Detention Threat for Malaysian blogger

Malaysian Patriot writes "The Malaysian blogosphere is currently in uproar as one of their most famous bloggers, a political observer named Jeff Ooi, has been threatened with action under the country's draconian ISA (Internal Security Act) law which allows a person to be detained without trial if he is thought to threaten "national security". The whole problem started with a comment made by a reader of the blog. The comment is alleged to have been insulting of Islam. A national newspaper (whose editor has frequently been a target of Ooi's blog) took up the story and accused the blogger of insulting Islam, while Ooi in his defence states he warned (and later deleted) the offending commenter when he was alerted to it. Malaysian bloggers meanwhile are outraged that a blogger should be held responsible for comments made by readers. In the case of Ooi's blog, which attracts thousands of hits per day, it is logistically impossible for Ooi to read and moderate every comment made. The whole saga can be followed in Jeff Ooi's Screenshots blog."

is it just me...

Does anyone else favor the death penalty for anyone who uses the word (if you can call such an abomination by that name) "blogosphere"?

Personally I think the Rack is a suitible punishment. Alternately, hot irons under the fingernails, or forced repeated viewings of "Star Trek V".

Them too?

...under the country's draconian ISA (Internal Security Act) law which allows a person to be detained without trial if he is thought to threaten "national security"...

They have the Patroit Act too?

ISA

I find it disconcerting that all of the above comments focus on the "insulting Islam" part of the story, and not the "national security" preserving "Internal Security Act" being leveled at a political observer. With a focus like that, and the possibilty of the administration resposible for the Patriot Act being re-elected, don't be too surprised if it's an American blogger in 4 years time. Islam. Islam. Islam. Expose yourself to the word ten times daily until it ceases to trigger alarm bells, and images of turban-clad, gun-toting loonies.

Narcissistic dweebs

Around here, it's "John Ashcroft is under my bed! Software registration is a crime against humanity! Supermarket discount cards are one step short of concentration camps!" all the day. Meanwhile, this guy is liable to be going to prison -- and not Martha Stewart prison, either -- for posting political views and debate on his website. And what do we get? As of this writing:

• Two guys complaining about "blogosphere"
• One troll and seven longwinded biters
• And two guys yelling "John Ashcroft is under my bed!"

How about a little perspective? Cut the drama and self-pity for a minute and think about what "Rights Online" really are.

Re:Well....

God can take care of himself.

It is their own weak belief, that some 'humans' think needs defending through coersion.

Well...

Maybe these Malaysians should be helping me build up metanet. They can't arrest you if they don't know who you are...

This is appalling

...on two counts. One, that negative comments about Islam (or Christianity, or Republicans, or Democrats) could be considered a crime, and two, that they arrested someone who didn't actually make them. I don't know whether to hope they find the person who made the comments [jeffooi.com] or not. I suppose that putting into law the idea that you are responsible for users' actions might be worse than suppressing free speech.

Wait till they come for Taco

Given the regularity with which copyrighted articles are posted as comments on slashdot, it's surely only a matter of time before someone takes an action against the editors. Should slashdot editors be held responsible for their users' comments in the manner of this blogger?

Online Petition

If you're Malaysian and are aware of the facts of the matter, please take 1 min to sign the petition at http://www.petitiononline.com/jeffooi/petition.htm l

Quit. Period.

Religion is at best a crutch, at worst a disease. Islam or Christianity is a sham. Believe in what makes your life worth living, when what you do is worthless, change your belief or die. Force is crude and barbaric. Forcing a religion is cruel and barbaric. Judaism, Islam and Christianity were born of a time when people began to question their own existance and had the leisure to do it. To hell with them all. Good deeds, not good words! Peace and harmony begins with a state of mind, not a state.

Actually

Why should people be allowed to insult Islam, a sincerely held belief that hundreds of millions of people agree with? We would not put up with anyone insulting Christianity.

The First Ammendmend (in the US at least)

Hell, we don't even let people burn our flag!

Yes, we do. Flag-burning is protected speech, and the ammendment proposed to change that fact was shot down.

When will you Atheists realise that your beliefs are just as much a religion as anthing you find in the Bible or the Quran?

Heh.. Freedom of speech. If you don't like us, speak your mind. If you speak your mind, don't be surprised if we speak right back.

