It takes guts to stand up for what you believe in when you live in a repressive country. While we in the West enjoy the freedom to post nude photos of ourselves whenever we want, there are some countries - in this case Egypt - where doing so can get you in a lot of trouble. It was in the spirit of protest that Aliaa Magda Elmahd posted naked pictures of herself on her blog to highlight the fact that the cou ...

Every so often, I hear someone claim that honor killings have nothing to do with Islam. While it's true that the practice is actually older than the religion (it is, after all, the "new kid on the block" compared to the other two Abrahamic Religions), it seems as though this barbaric ritual has found fertile ground in this religion. While the practice has its roots in much older Arab patriarchal societies t ...

If you aren't from the Netherlands, odds are you've never heard of Geert Wilders. In the fight against sectarian ideologies, Wilders is a bit of a wild card. While I applaud his efforts to combat the rising tide of irrationality and superstition in his country, this "champion of free speech" is the same man who wanted to ban the Koran. Let's just say he's a hard man to love. He's currently on trial for inci ...

If you're a regular to the site, you're bound to have read an article I wrote a while ago called "10 reasons why Superman is better than Jesus", my tongue-in-cheek comparison of these two fictional characters. This article still receives a lot of traffic, not to mention endless comments about how I'm supposed to believe there really was a historical Jesus (if you want to read a great article explaining just ...

I asked a friend of mine a few days ago if she felt I had changed in the past 5 years of knowing me. She replied by saying she felt I was a lot less angry than I was before. I suppose that's true (to be fair, back then I wasn't really getting laid much), but I would actually argue in a lot of ways, I'm actually a lot more frustrated than I ever was. The reason is I've put myself in a position to get angry o ...

Here's a scary thought: roughly half of all murders in Turkey are honor killings. That's roughly 200 cases of women being killed by family members for the "crime" of offending the family's honor. What does that entail, exactly? Well, take the story of Medine Memi, a teenage girl who was buried alive by her father and grandfather for having male friends. Media reports said the father had told relatives he wa ...

A few hundred years ago, when the world was a vastly different place, the slaughter of young women for the preservation of honor was a common occurrence. In strongly patriarchal societies, women were seen as disposable, and for cultures obsessed with their honor and reputation, honor killings became a way for families to regain social currency. If you had the stones to murder your daughter for almost no rea ...

In Islam, apostasy is a serious offense. People get more than slaps on the wrist for changing faiths; they get abused, beaten, and sometimes killed. That's not to say the fate of all apostates in the Muslim world is grim, but there is a definite violent precedence, and if you have the unfortunate luck of being born in a fundamentalist family, it can be a death sentence. 17 year old Rifqa fled from her Musli ...

I've never understood why the Canadian government is so adamant about keeping certain immigrants while simultaneously trying to kick others out, especially when the people we send back to their home countries are in danger. While we harbor ex Nazis, mafia criminals, and other genocidal monsters, we also try to get rid of good people who seek our protection. Roohi Tabassum is an illegal immigrant who says sh ...

Here's another tragic honor killing in Germany, this time by the woman's own brother. According to reports, he lured her to the countryside, where he strangled her unconscious with a clothes line before beating her to death. Her crime? Well, it turns out the family was trying to set up an arranged marriage and found out that not only wasn't she a virgin, but she had also undergone at least one abortion. Tha ...