loss not a Victory

One way to have peace is to give up fighting.  And that's what the Nato countries have done in Afghanistan.  This is in no sense a victory.  It is simply giving up fighting, as others -- Britain and Russia to name two -- have done over the centurirs, finding the Afghan adventure just too difficult, too complex, too tortured and victory unattainable.
There was a fellow interviewed on BBC World Service radio here in Hong Kong yesterday, who pointed out the following:

• ONE: That when the Russians left Afghanistan  in 1985 -- losing in other words -- they left behind an Afghanistan military that was well trained, an Army with artillery, an Air Force with planes and helicopters.  They were defeated by the Mujahideen within three years.
• TWO; That when Nato leaves Afghanistan -- losing in other words -- they will leave behind an Afghan military that is not well-trained, and Army with no artillery, and Air Force with no places and helicopters.  

When asked how long he gave the official Afghan military, he squirmed, but indicated "not long".
How could it be long, when waiting in the wings are the battle hardened Taliban.
A Taliban who is now part of some so-called "peace process", which Karzai said is welcome to take part in any Afghan elections.  A Taliban that is a cypher for Al-Qaeda, our putative enemies -- indeed, the only enemies on the Islamist side who Obama will identify as such.
And yet, and yet, is it any surprise? we hear only positive sounds from those who manufactured and ran the war.
Like the head of Nato, Anders Rasmussen, who waxes all gooey yesterday, talking of the "pride of all Afghans" and of "victory". What tosh! He says that by 2014 "the combat mission will be completed".  Oh really?  What combat mission would that be?  To have killed as many civilians as combatants and to have handed over devastated and newly re-narco-tized country to the Taliban?
I'm sure there is indeed pride amongst Afghans, having again seen off the best of the west.  But it can't turn out well. Not when those brutes in the Taliban take over, as they surely will.

Sam Harris: Islam and the Misuses of Ecstasy

There are heaps of things I Don't Get.
Like: how do rubber-band manufacturers make any money?  We have a little box of rubber bands that we've had since before the Flood.  It's not got fewer bands, but more than when we bought it, as they're added to by the various bits that come through the door in rubber bands.  I don't get that.
And trolling.  Why is it that if you're on a website and happen to point out something that's not in the general drift of the philosophy of that blog, why is one immediately a "troll"? I don't get that.
I don't get why people convert to Islam. I certainly understand why people are Muslims when they're born into it; but not how one could read the Trinity of Islam and decide "yep, that's the religion for me!".
Connected: also I don't get, as Sam Harris doesn't get, this one:  I have long struggled to understand how smart, well-educated liberals can fail to perceive the unique dangers of Islam....
Here are his interesting thoughts on the issue.

Be still, my beating heart!

Goodness me!  Here we are in Hong Kong, the centre of world attention.  For in our midst, lurking now unseen, is the World's Greatest Grass.  Edward Snowden, the guy who blew the lid off US electronic spying: either a traitor or a hero, takes your pick.
And... and the same time, he's been interviewed by Glenn Greenwald, who I feel I just about know, from reading him at length in the recent stoush he had with the redoubtable Sam Harris.  He's in town too!  Be still, my beating heart!
My own view of Snowden: rather more on the critical than the heroic.  There's no doubt he broke his contract and that in so doing, he has endangered his countryfolk.
This sort of thing has been going on since forever -- I was myself in intelligence assessment in the early 1980s, when we got regular "product" from the US's NSA.  It was called "Sigint", for signals intelligence, and I think even the name was classified then, as I think was also even the existence of NSA = "No Such Agency"...  We, then as now, and as the Europeans then as now, valued the product.  Not for its capacity to intrude into private lives, but for indications of possible dangers.  And that's even truer now.
When you think about this guy Snowden, what he's said in sum, is this: he doesn't believe the US has done anything illegal (it hasn't), but he doesn't like it because it might.  So he's stepping up to leak it all. But any possible intelligence that comes from meta-intelligence-mining that needs to dig into actual content of emails, still needs, as it always did, a court order.
In the US 56% of people support the NSA.
Interestingly serial "whistle blower", the New York Times" seems to think so too, at least from the evidence of columnists David Brooks and Tom Friedman.  (Though maybe it was just professional jealousy that they weren't the ones with the scoop..).
As to what will happen to Snowden: my guess is the US will seek extradition, that HK will go through the legal process, which will take a year or more.  And that, in the end, he'll be sent back.  2016 is my guess.  So he'd better find himself some comfy and cheaper digs than the Mira Hotel he was in before.  Settle in for the long haul, Mr Grass.

