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."
1st censorship death sentence (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:1st censorship death sentence (Score:4, Insightful)
*paraphrasing ben franklin
Thank god the USA invaded that country (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:1st censorship death sentence (Score:5, Insightful)
nice religion ya got there, guys (Score:0, Insightful)
Your religion sucks. Why are you so afraid of women, of criticissm, of your own damn shadows?
Re:Thank god the USA invaded that country (Score:5, Insightful)
Now your grandchildren... MAYBE they might pay it off.
Re:nice religion ya got there, guys (Score:2, Insightful)
Your religion sucks. Why are you so afraid of women, of criticissm, of your own damn shadows?
Re:nice religion ya got there, guys (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Didn't we invade to stop this? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:1st censorship death sentence (Score:2, Insightful)
But please, let's stop letting them into European countries and the USA, because those entities are also democratic, and once people who believe those laws are just are in majority due to low birth rate in most of them and high immigration rate, we will have to let them democratically choose to obey the same set of laws and make us obey them as well.
You are mistaking "democracy" for "western set of values".
I'm a very tolerant person, but democracy isn't about tolerance, it's about imposing the will of the majority upon everyone else.
Re:1st censorship death sentence (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:1st censorship death sentence (Score:5, Insightful)
Which is why democracy can't just suddenly be implemented. The people have to want it, leaders included (or, at least, the majority of them). The U.S. democracy (or, I should say, democratic republic) only got started because the people at the time didn't want a monarchy or the like and would not have immediately voted to change it back (not like votes matter all that much as it is, they only put people in power to "represent" you).
In short, this just helps to prove that the neo-con idealogical goal of converting the world to democracy is misguided at best.
Still disturbing as fuck (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:1st censorship death sentence (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:1st censorship death sentence (Score:1, Insightful)
I'll be emailing / calling my MP tomorrow if this is the case. I suggest others do the same. WTF!
Re:Thank god the USA invaded that country (Score:3, Insightful)
What I consider the bigger concern in this article is that the separation of Church and State as it is understood in the US is not being practiced in this newly started democracy. Here we have an instance where a religion calls for death to blasphemers. The government, showing that it is clearly backing a specific religion, was going along with it. That was what the Taliban represented in the first place. They ruled the country according to what they understood their religion dictated. The US may have changed the way that people achieve power in the country, but it seems that elements of the Taliban are still alive and well in this non-Taliban government.
Re:nice religion ya got there, guys (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:nice religion ya got there, guys (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:nice religion ya got there, guys (Score:3, Insightful)
The only reason we don't have a similar situation to Afghanistan in the West today is that we (including those calling themselves "Christian") ignore most of what Bible says and choose not to live according to its rules. If we didn't, we would still have daily stoning sessions for blasphemy, adultery, homosexuality etc
Re:1st censorship death sentence (Score:4, Insightful)
Besides, your analogy is completely misleading. What if it's 2 lambs and a wolf voting on what's for dinner? You're implying that the minority has an inherent right to protect itself via violence from the outcome of a vote. Do you really want to open the door to wahabists buying guns and contesting votes via shootouts because in America, they're the lamb in the minority? Didn't think so.
Comment removed (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:1st censorship death sentence (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Still disturbing as fuck (Score:5, Insightful)
The government isn't the problem, it's the politicians that are currently making up the government. The framework is in place for the elected officials to lose their standing as soon as the next election comes up. It would not necessarily be a bad thing in my eyes for an entirely new senate to be elected. One side may claim its a failure of the government 'we set up', however I would see it as a beneficial option given to the citizens as a result of the government 'we set up'.
We didn't select their leaders. They selected their own leaders. The US cannot be blamed because the citizens didn't choose wisely nor know how their elected representatives would act. Picking candidates wisely comes with time and experience; many of us in the US still haven't learned how to look past the flashy smear commercials during our election time.
They are still a very young democracy with new ideals being forced upon them. There will be many more examples of this in the future. When/If Iraq's democracy takes hold, I guarantee you will see the same stories from there as well. It's up to all of us an in international community to tactfully and politically inform them that they are being idiots when they do something as idiotic as this.
Re:This is OUR fault. WE did this. (Score:3, Insightful)
If anything, the increased media presence in Afghanistan brought about by our invasion is probably the only reason we even know about this case.
Re:Still disturbing as fuck (Score:3, Insightful)
you?
Me?
Who are we to say who the afghans should have running their country?
Who is to say that their elected representatives are not acting in accordance with their peoples' wishes?
This is the whole problem with our "nation building" bullshit. We only think it's cool, when the people elect people we agree are good leaders.
