Christopher Hitchens isn’t the only person to notice that Osama bin Laden, “mastermind” of the 9/11 attacks and nominal head of Al Qaeda, had been hiding in Pakistan’s Sandhurst. But when he does notice such things, he sure doesn’t hold back…

The colonial British—like Maj. James Abbott, who gave his name to [Abbottabad]—called them “hill stations,” designed for the rest and recreation of commissioned officers. The charming idea, like the location itself, survives among the Pakistani officer corps. If you tell me that you are staying in a rather nice walled compound in Abbottabad, I can tell you in return that you are the honored guest of a military establishment that annually consumes several billion dollars of American aid. It’s the sheer blatancy of it that catches the breath.

There’s perhaps some slight satisfaction to be gained from this smoking-gun proof of official Pakistani complicity with al-Qaida, but in general it only underlines the sense of anticlimax. After all, who did not know that the United States was lavishly feeding the same hands that fed Bin Laden? There’s some minor triumph, also, in the confirmation that our old enemy was not a heroic guerrilla fighter but the pampered client of a corrupt and vicious oligarchy that runs a failed and rogue state.

Link: http://www.slate.com/id/2292687/

In other comments in today, Aditya Chakrabortty cites a few academics whose research suggests that painting extreme Islamists as intrinsically Evil does little to fight terror and isn’t even accurate.

The conventional view of Islamist terrorism is the one set out by Clinton yesterday, of a “violent ideology that holds no value for human life”: evil, inexplicable, and irreconcilable with any civilised values. Yet analysis from social scientists suggests the opposite.

However odd it may seem to use these terms of would-be jihadists and suicide bombers, some researchers describe Islamist terrorists as in the main rational, desperate figures operating in wrecked countries.

… What Merari’s research shows is “a large pool of psychologically healthy, basically altruistic suicide attackers”. That description comes from Eli Berman, at the University of California, San Diego. His use of the term “basically altruistic” is surely intended to be provocative, but what the economist means is that terrorists are often acting out of a desire to help others in their group.

Link: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/may/03/are-islamist-terrorists-basically-altruistic

Geoffrey Robertson QC who spoke at last year’s Protest the Pope rally and has called for the Pope’s arrest, is left dissatisfied by a country celebrating an “assassination”, and wonders at the international legal ramifications.

America resembles the land of the munchkins, as it celebrates the death of the Wicked Witch of the East. The joy is understandable, but it endorses what looks increasingly like a cold-blooded assassination ordered by a president who, as a former law professor, knows the absurdity of his statement that “justice was done”. Amoral diplomats and triumphant politicians join in applauding Bin Laden’s summary execution because they claim real justice – arrest, trial and sentence would have been too difficult in the case of Bin Laden. But in the long-term interests of a better world, should it not at least have been attempted?

That future depends on a respect for international law. The circumstances of Bin Laden’s killing are as yet unclear and the initial objection that the operation was an illegitimate invasion of Pakistan’s sovereignty must be rejected. Necessity required the capture of this indicted and active international criminal and Pakistan’s abject failure (whether through incompetence or connivance) justified Obama’s order for an operation to apprehend him. However, the terms of that order, as yet undisclosed, are all important.

Link: http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/geoffrey-robertson-why-its-absurd-to-claim-that-justice-has-been-done-2278041.html

In it’s ongoing quest to annoy even other Christians, the Christian Legal Centre has recruited another religious person willing to parade their their willingness to parade their religion at work. Electrician Colin Atkinson has been displaying a palm crucifix in his van window and the Christian Legal Centre have made sure there’s plenty of photos available.

The Daily Mail points out that Atkinson works for a “giant housing association”. That’s right: the giant, corporate whores who like to work for social housing organisations are crushing the little people, again. (The Daily Mail do like to stick it to da man in favour of championing the powerless working class, after all. That’s why their hereditary ownership by Conservative-supporting, non-domiciled Viscount Rothermere is so important to them.)

This time the massive international conglomerate housing association has been taking away the little people’s (non-existent) right to exhibit a religious belief while representing an employer.

Former soldier Colin Atkinson has been summoned to a disciplinary hearing by the giant housing association where he has been employed for 15 years because he refuses to remove the symbol.

Mr Atkinson, a regular worshipper at church, said: ‘The treatment of Christians in this country is becoming diabolical…but I will stand up for my faith.’

Throughout his time at work, he has had an 8in-long cross made from woven palm leaves attached to the dashboard shelf below his windscreen without receiving a single complaint.