Wo Wo Woroni!

From Imgur

Woroni... now there's a name I've not heard in a long time.  It's the student paper of my alma mater, the Australian National University. I even wrote a couple of articles for it around 1969-ish, though blow me if I can remember what they were about.
The editors got into hot water a few weeks back with the publication of an "infographic" satirising Islam.  This was the last in a series that had previously satirised Catholicism, Scientology, Mormonism and Judaism. [That's it above]
It will surprise no readers that there were no problems with the others, just with the final one on Islam.  Some Muslim students complained and the Uni management got involved.  Vice Chancellor Ian Young said it "overstepped the mark" called for an apology and threatened to de-fund the paper if they didn't.  Woroni gave in, took down the cartoon and issued a kind of pro-forma apology.
One of Young's reasons for monstering Woroni like this, he said, was the violence after the Danish Cartoons and the Muslim riots in Sydney last year in the wake of the "Innocence of Muslims" video.
Three things here about Young's foolish censorship:

• First, that it's a kind of condescension to assume that Muslims have such a poor grasp on their emotions that an infographic would cause them on masse to start rioting. [Farz Edraki makes a similar point in an otherwise dopey article in Crikey]  
• Second: how does it work to say that you won't do something because you fear violence?  Doesn't that just scream: violence works?  
• Three: isn't it rather obvious -- wasn't it obvious even at the time --that this whole episode has only created more animus than lessened it?  The Woroni piece's comments which are pretty well all against the decision and are knowledgeably critical of Islam -- that is, doctrinally-based and experientially based critique, not "Islamophobia" as Edraki, above, would have us believe.

Woroni covers the history and outcome of the issue rather well here.
One of the instigators of the inforgraphic has left Woroni as a result and posted a rather good-ish piece about the brouhaha on his blog -- though I rather wish he hand't had a swipe at supporter, the columnist Bolton.
A BTW:
One of the commenters on the Woroni site, a Muslima, claims the offending infographic is "wrong, wrong, wrong".  Actually, she's wrong.   Looking at the infographic above, and based on Islamic jurisprudence, as in the Umdat Al-Salik (linked at left):  Before the law, the evidence of a woman is indeed worth half that of a man's.  A woman is indeed expected to do all the work at home. A menstruating woman is indeed not allowed in a mosque. A male may indeed have multiple wives (though only four, if you're not the Prophet himself, so a little error here).  There are indeed "doe-eyed houris" (virgins) awaiting in paradise (though 72 is said to be metaphorical, indicating "many").
So, on a mater of fact, the Vice Chancellor has little -- indeed nothing -- to go on, to say that the cartoon is "overstepping the mark".
A final note: I was rather encouraged by the tenor of the comments in the Woroni article, From back page to Front Page..."

Powering the world with clean power: Pipeline or pipe dream?