News flash everyone... THE MIDDLE EAST IS ISLAMIC, AND IF LEFT TO DEMOCRACY, ARE LIKELY TO VOTE IN ISLAMIC REPRESENTATION.
Personally, I don't like it either. But I don't pretend it's a bad choice simply because I don't share their values.
Re:1st censorship death sentence (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:1st censorship death sentence (Score:5, Insightful)
Completely ignoring the fact that wolves are likely to be well armed too and much better trained and more ready to use violence.
Our rights are based on the insight that everyone's in some kind of minority and that it's important to protect the rights of everyone instead of just the will of the majority.
In other words: We should have written the constitution and the law books as the US did in Japan after WWII, with some minor input by the Afghanis, to prevent stuff like this from happening. Yes, that would have alienated a lot of them but they don't love us now either. And if we have to go through an insurgency that will probably last for another decade we should at least make sure that we do it for a new order that's actually worth fighting for, not for a slight variation of the old one that's almost as oppressive but a tad less ready to export terrorism.
Another problem's of course that too many people in the West are ready to throw out 200 years of lessons learned the hard way to protect themselves against terrorism, the 456th leading cause of death in the western world.
We had a choice. We could have stopped it. (Score:5, Insightful)
That didn't stop us from setting policies in Iraq unilaterally, like banning anyone who was ever a member of the Baath party from holding any position in the new government. We installed the Coalition Provisional Authority, which ruled for over a year in Iraq. After that, a non-elected interim government ruled for (about) another year. I don't know offhand how that compares to our efforts in Afghanistan, but my point is this: we didn't relinquish control of Iraq until we were sure that relatively secular, pro-western leaders were going to take over.
And we damn sure should have done the same thing in Afghanistan, especially if we cared about the potential for them to become future terrorist producers/trainers/harborers.
Re:1st censorship death sentence (Score:5, Insightful)
A more correct argument would be that "Democracy can't just suddenly be implemented without extreme skill and a firm hand in control during the transition."
Alas, extreme skill - or, indeed, skill of any sort - seems to be lacking in our "nation-building" efforts of late.
Re:Thank god the USA invaded that country (Score:4, Insightful)
Now that really depends on which Muslims you ask. Unfortunately the Muslims who feel that proper Islam requires Sharia Law are also much more prone to enforcing their religious views with physical force. They may even be in the minority in many places, but they are the vocal, violent minority. So yes, "it's possible to be Jewish and not follow all 613 laws in the Torah" but it is also possible to do so in Israel without being beaten, maimed, or executed.
Clarification, please (Score:3, Insightful)
All the other posters replying to your post seem to be of the opinion that the point of the analogy you drew was that armed lambs will be able to defend themselves against attack by the wolves. A naive interpretation, such as mine, of this analogy would instead be that in a constitutional republic, the constitution acts as the guns of the lamb - both figuratively and, through its agent the Executive, literally - to protect it from assault by the wolves, despite them being in the majority. This could be representative of, for instance, the arguments for and against slavery in the mid-1800s (i.e. should slavery be allowed to exist, because the majority wish it so? Or should the US Constitution's assumption that "all men are created equal" act to protect those who would be enslaved against their wolfish enslavers? Thankfully, wisdom prevailed, and emancipation proclaimed). Is the intended point really the first one? And if so, are my co-posters aware that Afghanistan is in a bit of a mess at the moment because too many people have guns?
Sorry for my odd english; it's 6am here right now and I desperately need some sleep.
Yours sincerely, etc.
Re:1st censorship death sentence (Score:5, Insightful)
To polarize this by religion is ridiculous when its a governing body making the judgement to begin with. Yes, they are the clergy in afghanistan, but they're just humans maintaining their positions of power not widely accepted views from the entire world of islam. If I were to use the same tactic in reverse, i'd be spouting things like
"What part of "Thou shall not kill" is so hard to understand?" like the onion, or perhaps suggesting one contemplate when it was that executing the mentally challenged was finally banned in texas....part of the proverbial bible belt yes?
Course its always a lot easier to spout a knee jerk response and feel righteous about it. I suppose thats why springer existed to begin with. Look at it this way, culturally a blanket statement of "blasphemy" tends to have other people look the other way when someone is sentenced to death in that country, so that is the bent the officials used to silence their critic.
In north america, we call it "witchcraft" "communism" or "terrorism" and replace death with life without parole, economic destruction, or character assassination...except for certain states of course. We also have a culture of questioning blanket statements concerning freedom of speech, and went through our own embarrassing period with Salem and such.
