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In Iran, Blogging May Be Punishable By Death
Posted by
timothy
on Sat Jul 05, 2008 01:26 PM
from the get-yourself-a-good-sharia-lawyer dept.
from the get-yourself-a-good-sharia-lawyer dept.
An anonymous reader writes "In Iran, crimes such as apostasy (leaving a religion, in this case Islam) and armed robbery are already punishable by death, but a new bill in Iran aims to add to the list 'establishing weblogs and sites promoting corruption, prostitution and apostasy,' effectively giving the government a free hand in silencing bloggers. The internet is widely used in Iran, despite its previous attempts at censorship. Will this change as the censorship grows more rampant?"
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Submission: In Iran blogging may be punishable by death by Anonymous Coward
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How is this regime possible? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:How is this regime possible? (Score:5, Insightful)
Iran = Let us do what we want and you do what we say or the US will come get you.
US = Let us do what we want and you do what we say or the terrorists will come get you.
Politics of fear: it works. Sadly.
Parent
Re:How is this regime possible? (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
It always fascinated me that there are no US citizens in Europe who favor the republicans (at least in the last 8 years I haven't encountered a single one, but I only met around 30), which lead me to two theories: Either the republicans "don't make it" that far or some simply lie because they want to avoid endless discussions. Your comment supports my first theory, but in th
Re:How is this regime possible? (Score:4, Insightful)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
It is entirely possible that Iranians who somehow managed to get out, or were forced out, are not a representative sample of the overall population.
In my case, I know a few Persians, and off the top of my head... one escaped with his parents who were associated with the Shah somehow. One was highly educated and decided to get the hell out. One is gay - staying in Iran obviously not a good idea.
Re:How is this regime possible? (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm old enough to have been in college when the Shah was deposed. Just prior to the revolution we had Iranian Secret Police (the Savak) all over campus. One was a gentleman "named" Salah who was given fake credentials and joined our lab - he was supposed to be working towards his Ph.D. in Endocrine Physiology - but had not clue one - consequently he contaminated our lab, our lab's Prof, me and two other grad students with I-131.
I was the lucky guy to show "hot" first since health physics always ran a survey after we ran an Iodination process. The problem was that I did my work in a cold room and all of my materials were sequestered there - but my Thyroid and then our lab showed hot in a routine post-experiment radiation survey. It clearly wasn't my Iodine that had contaminated the lab when 100% of it remained in the cold room where I ran my assay.
Salah had faked an experiment and had not reported his use of the radioisotope - so, my hot Thyroid lead to the discovery of Salah's real reason for being "on campus" and he pulled a vanishing act. That was in the fall of 1977 or early winter 1978.
I knew quite a few Iranians at the time and this guy was bad news all around. After I showed up hot I heard about other "fakes" planted around campus - all pursuing advanced degrees and all backed by the Iranian government. They were there to intimidate Iranian nationals suspected of disloyalty and possibly to arrange for things to happen to their targets. This was a major state university with thousands of foreign students in undergrad, advanced and professional programs.
If we agree to quit f**king with people around the world we might just have peace and, even a little prosperity.
Parent
Because Bush doesn't like it? (Score:3, Interesting)
OK, I know that the subject line is trolling but look at it this way, it almost seems at times if some actions of the world and even own our politics are just the opposite of whatever Bush declares just to be "opposite of Bush".
Regimes like this exist for the same reason that Iraq existed for so long. Western nations don't necessarily have the stomach to put an end to them. We have lapsed back into the thirties where people were more concerned with their well being and as long as the rest of the world lef
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:How is this regime possible? (Score:5, Informative)
It went well until their moderate, democratically elected government was overthrown by the CIA and had it replaced by The Shah. Apparently democracies aren't allowed to exist if they aren't pro-US.
Parent
Re:How is this regime possible? (Score:5, Informative)
But, we (the US & GB) put the Shah's father in power through a coup in 1953 - toppling the elected Prime Minister, Dr. Mohammed Mossadegh. Feel free to read how and why that little operation was accomplished here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mohammad_Reza_Pahlavi#Oil_nationalization_and_the_1953_coup [wikipedia.org] and here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1953_Iranian_coup_d [wikipedia.org]'état
But for our intervention, where would Iran be today?
