The BBC’s Humphrey Hawksley reports on brutal physical abuse meted out to slaves in India.

Warning of horrors.

He starts with Dialu Nial getting his right hand chopped off.

Now free, and his injury healing, he is back home deep in the countryside of Orissa. There is no electricity or sanitation. Many of the villagers are illiterate.

“I didn’t go to school. When I was a child I tended cattle and harvested rice,” Nial says, sitting on the earth outside the cluster of huts which are his family’s home.

It is from communities like this that people are liable to be drawn into a system known as bonded labour. [Read more…]

A heat wave is getting going here, and I need refreshment. Courtesy of Biologia com o Prof. Jubilut:

 

Originally a comment by Andrew B on Accessing celebrities is expensive work.

I think I’ve made this point before, but this seems like a form of sock-puppetry. “Hey, look at all of our affiliated groups! There’s the World Secular Team (which we also run), the Global Enterprise of Religious Freedom (which we also run) and the Alliance for Atheist Voices (which we also run).” Meanwhile it’s just the same dozen assholes changing hats.

You know how meaningful, effective groups form? FIRST you start with committed people that REGULARLY do quality shit, THEN you form your fucking group. Isn’t this how freethoughblogs started? You all had your own blogs, regular pumping out ideas and commentary, and THEN you got together to form the community. These new Global Secular groups seem like a bunch of guys who don’t play any instruments forming a band because it’s a great way to get laid.

Also, there’s a reason that these groups stress the value of celebrity: that’s what they value, and that’s how they understand movements. Celebrities are really skilled at SELF-PROMOTION, and not necessarily meaningful contribution, and that’s all these groups are. Webpages, mission statements and group photos of smirking assholes.

 

A few days ago Saudi Arabia sentenced lawyer and human rights defender Waleed Abu al-Khair to 15 years in prison. Amnesty International has details.

The Specialized Criminal Court in Jeddah convicted Waleed Abu al-Khair of a string of “offences” including “inciting international organizations against the government” and “breaking allegiance to the ruler” among others. He will also be subject to a 15-year travel ban after his release. [Read more…]

Oh good, another shiny new secular project. We just can’t have enough of those, all the more so if they’re all run by the same people who say the same things.

The mission of Openly Secular is to eliminate discrimination and increase acceptance by getting secular people – including atheists, freethinkers, agnostics, humanists and nonreligious people – to be open about their beliefs.

Ok, that’s fine. It’s good to eliminate discrimination and increase acceptance. I think their including should include theists, since some theists are also secularists according to one definition of secular, but perhaps they’re using a different definition. So, ok so far.

[Updating to add: Actually that was too hasty. I gave them that part mostly for rhetorical reasons, because I was going to disagree sharply with the next part. Well stuff rhetorical reasons. Not fine, not ok so far. Why? Because as Joe points out – this is what they’ve been doing all along, at least according to what they’ve been telling us.]

Openly Secular is the joint project of four of the best-known and respected secular organizations:

Richard Dawkins Foundation
Secular Coalition for America
Secular Student Alliance
Stiefel Freethought Foundation

[Read more…]

Riada Asimovic Akyol points out one of the many genocides we get to commemorate.

In July 1995 in Srebrenica, the Bosnian Serb forces committed genocide, by killing 8,000 Bosniak men and boys. What is more shameful is that Srebrenica was a protected UN safe area, but the Dutch peacekeepers who had the responsibility to protect around 30,000 refugees in the area failed to prevent the mass slaughter.

This wasn’t a battle; it was rounding people up and murdering them; murdering them for genocidal reasons. [Read more…]

The things people worried about in the 19th century…

One such was the risk that women who rode bicycles would get – wait for it – bicycle face.

Instead, some late 19th century doctors warned that — especially for women — using the newfangled contraption could lead to a threatening medical condition: bicycle face.

Because…what? They were facing forward and paying attention, so they wouldn’t look all languorous and dreamy and fragile, as the fashion was? [Read more…]

Former Congressional Rep Todd Akin, Very Republican-Missouri, famous solely for being the guy who said “if it’s a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down,” has regrets.

He has regrets about saying that ridiculous and insulting thing?

Oh no. No no no. He has regrets about apologizing for saying that ridiculous and insulting thing. [Read more…]

Back in 2008, in Cairo, another discussion of rape.