by Heather Hastie | May 14, 2015 | Atheism, Democracy, Freedom of Speech, Human Rights, Religion
On 21 April, Bangladesh’s The Daily Star published an opinion article entitled The extent of freedom of expression. It was written by senior law lecturer Mirza Farzana Iqbal Chowdhury of Daffodil International University, a private university in the Bangladeshi...
by Heather Hastie | Apr 20, 2015 | Atheism, Freedom of Speech, Religion
Two days before his murder, Stéphane Charbonnier, at that time editor of Charlie Hebdo, finished writing a short book entitled Lettre Ouverte aux Escrocs de l’Islamophobie qui Font le Jeu des Racistes (Open Letter to the Fraudsters of Islamophobia who Play the...
by Heather Hastie | Mar 31, 2015 | Atheism, Freedom of Speech, Religion
This morning I woke to the news via the Canadian Atheist website that only a month after the murder of Avijit Roy, yet another atheist blogger has been hacked to death in the streets of Bangladesh by Islamists. Washiqur Rahman (27), who was working as a trainee at Far...
by Heather Hastie | Mar 27, 2015 | Atheism, Freedom of Speech, Religion, Science & Nature
Yesterday (26 March) was Richard Dawkins’s 74th birthday. I’m a big fan of Dawkins – it was while watching one of his documentaries a few years ago that I realized that I was an atheist, and had been at least agnostic since I was a child. The God...
by Heather Hastie | Mar 18, 2015 | Freedom of Speech, Human Rights, Religion
I wrote about New Zealander Philip Blackwood here in January when he was still awaiting trial after his arrest on 10 December last year. 10 December is International Human Rights Day, and so I thought it particularly ironic that he was arrested for his particular...
by Heather Hastie | Feb 13, 2015 | Freedom of Speech, Human Rights, Religion, Terrorism, USA
On Tuesday 10 February 2015, Sydney Police arrested two Muslim men. They had received information that they planned to carry out a random murder that day. On raiding the men’s home the police found a hunting knife, a DAESH flag and a self-made video describing...
