It's sad when people give a good cause like creationism a bad name, which is what the Muslim creationist Adnan Oktar (aka Harun Yahya) has been doing. When this man sent out his 800-page Atlas of Creation to U.S. and European professors, scientists, and elected leaders, it was a bit graceless. What he's doing now is mean-spirited and self-destructive. The wealthy Oktar has leveraged a Turkish court to block the entire WordPress.com domain from being accessed in the nation of Turkey. His lawyers claim WordPress did not respond to their request that certain sites allegedly libeling Oktar be removed.

Ali Eteraz, a human rights lawyer writing for The Guardian's Comment Is Free blog, has an exceptionally good overview of this story, and says the censorship is the result of the Turkish government taking sides in a squabble among two Muslim groups.

 AKP Watch, The Van Der Galien Gazette, and Tiny Frog all talk about this story--though I must take issue with the latter blogger's claim that creationists love censorship. Whether or not Muslim creationists love censorship, Christian creationists certainly do not. On the contrary, it is the Darwinists who censor--making threats, denying tenure, and rejecting scientific articles from being published if they implicate design. ID theorists and creationists speak out, but don't try to silence their critics. Unlike our opponents, we play fair.

Which reminds me . . . PZ Myers is being sued for libel. And not by a creationist, be assured. The lawsuit comes from the author of Lifecode, Stuart Pivar, whose book was strongly criticized on Pharyngula, Myers' blog. Myers isn't exactly known for gentle rebukes, but even he'll have a hard time being found guilty on this one. When you write a book--especially one promoting new, unsubstantiated ideas, like Lifecode does--you should be ready to take the hits that come.