Sitting on this for some time now: Part I and Part II of articles in the Energy Policy journal, which put the case for the world to be powered by Wind, Water and Solar by 2030.  (An earlier version appeared in the Scientific American)
Delucchi and Jacobson argue that, while ambitious, the targets are technically feasible, and what's more we've done similarly large-scale transitions in the past: the WWII change from automotive to aircraft manufacture; the building of the US national highway system in the 1950s.
It would certainly be nice to believe that this is doable.  It would clear the air and once and for all put paid to all the arguments over CO₂ in the air.
Technically they make the case: using today's technology, we could be carbon-free by 2030. So it's an issue of political will.  And there's the rub.  If something is put forward that makes clear just how huge the job is, indeed overwhelming almost, then -- unlike WWII when the enemy was clear -- it's unlikely to happen when the enemy, CO₂, is still debated.  Around half of all people believe that it has nothing to do with global warming.
Here's a few examples of the scale of the task, just looking at Wind:
Delucchi and Jacobson call for 3.8 million 5MW Wind turbines.  First thing is that most wind turbines today are around 2-3 MW. Still, let's accept the 5MW.  That means 19 Million MW of installed wind power.  Today we have around 280,000 MW of installed wind power capacity.  That's asking us to build 68 times the number we have installed today. Or five times the current installed capacity each year for the next 13 years.
And then there's the land needed for that: anywhere from 50 to 150 square kilometres of land for each 1,000 MW.  That means the land needed for the 19 Million MW is 19,000 x 50 (or 150) = 950,000 to 2.85 million square kilometres.  That's an area between the size of Nigeria and the size of India -- or up to bigger than Europe and the UK combined -- which mankind is being asked to set aside for wind turbines. Given the grief caused by windmills today even on the global-warming-accepting Left -- not always simply NIMBY -- how can we expect that the globe will find the will to set aside such a vast area of land? (I'm aware of the pro-argument that the land between turbines can be used for farming, but that's far from a proven or clear-cut case).
In short, I don't see how we can get away from adding nuclear to the mix.  Nuclear power stations are about the same cost as the equivalent wind power capacity (when you factor in the availability of wind, which is at most 30% of the time vs 92% for nuclear), and uses much less land (between 0.6% and 8% of the land).
A little comparison:

Comparisons of Nuclear, Wind and Solar
Per 1GW
	Nuclear	Wind	Solar^
Cost $USM	6,400	6,700	21,000
Cost/MW $	$6.40	$6.70	$21.00
Area Sq Km	2.5*	100.0**	148.0
Selected Sources: A path to sustainable energy by 2030
Nuclear power by the numbers
How much do wind turbines cost?
Wind power by country
Area occupied by Nuclear, Wind and Solar plants
^ Comparison of Nuclear Power Plants with Solar Tower Power

*   Average of 1 to 4 sq km

** Average of 50 to 150 sq km

Bob Fowler with Zeinab Badawi on BBC's Hard Talk

Email letter to BBC:

I wonder if Zeinab Badawi*, or her producers, are aware of just how desperate she sounded in her Hard Talk with the diplomat Bob Fowler, to excuse Islam from any wrong doing, and to have Fowler accept the argumentum ad populum that Islam is a "Religion of Peace" which has been twisted or warped by the extremely small band of extremists, just like those who kidnapped Mr Fowler? 

I know it's a show called "Hard Talk" for a reason -- she has to challenge the interviewee.

But this went beyond that.  One could sense the desperation in her voice to try to make Fowler submit to the progressives' worldview of Islam: that there is nothing in Islam to be worried about -- it's just those tiny number of horrid extremists.

To his great credit Mr Fowler did not buy into that nonsense, and that made it a great, memorable and educational interview.  Well done Mr Fowler!

Peter F, etc..

*BTW: I'm a big fan of Zeinab Badawi.  But I just knew her views on Islam would be as those revealed in this interview. But what can she do?  She's brought up-- one presumes -- to believe those bromides, and now works in the Beebs !

Multiculturalism, Child Protection and Sharia, LSE

Anne-Marie Waters and Baroness Cox will show that a multicultural approach, adopted by local authorities and other public authorities, to child protection is placing children in danger and creating parallel societies. Furthermore, the talk is going to topicalise sharia tribunals and their increasing authority in the issue of child custody, questioning the impact this has, and is likely to have, on the equal protection of children regardless of race or ethnicity.

Rest of report on the conference here.

"Western Cultural Suicide"

.... Why did the family of the Boston bombers, Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, even wish to come to Boston? If they really were in danger back home in the Islamic regions within Russia, why would members of the family return to the source of their supposed dangers? And if the city of Boston, the state of Massachusetts, and the federal government of the United States extended the Tsarnaevs years’ worth of public assistance, why would such largesse incur such hatred of the United States in the hearts of Tamerlan and Dzhokhar? Obviously, the Tsarnaevs had some sense that the United States was a freer, more humane, and more prosperous place than the Russia they left, but they also felt no love for it, felt no pressure from their hosts to cultivate such love — and believed that they could continue to live as Russian Muslims inside the United States. Did not the Tsarnaevs flee the Muslim hinterlands of Russia because they did not like the thought of things like pressure cookers full of ball bearings exploding and killing and maiming the innocent on the street?

