Facebook Postings Lead To Arrest for Heresy In the West Bank 496
forand writes "Using screen shots of a customer's Facebook profile, owners of a West Bank internet cafe helped Palestinian intelligence forces capture a man accused of heresy." According to sources quoted in the story, residents of both Gaza and the West Bank face ongoing scrutiny of their online activities; in Gaza, "Internet cafe owners are forced to monitor customers' online activity and alert intelligence officials if they see anything critical of the militant group or that violates Hamas' stern interpretation of Islam."
I am shocked. (Score:5, Interesting)
A mysterious blogger who set off an uproar in the Arab world by claiming he was God and hurling insults at the Prophet Muhammad is now behind bars — caught in a sting that used Facebook to track him down.
I found myself surprised that Palestine is so easy to troll. Then I was even more surprised that I was surprised even for a second.
Many in this conservative Muslim town say that isn't enough, and suggested he should be killed for renouncing Islam. Even family members say he should remain behind bars for life.
I have never respected trolls before, but I guess there's a first time for everything. If he does get executed, someone should really saint him. Pastafarians maybe.
Re:Damn (Score:2, Interesting)
Not now. But low cost handheld devices using encryption over public networks will go a step in the right direction.
Re:Damn (Score:3, Interesting)
Not using Facebook will.
Re:Barbarians... (Score:1, Interesting)
The problem is that we have no good way of dealing with these lunatics when large parts of entire societies are thinking like this.
Why should we "deal" with them? Sounds like a waste of time to me. If they go to war they will lose and until then they're just sitting in their own country, making themselves miserable. Who cares what these masochists do to get off?
Re:Isn't freedom great? (Score:5, Interesting)
Actually, if they weren't, they might not have voted Hamas in in the first place.
A common misconception. Hamas was voted in not because of the anti-Israel agenda, but because they promised to fight the extremely corrupt Fatah regime that preceded it. That was the focus of their election campaign, and that was what actually got them the votes. That would have happened whether they were oppressed (with or without quotes) or not.
Shachar
Re:Not like cowardly Westerners (Score:2, Interesting)
I'm not sure what you mean.. I just meant that we need more testicular fortitude when dealing with wannabe tyrants like hamas...whether they live inside or outside our borders is immaterial. I'm a fan of individual liberty.
Re:It's not just in the Palestinian territories (Score:5, Interesting)
Honestly, the only time you'll run into religious oppression like this is from muslim communities. Mozambique has a large muslim population (especially the north of the country) and there are many people who are oppressed because of their decisions to leave islam there.
I think islam has specific tendencies that lead to specific abuses. I think christianity has specific tendencies that lead to specific abuses. They often overlap but in this area they don't. At the core of each religion, neither promotes these tendencies or abuses. Yet because people get corrupt and are power-hungry you get wild derivations from central ideas in a religion. For example, for some reason, christian leaders who get large followings, often end up taking advantage financially of their followers who come looking for a blessing of some kind (healing, personal financial blessing, etc.) and I've never seen that in islam. Islam, by contrast, when embraced at a government level tends to overbear followers and suppress voluntary belief or non-belief. Neither religion teaches these things in their basics yet men (usually not women) who end up in religious leadership often abuse those they lead.
Re:Not like cowardly Westerners (Score:4, Interesting)
If there is anything to the claim that we represent the "free world", we have to play relatively clean, lest it becomes nothing but shallow rhetoric.
Re:Not like cowardly Westerners (Score:3, Interesting)
well if you're a stateless refugee than you have no individual liberty...if objectively looked at who Hamas are and what they are fighting for, you'd see they have everything in common with people who want freedom.
try doing it sometime. Imagine you come from another planet, look at the worlds conflicts from an outsiders perspective...you'll see things arent as clean cut as what the TV tells you.
Re:There's a saying... (Score:5, Interesting)
Dude, honestly? Given that kids there grow up watching a rabbit puppet wax enthusiastic about eating Jews[1] and a Mickey Mouse-alike raving about martyrdom on the phone with kids[2], then it's quite obvious Palestinians do not give a crap about their children.
1. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jm8w7_P8wZ0&feature=related [youtube.com]
2. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gi-c6lbFGC4&feature=related [youtube.com]
American heresy (Score:2, Interesting)
Of course we should mention that Hamas was funded by the Mossad originally as a bulwark against the PLO, something that mainstream sources in Israel and the US acknowledge. Israel (with help from the US) knocked out the secular, left-wing Palestinians like the PFLP, DFLP and company as that is who they have always been afraid of. So what is left but the religious nationalists? Israel prefers them in charge, as does the US. They make an easier target.