Parent
Re:How is this regime possible? (Score:4, Insightful)
But for our intervention, where would Iran be today?
Probably still a democracy of sorts. Some of the most bloody US meddling has been in South America though. The US criticises Castro (and he is a dictator albeit pretty benign as they go) yet he is Mother Teresa compared to the dictators the US supported in the region.
As for Iran being oppressive, Saudi Arabia is worse, yet is a close US ally. I used to work for an Iranian who fled the regime there and even they said they would rather live in Iran that Saudi Arabia.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Current regime and Government in Iran should be like a dream for a War monger. If Iran was a sane regime with some kind of democracy, how would you explain if you declare a war on them? Current idiots are great for giving reasons.
But Ahmadinejad has his OWN blog... (Score:4, Funny)
This can't end well... well, for HIM anyways. I imagine it will end very well for the people of Iran.
http://www.ahmadinejad.ir/
Freenet now (Score:4, Insightful)
It is time people start learning and using Freenet more.
Everywhere you look, politicos are pushing freedom-restricting legislation for the intertubes.
Considering they would execute me.. (Score:5, Insightful)
..simply because I've had a boyfriend, I don't think this is particularily surprising. It is a supressive theocracy. Like other theocracies it has no qualms with torturing and even killing innocent people in order to silence criticism. This is common in dictatorships religious or not. The fundamental problem is the dictatorial rule and the regime's complete lack of limits in terms of what lengths it will go to in order to protect its own survival. Soviet was the same. Zimbabwe is the same. The only difference is what excuse these regimes use to justify their crimes. In soviet it was political ideology. In Iran it is religion. In Zimbabwe it is skin colour. What they have in common is that they kill and torture people in order to make the public afraid of organising opposition, their official reasons (religion,economics,race,culture) for doing so have little to do with their actual objectives. It's all about supressing dissidents, all other reasons is smoke and mirrors trying to obscure the true nature of the regime.
Re:Considering they would execute me.. (Score:5, Insightful)
In soviet it was political ideology. In Iran it is religion. In Zimbabwe it is skin colour.
And in the US it's "terrorism".
Parent
"Died in a blogging accident" (Score:3, Funny)
That's what the Iranian wants you think happened. [xkcd.com]
Death would be generous to most bloggers (Score:4, Funny)
Maybe it's just because I'm getting old and cranky, but I'd say for about 90% of the blogs I happen upon these days, I wish the death penalty were the punishment for blogging in the rest of the world, too.
Oblig. Soviet Russia (Score:4, Funny)
In Soviet Russia, Death may be punishable by blogging!
Headline is wrong and misleading (Score:4, Interesting)
In Iran, Blogging May Be Punishable By Death
Wrong. Bloggers who set up blogs to promote apostasy, promiscuity or "corruption" may be opened up to the joys of the death penalty in future, not anyone who's "blogging."
The headline as factual as saying, "In the USA, Touching Another Person May Be Punishable By Death." There are lots of other situations in which you can touch people than in the act of killing them.
Remember, Iran 'was' a Secular Democracy (Score:5, Insightful)
Why are we getting upset *NOW*? (Score:5, Insightful)
Many or all of these things are already punishable by death in Iran if you do them without the internet. Go over there and start distributing literature trying to convert people from Islam to another religion, and you've got a potential date with the executioner.
Hence, it is not blogging that they are making punishable by death. They are simply closing a loophole that may have let yo escape punishment by using blogs instead of, say, print or radio.
If we are going to be upset, we should be upset at apostasy being a capital crime at all, not that they have noticed that blogs can be used for apostasy and are closing that loophole.
Re:mm (Score:5, Funny)
Separation of church and state anyone?
Yeah, it's almost as if the First Amendment doesn't apply to Iran...
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Separation of church and state anyone?
Yeah, it's almost as if the First Amendment doesn't apply to Iran...
Just like it applies less and less in the US.
