Internet Censorship's First Death Sentence? 475
mrogers writes "A journalism student in Afghanistan has been sentenced to death by a Sharia court for downloading and sharing a report criticizing the treatment of women in some Islamic countries. The student was accused of blasphemy and tried without representation. According to Reporters Without Borders, sixty people are currently in jail worldwide for criticizing governments online, fifty of them in China, but this may be the first time someone has been sentenced to death for using the internet. Internet censorship is on the rise worldwide, according to The OpenNet Initiative."
Nope (Score:5, Informative)
The Afghan Senate decided to go back on it's original decision [independent.co.uk]
But the first story / headline is much more likely to bring in people from the RSS readers / aggregators etc. Not that internet censorship isn't a topic worth discussing; but the latest information is more useful than this misleading summary.
Sheesh.
Re: Follow your own advice (Score:2, Informative)
Sharia == Smokescreen (Score:5, Informative)
I think, but am not sure that's in the Uruzgan province where our dear Dutch soldiers are protecting such scumbags while spreading freedom and democracy.
And there are persistent rumors that Karzai (mayor of Kabul)'s brother is opium chief number one in that lovely place. Well I reckon something has to pay for weaponry and the squanders of war and newfound power. And they can cheerfully dump the heroin into countries such as Iran. You know, to stop the terrorists there.
BTW, in Iraq they now HAVE sharia law. Officially. It's only a few pages away from the oil privatizing clauses in their new and illegal constitution brought to them by the benevolent US of A. Gays are killed. Single women (and there are MANY widows there) are targeted. The whole shebang. So they get death from above, death from starvation, death from disease, and death from their own governments militia (and the madhi). Almost makes death by M16 a mercy killing, doesn't it.
Re:This is OUR fault. WE did this. (Score:3, Informative)
Do you understand all of the words you are using? (Score:1, Informative)
Are you literally as dumb as a box of rocks? Or is the word I am looking for "figuratively"?
Re:1st censorship death sentence (Score:5, Informative)
Actually, this case is about political censorship; it isn't about religion, or even about the journalism student at all. The student's brother is a journalist who has written pieces critical of one of Afghanistan's political factions, they haven't been able to get him, so they resorted to arresting the journalism student and trumped up some charges. This is about suppressing political dissent; there was a story about this on NPR a few days ago. It's unlikely that the student is in real danger of execution: apparently Karzai has to OK any executions. He doesn't strike me as that kind of a guy, but even assuming he was completely lacking in moral fiber, it's doubtful he would: doing so would cede power to his rivals and piss off his international allies. But I agree that Sharia is an idea whose time came and went in the Dark Ages, along with burning witches and trial by duel. When your court claims to execute God's Will, that gives it power that is difficult to check, and as seen here, that leads to abuses.
Re:1st censorship death sentence (Score:5, Informative)
It's a constitutional democratic republic, which is a form of democracy.
Our puppet government in Afghanistan is also a constitutional republic, the "Islamic Republic of Afghanistan", with a constitution adopted in 2004 [wikipedia.org]. Instead of being in the name of "We, the people", theirs is in the name of "In the name of Allah, the Most Beneficient, the Most Merciful".
Article Thirty-Four of said constitution states [president.gov.af]:
So I see they're doing as good of job of following their constitution as our government is of following ours.
Re:Thank god the USA invaded that country (Score:2, Informative)
plane tickets are free, he had to get his money somewhere, and that somewhere was pretty much US citizens pockets!
assuming the kid gets to spend some time on death row, the US could simply pull out and then pay some group to invade on thier behalf, then invade them, he'd only need about 20 years on death row!
Re:its things like these... (Score:3, Informative)
Well, if you hold onto the Amero-centric view that nobody had posited the spheroid nature of the Earth before Columbus sailed to the Americas, I suppose one could point out to you the fact that the Aztec empire just isn't what it used to be.
Yaz.
Re:But it is a peaceful religion!!! (Score:2, Informative)
Except that there's no evidence that Pershing did such a thing, and in fact was careful not to take actions that would turn people into "Mohammedan fanatics"; and similar defilement of the corpses of suicide bombers in Israel has been done recently and didn't stop terrorist attacks; [snopes.com] and commiting terrorist acts of mass execution to discourage others from doing terrorist acts is a stupid idea.
We should not look to American war crimes in the Philippines [wikipedia.org] as a model of how to behave.
Re:literally two wolves? (Score:2, Informative)
noun
1 a group of words established by usage as having a meaning not deducible from those of the individual words (e.g., rain cats and dogs, see the light).
a form of expression natural to a language, person, or group of people : he had a feeling for phrase and idiom.
the dialect of a people or part of a country.
2 a characteristic mode of expression in music or art : they were both working in a neo-Impressionist idiom.
literally
adverb
in a literal manner or sense; exactly : the driver took it literally when asked to go straight across the traffic circle | tiramisu, literally translated "pick me up."
informal used for emphasis or to express strong feeling while not being literally true : I have received literally thousands of letters.
USAGE In its standard use, literally means 'in a literal sense, as opposed to a nonliteral or exaggerated sense,': : I told him I never wanted to see him again, but I didn't expect him to take it literally . In recent years, an extended use of literally (and also literal) has become very common, where literally (or literal) is used deliberately in nonliteral contexts, for added effect: : they bought the car and literally ran it into the ground. This use can lead to unintentional humorous effects ( : we were literally killing ourselves laughing) and is not acceptable in formal English.
While you could make the case that this is not formal English, you can't use a word like literally to mean exactly the opposite of what it means, unless you're being sarcastic, which you're not. Raining cats and dogs is a pretty silly phrase, word for word, but that's what makes it an idiom. Calling something an idiom doesn't make incorrect English into correct English.
I mean really, look up literal in a thesaurus. It will show "figurative" as an (possibly the only) antonym. You can use a word to mean its antonym if you're being sarcastic, but that is not what you were being.
Re:1st censorship death sentence (Score:3, Informative)
Misuse of "literally" (Score:1, Informative)
Your dictionary and my dictionary must differ on the definition of "literally" ...
Re:1st censorship death sentence (Score:3, Informative)
Kenny Richey [wikipedia.org] was convicted of arson that led to the death of a child, and was sentenced to death for it. Despite weak, circumstantial evidence the Ohio public prosecutor still hounded him for his life after his retrial was ordered. Ironically, he secured his release not by fighting back but by plea bargaining - his sentence was reduced to jail time that he had already served on the understanding that he plead 'No Contest'.
Re:1st censorship death sentence (Score:2, Informative)
The problem is, there's no such thing as Afghans, they are:
* Pashtun: 42%
* Tajik: 27%
* Hazara: 9%
* Uzbek: 9%
* Aimak: 4%
* Turkmen: 3%
* Baloch: 2%
* Other: 4%
and they speak different languages too
50% Dari
35% Pashto
8% Uzbek
3% Turkmen
4% Balochi
2% other (Nuristani, Pashai, Brahui, etc.)