THEIST_WATCH
  Msg  : 55                                         Written : 08/02/94 03:45pm
  From : ROBIN MURRAY-O'HAIR                        Status  :                 
  To   : ALL                                                                  
  Subj : Gusty Secular Statement                                              

                    Gutsy "Secular Students"
     We doubt that you will ever find that much courage in the United
States.
     Bangladesh is a country of 120 million persons, where 90 percent
of the population is Muslim. And, a general strike was called there on
July 30 by Awami League party and _secular student groups_ to protest
the killing of six people by activists of the Muslim extremists (from
the fundamentalist Jamaat-e-Islami party). That party, on the other
hand, was demanding stricter blasphemy laws and a death by hanging
sentence for physician-turned-writer Taslima Nasrin, the female author
of a statement critical of Muslim.
     The United States is 90 percent Judeo-Christian and no "secular
student groups" would ever show their faces in protest against the
control of the nation by that religion.
     In the end, everything comes to principle and whether or not a
finger will be lifted to sustain rational thinking. The Bangladesh
students show amazing courage. During the demonstrations on July 30,
fifty-five persons were injured and sixteen were arrested, with both
bomb-throwing, and clashes between the students and the fundamentalists
in the southern port city of Chittagong.
     American Atheists commend the students.


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