Re:mm (Score:4, Insightful)
Philosophically speaking, it applies to all people, not to just our government; which is why it's appalling when this administration seems to want to apply it only to Americans..and not even all of us.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:mm (Score:5, Funny)
More proof we need to go in there and help them to be more like us. Then they will be happy and free, just like we did in Iraq when we helped them back in 2002.
This was a triumph
I'm making a note here
HUGE SUCCESS
It's hard to overstate my satisfaction
Neoconservatism
we do what we must because we can
for the good of all of us except for the ones who are dead
but there's no sense crying over every mistake
you just keep on trying until you run out of oil
and the polics gets done and you make a neat Middle East
for the people who are still alive
I'm not even angry
I'm being so sincere right now
even though you broke my heart and voted me out of office
Parent
Re:mm (Score:4, Insightful)
Sometimes the most responsible thing to do is accept that something is broken and your attempts to fix it will just make it worse. America can't "fix" the dictatorship in Iran, just like it couldn't "fix" the dictatorship in Iraq. People hate living under a dictatorship, but they hate living under foreign occupation even more.
Parent
Re:mm (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:No, not quite (Score:5, Informative)
Iran had a legitimate democratically elected government at one point and we interfered: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Ajax [wikipedia.org]
So yea, they are partially to blame but so are we.
Parent
Re:No, not quite (Score:5, Insightful)
So yea, they are partially to blame but so are we.
What's more is that the only reason the Iranian revolution succeeded is that two philosophically opposed groups joined forces under the belief that "mine enemy's enemy is my friend." Namely the religious right (mullahs, et al) and the radical left (student reformers). Together they were able to kick out the american-appointed dictator (the shaw).
But the students and reformers made a fatal mistake. They thought that once the shaw was out, they would be able to deal with the mullahs. They were wrong, The mullahs quickly kicked their former partner's asses - imprisoning many, killing others. So that by the time the dust had settled, the mullahs (whom live in vast palaces now, and enjoy great wealth against the tenants of Islam, for what that's worth) were solidly in control.
So to say that "they chose to radically overthrow their own government to put that ridiculous religion into power" is categorically false. The only reason the mullahs were able to come to power is because the democratic reformers felt they had no other choice. It wasn't the overthrow of the shaw that put the mullahs into power, it was the power-struggle that followed the overthrow that did it.
Parent
Re:mm (Score:4, Interesting)
Actually, Iraq had fairly good womens right given that it was a Muslim country. Even if Saddam did rule there.
Today however it is a different story, the womens are being threatened by religion fanatics how kill them if they don't cover there face up or work. The list goes on in this matter.
What you are speaking about is Afghanistan, before 2001 it didn't have women rights at all. In many parts of it still doesn't. Even today women rights are almost close to zero, even in the main capital of Afghanistan.
Human rights in Iraq are no better then when Saddam did rule there, thanks to corruption and a broken government that is currently in place there.
U.S can do good, but it can also do bad. Like any other power on the planet. The problem with the U.S is the corporation greed that is currently in place there. Sad to say, this greed has also infested Europe and EU. It is taking it's time on destroying the EU from the inside, but I hope that it is stopped before it does a big damage.
Parent
Re:mm (Score:4, Insightful)
Parent
Re:mm (Score:5, Interesting)
Parent
Re:mm (Score:4, Insightful)
Separation of Church and State is by definition secular, since the definition of secular State is one that is not entangled with religion. But if you are implying that it is contrary to or not based on religion, I disagree. The concept in the U.S. developed when the country was almost entirely Christian. James Madison credited Martin Luther's two kingdoms concept, but that was a development of the general two swords approach that was traditional in Western Christianity.
Certainly the modern U.S. version has much more separation than the original medieval one. But the justification is at least as much religious as secular. I'll be speaking from the Reformed perspective. Reformed Christianity is particularly concerned about the impact of sin on human lives, and finding ways to structure society to best protect against it.
Separating religion from governmental power protects both the Church and the State from corruption. In Christian understanding the need for governments is because of human sin. While real Christianity is based on love and proper intent, because of sin we can't rely on these motivations entirely in ordering our society. In order to safeguard human life, we need to set up structures to protect each other. In setting up governmental structures, we need to be aware that members of government are themselves sinful humans, and thus set up the structures in ways that minimize temptations and potential for abuse, and which provide for the maximum degree of accountability for power.
