UPDATE::Don’t hurt religious sentiment, IGP to bloggers | Dhaka Tribune

Bangladeshi authorities, the local law enforcement officials, have issued a solution to the "problem" of atheist bloggers being hacked to death:

Terming hurting one's religious sentiment as crime, Inspector General of Police (IGP) has advised the free thinkers not to hurt religious sentiment in their writings.

IGP AKM Shahidul Haque said: “According to laws if any one hurts one's feelings, he will be punished by the law.”
Advising the free thinkers, IGP said: “None should cross the limit.”

According to Penal Code and ICT Act, hurting one's religious sentiment is a crime and according to the law one might be punished for 14 years for such offense, said the police chief.

The IGP held a press briefing at Police Headquarters in Dhaka on Sunday afternoon in the wake of criticism against police following the brutal killing of blogger Niladri Chatterjee NIloy.

If only those atheists stopped criticizing religion,,sigh!!

Don’t hurt religious sentiment, IGP to bloggers | Dhaka Tribune

UPDATE::AQIS says its members killed Niloy Neel | Dhaka Tribune

Ansar Al Islam has claimed responsibility for the murder of secular blogger Niladri Chatterjee.

The organisation also known as al-Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent (AQIS) in an email to the media in the evening hailed the murder that took place around 1:30pm in Khilgaon and threatened to destroy the other blasphemers.
The email was sent from ansar.al.islam.bd@gmail.com.

Police suspect that this organisation is none other than recently banned militant group Ansarullah Bangla Team.
Previously Ansar Al Islam through its Twitter account had claimed responsibilities for the murder of several other secularist activists killed since 2013.

AQIS in May hailed the killing of Ahmed Rajeeb Haider, Ashraful Alam, Prof AKM Shafiul Islam, Avijit Roy, Oyasiqur Rahman Babu and Ananta Bijoy Das.

AQIS says its members killed Niloy Neel | Dhaka Tribune

Mukto-Mona Writers' Corner - Statement on the murder of “Niloy Neel”

As my co-host so aptly states, "If your god cannot endure questions, criticism or insults, then he/she/it is psychologically weak."  In other words if your god, your ideology is so weak that you must kill your opposition you may want to re-think your position.

Following the murders of Rajeeb Haider, Avijit Roy, Washiqur Rahmna, and Ananta Bijoy Das, today, the Mukto-Mona writer, blogger, and activist Niloy Neel has been hacked to death. He wrote in Mutko-Mona as well as in Istishon, and Facebook under the name of “Niloy Neel” (twitter: #NiloyNeel). In addition to writing, Niloy Neel was involved in various social justice movements and was the founder of the Bangladesh Science and Rationalists Association.

Ansar Al Islam, the Bangladesh branch of Al Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent (AQIS) has claimed responsibility for murdering Niloy Neel in his own home, in front of his family, because of his writing. The fundamentalists continue in their tradition of responding to the pen with machetes; the government of Bangladesh continues to supply the fundamentalists with all that is necessary to keep their machetes honed. One by one the enlightened, the freethinking writers, and activists of Bangladesh, are being brutally murdered. Their only crime is taking a stand against injustice, and superstitions prevalent in society. A machete may kill, in a cowardly manner, a human being of flesh and bone; it cannot kill their ideology. Our fight will continue. With all our strength we will continue to speak our minds, our dreams. For as long as there is even a single member of the freethinking community alive; for as long as a single sentence written by freethinking writers survives.
,,,
Mutkto-Mona strongly condemns the continuing murders of writers, bloggers, and humanists. We call to the government of Bangladesh: Do not pander to fundamentalism anymore. Because no state has been spared by compromising with fundamentalists. Take immediate and effective steps to quell fundamentalism, and to create public awareness against it.