But his bosses at publicly funded Wakefield and District Housing (WDH) in West Yorkshire – the fifth-biggest housing organisation in England – have demanded he remove the cross on the grounds it may offend people or suggest the organisation is Christian. Mr Atkinson’s union representative said he faces a full disciplinary hearing next month for gross misconduct, which could result in dismissal.

Link: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1377684/Electrician-Colin-Atkinson-faces-sack-Christian-cross-van-dashboard.html

The Telegraph manages to get as far as mentioning the Christian Legal Centre is “backing the case”, but also buys into the victimhood narrative…

Mr Atkinson’s battle follows a series of similar cases involving Christians who claim they are being victimised because of their faith.

… without noticing that all those similar cases are also “backed” by the CLC.

Link: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/religion/8456637/Electrician-faces-sack-for-displaying-Christian-cross-in-his-van.html

Lord Carey, whose anti-persecution campaign We Are Not Ashamed seemed to shame rather a lot of Christians last year, has also offered his two cents about the latest complaint. Atkinson is pictured, in the Daily Mail again (they love their pictures) wearing Not Ashamed t-shirts and embracing Carey’s unashamed backing:

[Carey] said it was ‘outrageous’ that Colin Atkinson had been told by the housing association he works for that he cannot show the Christian symbol of his faith on the dashboard.

… Lord Carey said last night: ‘It’s outrageous that anyone cannot display a small palm cross. This is political correctness gone mad once more.

‘I salute Mr Atkinson for his bravery and all Christians who quietly stand up for their faith…’

Quietly, and humbly. With pro bono assistance from Christian lawyers, an increasingly tabloid-friendly former archbishop, and a massive media campaign based on a handful of cases with no legal merit used to create the impression of widespread persecution. Quietly.

Link: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1377977/Former-Archbishop-Canterbury-Lord-Carey-says-Christian-cross-ban-outrageous.html

Following last week’s not very disguised criticism from the Evangelical Alliance, another Christian rolls their eyes at the Christian Legal Centre’s ongoing attempts to exempt homophobic Christians from scrutiny. Alan Wilson, Bishop of Buckingham, takes the stand.

The attempt to wring a ruling from the court that certain church attenders are in principle suitable to adopt or foster in all circumstances was preposterous nonsense, as was the idiotic attempt to get a court to define the word “homophobic” so that it could not legally be applied to conservative Catholics.

So what does the case really show? First, that the customary paranoia of rightwing newspaper op-eds sounds silly in court. Courts will injunct in cases of real urgency, but they are, quite rightly, very reluctant to compensate people for wrongs they have not yet suffered, simply to make a point on behalf of a group of zealots, however sincere they may be. It is absolutely no part of a court’s job to enter into such antics, just to create a story for the press.

This case was the fourth bite at this particular cherry by the barrister Paul Diamond and his chums in the Christian Legal Centre. There is now nothing more legally to be said on this subject than various judges, especially Lord Justice Laws, a devout Christian and churchwarden, have said so far. Rightwing Christians must establish their views on their merits, not expect courts to do the job for them.

How does orthodox Christian teaching relate to the views that were seeking legal protection? When Mrs Johns averred, for example, that “having a different sexual orientation was unnatural and wrong”, she put herself well beyond what either the Church of England or the church of Rome are prepared to say on the matter of orientation. The Johnses are entitled to their views, but cannot expect them to be unquestioned insofar as they could affect the welfare of a child.

With any luck the idiocy will stop here, although a combination of hysterical young things, big money and silly old men may be unable to resist the lure of further days out in court to grandstand their views.

Full article: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/belief/2011/mar/05/views-on-homosexuality-children-welfare

A court found on Monday that a Christian couple who said they would expose children to anti-gay beliefs could be lawfully prevented by Derby City Council from fostering. The British Humanist Association commented on the decision, saying it shows that “prejudices and preferences come second to the needs and rights of vulnerable children”.

Not everyone was so welcoming of the decision, however. No one’s been burned at the stake yet but both the Telegraph and the Spectator labelled the ruling part of an  ”Inquisition”.

