Man Faces Death Threats and Jail for Pointing Out That Weeping Jesus "Miracle" Is Just Faulty Plumbing
Meer over Sanal Edamaruku op Sanal Edamaruku investigates Irish "Moving Mary" statue en een artikel in de Britse "New Humanist".Sanal Edamaruku faces jail for revealing 'tears' trickling down a Mumbai church statue came from clogged drainage pipes.
When water started trickling down a statue of Jesus Christ at a Catholic church in Mumbai earlier this year, locals were quick to declare a miracle. Some began collecting the holy water and the Church of Our Lady of Velankanni began to promote it as a site of pilgrimage.
So when Sanal Edamaruku arrived and established that this was not holy water so much as holey plumbing, the backlash was severe. The renowned rationalist was accused of blasphemy, charged with offences that carry a three-year prison sentence and eventually, after receiving death threats, had to seek exile in Finland.
Now he is calling for European governments to press Delhi into dropping the case. And on the first leg of a tour around EU capitals on Friday, he warned that India was sacrificing freedom of expression for outdated, colonial-era rules about blasphemy.
Hier een mondeling verslag in slecht Kerala-Engels (het duurt even voordat deze tongval verstaat) :
Sanal Edamaruku was tot voor kort voorzitter van de vrijdenkersorganisatie "Indian Rationalist Association" en "Rationalist International".
De vrijheid van meningsuiting is in India ver te zoeken. De strijd die daar gestreden wordt is veel harder dan hier.
Hier Sanal Edamaruku zelf (interview in Zweden in het Engels) :