From the pen of Victor Davis Hanson, an interesting article. 

"Aren’t Religion and Politics Both to Blame for War on Terror?"

I'd thought the entertaining stoush between Sam Harris and Glenn Greenwald had just about played itself out, but apparently not.
Here's a piece from Rounders and Rogues blog, that summarises the cases on each side.   I've only just browsed at this stage;, it's a longish piece, which appears to take a bit of an each-way bet.  But, who can say, maybe that's the right call.
I'll get to it later; posting it now for the record....
A BIT LATER: from debate participant, in Sam's corner, Robbie Bensinger (thanks for the link): "A dialogue between Hussai and Bensinger" (part II link at the end).

Kepler is dead. Long Live Kepler!

The Search for Habitable Planets: Kepler Mission

I was rather hoping that the Kepler mission would find an earth-like planet, with life, in my own lifetime.  Sadly, though, the mission is now lost.
But scientists are upbeat.  At a recent meeting at the Harvard Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge, Massachusetts, the mood was "jovial", "festive", and "energized".
Read why here.

‘The problem within Islam’: Tony Blair

This really got up the nose of the BBC.  That fact that a politician should draw attention to a problem within Islam.  Heaven forfend!

So, of course, the Beebs had to go into full attack mode.  Which I'm sure loved to do, for they always loved to hate the man.
They got a couple of women to comment on World Service Radio.  I didn't catch their names, but they pretty much forgave Islam for all crimes -- including the Woolwich beheading -- and put the blame fully on Blair, Britain, the US and the rest of us in West too.  It's just our foreign policy, don't you know.  Nothing at all to do with Islam.  Right....
My letter to the BBC just now:

Your interlocutors found Tony Blair "slopy-shouldered" for having the temerity to blame Islam for eruptions of Islamic violence including the Woolwich beheading. 

Instead they found his foreign policy the culprit.

But.... but... does that mean if we, the west, leave all Muslim countries, that peace with Islam would reign?

Assuredly not.

The 9/11 massacre was before any of the wars invading Muslim countries, as were the even earlier WTC and USS Cole bombings.

Sure these Islamic murderers quote western "occupations" for their deeds.  But they alway make sure to quote the Koran as justification as well.

It would be folly to assume that changing foreign policy is going to bring peace to the land. 

Bin Laden made that clear in his "for Muslim eyes only" statements, in which he said that the war agains the west could continue until we all submitted to Islam, or paid the Jizya tax, or were to be killed.  (He also made sure to include "grievances" such as the Palestinian issue, in his "for-western-eyes" statements).

Your interlocutors, with their clear contempt of Blair blinding them, exonerate Islam of any blame...

Yet if one reads even a fraction of basic Islamic doctrine -- the Trinity of Koran, Hadith and Sirah -- one finds plenty there to drive some Muslims to continuing violence against we infidels [whether or not we are "occupying" their lands].  That this may be uncomfortable to the BBC is no cause to downplay, let alone ignore it.

Shame on the BBC -- again -- on this issue....  Peter F.... etc..

**************** 

[EARLIER (1 June): Daily Mail article.  What's odd is that the comments read like those of Guardianistas, and not those of the customary readers of the DM, who don't usually take such morally equivalent lines: Christianity just as violent as Islam, and so on.  Even more startling: the support for those comments from other readers. What's going on?]
[LATER (2 June):  Robert Spencer takes Tony Blair's argument apart, here.] 

Beheading DOES have a basis in Islam

About the beheading of a British soldier, off duty in London, by a couple of Islamist loonies, David Cameron called it a "betrayal of Islam" and the Muslim Council of Britain called it a "barbaric act that has no basis in Islam...".
Really?
How about:

• Slay the unbelievers wherever you find them(2:191)
• Make war on the infidels living in your neighboorhood (9:123)
• When opportunity arises, kill the infidels wherever you catch them (9:5)
• Kill the Jews and the Christians if they do not convert to Islam or refuse to pay Jizya tax (9:29)
• Any religion other than Islam is not acceptable (3:85)
• The Jews and the Christians are perverts; fight them (9:30)
• Maim and crucify the infidels if they criticise Islam. (5:33)
• The infidels are unclean; do not let them into a mosque (9:28)
• Punish the unbelievers with garments of fire, hooked iron rods, boiling water; melt their skin and bellies
  (22:19)
  