The Spectator misrepresents the ruling by pulling the usual switcheroo. The Johns, the High Court decided, would be liable to push an anti-gay view on children, but the Spectator interprets: “Their crime is simply to believe it is wrong to promote a homosexual lifestyle to a child”. As if promoting homosexuality to children is what Derby City Council want! No, it’s that the Johns said they would actively tell children that expressing homosexuality (whether “lifestyle” or indeed intrinsic characteristic) was morally wrong, in their eyes, and in the eyes of God. Pish and posh, says the Spectator, They’re just good Christians who believe that “sex outside marriage is wrong”. Critics of the ruling do tend to fall back on that line: it’s sex outside marriage the Johns object to, and – the commentators want to add – morally conservative Christians don’t object to homosexuality per se… but they can’t quite say that because that’s obviously not the case and if actual gay marriage was fully legal the so-called “moral objections” (whatever they’re meant to be) would obviously become objections to gay sex inside marriage, or to gay marriage itself. Obviously. Really, really obviously.

Ironically, in one article the Telegraph headlines the quote “Our Christianity is our lifestyle”. Again the implication is that all evangelising anti-gay parents would be doing is influencing the lifestyle of the children, just as all parents do, so why does their Christian lifestyle fall foul of children’s possible future “lifestyle choices”. That the actual lifestyle choices of the religious parents are in conflict with what the law regards as potentially innate characteristics of children, no more changeable than race or sex, is beyond the critics’ ken.

Forgetting to imagine what it might be like as a child to have your nascent sexuality besmirched by your parents isn’t as bad as it gets, though. In an extraordinary feat of experimental narrative art, Cristina Odone manages to pen an entire eight paragraph long opinion piece about the case – in which she finds time to complain that Christianity itself is being “eradicated”, that laws are “taking apart” tradition (the tradition of homophobia?) and that secularists want to “scrub Christianity from public life” – without once even mentioning the crucial anti-gay views on which the case actually turned.

Ardent litigator targeting paedophile priests and the sex abuse cover-up heads for the UK.

A leading US litigator who has spent more than 20 years suing US-based paedophile priests and the church officials who moved them from parish to parish is joining a new legal practice dedicated to rooting out clerical sexual abuse in the UK.

Jeff Anderson has filed more than 1,500 lawsuits against the Catholic church in the US and thousands more against individuals and organisations, including those belonging to other Christian denominations.

His Minnesota firm says it is “aggressively committed” to child protection through civil litigation and he believes there is significant scope to expand this activity in the UK.

Anderson, whose firm recently represented all 23 plaintiffs in a suit that led to a US diocese filing for bankruptcy protection, will be working with Ann Olivarius, a solicitor who is already based in London, to expose offenders and seek justice for victims.

Continues: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/jan/10/lawyer-paedophile-priests-us-uk

New envoy to the Vatican is a “temp” because no one wants the job.

David Cameron has appointed George Edgar as Britain’s temporary envoy to the Vatican after Ann Widdecombe turned down the role.

Having been surprised by a string of rejections for the role of Britain’s ambassador to the Vatican from such candidates as Ann Widdecombe, Lord Patten of Barnes and the MP Edward Leigh, David Cameron has been forced to turn to a trusted trouble-shooter.

Mandrake can disclose that George Edgar will be the interim chargé d’affaires to the Holy See when Francis Campbell leaves his post at the end of this month.

Continues: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/religion/8246963/Criticism-as-David-Cameron-sends-trouble-shooter-to-the-Vatican.html

Oddly enough, the Church of England doesn’t want whole churches to be poached off by the Vatican.

Defecting priest feigns surprise. Tension between Catholics and Protestants…? It’s unheard of!

Anglicans defecting to Rome are being told they must leave their churches with clergy even been asked to move away from their parish.

They have worshipped together for decades on the pews of their parish church. Generations of their loved ones have been baptised, married and buried there.

But now a Church of England congregation is being torn apart by the Pope’s offer to welcome disaffected Anglican traditionalists into the Catholic Church.

… At St Barnabas the move towards Rome is being led by the vicar, Fr Ed Tomlinson. He believes that traditionalists who oppose the ordination of women have been badly let down by Church leaders.

But he has been told by the diocese of Rochester that if he and his followers leave the Church of England they will no longer be allowed to hold services, even on a shared basis, at St Barnabas…

Full article: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/religion/8247915/Anglicans-heading-to-Rome-told-they-cant-stay-in-their-churches.html

And finally, the Pope tells you how to name your children.

The pope has declared war on parents’ growing insistence on shunning the saints and naming their children after fashion designers, Sanskrit titles and things that don’t mean much.

The Holy See fears that parents are choosing modish names such as Chanel, Swami and Pesche at the expense of Maria, Martina and Giuseppe, egged on by celebrity examples.

“Every baptism should ensure that the child is given a Christian name, an unmistakable sign that the Holy Spirit will allow the person to blossom in the bosom of the Church,” Benedict XVI said, while baptising 21 infants in the Sistine Chapel on Sunday. “Do not give your children names that are not in the Christian calendar.”