Separation is a key element of this. In areas that do not do have separation, you can see religious leaders who become more politicians than true religious leaders, and politicians who become hypocrites, and do things that are ill-considered in order to curry favor with powerful religious elements. Separation of Church and State is ultimately a protection for the Church. It is also essential for the Church to be able to call the State to account. Basic principles of auditing say that the auditor has to be independent; he can't be overly involved in the authority being audited. For the Church to play its proper prophetic role, holding the State accountable, it has to be reasonably independent of the State.
There are examples of the problems that occur from lack of independence in both Christian and Muslim-majority countries.
The other major concern is religious freedom. Both Christianity and Islam hold that there is no compulsion in religion. Both have also honored this more in the breach than the practice, some to the extent of finding creative interpretations to deny the principle entirely. But setting up structures to protect religious freedom is something that has justification in both of our religions. HIstory is pretty clear that when you give religious leaders too much power, they soon abandon their principles of freedom, finding it too tempting to use force to keep people from making what they see as religious mistakes. You can see this change happen in the lives of famous people such as Augustine and Luther. To avoid controversy I will not cite Muslim examples, but they are certainly there. The safest thing is not to let religious leaders get political power.
Parent
Re:mm (Score:5, Informative)
"Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between man and his God; that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship; that the legislative powers of the government reach actions only, and not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should 'make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,' thus building a wall of separation between church and State. Adhering to this expression of the supreme will of the nation in behalf of the rights of conscience, I shall see with sincere satisfaction the progress of those sentiments which tend to restore man to all of his natural rights, convinced he has no natural right in opposition to his social duties. "
Thomas Jefferson
The Founding Fathers very explicitely set up a secular state, a state with complete religious freedoms and a state free of any potential government religious coercion. That means that a Jew, atheist or Hindu has equal rights before the law and has a right not to have any particular religion pushed on him by the government. Attempting to redefine what the Founding Fathers meant is a pretty weak tactic, particularly when their views on religious freedom and on the noxious mix than religion and politics make is so well known.
Parent
Re:mm (Score:4, Insightful)
That was at times contradictory and at others, incoherent i think.
Your challenge is to "move to iran" if we complain? Why? Because we should shut the fuck up and take what we can get and be happy? No.
I also question your various claims about the intent of the constitution with regards to separation of church and state. There are some choice quotes from the time period from various figures involved in the forming of the U.S government who hint and in fact come out and say that there was an intent to keep church and state separate, and that it is reflected if not outright stated in the first amendment.
Parent
Re:mm (Score:4, Insightful)
The question is whether or not this is a casual relationship. Given that the elements in the USA which seem to be the ones advocating chipping down this barrier even just a little bit pretty much want to do that to other civil rights, I think there probably is. Religion, ultimately, wants to base its existence on "things are this way because we said so", which is ultimately incompatible with human-centric, rational governance.
No argument, of course, about USA versus Iran. We're talking level 2 versus level 100000. The Iranian theocracy are nothing but a bunch of murdering thugs.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
You're kinda wrong about what the Founding Fathers intended. Both the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, if read in the context of the times and the meanings of philosophical/theological terminology then, were radically anti-Church and deliberately non-Christian. Jefferson called most of the New Testament dross, including describing the Book of Revelation as "the ravings of a maniac". Read Alan Dershowitz's "Blasphemy" for a very detailed and interesting account of this.
Re:mm (Score:4, Informative)
I won't mod you down or troll but I will respond with article 11 of the 1796 treaty with Tripoli
"As the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion; as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion, or tranquility, of Mussulmen; and, as the said States never entered into any war, or act of hostility against any Mahometan nation, it is declared by the parties, that no pretext arising from religious opinions, shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries."
and on a side note, Why am I hearing about loyalty oaths in the USA, loyalty oaths have no place in a free society.
Parent
Re:Ok, that's it (Score:4, Insightful)
Yeah, killing thousands of people and destroying their country will help establish a peaceful democracy!