Granted, I prefer here to there based on this, but i've lived in this system all my life so I cannot really compare at all. The arrogant attitude that the US is somehow of a "superior class" and shouldn't be compared with other governments is just racism enhanced by jingoism in the end though.
If we want to be angry, be angry with Hamid Karzai for not demanding a pardon. He's been dealing with western diplomats long enough to know what kind of outrage this would cause, even if he isn't humanitarian enough to do so on his own. And if he somehow doesn't have the balls to step up to the clergy, then who is REALLY in power in afghanistan currently?
Re:nice religion ya got there, guys (Score:4, Insightful)
Would you... dare I say... sentence me to death for criticizing an Atheist government?
Religion isn't the problem, blowing shit out of proportion is. Atheists can be just as bad as Christians or Muslims or Scientologists, they are after all - people.
Re:1st censorship death sentence (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:1st censorship death sentence (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:1st censorship death sentence (Score:5, Insightful)
But there are a lot of significant differences between them and the nations following sharia law, and nobody has yet figured out how to bridge them.
In both Germany and Japan, there was a central figure of extreme authority, a small group of insiders hoping to be next in line, a larger group of thugs willing to do their bidding because they enjoy hurting people, and a large percent of the populace that was willing to believe that their crappy lot in life was the result of "population X" (fill in the X with Jews, Poles, gypsies, westerners, Chinese, blacks, Arabs, homosexuals, or whoever is a convenient target.) All forms of tyranny essentially use this same model. And defeating them is also quite well understood: destroy the head, remove the insiders, and the movement dies. But in those cases, it was the national government that was responsible for the war. They were well known, easy to identify, and easy to physically locate. The fact that our politicians were willing to sacrifice a lot of innocent civilians with our bombing campaigns made it that much easier.
But the current situation with violent Islamists is very different. First and foremost, their battle is based on religion, rather than politics. Despite the occasional memo coming from Osama bin Laden, there is no official head, no single "pope" of Islam dictating the violence -- mullahs all over the place are free to interpret the Qu'ran however they wish and issue fatwas of their own. Many are corrupt, seeking only to establish or maintain a power base for themselves, and the Westerners|Su'unis|Shi'a are easy and convenient targets for raising the ire of the populous. But being heads of religions, they have elevated themselves to being "above" questioning -- indeed, TFA is about the impending death of one such questioner. And the blanket of religion protects them all -- an attack by the U.S. on even a minor but corrupt mullah would rally much of ordinary non-violent Islam against the Americans. And each corrupt mullah has built himself up as a mini-tyrant, and is surrounded by a small group of insiders plus a wider group of thugs, making each individual sect almost as hard to clean up as a whole nation.
The historical example would suggest a strategy such as the simultaneous assassinations of all the corrupt mullahs and their circles. And that is so heinous and illegitimate as to be unthinkable, even to our current violence-prone government, not to mention impossible to coordinate. And who would decide their guilt? Who would do the investigating? Where would the trials be held? We'd essentially be using both a Gestapo AND a schutstaffel to pull it off. It would require an absolutely corrupt process, bringing new corrupt people and a new horrible set of problems into the mix.
We in the West know very little about Islam, or how to influence it. I'm sure we're trying to find ways to convince the honorable mullahs to discredit the corrupt ones, but they already have a huge base of well-deserved mistrust for us. New meddling in their business will not endear us to them, either.
MacArthur had it easy, by comparison.
Re:1st censorship death sentence (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:1st censorship death sentence (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:1st censorship death sentence (Score:2, Insightful)
I think that you have good points, and I agree that the local clergy is abusing their power, which would be a problem even if there were no religion.
However, religion, and ultimately irrational belief, is definitely part of the problem here. The man has been sentenced to death under Islamic law, so obviously religion has a role to play here. (I know that there are irrational secular reasons to put someone to death, but the reason was religious in this case.)
You also say that the actions of the Islamic clergy in Afghanistan are not indicative of Islam as a whole, but has there been outrage from other Islamic countries concerning this? I have been looking but I don't see any. The article mentions "international protests" but doesn't say from which countries.
I'm not sure if the GP was trying to say that the United States is in a "superior class" but I think, that when it comes to ensuring personal freedoms, Islamic law and our (U.S.) system of government are at just about opposite ends of the spectrum. So, if ensuring personal freedoms is your metric, it is possible to objectively determine if one system of government is better than another.