• Do not hanker for peace with the infidels; behead them when you catch them (47:4)
• The unbelievers are stupid; urge the Muslims to fight them (8:65)
• Muslims must not take the infidels as friends (3:28)
• Terrorise and behead those who believe in scriptures other than the Qur’an (8:12)
• Muslims must muster all weapons to terrorise the infidels (8:60)   Courtesy

LATER: More on the issue.  It's not the case that this violence has nothing to do with Islam:
Ayaan Hirsi Ali. (an ex-Muslim and ex-member of the Dutch parliament)
Ciaran Healy (of Open Source Insight)
Raymond Ibrahim  (an ex-researcher of Middle East Affairs in the Library of Congress)
Pat Condell (an ex-leftie, stand-up comedian). Of which Tarek Fatah says: "This message should be heard by all Muslims"
Maajid Nawaz (an ex-Muslim radical)
Daniel Pipes (and, writing earlier)
Melanie Philipps
Sam Green
Mark Steyn, and again.

Dotted through these pieces are manifold examples of Islamic preachers and representatives praising the Woolwich beheading as a glory to Islam, or similar (Omar Bakri just one example).
Given the weight of evidence of Islam as the single driving factor in the Woolwich beheading -- and of all Islamic violence in recent years -- it is profoundly dishonest to search, sometimes desperately, for other motives, and to claim -- palpably falsely -- that it has "nothing to do with Islam", or is "twisting Islam".
Meantime, it turns out that the butcher himself, Michael Adebolajo, is a member of the UAF, a far-left outfit that is supported by David Cameron, would you believe, and has as its vice-chair Muslim extremist Azad Ali. (I'm sorry, I'm supposed to say Adebolajo is the "alleged" suspect.  But why?  He was standing over the body with bloody knife in hand, proudly boasting of his butchery).
This interesting snipped was brought to attention by the wonderful Sam Harris.

Afghan Students Protest Women’s Rights Decree

This in interesting for the light it sheds on what authoritative Muslims say about Sharia -- quite the opposite of the benign -- positive even -- slant of many Sharia apologists in the west:

Hard-line Islamist students protested in the Afghan capital on Wednesday, demanding the repeal of a presidential decree for women’s rights that they say is un-Islamic.....

More than 200 male students protested in front of Kabul University on Wednesday against the decree on Elimination of Violence Against Women, which includes a ban on child marriage and forced marriage, makes domestic violence a crime and says rape victims cannot be prosecuted for adultery. It also outlaws “ba’ad,” a traditional practice of exchanging women or girls to settle disputes or debts. A protester, Fazel Hadi, 25, said the decree was “imposed by foreigners” and violated Shariah law.

You see: it's not Islamic sharia to disallow child marriage.  It's not Islamic sharia to stop forced marriage.  It's not Islamic sharia to stop beating women.  It's not Islamic sharia to stop women rape victims from being charged with adultery.  Surely, enough said -- one would have thought -- about the horrid nature of sharia.  But no; I've no doubt the apologists will carry on, and simply note that these folks are -- as The New York Times, the paper of record, has noted at the outset -- simply "hard liners" and therefore not be be seen as representative of the Religion of Peace.
But that's wrong.  Study of the classic manual of Islamic Jurisprudence, the Umdat ul-Salik (referenced at left) shows that in each of the cases mentioned, these so called "hard line Islamists" are spot on.  Islamic doctrine is on their side.  
Which is why they will win this argument.  
And women will again be the losers.

"The Mass Exodus of Christians from the Islamic World"

From the always reliable and never hyperbolic Raymond Ibrahim.... this report of the plight of Christians in the Islamic world.
And nare a word said about this in the western mainstream media....

A summary of Sam Harris' views on "Islamophobia" et cet.

After the entertaining stoush between Sam Harris and Glenn Greenwald, Sam wrote up a summary of his views and defence against the attacks.
It's here.  A great read.

