Bangladeshi Cartoonist Arifur Rahman on Calling a Cat “Mohammad”

From 2007 to 2010 I lived in danger in Bangladesh. Radical Muslims felt that I had insulted Muhammad and Islam, and I was tortured several times both inside and outside of jail; I also received lots of death threats. I do not think it is any more or less dangerous now than it was then.

Continue reading this interview at Sampsonia Way Magazine.

Slideshow: Weiwei-isms

Ai Weiwei is a Chinese contemporary artist. He works in a variety of mediums including sculpture, photography, architecture and the written word. Weiwei is a heavy critic of the repressive Chinese government, and as a result, he was arrested in 2011 at a Beijing airport and held for two months under unknown charges.

Sampsonia Way chose ten quotes from the section “On Freedom of Expression” ofWeiwei-isms to showcase Weiwei’s astounding ability to share incredibly powerful ideas about censorship and every human’s right to freedom of speech in very few words.

View the slideshow on Sampsonia Way Magazine.

Hind Shoufani: Unsanctioned Writing from the Middle East

We are bound by some social norms. In this region it is easy to get in trouble for feisty opinions, especially on civil marriage, religious sectarianism, atheism, premarital sex, homosexuality, and other hot topics. It would be really great to pretend that each of us are past worrying about publicly speaking about these issues, but the truth is we’re not. It’s not 100% safe. Nonetheless, we tried to be as honest as possible, and as under the radar as possible.

Continue reading this interview at Sampsonia Way Magazine.

Rupa & the April Fishes: Breaking the Boundaries of Music

I feel it is dangerous to talk about capitalism as a bad word in the United States. It’s dangerous to critique and say, capitalism does not work to serve a sustainable vision for the earth, for humanity, for our communities, for our health. When you put greed as the number one value in a society, you will see what we’re seeing. We’re seeing environmental destruction, we’re seeing racism, we’re seeing militarism. And this is a 500 year experiment we are witnessing right now. And we are running to this point where around the world people are going, “Wait a minute, this doesn’t work. This doesn’t work for my community, this doesn’t work for my grandmother.”

Continue reading this interview at Sampsonia Way Magazine.

Mirror Images

The truth is, like everything else in a country that thrives on contradictions and complexities, there are shades to this reality. Although the constitution guarantees Indians the right to free expression and speech, successive political regimes, irrespective of party affiliations, have been a lot less tolerant when it comes to citizens exercising this particular right than any other.

Continue reading this column at Sampsonia Way Magazine.