On Friday’s broadcast of HBO’s “Real Time,” author Richard Dawkins argued that Muslims aren’t being oppressed by critics of Islam like himself, but that they are oppressed by Islam.

Host Bill Maher and Dawkins talked about their mutual dis-invitation from speeches at UC-Berkeley and a radio station canceling an interview with Dawkins.

Dawkins said that there is “an epidemic that’s going on of people running scared from open speech,” and terrified of things that might be offensive.

He added, “I think that this radio station and these universities, they are on our side. We’re on their side. Now, I was de-platformed specifically because of what I was alleged to have said about Islam. I think that the reason they did it was probably a laudable motive, they are on the side of oppressed minorities. They think that Muslims are an oppressed minority, oppressed by people like us. Actually, of course, Muslims are oppressed by Islam.” He later argued that Muslims who don’t oppress women or gay people are being persecuted by those who do and “That’s where the persecution comes from.”

Maher added that “criticism of a religion is not the same thing as bigotry.”

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