"The First Muslim"... cool dude

In today’s febrile cultural and religious climate, what project could be more fraught than writing a biography of Muhammad? The worldwide protests at “The Innocence of Muslims,” 14 minutes of trashy provocation posted on YouTube, are a terrible reminder to the would-be biographer that the life story of the prophet of Islam is not material about which one is free to have a “take.” Lesley Hazleton’s “First Muslim” is a book written by a white woman of dual American and British citizenship, published in America more than a decade after the 9/11 attacks. For many believers it is already — even before it is read, if it is read at all — an object of suspicion, something to be defended against, in case it should turn out to be yet another insult, another cruel parody of a story such an author has no business telling.

She, Hazleton the author, certainly need not have worried, no matter how much her reviewer, Hari Kunzru, did on her behalf; for Hazleton's portrait of Muhammad, "the first Muslim" is pure hagiography.
The article led me to her recent-ish talk at the famous, liberal, TED conference, at which her main aim was to show that there is no such thing as the "72 virgins" if a Muslim is "martyred" (that is, killed in any way, including by strapping on a bomb vest to kill we infidels).
She's wrong about that  -- about the virgins awaiting in paradise -- as is easily shown by cursory research.  In canonical Islam, there are indeed virgins awaiting the martyr.  Maybe 72 (the most common number). Or maybe just "a lot" (which is what 72 is meant to represent).
My main question is: WHY?  Why would she do this?  Why would she set out to whitewash Islamic doctrine? What's in it for her?  Does she really believe her own talk?  If yes, how on earth?  For her basic thesis -- that the Koran is devoid of heavenly virgins and rather a peaceable tract -- is simply and provably false, even by the canonical Islamic doctrine, the Trinity of Islam.
And what of the TED crowd.  The most depressing for me was  how they gave her a standing ovation. What, you know nothing of Islam?  And you're so proud of that, that you'll celebrate someone telling you what you'd like to believe?
I'm sorry, but it's really depressing to see such a group of intelligent people buying into a narrative that is quite simply wrong.  And provably, historically, so.

Boston Calling: Bombers are the victims....

Letter to Beebs:

A sweet young Muslim lady was on the Boston Calling show just now (here in Hong Kong) telling us that when 911 happened she was concerned for how bad Osama Bin Laden had made Muslims look. Roll that round in the mind for a tick... Nothing about the 3,000 dead innocents; nothing about the Islamic ideology that drove OBL.  No, only concern for how Muslims might "look"... 

Well, never mind, for Lo! the young Muslima has had her consciousness raised. She no longer thinks of how the Boston Bombings " might make Muslims look".  No; now she's "sad" for the fact that the Tsarnaev freres were led down the path of terrorism (and without wondering how they might have been so led). In other words, she is yet again concerned for Muslims with not a skerrick of thought for the real victims -- those dead and maimed -- or for the ideology that led the Tsarnaevs to do what they did. 
That's bad enough, but to be expected: it is after all the normal litany of victimhood that accompanies each new Islamist atrocity. Not excusable though, is the nodding acquiescence of your BBC reporter. Finishing up the piece, a young Muslim man opined that "America can always improve" (i.e. again the fault is America's), nary a thought that Islam could improve, or could teach it's adherents that bombing innocents is to "misunderstand the Religion of Peace".  And yet, your reporter approvingly repeated this nasty and blindly self-centered farrago of nonsense. 
Shame on you for abetting this ubiquitous Muslim victimhood. And doing so without question or rebuttal. 

Yours etc,
Peter F
Sent from my iPad

"Sharia Courts in Britain: It is enough now"

From One Law for All:

Dear Friend,

Thank you as always for your support of One Law for All.  As you might know, sharia is being increasingly discussed in the media quite regularly, including an undercover report by the BBC’s Panorama programme.  We write today to give a review of that programme, and to tell you a little about our upcoming plans. 

Panorama

This week’s BBC Panorama programme “Secrets of Britain’s Sharia Councils” confirms why One Law for All has been campaigning against the discriminatory parallel legal system running counter to British law for nearly five years.  

As has been repeatedly stated, women are being held to ransom, told to remain in violent situations, blamed for the violence they face, refused divorces over many years, and placed under undue pressure including with regards child access and welfare. The programme confirms this.