Re:1st censorship death sentence (Score:2, Insightful)
My pet peeve - something being "literally" true means that there is no exaggeration or metaphor going on, the words mean exactly what they say at face value. So you're saying there were some real wolves and a lamb voting about dinner... I'm skeptical
People try to use the word "literally" for emphasis nowadays for some reason, but if you'd simply said "it is no better than two wolves and one lamb..." that would be clearer and just as rhetorically strong.
Re:1st censorship death sentence (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:nice religion ya got there, guys (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:1st censorship death sentence (Score:5, Insightful)
Hope!?
That was one of the saddest and depressing posts ever, bereft of any hope for humankind's future whatsoever!
What are the basic implications of his stance? That there shall be always majorities voting to kill minorities? That the way to go forward is a landscape of bunkers with deranged, rabid, paranoid occupants eyeing each other's "neighbours" through squinted eyes and the sights of the ever bigger guns in their formidable arsenals while looking for a slightest sign of "aggression" so that they can open up with their canons, rockets, nukes and what not on each other, "until they run out of ammo"? That the societal structure be based on the size of one's armory?
And this is hope?! Me thinks you should look under the heading of "nightmare" in the dictionary and you will find the definition much more fitting.
The sad, pathetic and wholly uninspiring assumption of that post is that humans will never be able to dis-entangle themselves from their evolutionary reptilian brain baggage and will forever remain snarling, greedy, short-sighted, delusional, unreasoning and completely despicable creatures they are now, forever clawing each other eyes out over some pathetic plastic trinkets or incomprehensible ramblings of long-dead senile imbeciles enshrined in some "holy" book.
And what is even more depressing, is that some here seem to gleefully and impatiently look towards their dream of some sort of apocalyptic shootout coming true, where the last man standing with the biggest gun and the longest dick swinging "wins".
"Hope" he says...
Re:1st censorship death sentence (Score:3, Insightful)
And I stand by my statement that MacArthur had it easy "by comparison". The actual, factual god of Japan's religion/state told them to lay down their arms, and then told everyone that maybe he wasn't really their god. In contrast, Allah is not present in human form today, and his prophet Mohammed is no longer alive making claims or raising armies. With nobody in control of Islam, nobody has the authority to even say such a thing.
MacArthur had an entire compliant, beaten, and headless nation handed to him. Not to take anything away from his many great accomplishments, but it wasn't even close to the same kind of situation we're facing in the Middle East.
So sure, I misspoke in saying that Japan wasn't driven to war using religion. That changes very little of the differences between then and now.
Re:1st censorship death sentence (Score:4, Insightful)
Wolves at each other's throats, forever then! Would-be tyrants clawing their way to the top to replace the ones being "kept at bay" via bullet holes in their skulls by "patriots" sporting portable tactical nuclear missiles, then anti-matter, than some kind of planet-busting time-space continuum weapons, until the end of time! (or the premature end of the unfortunate planet Earth having given birth to such a hopeless flock of pathetic trogloditic morons)
Huh? Wha? Orwellian? In minority? Protect?!! Do you have any clue what Orwell's distopia was actually about?
Nice try. But no cigar. These supposed vigilant "defenders" exist solely because of those of their own kind ON THE OTHER SIDE. If it weren't for macho, gonad-thinking, greedy, power-hungry, religious lunacy infested and heavily armed imbeciles elsewhere, enlightened societies would not need to tolerate their own pet zoos of macho, gonad-thinking, greedy, power-hungry, religious lunacy infested or other kinds of armed imbeciles as a counter-measure to unleash on the other idiots if needed.
And that is the fact so very uncomfortable to all these would-be "defenders" of our "freedoms" (who usually congregate in some sort of new True-blue Patriotic Neighbourhood, Homeland or Motherland Security organizations, usually complete with demands for everyone else to "temporarily" relinquishing their freedoms so that they could be "vigilanty" defended).
All of this shit is pure base animal "logic". The stuff that fills reptile brains. Kill or be killed! Eat or be eaten! Rat-think. Far below what the so-called "technologically advanced" and "civilized" society should strive for. The very fact that so many here cannot seem to raise above the level of thought processes of a snake, is a sad testimony indeed as to how far humanity is from any sort of hopeful future.
Indeed! Informed out of the pages of Der-Sturmer, being ready do defend yourself from the taxman (or the mailman) and to cultivate similar attitudes in those around in your Montana "militia", while on patrol for them "illigul immigrunts", around the still.
The moment the citizens if my country need an "armed militia" "defending the streets", the country would be done for. There indeed would not need to be a point to a such a country anymore as it would have by then devolved to an anarchy of roaming bands of self-appointed thuggish banditry calling themselves "militias" and final rule by the barrel of a gun. Usually at first by the upper-class trigger happy "militiamen" "defending" their God-given hoards of stuff against them "unwashed thieving lazies", only, given enough time, to be followed by a swift reversal when the "unwashed ones" figure out that they have 10:1 numerical advantage.
