Share this page!

Andrew Copson Profile picture
Twitter logo
Nov 4 • 6 tweets • 3 min read
No doubt more & more horrific stories like this will emerge as we get closer to the #WorldCup. And sadly, that’s just the beginning: #Qatar’s entire human rights climate is extremely concerning.🧵
inews.co.uk/news/qatar-off…
🔴#Qatar is one of 13 countries around the world where you can be sentenced to death for expressing an opinion deemed blasphemous or for apostasy.
🔴Very few religious groups are currently officially registered in Qatar:...
fot.humanists.international/countries/asia…
... the only registered groups at present are Sunni-Islam, Shia-Islam, & eight Christian denominations. Unregistered religious & belief groups are restricted from operating. Amongst many other things, they can't open bank accounts or worship in private spaces legally.
🔴Legal, cultural, & institutional discrimination is prevalent against women, non-Qatari nationals, certain local tribes, & other minorities as well as LGBTI+ people.
🔴The govt does not permit the formation of political parties & restrictions on workers unionising are in place.
🔴All schools have compulsory Islamic instruction, and non-Islamic religious education is prohibited.
🔴The Judiciary is not considered independent; many judges are foreign nationals on annual contracts. The Emir ultimately appoints the judges.
I could go on but instead I encourage you to read @HumanistsInt’s #FreedomofThought Report on #Qatar: an annual deep dive into the rights and treatment of humanists, atheists, & non-religious people in every country in the world. fot.humanists.international/countries/asia…

• • •

Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to force a refresh
　

Keep Current with Andrew Copson

Andrew Copson Profile picture

Stay in touch and get notified when new unrolls are available from this author!

Read all threads

This Thread may be Removed Anytime!

PDF

Twitter may remove this content at anytime! Save it as PDF for later use!

Try unrolling a thread yourself!

how to unroll video
  1. Follow @ThreadReaderApp to mention us!

  2. From a Twitter thread mention us with a keyword "unroll"
@threadreaderapp unroll

Practice here first or read more on our help page!

More from @andrewcopson

Andrew Copson Profile picture
Aug 12
His attacker wanted to silence him so let's spend a bit of time reminded ourselves of some of Salman's greatest words...
'I can walk into a bookshop and point out a number of books that I find very unattractive in what they say. But it doesn't occur to me to burn the bookshop down. If you don't like a book, read another book.'
'I distrust people who claim to know the whole truth and who seek to orchestrate the world in line with that one true truth. I think that's a very dangerous position in the world. It needs to be challenged. It needs to be challenged constantly'
Read 9 tweets
Andrew Copson Profile picture
Aug 11
Many thanks to the brave men and women of Hinckley and Bosworth @LFRSFireControl who got this under control after it had come into our garden but before it reached our gas tanks!
Well, at least it’s cleared the decks for the raised beds for vegetables we’d been planning!
And Juno can no longer hide in the brown grass camouflage!
Read 4 tweets
Andrew Copson Profile picture
Jan 26, 2021
Tomorrow on #HMD2021 we remember victims of the genocidal Nazi regime and of the many acts of other governments in the years since and in today. As it’s @Humanists_UK 125th anniversary and a year for humanist history, I also want to think about the Nazis' humanist victims. 1/9
In 1933 the Nazi government banned humanist and other freethinking and secular groups. Hitler boasted he'd won his ‘fight against the atheist movement’ and ‘stamped it out’. That year Hitler made many speeches saying that only Christian organisations could be permitted 2/9
The largest organisation that found itself banned was the Deutscher Freidenkerbund. It had 600,000 members and was founded just 15 years before @Humanists_UK. Its headquarters were confiscated and given to the Protestant churches, who converted it into a Christian mission 3/9
Read 9 tweets
Andrew Copson Profile picture
Jan 26, 2021
To coincide with #HolocaustMemorialDay, last night I offered humanist reflections on why we must speak up for Uyghurs in China. The atrocities of the mid-20th century have given us a permanent & horrifying example of what can happen when human solidarity falters. @Rene_Cassin
In Nazi Germany, even though most people knew what was happening was wrong, they looked the other way. They did not speak up for the Jews, the Roma, lesbians and gay men, and all those that faced persecution or death, which included humanists.
(Humanist organisations were in fact banned early in the Third Reich – in 1933 and Hitler celebrated in a speech that he had successfully won his ‘fight against the atheist movement’ and ‘stamped it out’.)
Read 7 tweets
Andrew Copson Profile picture
May 12, 2020
It's @DyingMatters #DyingMattersAwarenessWeek and the theme is #DyingToBeHeard - we need to talk more about death.

I have a personal reason to feel strongly about this.

In 2018 my younger (and only) brother had a sudden and catastrophic heart attack at the age of 35.
He was living and working outside the UK so my mum and I had to rush to be with him. He was unconscious with no hope of meaningful recovery but because he was on life support, we were the ones who had to make the decisions about what should happen next.
It's the worst thing that has ever happened in our lives and almost all the circumstances surrounding it were horrendous (not least the unwanted attentions of nuns and the local bishop - it was a Catholic hospital, though that's another story)

But it could have been a lot worse.
Read 7 tweets
Andrew Copson Profile picture
May 11, 2020
Last month I did videos on humanism and one of the messages I got was from someone wanting to know more about the 'pre-modern' humanists. So each day this week I'm going to tell you about one of them, from ancient China, India, Greece, and Rome.
Of course, these are humanists from before the word 'humanism' was invented. But they are people who had humanist beliefs or values in large part and expressed them.
They are the sort of people that Margaret Knight wrote about in her 'Humanist Anthology', Hector Hawton in his 'Humanist Revolution' and Harold Blackham in his 'The Human Tradition', when they set out to illustrate the perennial nature of the humanist approach to life.
Read 10 tweets

Did Thread Reader help you today?

Support us! We are indie developers!

This site is made by just two indie developers on a laptop doing marketing, support and development! Read more about the story.

Become a Premium Member ($3/month or $30/year) and get exclusive features!

Become Premium

Don't want to be a Premium member but still want to support us?

Make a small donation by buying us coffee ($5) or help with server cost ($10)

Donate via Paypal

Or Donate anonymously using crypto!

Ethereum

0xfe58350B80634f60Fa6Dc149a72b4DFbc17D341E copy

Bitcoin

3ATGMxNzCUFzxpMCHL5sWSt4DVtS8UqXpi copy

Thank you for your support!

Follow Us on Twitter!

Send Email!

:(