The US overthrew the secular Iranian government in the 1950s and installed a dictatorship...now the only complaint is the pro-US dictator, the Shah, who wiped out the secular left during his decades in power, is not in charge any more. Iraq had one of the few secular governments in the Middle East, and was a target of two US wars. With US troops now there, Iraq has declared itself an Islamic republic (read the constitution), something never said in Hussein's day (although he was forced to concede some of this after the First Gulf War). So the result of the invasion has been this. Also, of course, the US armed Osama bin Laden so as to overthrow the secular, communist Afghani government.
Re:Isn't freedom great? (Score:4, Interesting)
Having to take a loyalty oath to the "Jewish" state or risk losing your citizenship sure seems like a type of Blasphemy...as it only applies to Non-Jews and they have to swore to loyalty to a "Jewish" state.
but as you and I well know the only difference between Israel and Hamas is one are fanatics with good PR the other are just poor refugees.
Lets see what the the Rabbis have to say
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7t_LxpCY2G8&feature=player_embedded
According to the book’s author, Rabbi Yitzhak Shapira, “Non-Jews are “uncompassionate by nature” and should be killed in order to “curb their evil inclinations.” “If we kill a gentile who has has violated one of the seven commandments there is nothing wrong with the murder,” Shapira insisted. Citing Jewish law as his source he declared: “There is justification for killing babies if it is clear that they will grow up to harm us, and in such a situation they may be harmed deliberately, and not only during combat with adults.”
And this fits right into thinking of Israels current President who in the past few weeks has been speaking Population transfers of Non-Jews out of Israel...which of course is necessary if Israel is to remain a "Democratic" and Jewish state. If you're going to lose your majority in the state, you just forcibly remove the people living there. Thats democracy, right?
Ah, Israel, why are the Palestenians so angry with you, is it really that hard to understand? Really?
http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/lieberman-presents-plans-for-population-exchange-at-un-1.316197
Re:We used to do this sort of thing as well... (Score:3, Interesting)
Well, considering Christianity has about 600 years of a head start on Islam they seem to be pretty much at the same stage respectively.
Re:Barbarians... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Not like cowardly Westerners (Score:3, Interesting)
Freedom. I do not think this word means what you think it means.
Or you. Try living in a country that is actively oppressed, where the supply of practically everything is subject to the whims of some outside force, which invades every now and then with military vehicles and just might shoot your friends, bulldoze your house, or yourself. Freedom gets a much more simple and immediate meaning there than "freedom of speech on the web". That's how the human mind works - you need to have your base desires satisfied before you start thinking about more abstract things.
Re:Another example of US myopia (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Not like cowardly Westerners (Score:0, Interesting)
Actually, the state of Israel is hated by most normal people around the globe, and it has nothing to do with them having big noses and curly hair.
As to why such a country gets protection from all those Western countries which normally would sell their mother for a few votes, the answer can only be fat bankers with big noses and curly hair.
Israeli people already committed genocide on the people living in Palestine, it is written on their holy books. Apparently God told them to. Guess what He says to the Hamas' guys.
To me, He says nothing, but then I am not batshit crazy enough to believe in invisible uber-monsters that ask for human blood.
Re:There's a saying... (Score:4, Interesting)
Palestinians can't even handle interactions among themselves peacefully when they're busy throwing rival politicians off roofs[1] in Gaza and viciously beating their own civilians[2].
If that surprises you, them you obviously haven't looked at (for example) just what the IRA got up to during the Troubles in Northern Ireland. We're only just starting to track down a decent number of the corpses of civilians who were taken from their homes by IRA hit squads never to be seen from again. Then there's the kneecappings and the extortion and the general organised crime. Fraternising with members of the wrong Christian sect was very bad and often fatal idea. The IRA, at their peak, made Hamas and co look positively pleasant - and their equivalents on the Unionist side weren't exactly better.
Oh, and did I mention that US politicians have been protecting IRA members from being extradited for their own political advantage? The IRA had a lot of political and financial support within the US, and an awful lot of their weapons came from there IIRC.
Re:Isn't freedom great? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:It's not just in the Palestinian territories (Score:4, Interesting)
You know that Islam doesn't recognize the separation of church and state, don't you?
Neither do mainstream forms of Judaism, and a lot of really influential branches of Christianity in the US - especially the fundamentalist ones - don't either. In practice, this manifests itself as the incorporation of large chunks of Jewish religious law into state law in Israel and systematic, organised attempts to create a religious state in the US by powerful groups linked to the Republican party.
