NB: The Iranian government has distanced itself from the attack, but a Iranian government-supported newspaper has hailed the attacker as a hero. Religious ‘hurt sentiment’ has become a precursor to contract killing. Religious leaders who call for murder are themselves satanic; does the Divine Creator requires his or her dignity to be defended by mere… Read More The Disappeared: How the fatwa changed a writer’s life
Narendra Dabholkar (1945-2013) ‘Remember Gandhi. Remember what we did to him’: last threat to Narendra Dabholkar PUNE: Well-known rationalist and anti-superstition crusader Narendra Dabholkar was on Tuesday shot dead by two unidentified assailants while on a morning walk near Omkareshwar temple here. The 67-year-old activist was shot from close range and died on the spot. Police said the… Read More Four Indian intellectuals who were murdered for their ideas (2013-2017)
Mukul Kesavan on Salman Rushdie and the violence on free thought NB: In case we forget what’s happened in India between 2013 and 2017: Four Indian intellectuals who were murdered for their ideas (2013-2017) In the decades since Khomeini’s fatwa overset Salman Rushdie’s life, his critics have sometimes suggested that he isn’t really a free speech icon because… Read More Bloodied pen
Lisa-Maria Kellermayr, an Austrian GP, was a doctor who dedicated her life to her patients and was vocal about the risks of Covid-19 on Twitter and in the media. She had endured months of death threats from Covid conspiracy theorists and anti-vaxxers. Colleagues expressed frustration with the lack of support she received for dealing with… Read More Devi Sridhar: A scientist in the public eye has taken her own life. This has to be a wake-up call
Beijing (AsiaNews) – The popular Chinese messaging site WeChat continues to silence He Weifang, a Peking University academic known for his campaigns in favour of the establishment of the rule of law and freedom of expression in China. In a handwritten letter that has been circulating on the web since 3 February, the academic denounced… Read More WeChat silences He Weifang, defender of rule of law in China.
A Delhi University professor has been booked for an allegedly objectionable social media post on the claims of a ‘Shivling’ being found at the Gyanvapi mosque in Varanasi. Ratan Lal, an associate professor of history at the Hindu College, has been booked under IPC sections 153-A (promoting enmity between different groups on grounds of religion,… Read More Hindu College history professor booked for post on Gyanvapi ‘Shivling’ / Teachers, students demand immediate release of associate professor Ratan Lal
Should I be banned because I admire Louis-Ferdinand Céline’s masterpieces Journey to the End of the Night, Death on the Installment Plan, and Castle to Castle, despite his virulent anti-Semitism…? Should I be banned for liking Joseph Heller’s Catch-22, which is rabidly misogynistic? Should I be banned for loving William Butler Yeats, who, like Ezra Pound… was a fascist collaborator? Should… Read More Hedges: Alice Walker and the Price of Conscience
By Konstantin Akinsha In early March, the University of Milan-Bicocca reacted to the Russian war against Ukraine by cancelling a seminar on Dostoevsky. This peculiar stand against Russian imperialism provoked a heated discussion among academics and intellectuals. The seminar was taught by the writer Paolo Nori, who instantly became famous. For a few days, the… Read More Don’t cry for me, Dostoevsky
Margaret Thatcher hated the ‘British Bastard Corporation’, as her husband liked to call it. Coverage of the Falklands War was an inevitable flashpoint, with Thatcher raging against reporters’ references to ‘British’ forces rather than ‘our’ troops. The tabloid press sensed an opportunity to put the boot in, with the Sun wheeling out the tiredest of tropes by… Read More Books reviewed: Beebology, or the history of the ‘British Bastard Corporation’
When my daughter asked why she couldn’t have an Alexa, I told her it is because Alexa steals your dreams and sells them It is often said that people are entitled to their opinions. But are they really? Do you have a God-given right to believe that torture is good, or that the moon… Read More Book review – Freedom to Think: the big tech threat to free thought
After the truth-shower 