From the Pew Forum/Religion News Service:

The name change is meant to “emphasize the important connection that we think there is between blasphemy and the right to free speech,” said Ronald Lindsay, president and CEO of CFI.   Lindsay said some critics “interpreted blasphemy in its crudest form” but “blasphemy is a wider concept than that.”  Although many people scoffed at last year’s campaign, he said, the center believes religion is not, and should not be, immune from criticism.   “Religious beliefs should be on the same level of political beliefs,” Lindsay said.

From the Washington Post:

The reason? Brazilian TV and radio broadcasters are legally forbidden from making fun of candidates ahead of the nation’s Oct. 3 election. With the first wave of on-air political ads starting Tuesday, Brazil’s comedians and satirists are planning to fight for their right to ridicule with protests in Rio de Janeiro and other cities Sunday.

They call the political anti-joking law - which prohibits ridiculing candidates in the three months before elections - a draconian relic of Brazil’s dictatorship era that threatens free speech and is a blight on the reputation of Latin America’s largest nation.

“Do you know of any other democracy in the world with rules like this?” said Marcelo Tas, the acerbic host of a weekly TV comedy show that delights in skewering politicians and celebrities alike. “If you want to find a bigger joke, you would have to look to Monty Python.”

Proponents of the restrictions say they keep candidates from being portrayed unfairly, help ensure a level playing field and encourage candor by candidates.

 

From the Electronic Frontier Foundation:

Reen reports [from Afghanistan] countrywide blockages of Facebook, Gmail, YouTube, and Twitter. The Afghan Wireless Communication Company (AWCC), one of Afghanistan’s two largest telecommunication companies, is referring people with questions to the Ministry of Communications.

From the Electronic Frontier Foundation:

The proposal mistakenly conflates trusting a third party to not reveal your identity with actual anonymity — where third parties don’t know your identity. When Thomas Paine anonymously published Common Sense in 1776, he didn’t secretly register with the British Crown.

Indeed, the draft NSTIC barely recognizes the value of anonymous speech, whether in public postings or private email, or anonymous browsing via systems like Tor. Nor does it address issues about re-identification, e.g. the ability to take different sets of de-identified data and link them so as to re-identify individuals.

From the ACLU:

In a welcome step for free speech, the Senate today passed a bill that will prevent litigants from using foreign defamation laws to restrict the free speech rights of Americans inside the U.S.

The bill, the Securing the Protection of our Enduring and Established Constitutional Heritage Act or SPEECH Act, addresses the phenomenon called “libel tourism,” which allows a foreign plaintiff to sue an American author or publisher in countries that have free speech protections that do not match those afforded under the First Amendment.

Facebook has deleted the "Everybody Draw Muhammad Day" and apologized to Pakistan.

Huffington Post has the story.  A quote:

"In response to our protest, Facebook has tendered their apology and informed us that all the sacrilegious material has been removed from the URL," said Najibullah Malik, secretary of Pakistan’s information technology ministry, referring to the technical term for a Web page. Facebook assured the Pakistani government that "nothing of this sort will happen in the future," Malik said.

A cartoonist for the South African paper Mail & Guardian, by the name of Zapiro, printed a cartoon of Muhammad on "Draw Muhammad Day".

The online cartoon page of the newspaper is here.

Coverage of the resulting Muslim outrage is here and here. 

The newspaper editor comments on his decision to print the cartoon.

The newspaper also comments on what making this decision was like, despite Muslim legal action and warnings.

Pakistan has blocked both Facebook and Youtube. The cause may be the "Draw Muhammad Day". See the Facebook page and http://www.drawmuhammadday.com/

Pakistan is blocking over 450 sites, according to reporting. 

We love to hear if pleaseblock.us is among those blocked.

Lars Vilks has gone into hiding after two attacks on his person and his house.