Actually, what's odd about Islam is that Muslims, like Christians, are generally supposed to recognise and obey the laws of the state. (What's even weirder is that in theory Jews aren't meant to recognise the laws or courts of non-Jewish states in which they reside. In practice this is generally ignored, with the odd exception. For example, the reason that sharia courts are legal here in the UK is because of a law created to allow the establishment of Jewish religious courts. The reason we can't change the law to stop sharia courts is because the Jewish population will kick up a fuss, not the Muslims.)
Re:Not like cowardly Westerners (Score:2, Interesting)
Freedom gets a much more simple and immediate meaning there than "freedom of speech on the web".
There is nothing "abstract" about government goons showing up on your doorstep in order to haul you away for your execution because of your religious beliefs. Any government that does this is not legitimate and does not deserve anybody's support.
Re:Barbarians... (Score:3, Interesting)
The problem is that we have no good way of dealing with these lunatics when large parts of entire societies are thinking like this. It's like the West in the Middle Ages.
We do have a good way of dealing with these lunatics--don't deal at all with them. The problem of the West vs. Islamic fundamentalists is just that these people are sitting on oil. If it weren't for that, we could just break off relations and let them figure it out for the next few centuries. Instead, we dirty ourselves by dealing with the likes of the Saudis. And to a lesser degree, we dirty ourselves by dealing with Israel as well, who seems to be rapidly picking up on the intolerance and religious fundamentalism in the region (maybe it's in the water?).
Re:Another example of US myopia (Score:2, Interesting)
Most Islamic governments have laws under which I would be imprisoned or executed for my religious beliefs. The Palestinian government apparently has the same laws. Explain to me why I should support any of those governments?
I am sorry for the Palestinian people, but before they can get more than my sympathy, they need to create for themselves governments that aren't hell-bent on killing people like me. Until they do, all I see is two right wing, intolerant governments--those of Israel and those of the Palestinians--battling each other.
Re:American heresy (Score:2, Interesting)
Interpreting US actions in the ME as empire building and creation of religious regimes doesn't make much sense. The US doesn't build empires in the traditional sense, but it wants military superiority to ensure free trade (which is in US economic interests) and US safety. And US foreign policy does use religion when it seems expedient, but not as an end in itself. I don't think those policies are wise, but they are a far cry from what other world powers have done to nations around the world.
Re:Another example of US myopia (Score:1, Interesting)
ignore 60 years of occupation
Well, aren't you using that term a bit loosely. If you do the math it sounds like there were no Jews around those parts so many years ago.
Perhaps the Ottoman empire should take over again.
Re:Not like cowardly Westerners (Score:1, Interesting)
What's there to think about? I'm merely stating what Israel is saying, and Israel has the power to enforce that. Whether it ought to be that way is another question.
Re:There's a saying... (Score:3, Interesting)
The case of American Indians is quite complex and modern enough to be well documented. Much like many modern programs of attack on a particular group, there were people seeking financial advantage (land speculators and gold seekers, etc.) and people motivated by hatred (Andrew Jackson, a favorite of many Americans, especially Democrats, is a prime example). Of course, many people were dupes, didn't care, or actually opposed the attacks. The fact that the Amerinds were not particularly advanced ("savages") was more of an excuse for ignoring their rights than a reason for killing them.
There were many different tribes of Indians and they didn't all behave alike. A few were aggressive, and many had a much lower value for human life (particularly for those who weren't a member of their own tribe) than we take for granted today. One tribe's attack on a peaceful settlement was used to besmirch all; a behavior both understandable and despicable.
Cause and effect? (Score:3, Interesting)
Try living in a country that is actively oppressed, where the supply of practically everything is subject to the whims of some outside force
Considering what the Hamas government does, I think those outside forces aren't so whimsical at all.
That's how the human mind works - you need to have your base desires satisfied before you start thinking about more abstract things.
The problem here is that what you call "base desires" and "abstract things" aren't as clearcut as that.
From the religious fanatic point of view, the "base desire" is their religion, things like food or medicine are "abstract things" for them.
Re:Not like cowardly Westerners (Score:4, Interesting)
In this case, it means the freedom to be oppressive and violate the freedom of others, in accordance with their religion.
Blasphemy as a crime is common in most religious societies. John William Gott [wikipedia.org] was the last person in Britain to be imprisoned for heresy, in 1921. The last person to be executed for heresy in Britain was Thomas Aikenhead [wikipedia.org] in 1697. Both had been critical of Christianity. The fact that Hamas are only going to imprison this man, rather than execute him, suggests that their law is only 90 years behind that of Britain.