There is a world of a difference between living in a c
Re:1st censorship death sentence (Score:3, Insightful)
That doesn't mean religion isn't the source of the the problem - it still is - it's just that this "militancy" issue you seem to be talking about is actually very rare (Pakistan tribal areas for e.g)and constrained by the fact that the majority of muslim land is ruled by secular dictatorship. As for shariah implementation, this is again very rare except in places like Saudi where the historical circumstance lead to a religious revolution (ditto afghanistan). The nations that hate us the most are those that have the most active nationalist state propaganda, which inspires the evangelists as it does here in the US of A. It is literally a mirror image.
Religious "leaders" in the muslim world are largely non-threatening. They have little say over governance, though religious evangelism tends to be depressing in any case. It is the nationalist dictators that are the main culprit. They are the ones with everything to lose, so they try to rally the public against any external threat and behind any unifiying blanket - like you said, religion makes for a good blanket.
We should not try to influence Islam. Islam was handed down in a very definitive manner and its jurisprudence is based on a historiography relying on extreme methods of preservation. What we should do is try to get people to move on, to open their eyes, to show them that life is quite possible without the emphasis on religion, and that only happens through education and the normal advance of civilization.
Canonical meaning (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:1st censorship death sentence (Score:3, Insightful)
So was wacking your chosen "mate" over the head with your club and dragging her to your cave also a "successful" strategy for reproduction. As long as you did not club too hard.
Could you explain however what does this have to do with a society of beings capable of unleashing the energy of atomic bonds and travelling into space?
Your assumption is that if something "worked" for the primordial slime, therefore it is a valid and fully justifiable strategy for sentient beings purporting to have developed concepts such as "morality" or "science". I contend that the notion is absurd, and at some point of time humans must face the music and detach themselves from these knuckle-headed animalistic instincts or make themselves extinct in one of a miriad of a very creative, painful and gory ends. Either this or some progeny of humanity, be it biological or bio-mechanical will decide that their troglodyte "parents" are just too stupid to be allowed to keep anything more meaningful then plastic forks (which at present is sadly true) and will solve that problem for us.
This of course is nonsense. The fact that I do not see getting a sniper rifle and organizing some ridiculous "militia" as something a sane person should be doing in one of the most advanced countries in the 21st century does not mean that I would not put up (a reasonable) fight when someone tries to mug me.
Remember however that the entire point of this sub-thread, started by my original post was about "hope" and "future", not about some wacky notions of cape-clad vigilante "militiamen" swooping to the rescue of the distressed damsels of the "western" (as in White Anglo-Saxon, Christian, upper-middle-class) society from the clutches of unpure (Middle-Eastern, African or Asiatic) dstardly (most likely "illigal alien") muggers. Which is what that nut from Alberta in the other posting was really all about.
This is simply changing the topics.
Re:1st censorship death sentence (Score:2, Insightful)
An epithaph for a "society" of hopeless, brainless cavemen.
Oh and you did forget the "I love the smell of Napalm in the morning ... it smells like ... Victory!"
May all the self-appointed "defenders" in search of a foe to "defend" themselves from choke on their own self-aggrandising, counter-productive "logic" and croak promptly. The world would be a much better place for it. For should an actual, legitimate defense of our lives become a neccessity there will be no need for retarded authoritarian jerks to make speeches as to how they "do not give a fuck about what anyone thinks" and how you better do what they tell you or they kill you, thus putting into question as to who the actual enemy of ours was in the first place. In such times the cause is obvious and unambiguous and practical necessities swiftly take precedence to any phillosophical discussions. Last such time being WWII where no one had to explain to anyone why the foe was deadly and the threat imminnent and entire nations abandoned all their ordinary pursuits to convert their entire economies to war production. Never you mind the all-encompassing draft.
That is the key fallacy of these squeaking chicken-hawk "defenders" of ours these days: they have been reduced to manufacturing their own patheric "doomsday" boogeymen out of their terrible fear of perishing in obscurity and not in power or in positions of authority.
And so to our would-be Col. Jessep wannabe I say: "Sir, Fuck You Sir up your ass with the butt of your own rifle, Sir!". And no do not come back whining for "emergency expandnded defense budget ammendment for 'defense' operations suppressing the unruly natives around them gold mines in Congo", or some such 'defense' you witless dorks have been all about for the last 50 years.