Continues: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/for-heavens-sake-pope-hopes-to-end-trend-for-exotic-names-2181133.html

Western Australia would be the first state in Australia to initiate opt-out organ donor laws, if a new proposal underway in the state is successfully passed. At the current point of time the only such law in Australia is an opt-in program, in which a person has to opt-in, in order to automatically donate their organs after death.

At the current point of time, there are only 16% people living in Western Australia, who are a part of the national organ donor register. If the proposal is passed, then all Western Australians would have to automatically donate their organs for transplant, until unless they sign an opt-out form to withdraw their consent from organ donation.

Continues: http://www.topnews.co.uk/214736-donor-laws-witness-sea-change-western-australia

Leading doctors who endorse assisted dying for the terminally ill will this week launch an unprecedented campaign to change the law on the right to die.

Healthcare Professionals for Change, a group of doctors, nurses and allied health professionals, says it wants to challenge bodies such as the British Medical Association, which opposes any change in the law that would allow others to help terminally ill people to die.

The group is the first professional body of its kind to be set up with the explicit aim of changing the 1961 Suicide Act, which forbids such assistance.

The group will be chaired by Dr Ann McPherson, a GP and fellow of the Royal College of General Practitioners and of Green College, Oxford, who is dying of pancreatic cancer. “By taking a hostile approach to a change in the law on assisted dying, medical bodies such as the BMA and the Royal College of Physicians are failing to adequately reflect the views of all their members,” she said. “Many of us believe dying patients should not have to suffer against their wishes at the end of life. Alongside access to good quality end-of-life care, we believe that terminally ill, mentally competent patients should be able to choose an assisted death, subject to safeguards.”

Continues: http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2010/oct/03/right-to-die-assisted-suicide

The British Humanist Association campaigns for reform of the law on assisted dying.

Victims of child abuse by Catholic priests in Italy have gathered in Verona, and called for such abuse to be made a crime against humanity.

Dozens of victims and their families went to the public meeting, the first of its kind in Italy.

Organiser Salvatore Damolo, a former victim and an ex-priest, said the aim was to give victims a platform to talk about their experiences.

He appealed for help in seeking justice for those who have been abused.

Italian bishops say around 100 cases of abuse have been investigated by Church authorities in the past decade. But organisers of the conference say the true number of victims is much higher.

Justice for the abused is hard to come by because Italy has a statute of limitations of 10 years, meaning that by the time victims came forward, it was often too late, Mr Damolo said.

“Here there is no hope. By the time a victim arrives at the awareness of having been a victim, legal intervention is not possible,” he told the Associated Press news agency.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-11413050

Victims of child abuse by priests will hold a demonstration outside the Vatican next month against the Catholic Church’s role in the scandal, an Italian organisation said on Saturday.

Associations of US victims have been invited to take part in the October 31 protest, the group said in a report by Italian ANSA news agency.

“This will be an international protest and we will go in front of the Vatican to denounce once again these numerous (paedophiles) that shocked young victims and weren’t known until now,” Marco Lodo Rizzini, a spokesman of victims from the Antonio Provolo institute, was quoted as saying.

Sixty-seven deaf-mute children at the Catholic institute in the city of Verona were allegedly abused by priests and lay staff between the 1950s and 1980s.

“The hour has come for the truth to be known,” Lodo Rizzini said.

http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5jV6NVjYJxP51qwEmaQ6Xr37tUWcw

“So far, I’ve lost eight women from my shelter,” Hina Jilani says. “One went out for a job in town, she left our shelter, got on a bus – and was gunned down by her brother. Her name was Shagofta, she was in her late twenties. She had already married the man she loved but the parents had disapproved. Her brother got straight off the bus and went to the police station and gave himself up. But his father – Shagofta’s father – ‘forgave’ him. So he was let off. And nothing happened.”

Ms Jilani is a tough, brave lawyer with a harsh way of describing the “honour killing” – the murder – of young women. She has to be tough, given the death threats she’s received from Pakistan’s Islamists. She speaks with contempt for the families who murder their women – with even more contempt for the police and the judges who allow the killers to go free. Pakistan has the grotesque reputation of being one of the leading “honour-killing” countries in the world.

“Some of the women in our Dastak shelter in Lahore left us after assurances from their families that they would not be harmed,” Ms Jilani says. “We always tell the women not to accept these assurances. In the Lahore High Court, I was sitting there when the judge was insisting that a women from our shelter should go back to her parents. The more the judge insisted, the more the woman resisted. He made her sit in his chambers and then in the court. And then, as she left the High Court gate, they shot her down. The judge said nothing.”