Mukto-Mona Writers' Corner - Statement on the murder of “Niloy Neel”

“Two million dead on the side of the patriots”: How Alex Jones’s “Jade Helm” conspiracy theory got very dangerous very fast - Salon.com

Couple the Jade Helm theory with another Jones theory about a forthcoming civil war, and it’s no wonder why angry white guys with firearms are freaking out. Just over a year ago, Jones said on his show:

“[The government] needs the police and the military to wipe out the liberty movement, and we wipe them out. […] I estimate in the civil war, 300,000 police will die. I estimate that if the military marches out against the gun owners, half a million dead. Two million dead on the side of the patriots. Won’t matter, we’ll have another 10 million where that came from. But it’ll be a real war once they start it.”

Therein lay the seeds of his Jade Helm theory. It’s all about the military and the police provoking the “liberty movement” into a shooting war. And now, a year later, shots are actually being fired. What Jones doesn’t seem to realize (or maybe he does) is that this kind of rhetoric speaks directly to the itchy-trigger-fingered militiamen and self-styled revolutionary cosplayers who believe that, yes, the government is going to attack them and seize their weapons, so they should be ready to counterattack. And this is evidently defined as “patriotic.”

“Two million dead on the side of the patriots”: How Alex Jones’s “Jade Helm” conspiracy theory got very dangerous very fast - Salon.com

Third atheist blogger killed in Bangladesh knife attack | World news | The Guardian

 I find this just so disconcerting,,,

A secular blogger has been hacked to death in north-east Bangladesh, the third such deadly attack this year.

Police said Ananta Bijoy Das was murdered as he headed to work at abank in the city of Sylhet, an attack that fellow writers saidhighlighted a culture of impunity.

Kamrul Hasan, commissioner of Sylhet police, said a group of about four masked attackers pounced on Das with machetes at about 8.30am on Tuesday on a busy street in Bangladesh’s fifth-largest city.

“They chased him down the street and first attacked his head with their machetes and then attacked him all over his body,” Hasan told Agence France-Presse. The attackers fled into the crowds and Das was taken to hospital but declared dead on arrival, police and medics said.

[,,,]
Bangladesh is an officially secular country but more than 90% of its 160 million population are Muslims. There has been an increase in attacks by religious extremists in recent years. Supporters of Bangladesh’s largest Islamist party, which is banned from standing in elections, have been accused of being behind a spate of firebombings this year aimed at toppling the government.

Since 2013, at least five bloggers have been attacked by Islamists after another hardline group, Hefazat-e-Islam, publicly sought the execution of atheists who organised mass protests against the rise of political Islam.

Third atheist blogger killed in Bangladesh knife attack | World news | The Guardian

Exclusive - Widow of slain U.S.-Bangladeshi blogger lashes out at Dhaka | Reuters

This is not the usual type of story I share.  As I am woefully under-educated on issues concerning Islam, ISIS/ISIL/IS, I am not comfortable in my lack of knowledge.  But, this story was shared by a friend and fellow podcaster who is versed in such issues and it struck a nerve:

“This was well planned, choreographed – a global act of terrorism,” she said. “But what almost bothers me more is that no one from the Bangladesh government has reached out to me. It’s as if I don’t exist, and they are afraid of the extremists. Is Bangladesh going to be the next Pakistan or Afghanistan?”

Here is a woman - like Malala Yousafzai, like Ensaf Haidar - who has the tenacity to speak out in her own words, about what her world is like.

On a recent evening in a Midwestern U.S. city, a middle-aged woman with bandaged arms and a missing thumb entered a crowded restaurant. Nearby, children colored with crayons. Waiters rushed by.

The maimed woman, Rafida Ahmed, scanned the room nervously. The Atlanta financial executive has been hiding since Islamic militants wielding machetes attacked her on Feb. 26 in her native Bangladesh.

During the assault, her husband – the Bangladeshi-American secular activist and blogger Avijit Roy – was hacked to death. Ahmed sustained four head wounds, and her left thumb was sliced off. On May 3, the Indian-born head of al-Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent claimed responsibility for a string attacks in Bangladesh and Pakistan, including Roy's.

