Pat Condell‘s latest video, expressing his outrage on behalf of those Muslim women who will suffer because they are forced to have their marital problems solved in a male-dominated Sharia court, was banned by YouTube for “violating the YouTube Community Guidelines”. The British Government, in the interests of “tolerance”, appears to approve the use of Sharia courts in this country, just so long as they don’t sentence anyone to be stoned to death (one hopes), or have their hands amputated, or any of the other punishments meted out by Sharia courts in Saudi Arabia, where human rights are ignored.

Our October newsletter is ready for download. Articles on the BHA’s Local Development Project, SIFRE’s Forum of Faiths, and the facts about refugees. Did you know that many people think that the UK accepts about 23% of the world’s refugees, while the true figure is about 2 to 3%? There’s also a full diary of events from now until February 2009. Suffolk Humanist & Secularist News, October 2008 (PDF) Fishing analogy leaflet (PDF)

The Council of Ex-Muslims of Britain presents its first international conference – Political Islam, Sharia Law, And Civil Society – on Friday 10th October 2008 (International day against the Death Penalty). From 10am to 6pm (registration begins at 9am) at Conway Hall, London. For more information, go to their website. Tags: Council+of+Ex-Muslims+of+Britain, Conference

Millions of children in the UK are living in, or on the brink of, poverty, a report claims. The Campaign to End Child Poverty says some 5,500,000 children are in families that are classed as “struggling”. The parliamentary constituency with the highest number of children in, or close to, poverty is Birmingham Ladywood, with 81% (28,420 individuals). The campaign classes households in poverty if they are living on just under £10 per person per day.

State schools are increasingly “embarrassed” to talk about God, leaving a moral vacuum which has been filled by celebrity culture and the X Factor, a leading independent school head said yesterday. Tim Hastie-Smith, chairman of the Headmasters’ and Headmistresses’ Conference (HMC) which represents 250 private schools, said: “The retreat of God from education has left a moral and spiritual vacuum and the breakdown of any shared value system. In our schools we have the freedom, if we choose, to fight that malaise.

The London home of the publisher of a controversial new novel that gives a fictionalised account of the Prophet Muhammad’s relationship with his child bride, Aisha, was firebombed yesterday, hours after police had warned the man that he could be a target for fanatics. A petrol bomb is believed to have been thrown through the door of Martin Rynja’s £2.5m town house in Islington’s Lonsdale Square, which also doubles as the headquarters of his publishing company, Gibson Square.

It has a “personality”? Here’s a new spin on the usual do-you—believe-in-God survey. The Baylor Institute for Studies of Religion has questioned nearly 1,700 Americans on God’s personality, as part of their religion poll. “A lot of surveys ask do you believe in God. But surveys have not asked: Who is God? Is God angry? Is God judgmental? Is God friendly? Is God forgiving? Is He engaged with the world?

A video has emerged showing Sarah Palin playing a central role in a church service in Alaska in which witchcraft is denounced. Thomas Muthee, a Kenyan who is a regular preacher at Palin’s local Pentecostal church in Wasilla, made a passionate plea to defeat witchcraft and other supposed enemies of Palin during a sermon three years ago. The role of the witchfinder in the life of the vice-presidential candidate running mate raises new questions about how much his team investigated her background before naming her as John McCain’s running mate.

Sixty years ago, the UN composed a document setting out a Universal Declaration of Human Rights. It lists a set of basic principles, such as that everyone should be treated equally, torture and slavery are forbidden, and everyone has the right to life, liberty and security. It’s a lovely set of ideals, but it also has a set of enemies. To name just one: fundamentalists hate it. And, unfortunately, fundamentalists, especially Islamic fundamentalists, are quietly working behind the scenes to undermine it.

The Police should be as enthusiastic about protecting free speech as they are about protecting the sensitivities of religious minorities, the National Secular Society told a conference of police officers and the Crown Prosecution Service in London yesterday (18 September). The NSS’s Executive Director, Keith Porteous Wood, told the conference — which was examining the implications of the Racial and Religious Hatred Act — that as well as the Human Rights aspects and powerful arguments in principle, protecting freedom of expression is also justified on pragmatic grounds.