Continues: http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/fisk/robert-fisk-relatives-with-blood-on-their-hands-2073142.html

Unbeknown to many, all state maintained schools in England and Wales are legally required to provide their pupils with daily Collective Worship. In faith schools the worship is supposed to be provided in accordance with the school’s designated religion or religious denomination, while in all other schools the worship should be ‘wholly or mainly of a broadly Christian character’.

Parents are able to withdraw their children from Collective Worship in state schools, while sixth form pupils and those over compulsory school age can withdraw themselves. However, this is an unsatisfactory solution.

By custom schools provide Collective Worship as part of school assembly, and children that are withdrawn miss out on other aspects of assembly, such as the communication of school information or the ethical or moral teaching that is so often entwined with the worship. Children that are withdrawn are not always provided with an alternative activity, while many parents fear that their child may be singled out if they are withdrawn. In practice a great many parents who object to their child receiving Collective Worship do not exercise their right to have them withdrawn, while the views of children of compulsory schools age can be ignored altogether.

Paul Pettinger is a Liberal Democrat member in the Cities of London and Westminster local party. He was formerly a Party SAO employee and District Councillor. He is also the coordinator of the Accord coalition.

Full article: http://www.libdemvoice.org/should-religious-worship-be-part-of-school-assembly-20656.html

Leo Igwe is the International Humanist and Ethical Union’s representative for West Africa and Executive Director of the Nigerian Humanist Movement.

Around midnight on Wednesday August  4 2010, two gunmen invaded my family house in Mbaise in Imo state in Southern Nigeria. They shot twice in the air and my mother fainted. They later descended on my aging father and started beating him. They blindfolded him with a piece of cloth and hit him several times with stones.

He later fainted and the hoodlums ransacked the whole house and made away with whatever they found valuable. My father  bled from the right eye, nose and mouth. He had bruises on his head, hands, legs and chest. After the attack, some neighbours came and rushed him to a nearby hospital. From there, I moved him to an eye hospital in Lagos where the doctor confirmed that he had extensive injuries in the right eye and recommended that it be removed. Yesterday, August 11, 2010, he underwent a surgery and the right eye was removed. He is currently recuperating at the hospital. I called the police to inform them, and they said I should send a formal petition.

This attack is the latest in the vicious campaign of harassment and intimidation of me and my family members by state and non-state actors for our efforts to bring to justice a 50 year old man, Edward Uwa, who raped a 10 year old girl, Daberechi, in my community.

Full statement: http://www.butterfliesandwheels.org/2010/a-violent-attack-on-leo-igwes-family/

Also see previous stories:

• The tireless, courageous Humanism of Leo Igwe
• IHEU: Nigeria must stop harassing our representative
• Leo Igwe reports on ongoing witch hunts in Africa

As lawyer Mohammad Mostafaei is forced to flee Iran looking for asylum, the lives of his clients hang in the balance.

An 18-year-old Iranian is facing imminent execution on charges of homosexuality, even though he has no legal representation. Ebrahim Hamidi, who is not gay, was sentenced to death for lavat, or sodomy, on the basis of “judge’s knowledge”, a legal loophole that allows for subjective judicial rulings where there is no conclusive evidence.

Hamidi had been represented by human rights lawyer Mohammad Mostafaei, who has since been forced to flee Iran after bringing to international attention the case of another of his clients, Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani, a 43-year-old Iranian mother of two who has been sentenced to death by stoning for adultery. Mostafaei was due to arrive in Norway yesterday to begin a life in exile while continuing his campaigns on behalf of his clients, including Hamidi.

At the same time, human rights activist Peter Tatchell has written to the foreign secretary, William Hague, urging him to contact the chief justice of Iran and ask that the execution be halted.

“Ebrahim’s case is evidence that innocent heterosexual people can be sentenced to death on false charges of homosexuality [in Iran],” said Tatchell, co-founder of the London-based gay rights group OutRage.

Full article: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/aug/08/iran-mohammad-mostafaei-rights-lawyer

A 54-year-old engineering executive who suffered a massive stroke and lives “locked-in”, able only to move his head and eyes, today [Monday] launched a legal attempt to allow his wife to kill him.

Tony Nicklinson wants the director of public prosecutions to give guidance on whether the Crown would press murder charges against his wife if she administered a lethal injection. The case could reach the supreme court in a landmark attempt to have the law on murder changed to allow for “consensual killing”.

