Slashdot Mirror
Woman Behind Pakistan's First Hackathon, Sabeen Mahmud, Shot Dead
An anonymous reader sends word that Sabeen Mahmud, a prominent Pakistani social and human rights activist, has been shot dead. The progressive activist and organizer who ran Pakistan's first-ever hackathon and led a human rights and a peace-focused nonprofit known as The Second Floor (T2F) was shot dead by unidentified gunmen in Karachi. Sabeen Mahmud was leaving the T2F offices with her mother some time after 9pm on Friday evening, reports the Pakistani newspaper Dawn. She was on her way home when she was shot, the paper reports. Her mother also sustained bullet wounds and is currently being treated at a hospital; she is said to be in critical condition.
"Hypatia (born c. AD 350 – 370; died 415[1][3]) was a Greek mathematician, astronomer, and philosopher in Egypt, then a part of the Byzantine Empire. She was the head of the Neoplatonic school at Alexandria, where she taught philosophy and astronomy."
"One day on the streets of Alexandria, Egypt, in the year 415 or 416, a mob of Christian zealots led by Peter the Lector accosted a woman’s carriage and dragged her from it and into a church, where they stripped her and beat her to death with roofing tiles. They then tore her body apart and burned it. Who was this woman and what was her crime? Hypatia was one of the last great thinkers of ancient Alexandria and one of the first women to study and teach mathematics, astronomy and philosophy. Though she is remembered more for her violent death, her dramatic life is a fascinating lens through which we may view the plight of science in an era of religious and sectarian conflict."
I hate these islamic extremists at least as much as anyone here. But it isn't just islam that is capable of such things.
This and no other is the root from which a tyrant springs; when first he appears as a protector - Plato (423 to 327 BC)
> We didn't have any inquisitions.
Unless you were native American, in which case your land and property were taken and your people murdered, partly because you weren't Christian. Or if you were black, in which case you were enslaved and forced to a new language and not permitted to follow your old gods. Or, if you were a member of the Latter Day Saints, who were considered non-Christian and heretical and dangerous and were kicked out of state after state until they settled in the effectively empty, very poor land around Salt Lake City. Or unless you were Jewish, which prevented entry into various political and social clubs and even prevented people from doing business with you in various times and places.
Make no pretense that the USA has been consistently tolerant of religious belief. The modern Christian religions may be accepting of other faiths, but they have not always been this way.
These neat little theories are always so so convenient to explain why everyone else is inferior. Yet Pakistan elected a woman as prime minister: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B.... Perhaps the world is more complicated than these little theories suggest?
... the fine print being that she too was murdered (in 2007), with Al-Qaeda claiming responsibility. Arguing that Pakistan doesn't have a problem with militant islamist groups murdering women is a pretty tough sell