Parent
Re:Ok, that's it (Score:4, Insightful)
Poster - when talking about Iran:
I for one am sick and tired of Xian twats going on and on about the "end times." Tell you what - we'll ship you ALL to one spot, and you can kill each other to the glory of your individual gods.
What we REALLY need is a cure for religion.
Parent
Re:So, let's TALK to them! (Score:4, Interesting)
Yeah, that'll work. The mullahs want kill their own people for posting things to the internet (and for women dressing in Western clothes...) and some naive TWIT thinks we can TALK to them. Dumbass.
It very well may not work, however, are you prepared to pay $15/gallon for gasoline (assuming you are in the U.S.) if Iran is attacked by the U.S. military? Iran has stated they will respond with military action and one of their actions is to block oil exports through the Straits of Hormuz. If that occurs you know damn well commodity traders and actual purchasers of crude oil will pay $200-$250/bbl which will cause obvious increases in gasoline prices. We must talk to them first and if that fails then do we go in militarily to solve any problems. The problem with that though is it will have a ripple effect, one of which is the price of oil. There is no winner in the battle with Iran. Everyone loses. Iran may be destroyed but they know we survive on oil and they are the 4th largest exporter so economically we could be destroyed too. If the U.S. goes down economically (moreso than we already are recently) then world markets follow suit because of the economic interdependencies of world gov'ts.
Parent
Re:So, let's TALK to them! (Score:4, Insightful)
I notice you had to qualify your statement with "in the Middle East".
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
After that, we'd wait for the dust to settle. If none of them are left then we go in and take the sweet, sweet oil while we thumb our noses at OPEC and turn the rubble into the world's largest Hedonism resort. Or, the ruins of the middle east could consolidate into some kind of Islamic mega-state, of which we will again bomb into oblivion when WWIII begins. That'll solve the ol' existentialist crisis.
Re:What a politcally correct headline... (Score:5, Insightful)
They kill robbers, and talk about killing apostates. Other countries kill murderers, and want to kill rapists. There is a difference, but it's not a fundamental difference. It's only a matter of being more moderate or more radical. The values that determine what is a crime and what should be punished by death is slowly changing.
A civilized country doesn't kill their people, period. A civilized country doesn't impose religion on their people, in an way.
Some countries are getting more civilized, for some others it's harder. Anyhow, history has taught us that war doesn't accelerate this process, and some times it makes it go backwards.
Parent
Re:Too bad Bush's war against "tyranny" is helping (Score:5, Insightful)
Dictators usually use the technique of identifying a terrible enemy that only their regime can save country x from.
Not only dictatorships actually, but generally its what dictators do.
The fact is that if Iran stopped saying things like they want Israel to be wiped off the earth, and threatening the west, the problem almost certainly would go away. That's not going to help the regime stay in power though, so they won't want that.
Note that if they really wanted a way to end the tension, Ahmadinejad could have gone another way then declaring that the holocaust was a lie in a worldwide broadcast speech. They want this tension, it serves them well.
They almost certainly realise that the US is extremely wary of invading them, so they know that this technique may serve them for generations to come. The exact same method worked in North Korea. Sure the country's fucked, but the ruling faction are seriously rich, and quite powerful locally.
Unless of course some trigger happy nation or president decides its time to end the argument with a few large nukes. I *really* hope that doesn't happen, because the result may well be bad for the entire worlds population, but sooner or later some jerks going to think its the only way out. Then the question will be who is able to hold said jerk in check.
What worries me is that if the Islamic states continue down this fundamentalist route, they are going to cripple their countries economically as well as scientifically. Given that they were the originators of most of our mathematics and astronomy, that's a tragedy of epic proportions.
As it stands there hasn't been any meaningful scientific research from a middle east nation for decades. Thats bad news for them in so many ways.
Mankind will never advance to the stars if we have two civilisations on the planet. One technologically advanced, and the other technologically illiterate, with each hating the other. That is an untenable situation.
Parent
Re:Apostasy? (Score:4, Insightful)
Shariah is the only laws that hasn't changed since the time of Prophet Adam (peace and blessings be upon him and his family).
Unfortunately, the world those laws are applied in has changed. They are in desperate need of an update.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)