Nicklinson is not terminally ill and is not in pain, but he has said he expects to “dribble his way into old age” and is “fed up” with his life. In a statement placed before the court, he says he wishes he had died when he suffered a stroke while on business in Athens in 2005.

The former rugby player used to work in the United Arab Emirates and travelled across the Middle East and far east before he fell ill but is now fed liquidised food twice a day and almost never leaves his home in Wiltshire. He has stopped talking to most people as it is so frustrating to communicate using an alphabet board.

“I need help in almost every aspect of my life,” he said in a statement sent to the court today”I cannot scratch if I itch, I cannot pick my nose if it is blocked and I can only eat if I am fed like a baby – only I won’t grow out of it, unlike the baby. I have no privacy or dignity left. I am washed, dressed and put to bed by carers who are, after all, still strangers.

“I am fed up with my life and don’t want to spend the next 20 years or so like this. Am I grateful that the Athens doctors saved my life? No, I am not. If I had my time again, and knew then what I know now, I would not have called the ambulance but let nature take its course.”

http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2010/jul/19/locked-in-syndrome-die-dpp

The BHA campaigns for the legalisation of assisted dying for the terminally ill.

After France votes decisively against the permissibility of face veils, Britain’s new immigration minister responds by ruling out a similar move here.

Damian Green said such a move would be “rather un-British” and run contrary to the conventions of a “tolerant and mutually respectful society”.

He said it would be “undesirable” for Parliament to vote on a burka ban in Britain and that there was no prospect of the Coalition proposing it.

…

His firm decision to rule out a burka ban will disappoint some Right-of-centre Tory MPs, including Philip Hollobone, who has tabled a private member’s bill that would make it illegal for anyone to cover their face in public.

Mr Hollobone, the MP for Kettering, said this weekend that he would refuse to hold any constituency meetings with women wearing burkas.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/7896751/Burka-ban-ruled-out-by-immigration-minister.html

Nesrine Malik, initially appalled at being forced to wear a full veil in Saudia Arabia, grew to find it comfortable and freeing. Women’s clothes, either way, should not be so symbolic of national feelings.

On landing in Saudi Arabia, women – all of whom were wearing the veil – were channelled into a separate line for processing. My eyes stung with tears of rage and shame. Most of all, I felt infantilised, stripped of the right to dress how I pleased due simply to the fact that I was a woman, and hence, purely a sexual object to be concealed lest it should inflame desire. For the first few days, it felt almost comical, like some absurd game of macabre fancy dress.

On a practical level, it was cumbersome, hot and uncomfortable. Eating or drinking in public became a chore, as food has to be manoeuvred gingerly under the veil or taken abruptly in small bites. In Saudi’s overwhelming heat, temperatures regularly reach 45C and any physical outdoor activity, even walking, is out of the question. I became anti-social, hardly able to wait until I got home before tearing off the ghastly garb.

The niqab and the burka are a particularly extreme interpretation of the Islamic requirement for modest dress, and were never part of my Muslim upbringing in London. Because of this, I did not feel particularly pious wearing them in Saudi. If anything, it seemed like a throwback to tribal, pre-Islamic times.

Over the next three years, however, my opposition gradually eroded. Initially an ugly burden, the abaya and niqab became a comfort and, eventually, a delight. It was a relief not to have to think about what to wear.

The burka can be the most versatile of capsule wardrobes. The uniform black costume has a charming egalitarianism about it, and is both a social and physical leveller. Once social status or physical beauty cannot be established, all sorts of hierarchies are flattened.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/personal-view/7896536/Burka-ban-Why-must-I-cast-off-the-veil.html

The Guardian asks “Should Britain ban the burka?” Anastasia de Waal for Civitas says ‘Yes’  in the public sphere, “burqas impede the necessary interaction for learning and working”. However…

where public and private collide, say walking down the street, a ban would be wrong. France is indeed an open society but with that openness comes the thorn of unwanted “freedoms”.

Mary Warnock says she doesn’t love the burqa and that it reflects badly “on both men and women”, but…

I wouldn’t for that reason criminalise its use, any more than I would criminalise beachwear on the streets of London, much as I deplore it when I see it.

Donald Macleod of Free Church college, Edinburgh, is similarly reluctant to “ban”.

