Atheist Maryam Namazie banned, unbanned from speaking

[onager]

The exiled Iranian atheist Maryam Namazie was recently invited to speak at Warwick University in the UK.

Then she got un-invited, apparently because someone was afraid she would say Bad Things about Islam.

The cyber-verse blew up, with Namazie being supported by Salman Rushdie, Jerry Coyne and many others.

Richard Dawkins tweeted: "She’s a hero to all a university stands for. But cowardly useful idiots of Warwick have banned @MaryamNamazie.”

Apparently the university then changed its mind again and re-invited her.

And lo! Along comes The Guardian's very own Useful Idiot, David Shariatmadari. To explain with 50 or so rhetorical questions why Namazie wasn't REALLY banned ("The govt. didn't ban her&quot . And those poor, put-upon Muslims really are Special Snowflakes who need extraordinary protection from criticism:

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/oct/01/university-of-warwick-maryam-namazie-activist

Which drew a response from one woman commenter that made me want to stand up and cheer. She lives in the UK but her comments just MIGHT be applicable to a few other English-speaking countries:

I am on the Left and I am sick of excuses being made for knuckle-dragging clericofascists just because they are Muslim. A clericofascist is a clericofascist. They need to be challenged. I had hoped that, in this country, we were finally winning the battles on women's and LGBTQ rights; that religious privilege was being kicked into touch. Now we are having to refight some of these battles because some misguided folk are buying into a bogus victim narrative about oppressive misogynistic religion.