The murder of Roy, an atheist who published a popular and provocative blog, marks an escalation by Islamist militants for control of Bangladesh. Religious fundamentalists are competing daily with secular government officials for power in the majority-Muslim country, one of the world’s largest and poorest democracies. 

Something I did not know,

Roy was a young child during the formative years that followed Bangladesh’s 1971 war of independence from Pakistan. The war had roots in colonialism and religion. Although Pakistan and Bangladesh shared neither a border nor common language, they had been joined as one in 1947, as the British departed the subcontinent. The demarcation was largely based on one factor: most who lived in Pakistan and Bangladesh were Muslim.

Bangladesh was founded as a secular country, but U.S. and Bangladesh officials said the Islamic fundamentalist influence began to increase in the 1990s as wealthy Arabs began building hundreds of religious schools. The same officials say militant influence also increased as waves of Bangladeshis who had moved to the Persian Gulf as labourers returned home with stricter Muslim views.

And yes, angry tears did flow freely.  Such a loss over which god has a bigger penis!!

Exclusive - Widow of slain U.S.-Bangladeshi blogger lashes out at Dhaka | Reuters

A Retired Navy Officer Rips Tea Party Terrorist Behind ‘Reward for Capture of Obama’ Facebook Page | Americans Against the Tea Party

Why, here in America, we can actually point guns at our own government and threaten to shoot down our neighbors, and we can do it free of any consequence … and others will inevitably rally to our cause in the name of liberty.

Here in America we can publicly declare war on our own nation, engage in open sedition and treason writ large, offer a reward for the capture and execution of our own democratically elected president, publicly promote the overthrow of the very Constitution which guarantees our freedoms, and loudly declare our intention for violent installation of a religious theocracy made of up of extremists who would execute and imprison any American who does not subscribe to this murderous lunacy.

We Americans put up with a lot of nonsense in the supposed name of liberty.

We put up with raging hate, blatant bigotry, threats of violence, obvious insanity, and foamy spittle-flecked ignorant stupidity – all because we’re afraid that if we restrict those things in even the slightest way, if we hold the perpetrators to account to even the smallest degree, well then we won’t know where to draw the line and then we’ll end up under the jackboot of tyranny.

[,,,]
In the name of freedom, we allow the racist haters of the KKK and the Neo-Nazis to march down the middle of our streets and terrorize our citizens.

In the name of liberty, we allow the insane fanatics of Westboro Baptist Church to scream their twisted hatred at the funerals of our loved ones and our fallen soldiers.

In the name of democracy we allow the ideologues and the political fanatics in Congress to deadlock our government, repeatedly bring our nation to a standstill, refuse to do their jobs, and threaten the entire world economy, all in the name of soundly debunked conspiracy theories and rabid unhinged yellow-eyed hate.

In the name of the Constitution, we allow the traitorous dishonorable scumbags of the Oath Keepers to march on the White House flying that goddamned Confederate Battle Flag, the very symbol of racism and the ensign of those who vigorously tried to destroy the United States, and we listen while they demand the president be dragged from the Oval Office and hung before a kangaroo court.

A Retired Navy Officer Rips Tea Party Terrorist Behind ‘Reward for Capture of Obama’ Facebook Page | Americans Against the Tea Party

Conservatives up in arms over video game with sovereign citizen Tea Partiers as the bad guys

I know nothing about video games as I am still in the Pac-Man world (and I suck at that as well.) But I find this game concept unconventional and a bit unnerving. Not because I abhor violence of any kind, real or make believe. Not because I am anti-gun, because I am not. But as much as I hate to admit it, I agree in part with Glen Beck, "“Let’s go to the game that has just come out that makes American constitutionalists and Tea Party people the enemy. And you can go and shoot them,” Beck said on his radio show.“Anybody have a problem with this?”"

I do. But, I also see a bit of hypocrisy: the alleged "targeting" of political opponents that may have contributed to the Gifford shooting in 2011.  The numerous calls for lynching the President. The Cliven Bundy fiasco and its influence. While the list is endless I think y'all get my point.