Let’s distinguish between what we deplore and what we criminalise. So that while we may deplore the refusal of some Muslims to integrate, the only alternative to multiculturalism is mono-culturalism, where only English may be spoken and only the state may be worshipped. As for banning the burqa from private space, let’s remember that every British family’s home is its castle, and it should say to the state what the African-American said to the Mississippi, “River, stay ‘way from my door!” We will best serve Muslim women by ensuring that their matrimonial rights as British citizens are never undermined by judicial recognition of sharia law.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/jul/18/should-britain-ban-burqa-panel

Conservative MEP Daniel Hannan argues that banning the burqa because it is political or “undermines” Western values would be hypocritical unless we also want to ban Che Guevara t-shirts.

Doesn’t wearing the image of that squalid murderer glorify his violent and anti-democratic creed? Isn’t it an even more aggressive rejection of Western values?

Wearing a Che Guevara tee-shirt is in the same moral category as wearing an Adolf Hitler or Raoul Moat or Osama bin Laden tee-shirt. When we see someone see some oaf doing it, we should feel free to bollock him. But it is not a matter for the law.

Nor is wearing the burqa.

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/danielhannan/100047682/we-dont-ban-che-guevara-tee-shirts-so-why-should-be-ban-the-burqa/

Another Conservative, Philip Hollobone MP, takes a rather different approach.

A Conservative MP says he will refuse to hold meetings with Muslim women wearing full Islamic dress at his constituency surgery unless they lift their face veil.

Last night Muslim groups condemned Philip Hollobone and accused him of failing in his duty as an MP.

In an interview with The Independent, the Kettering MP said: “I would ask her to remove her veil. If she said: ‘No’, I would take the view that she could see my face, I could not see hers, I am not able to satisfy myself she is who she says she is. I would invite her to communicate with me in a different way, probably in the form of a letter.”

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/champion-of-uk-burka-ban-declares-war-on-veilwearing-constituents-2028669.html

The Daily Mail emphasises public support in Britain for a ban.

Mr Green said a ban would be ‘rather un-British’ and run contrary to the conventions of a ‘tolerant and mutually respectful society’.

This is despite a YouGov survey which found that 67 per cent of voters wanted the wearing of full-face veils to be outlawed. France’s lower house of parliament has overwhelmingly approved a ban on wearing burka-style Islamic veils, and Spain and Belgium have similar votes in the pipeline.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1295665/Banning-burkas-UK-British-says-Green.html

Meanwhile, in Tehran…

Iran’s prosecutor called on Sunday for tighter checks on women who fail to observe Islamic dress code in public, the semi-official Mehr news agency reported.

Under Iran’s Sharia law, imposed after the 1979 Islamic revolution, women are obliged to cover their hair and wear long, loose-fitting clothes. Violators can receive lashes, fines or imprisonment.

“Unfortunately the law … which considers violation of the Islamic dress code as a punishable crime, has not been implemented in the country in the past 15 years,” said general prosecutor Gholamhossein Mohseni-Ejei.

“Under the law, violators of public chastity should be punished by being sentenced to up to two months in jail or 74 lashes.”

Strict dress codes were enforced in the years after the revolution but in recent years clamp downs have tended to last just weeks or months in summer, when women wear lighter clothing such as calf-length trousers and colored scarves.

Young women in urban areas often defy the limitations by wearing tight clothing and colorful headscarves that barely cover their hair. The codes are less commonly flouted in rural regions.

Enforcement of codes governing women’s dress have become stricter since President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad took office in 2005, promising a return to the values of the revolution.

http://ca.reuters.com/article/topNews/idCATRE66H12O20100718

Pope Benedict XVI is a head of state and the leader of more than a billion Roman Catholics worldwide. To Jeff Anderson, a lawyer who represents victims of sexual abuse by priests, he is also a potential legal witness.

Unlikely as it may seem, Anderson intends to demand the pope’s testimony in a sexual abuse case wending its way through court in Oregon.

“I don’t think I would require him to come to Oregon,” the attorney said in a recent interview. “I would go to him … and videotape and transcribe his testimony.” The Vatican, he said, should be treated “like any other corporation that is subject to the power of the American court system.”

Increasingly, the Vatican, an independent city-state headed by the pope, stands in the cross hairs of lawyers and investigators probing cases of sexual abuse in the Roman Catholic Church. The church is fighting back, maintaining both that it is not responsible for the actions of abusive priests and that it enjoys sovereign immunity from the U.S. legal system.

Several lawsuits filed in the United States have named the Vatican as a respondent, and attorneys in at least two cases are seeking a court order demanding testimony from the pope, among other top church officials. Police in Belgium last month raided church offices and opened tombs in a search for evidence in abuse cases, prompting Benedict to assail “the surprising and deplorable manner” in which the raids were carried out.

