by Heather Hastie | Apr 24, 2016 | Middle East, Religion, Women
Over and over again conservative representatives of Islam try to tell us that not only are women respected within their religion, they are more respected than women in secular countries. Any criticism of the treatment of women is dismissed as lack of understanding, or...
by Heather Hastie | Mar 6, 2016 | Middle East, Religion
Just when you thought the most ridiculous thing you’d read this year so far was my post about Saudi cleric Ali Al-Maliki confidently asserting that the West tampers with burgers so more female babies will be born there, I can go one better. According to MEMRI TV...
by Heather Hastie | Feb 7, 2016 | Middle East, Women
This should be this week’s Auē Tēnei Wiki, because it really does deserve a big face palm, but the title is long enough already. From MEMRI (Middle East Media Research Institute) we have another example of the kind of delusion often spread about the West in the...
by Heather Hastie | Dec 8, 2015 | Democracy, Freedom of Speech, Human Rights, Middle East
I’ve written about the appalling justice system in Saudi Arabia before in The Injustice of Sharia in Saudi Arabia and also specifically about the case of Raif Badawi, a blogger serving a sentence of ten years and 1,000 lashes simply for disagreeing with the type...
by Heather Hastie | Nov 1, 2015 | Freedom of Speech, Human Rights, Middle East, Winners and Worries
It was announced on Thursday that Raif Badawi won the European Union’s Sakharov human rights prize. The Guardian reports : Raif Badawi, the Saudi blogger and activist sentenced to 10 years in prison and 1,000 lashes for insulting Islam, has won the EU’s Sakharov...
