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who employs me
I am a staff writer with CTV.ca News. That operation is part of CTV News, which is of course nestled into CTV Inc. and CTVglobemedia.

I don't speak for my employer on this blog. I don't comment about the internal affairs of my employer.

Any views expressed here are my own.
View Article  Turkey considers prosecuting publisher of 'The God Delusion'

From the Nov. 28 Guardian:

A Turkish prosecutor is considering whether to prosecute the Turkish publisher of Richard Dawkins' bestselling atheist polemic, The God Delusion, on the grounds that it incites religious hatred.

The publisher, Erol Karaaslan, said today that he expected to be questioned on Thursday by an Istanbul prosecutor as part of an official investigation, and faces prosecution both as its publisher and translator. The book has sold some 6,000 copies in Turkey since it was published by his Kuzey publishing house in June. The inquiry apparently began after one reader complained that passages in the book were an assault on "sacred values".

View Article  Teddy bear lady gets 15-day sentence

The BBC moved an alert saying Gillian Gibbons, a British teacher who named a Teddy bear 'Muhammad' in her class, has been sentenced to 15 days by a Sudan court.

After serving her sentence, she faces deportation.

Addendum

Here's the Guardian story and some commentary from Meera Selva:

Gillian Gibbons has fallen foul of the most ridiculous regime, which cannot seem to see the absurdity and injustice in even arresting, never mind charging, a teacher over the naming of a soft toy.

But this case is not, as is being portrayed, a confrontation between Islam and the west - it is about the hazards of living under a chauvinistic military regime with an all-pervasive secret service. ...

Selva said the regime of Omar al-Bashir needs the support of Islamists to survive. Members of the Muslim Brotherhood had been agitating for Gibbons to get the maximum sentence of six months in jail and 40 lashes:

Bashir now uses the concept of Arab supremacy rather than Islam, as a rallying call to prop up his own power base. This is the language he used in Darfur to incite militias to attack devout Muslim civilians, and is the language used to encourage suspicion and mistrust of foreigners.

The Sudanese government has conceded several points to the international community recently in agreeing to allow UN and AU troops into Darfur and southern Sudan, but the Sudanese are deeply uncomfortable with having foreign troops on their soil. In this climate, it is easy and tempting for the Sudanese politicians in Khartoum to whip up anti-foreign sentiment against a teacher to disguise their loss of sovereignty elsewhere. One can only hope they realise just how much damage is being done by their irresponsible actions soon and defuse this insane situation.

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