Whilst Chief Crown Prosecutor for the Northwest, Nazir Afzal, asserts that “most of them are absolutely fine but there are some clearly, like this one, who are putting women at risk”, One Law for All believes that all Sharia Councils and Muslim Arbitration Tribunals put women at risk. This is because the problem lies not with rogue councils or judges disrespecting the tenets of Sharia but is the result of a strict adherence to the Sharia.

Both the previous Government (which allowed them to evade investigation) and the current one, which asserts that existing legislation is sufficient to address this matter have shown nothing but moral cowardice and betrayed a large segment of British society. It is enough now.

The British government must put the rights and equality of all citizens over and above any religious laws and put an end to this human rights scandal once and for all. You can read the full text of our press release on the programme here.

We urge you to continue to exert pressure on the Government. Clearly our message is getting through. We must keep fighting till we win.

Please also sign One Law for All’s petition against Sharia law, which has over 29000 signatories.

Arbitration and Mediation Services (Equality) Bill

One Law for All continues to work with Caroline Cox in the promotion of her Arbitration and Mediation Services (Equality) Bill which aims to place criminal sanctions upon religious councils and tribunals that mislead women.  The Bill will also place a legal obligation on public sector agencies to advise women (correctly) of their rights under English law, and aims to bring private tribunals in to line with equality and human rights laws in the UK.  The Bill has received strong support from women's rights organisations as Inspire, as well as by the Iranian and Kurdish Women's Rights Organisation, the Henna Foundation, Karma Nirvana and British Muslims for Secular Democracy.  Last year, it passed its second reading in the House of Lords.  Whilst the Bill has stalled due to the Government’s refusal to support it, the Bill will be re-introduced following the state opening of Parliament in May and we will update you on its progress.  You can read more here.

Please support Baroness Cox Equalities Bill, which was inspired by One Law for All here.

Essay Competition

One Law for All, in partnership with the Lawyers’ Secular Society, are calling on students across Europe to submit essays on the use of Sharia family and criminal law in countries in the EU.  The National Secular Society will provide a cash prise for the winning essay.  Submissions should be made by the end of the summer and details of how to do so will soon appear on our website. 

Songs for Freedom and Passion for Freedom Festival

One Law for All is inviting musicians and songwriters to create and submit their original material for a song competition.  Song entries should be focused on issues that relate to the work ‘One Law for All’ is engaged with, discussing themes like religion, freedom, secularism, Sharia law, equal rights and religious arbitration.  Details of where to submit entries can be found here.  The deadline for entries is 31 December.

One Law for All’s Passion for Freedom will hold its fifth festival during 2-9 November 2013. Deadline to submit artwork is 20 September 2013. Terms and conditions can be found here.

Other Activities

This year, we will release our report on the support of some on the political Left for Islamism; “Siding with the Oppressor: the Pro-Islamist Left” will soon be available.  Another report, “Multiculturalism and Child Protection in Britain: Sharia Law and Other Failures” will be available soon as well. 

We will continue to speak to various organisations and events, including in Leicester, Washington, DC, Boston, Dublin, Brighton, and New York City.  Full details can be found here.  Moreover, we are in the early stages of arranging debates with proponents of Sharia law. We are also organising a debate with the English Defence League, where we will expose their similarities with Islamism and argue our opposition to both – further details to follow. 

Support us

If you can, please continue to support us in our essential work. To donate to One Law for All, send a cheque made payable to One Law for All to BM Box 2387, London WC1N 3XX, UK or pay via Paypal. You can also commit to giving at least £5-10 a month via direct debit. You can find out more about how to donate or join the 100 Club here. Also, if you shop online, please do so via the Easy Fundraising’s website. It won’t cost you anything extra but can help raise much needed funds for One Law for All.

Thanks again for your support. A particular thanks to those who provide monthly donations, which is much needed. We look forward to continuing to fight for human rights in the months to come.

Warmest wishes
Maryam Namazie

Anne Marie Waters

Spokespersons

One Law for All

BM Box2387, London WC1N 3XX, UK

tel: +44 (0) 7719166731

email: onelawforall@gmail.com

web: http://www.onelawforall.org.uk/