Continues: http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-vatican-lawsuits-20100711,0,4021939.story

A Protestant teacher selected for redundancy because of her religion has been awarded more than £8,000.

A Fair Employment Tribunal ruled that former p3 tutor Julie Brudell suffered the discrimination after Catholic pupils began outnumbering Protestants.

She still works at Ballykelly Primary, Co Londonderry, but was shifted to the school’s nursery unit after her redundancy last August was appealed.

The tribunal said: “It is clear that there was an awareness that the Roman Catholic pupils now outnumbered the Protestant ones, that the school had lost so many children already and would lose even more depending on who was made redundant.”

One of the redundancy priorities at the school, proposed by Limavady parish priest governor Fr Michael Collins, was the criterion involving the school’s “ethos”. That said staffing should be in line with the religious mix of the pupils.

Continues: http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/breaking-news/uk-ireland/tribunal-backs-redundant-teacher-14865987.html

A senior Vatican cardinal is under investigation for corruption, dragging the Catholic church into a public works scandal that has sent shockwaves through the Italian government.

Italian media reported today that Cardinal Crescenzio Sepe, the archbishop of Naples, was suspected of striking cosy deals while head of the Congregation for the Evangelisation of Peoples, the Vatican congregation that uses proceeds from a property empire including 2,000 Rome apartments to fund missionary efforts.

Sepe allegedly oversaw the sale in 2004 of a building in Rome to the then transport minister, Pietro Lunardi, for the suspiciously low price of €4.16m, newspapers reported, adding that magistrates wanted to know why Lunardi then freed up €2.5m in state funding the following year for the congregation to create a museum in its headquarters, and why that museum never opened.

Full article: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/jun/20/vatican-cardinal-corruption-inquiry-rome-property-deals

Plans to have the Pope arrested when he visits the UK will succeed because he is not a head of state, a solicitor has said.

Atheist authors Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens proposed the action against the Pontiff for his handling of child abuse scandals in the Catholic church.

The writers’ solicitor Mark Stephens said applications will be made to courts in the UK and the International Criminal Court for a warrant for Pope Benedict XVI’s arrest.

His likely defence would be be that he is immune from prosecution during his visit to Britain in September, according to the lawyer.

Mr Stephens said: “The courts will examine the claim of immunity. I believe that an English court would reject it. If the Pope was here on a state visit, ordinarily a head of state would have sovereign immunity. What I believe is that because he’s not a sovereign, not a head of state, he’s not entitled to the defence.”

He said that the Vatican was declared to be a state by Benito Mussolini, but this had no standing in international law.

Continues: http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/feedarticle/9027087

The British Humanist Association is a founding member of the Protest the Pope campaign.

I respect Jane Campbell and others’ desire to prolong their lives and make no judgment call on anyone else’s quality of life. Sadly, I feel this respect is not always reciprocated. Her argument against assisted dying for terminally ill people when distilled is no different from those who trump the sanctity of life above the wishes of those who want to have the choice of an assisted death. Campbell and other anti-choice campaigners seek not only to judge the quality of my death, but to impose their views on me and many others at the end of life – a survey of 3,000 deaths by Professor Clive Seale found that almost one in 10 dying patients asked for help to die.

I am dying of pancreatic cancer. I wish I wasn’t. But dying isn’t a failure on my part, it is part of life. I wish to live as long as possible, but not at the expense of enduring an undignified death. In the final days or weeks of my life, if I consider my suffering to be unbearable, I would like the choice to die at home at a time of my choosing surrounded by my loved ones.

Full article: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/jun/09/assisted-death-should-be-respected

A new campaign by disability rights activists to limit the right to die launches at Westminster on Thursday.

The campaign – called Not Dead Yet UK Resistance – will be asking MPs to sign a charter in support of its aims.

It says that disabled and terminally ill people should enjoy the same legal protection as everyone else.

Those in favour of assisted suicide argue that opposing assisted suicide will condemn terminally-ill people to suffer needlessly.

The Not Dead Yet UK’s charter includes a commitment to oppose any changes to existing laws which state that assisting a patient to commit suicide is illegal.

The campaigners claim that the prevailing view is that disabled people’s lives are not worth living, and that this contradicts the perception that many disabled people have of themselves.

Their charter also states that disabled and terminally-ill people should have access to the health and social care that they need.

http://newsvote.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/8718581.stm

The BHA campaigns for the legalisation of assisted dying for the terminally ill.