This is a severe slap in the face to all those who advocate democracy and freedom of expression in Egypt.

— Ibrahim Issa, Egyptian journalist and chief editor of Al-Dustour, an independent weekly newspaper, speaking about his one-year prison term for defaming Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak.  Issa’s publication, Al-Dustuor, reported the case of Said Abdullah, who filed a lawsuit against President Mubarak for effectively pilfering and squandering public funds when state-owned enterprises were privatized. Sahar Zaki, the reporter, and Said Abdullah, the plaintiff, were also handed one-year prison sentences and crippling fines of $1,743 in a country where gross national income per capita is $1,250. Bravo, Hosni.  

Mimi Hanaoka

95-93: The bishops’ vote that narrowly elected Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori, of Nevada, on Sunday as the first female head of an Anglican Church.  She will be installed as presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church.

7: Total number of candidates who were in the running for the position.

9: The number of years Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori will serve as presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church.

2003: The year the Episcopal Church in America elected the first openly gay bishop, V. Gene Robinson of New Hampshire.

2.3 million: Members the Episcopal Church.

1/4: The fraction of those members who are 65 years old or older.  

Mimi Hanaoka

In our country, homosexuality and lesbianism have always been considered sexual perversions, and were even prosecuted in the past. Currently, the stated actions are not prohibited by law… but their agitation, including gay festivals and a parade of sexual minorities, is in fact propaganda of immorality, which may be prohibited by law.

—Moscow Deputy Mayor Lyudmila Shevtsova, banning Moscow’s first gay rights march, which was planned for May 27, the 13th anniversary of the decriminalization of homosexuality in Russia. Officials banned the rally on the grounds that it would incite violence.  The rally, nevertheless, went ahead, during which scores of protesters — including gay rights activists as well as nationalists and members of religious groups who condemned the march  — were arrested.

Mimi Hanaoka

We’re trying to help get this nation to connect the dots — you turn the country over to fags and now those soldiers are coming home in body bags.

— Shirley Phelps-Roper, one of the approximately 75 members of the Topeka, Kansas-based Westboro Baptist Church. Shirley Phelps-Roper is the daughter of the church leader, Reverend Fred Phelps — 76, former lawyer, and father of 13 — who leads a congregation that essentially consists of extended family members in a church that is totally unaffiliated with any other church. The Westboro Baptist Church has recently been demonstrating at military funerals to spread the church’s message that God is punishing the U.S. for tolerating homosexuality by killing soldiers.

The church’s demonstrations challenge both the limits of free speech and common decency, and as such, both houses of Congress have passed the Respect for America’s Fallen Heroes Act.  The act would prohibit protests in the areas immediately surrounding national cemeteries and the roads leading to cemeteries during, immediately prior to, and following a funeral. President Bush must now sign the act for it to be enacted. Additionally, nine states have passed laws restricting protests at funerals and burials, with a score of other states potentially following suit.

Veterans and grieving family members have enlisted a motorcycle group — which includes a large number of veterans — to drown out the protesters and contain their demonstrations at military funerals.

The church’s appallingly titled and stunningly offensive website spreads its gospel and includes messages that read: “We Dare You To Read This: ‘God Loves Everyone’ — The Greatest Lie Ever Told.”

Mimi Hanaoka

I worked for two presidents who were men of faith, and they did not make their religious views part of American policy…President Bush’s certitude about what he believes in, and the division between good and evil, is, I think, different… The absolute truth is what makes Bush so worrying to some of us… Some of his language is really quite over the top… When he says ‘God is on our side,’ it’s very different from (former U.S. President Abraham) Lincoln saying ‘We have to be on God’s side.’

— Madeleine Albright, former Secretary of State, speaking about President Bush’s strident religious rhetoric. Albright worked in the Carter administration during the 1970s and then served as Secretary of State under President Clinton from 1997 to 2001.

Mimi Hanaoka

We display statues so they can be studied and so people can get to know their heritage. This is Egypt’s national heritage. We don’t display them for worship.

—Mohsen Said, employee of Egypt’s Supreme Council for Antiquities, referring to the fatwa, or religious opinion, that Grand Mufti Ali Gomaa issued last month. Mufti Ali Gomaa declared that sculptures, including Egypt’s pharonic statues that pre-date Islam and form the backbone of the nation’s tourism industry, are un-Islamic and therefore forbidden.

Although the undeniable resurgence in Islamic attitudes should be taken seriously, it’s unlikely that Egypt will take too literal a reading of such a fatwa and start smashing statues in an iconoclastic smashing spree.  Such a precedent, does, however, exist elsewhere: in 2001 the Afghan Taliban destroyed the two massive statues of the Buddha carved into the cliffs in Bamiyan, which were then the tallest standing statues of the Buddha in the world.  The statues, which were at least 1,500 years old, were deemed “offensive to Islam” and subsequently demolished.  

