Pakistan has death penalty for blasphemy

Al Jazeera reports:

Islamabad, Pakistan - A court in Pakistan has convicted a university lecturer of blasphemy and sentenced him to death in a case rights groups have long cited as emblematic of fair trial concerns in such prosecutions in the country.

Junaid Hafeez, a lecturer at the Bahauddin Zakariya University in the central Pakistani city of Multan, was accused of having insulted Islam's Prophet Muhammad and its holy book, the Quran, verbally and on Facebook in 2013.

A court in Multan found him guilty and sentenced him to death on Saturday after a lengthy trial that saw frequent delays and transfers of judges.

Hafeez has been held in solitary confinement due to security concerns since 2014 when his lawyer, prominent rights activist Rashid Rehman, was murdered. ...

At least 75 people have been killed in connection with blasphemy accusations in Pakistan since 1990, according to an Al Jazeera tally. The murdered include those accused of the crime, people acquitted by the courts, their lawyers, family members and judges connected to their cases.

Apparently some people read stories like this, and say that we should import 1000s of Pakistani refugees!

India has stopped taking Pakistani refugees. China sends its Moslems to re-education camps. I don't know whether China's approach will work. I hope that there are observers who will give an independent assessment.

It appears that China also discourages Christianity, but Christianity is not an existential threat the way Islam is.

This NY Times op-ed sounds like a joke:

On Thursday, J.K. Rowling caused an uproar when she tweeted ...

The beliefs that trans women are not really women and trans men are not really men are the core argument of a movement of so-called feminists who deny the reality of the transgender experience. (They are sometimes referred to as TERFs or trans-exclusionary radical feminists, though they tend to prefer the term “gender critical.”) ...

As a devoted Harry Potter fan who also happens to be transgender, it was like a punch in the gut. ...

Fans have organized in Harry’s name to donate over 400,000 books around the world, campaign in support of marriage equality and even convince Warner Bros. to switch to ethical sourcing for its Harry Potter-branded chocolates.

So belief in magic is common among transgenders? I believe that.