OK - this is why the right to offend is important

Taslima Nasreen, a Bangladeshi author is to be tried in India because a group of Muslims attacked her and called for her execution. What was her crime? Writing books that out the systematic horrors inflicted on Women, and people of other religions under Sharia law. Apparently that “offended” Muslims, which is punishable by up to three years in jail.

This is madness; how can it be illegal to tell the frickin truth? And in case you’re thinking she might just be spreading scurrilous lies, remember that their response to being “offended” was to physically attack her and call for her execution (with a cash reward to anyone who pulls it off, for crying out loud!)

And before you write this off as being just one of those things that happens in other countries, remember that here in the UK, we have very similar laws against “incitement to religious hatred.” Remember the TV footage after the Danish cartoon fiasco, of the police moving on counter protesters at a Muslim rally where the actual protesters were carrying placards calling for various people to be beheaded, for fear of “inflaming the situation?” We have – I hope – a long way to go before people do jail time in the UK for criticising the extremists, but these people get more leeway and more respect than they did a decade ago, and that makes me think that we’re drifting in the wrong direction. One of the commenters at RichardDawkins.net said it best:

And we atheists have to put up with being called fundamentalists for criticising such divinely inspired hatred.