Mimi Hanaoka

Iran’s Supreme Leader has instructed the government to consider the religious leaders’ views and reverse its decision (on letting women into stadiums)… The government will act based on this instruction…

— Iranian government spokesman Gholamhossein Elham, speaking about the decision by Iran’s top cleric Ayatollah Khamenei to reverse President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s recent decision to let women attend sporting events at stadiums in Iran.

President Ahmadinejad ostensibly believes that including women in the arena will add a civilizing presence to the events, and citing this rather curious logic, he declared that allowing women and families into public places, including sports stadiums, “promotes chastity.” He therefore declared in April 2006 that women should be allowed, for the first time since the ban was put into effect during the 1979 Islamic Revolution, to attend sporting events in stadiums where men complete.  Incensed, the clerics, led by Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, have ordered that the ban remain in place.

Mimi Hanaoka

The lesbian aspect of it, the gay son — that’s not been talked about before. Obviously it happens…but to say it in public doesn’t show the other rich elements of Saudi… I don’t think it’s a very balanced portrayal of Riyadh.

—Hani Khoja, producer of a youth TV program in Saudi Arabia, commenting on Rajaa al-Sanei’s new book, titled Banat al-Riyadh, or The Girls of Riyadh.  The 24-year-old dentist’s new book addresses issues of lesbianism, cross-dressing, homosexuality, and sex in the kingdom.  To the chagrin and horror of some, the book recently gained permission to be sold in the conservative kingdom, which is governed, in large part, by statues of Wahhabist Islamic codes.

Mimi Hanaoka

A mall with no cafes, no cinema, only headless mannequins and a strict bar against admitting any men on its upper floor may sound like an unappealing shopping center, but the novel outlet aims to fill a niche market: shopping for ultra-Orthodox women in the Bnei Brak neighborhood of Tel Aviv. The mall features 20 stores, all designed to meet the ultra conservative tastes of its clients. Even the beds here are only available in the snug single size, due to the ultra-Orthodox injunction against sleeping in the same bed, even for married couples.

The owner, Yehuda Amar — whose prior forays have been in the apartment building construction business — insists that business is good: “Business is good, and it’s better because it’s women-only… It’s what the people in this area want. They can look at the lingerie and make-up without worrying about men lurking behind them.”

Mimi Hanaoka

“As the world continues to turn away from the use of the death penalty, it is a glaring anomaly that China, Saudi Arabia, Iran and the USA stand out for their extreme use of this form of punishment as the ‘top’ executioners in the world.”

—Irene Khan, Amnesty International Secretary General, speaking about the death penalty statistics for 2005 generated by the organization. Amnesty International catalogued at least 2,148 people executed in 22 countries in 2005, 94 percent of whom were executed in China, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and America. China accounted for the majority of executions, with approximately 1770 deaths.  

Mimi Hanaoka

If there’s one place in the world that has full license to make fun of Hitler, it’s here … We don’t shy away from the images. If you look at Israeli television every night, there are swastikas and Nazi footage on one programme or another. It’s not as if seeing a swastika is a shock for Israelis. The main objective is to make people laugh.”

—Micah Levensohn, Israeli director ofThe Producers, a musical based on Mel Brooks’ original 1968 film about two Broadway producers who stage an accidentally successful musical about Hitler. Although the producers’ intent was to create an offensive flop — and subsequently flee with the excess money they had raised for the musical — they discover that they have unwittingly made a hit musical about Hitler and are consequently incarcerated.

The show, translated into Hebrew and playing to packed houses at the 920-seater Cameri Theater in Tel Aviv, is currently sold out through May 2006.

Mimi Hanaoka

It’s very sad and disturbing that in this day and age, this stereotype is coming from a large and global company like Adidas.

—Vincent Pan, executive director of Chinese for Affirmative Action in San Francisco, referring to Adidas’ new $250 “Yellow Series Y1 Huf” sneakers, emblazoned with a yellow drawing of a young Asian boy who sports bowl-cut hair, a pig nose, and bares his buck teeth.

Adidas, for its part, denies the accusations of racism and cites the fact that the image was drawn by U.S. graffiti artist Barry McGee, who has used the drawing in anti-racist commentary. Unlike the previous Abercrombie and Fitch t-shirts, also emblazoned with images of Asians — although this time with caricatured faces, garb, commentary (such as “Wong Brothers Laundry Service — Two Wongs Can Make It White,”) and no irony — which caused a furor and sparked accusations of racism, Adidas’ ploy might be better-intentioned. However, Barry McGee’s drawing, stripped of its context, loses its edginess and instead becomes mired in sloppy commentary on race relations that encourages misinterpretation.

Mimi Hanaoka