All that aside, there are three points being missed by Beck. One, the Tea Party is made up of radical extremists; although they don't see themselves as such, many outside individuals do. Two, Beck and the "American constitutionalists and Tea Party people" claim this game portrays them. Are they identifying with the extremists? Either they aren't like the people portrayed, or they are. And three,"Beck and his guests wondered how younger people will be able to “differentiate” between the bad guys in the video game, and real life Tea Party types." This game is rated M (17+), "younger people" shouldn't be playing it in the first place. For those non-younger individuals that do play, If they can't differentiate between game violence and real violence, the problem is not with the game.

If the shoe fits Glen,,,

Conservatives up in arms over video game with sovereign citizen Tea Partiers as the bad guys

Why They Join | Southern Poverty Law Center

Many people have asked why I focus on such negative stories. The simple answer, whether political in nature or religious, the dangers of these ideologies need to exposed. In my case I focus on the harm caused by religion and lately how religion is influencing our politics. A more complex answer. I am trying to understand what drives people to these ideologies and their willingness to maltreat another human being.

While this article focuses on the more "hardcore" extremism (the white power movement) the term "radical-right" is used in the discussion. That is where my interest is, more succinctly, why do people vote against their own best interests by following some of these movements.
__
On common themes in their personal histories,,,
It’s pretty diverse but if I had to nail it down I would say one of the most common background characteristics is some kind of family disruption, whether that be divorce or parental abandonment, a parent becoming incarcerated, or substance abuse by one or both of the parents,,,

,,,people from a wide cross section of socioeconomic backgrounds become involved. I think this is really important not only in terms of challenging a pretty pervasive stereotype but also recognizing that these types of groups have a much wider recruitment potential than is often recognized.

In terms of personality, I wouldn’t say there is one type of personality, but I would say there are certain characteristics of thinking that make a person more prone or susceptible,,,

At the most fundamental level that’s what most of these movements are all really based on — oversimplifying a highly complicated world — and that’s a powerful thing to offer people, especially those who feel lost or are looking for some easy answers.

On violence,,,
Well, some people were already violent before they ever became involved in extremism,,,

But becoming immersed in a world of extremism definitely encourages additional violence. Violence is a central part of the culture — it’s all over the music, part of their ideology, and they talk about violence on a regular basis,,,
,,,

Fortunately — and this is true for all extremists — there is far more violent talk than there is violent crime,,,

On ideology,,,
,,,Over time, ideology becomes more important as the person becomes more familiar with the ideas. But it’s not necessarily a smooth process where each member becomes a full convert to the same extent,,,

Conspiratorial thinking,,,
,,,we need to be mindful that conspiracy theories have a long history with a broad spectrum of influence. Conspiracy theories are certainly not the sole province of a few “wild-eyed wackos.”,,,




Why They Join | Southern Poverty Law Center

Obama, come out with your hands up!

Back flip, the President is back to being a Muslim today, although in Klayman's mind he has always been "mullah in chief",,,

Klayman was founder of Judicial Watch and now runs a similar organization Freedom Watch. Throughout his career Klayman has filed eighteen lawsuits against the Clinton administration in the '90s, and recently sued Hillary Clinton. He recently sued Facebook for $1 billion for not removing an anti-Israel page, and represented Bradllee Dean his slander lawsuit against Rachel Maddow. And he sued his own mother. Other targets of his complaints have included former Vice President Dick Cheney, former House Republican Leader Tom DeLay, Osama bin Laden and Fidel Castro.

Once convicted, We the People will have the right to enforce this conviction and demand that Obama surrender himself to the people's system of justice for incarceration. Will he do so voluntarily? Obviously not! His arrogance and disrespect for American law – just look at how his attorney general has flouted it – and his apparent allegiance to Shariah law make this more than unlikely, to put it mildly.

I therefore call upon all American patriots, once we obtain this conviction, which we will shortly, to converge on Washington. Millions should stand in front of the White House and other national treasures and demand that Barack Hussein Obama leave. If the Egyptians can do this with regard to another radical Muslim, former president Mohamed Morsi of the Muslim Brotherhood, then can't we Americans do it with Obama?

And, when we do converge on and "Occupy Washington" in the millions on a date to be announced for the week before Thanksgiving, the people may think about chanting: "Mr. President (to use the term loosely), put the Quran down, get up off your knees and come out with your hands up!"

The power of the people will then be heard without firing one proverbial shot. This fraudster, who stole the presidency and has done so much harm, will finally know that his time has come to leave his perverted, Islamic concept of Mecca, our nation's hallowed capital.

I do not advocate violence, but it is time we show Obama that we mean business. He would be well advised to ride off into his Islamic sunset, link up with 72 virgins and party on at his expense – not ours!

Obama, come out with your hands up!

John Cleese on Extremism. - YouTube

The Men Behind ‘Innocence Of Muslims’ Revealed As Anti-Government Domestic Terrorists | Addicting Info

A shining example of religious extremism and how an ideology can over take one's mind,,,this goes well beyond a Christian worldview,,,are they Domnionists?? Not in the true sense of the word (altho there is a mention of some of the tenants of the 7 Mountains Mandate), IMHO, their militant actions, anti-government stance and separatist leanings seem to align them more with the christian identity movement, they do have goal of turning America into a theocracy based on OT writings,,,

The Men Behind ‘Innocence Of Muslims’ Revealed As Anti-Government Domestic Terrorists | Addicting Info

As much as I detest what this film may or may not have caused, it highlights a very important point in regards to "the right of free speech",,,two commentators aptly describe this fine line,,,

"What is the famous limit on free speech from the Supreme court, one can not yell fire in a crowded movie theater, this guy did just that in a very calculated premeditated way. If someone yells fire in a crowded theater in order to cause a panic, he is responsible for the people who get trampled."

Versus,,,

"The metaphor is falsely yelling fire in a theater, thereby causing immediate and clear danger to reasonable people. So someone who falsely caused a panic would be liable for the injuries and deaths.  THis [sic] movie, such as it is, is not the same sort of thing. The people who saw the movie were not in fear for their lives. They reacted with rage and chose to murder,,,

My question,,,if he is so proud of his work why is he seeking police protection??

Police protecting suspected anti-Islam filmmaker in Los Angeles

Nakoula told The Associated Press in an interview outside Los Angeles Wednesday that he managed logistics for the company that produced "Innocence of Muslims," which mocked Muslims and the prophet Muhammad.

Nakoula denied that he was Bacile and insisted he did not direct the film, though he said he knew Bacile. But federal court papers filed against Nakoula in a 2010 criminal prosecution said that he had used numerous aliases in the past. Among the fake names, the documents said, were Nicola Bacily, Robert Bacily and Erwin Salameh, all similar to the Sam Bacile persona. Other aliases described in the documents included Ahmad Hamdy, Kritbag Difrat and PJ Tobacco.

[,,,]
Pastor Terry Jones, of Gainesville, Fla., who sparked outrage in the Arab world when he burned Qurans on the ninth anniversary of 9/11, said he spoke with the movie's director on the phone Wednesday and prayed for him. Jones said he has not met the filmmaker in person but added that the man contacted him a few weeks ago about promoting the movie. Jones and others who have dealt with the filmmaker said Wednesday that Bacile was hiding his real identity.

Feds ID California man's role in anti-Islam film

Here is where his First Amendment rights may end and possible prosecution begins,,,

Nakoula, who talked guardedly about his role, pleaded no contest in 2010 to federal bank fraud charges in California and was ordered to pay more than $790,000 in restitution. He was also sentenced to 21 months in federal prison and ordered not to use computers or the Internet for five years without approval from his probation officer.

The YouTube account, "Sam Bacile," which was used to publish excerpts of the provocative movie in July, was used to post comments online as recently as Tuesday, including this defense of the film written in Arabic: "It is a 100 percent American movie, you cows."

California man confirms role in anti-Islam film