I suppose I'll get shot down in flames for pointing this out,

Yes.

but the levels of Islamophobia and general religious intolerance at slashdot are staggering.

Hmph.. So there's a vague coorelation between technological savy and intolerance of religion? Fancy that.

Re:It makes sense.

Why should people be allowed to insult Islam

Because we should be free to insult anything and anyone. I for one don't find that fact that hundreds of millions of people adhere to a religion that is philosophically stuck in the eighth century (minus all the scientific and cultural progress they were making back then), all that compelling a reason for its merit.

We would not put up with anyone insulting Christianity

What planet are you from?

When will you Atheists realise that your beliefs are just as much a religion as anthing you find in the Bible or the Quran?

On this we agree.


I suppose I'll get shot down in flames for pointing this out, but the levels of Islamophobia and general religious intolerance at slashdot are staggering.


Perhaps, but I do not need to be afraid that I or my children will be nuked, poisoned or infected by militant Buddhists, or Presbyterofascists, or Mormon suicide bombers, because they don't exist. There are no rabbis, or bishops issuing death warrants.

While there certainly have been Christian, et al, terrorists, they pale in significance by orders of magnitude to those of Islam. No bigotry in this statement, just facts.

Re:It makes sense.

When will you Atheists realise that your beliefs are just as much a religion as anthing you find in the Bible or the Quran?

Refusing to believe in something until evidence is submitted is a matter of reason, not religion or faith.

I don't believe in God.
I don't believe in unicorns.
I don't believe in Santa Claus.
I don't believe in leprechauns.
I don't believe in Brahma.
I don't believe in alien abductions.

Chances are that you and I agree on all of those but the first. You probably also agree that the fact that you don't believe in unicorns is not a religious belief. Doesn't take a religious, faith-based belief to not believe in a stupid fairy tale, does it?

Now, please explain to me how the fact that I don't believe in unicorns is not a religious belief, but the fact that I don't believe in God is. Go ahead, I'm waiting.

Re:Faith vs Reason

Why this distinction between beliefs based on "faith" and based on "reason"? Faith is not always blind. I have faith in my wife. Why? Because she has demonstrated to me in many ways that she is a faithful woman who loves me. Though we're not together during the business day, don't you think it is reasonable for me to trust her fidelity during the day, far less reasonable for me to suspect her of betraying me (at least in the absence of very serious evidence)?

The word "faith" has a number of different definitions; you are confusing the argument by using a different one than I am. You have evidence of your wife's faithfulness -- she has always been faithful to you in your presence, has professed her love to you on many occasions, and has done many other things to give you reason to believe in her faithfulness. There is no such evidence of the existence of God, so any belief in him must be a different sort of faith than what you describe.

I hope you can see that faith can be reasonable.

If it's reasonable (based on rational fact and evidence), it's not "faith" as generally defined in religious discussions.

Secondly, you wanted some evidence to be submitted about God. There are two kinds of evidence recognised by Christians: what can be seen in nature; and what has been specifically revealed by God in history.

I submit that there is nothing in nature which indicates the existence of God, nor has God at any point revealed his existence. I challenge you to submit evidence to the contrary.

Have you ever asked the questions that Science can't answer?

Of course. No one is claiming that science has all the answers.

Empiricism can observe the material world, and it can even propose laws which seem to describe the way the universe works. But it cannot say where these laws come from, or why they are so.

True. However, God doesn't make the situation any better.

Science: Question: Why does [system A] behave in [behavior B] fashion? Answer: We don't know.

Religion: Question: Why does [system A] behave in [behavior B] fashion? Answer: God wants it to work that way. Question: Why? Answer: We don't know.

All you've done is introduced one more unknowable thing and abstracted the answer one more step away.

Isn't it beautiful and elegant that such simple laws can describe such complexity? Isn't it still so unlikely, even given such laws, that they would produce you?

First, nobody has any idea how likely or unlikely it is -- we don't understand the processes that gave rise to life (and when we do, it will have been science, not religion, that answered the question). Second, even if it's fantastically unlikely, what does that have to do with anything? In a universe with fifty billion stars in each of a hundred trillion galaxies, the fact that something is "unlikely" still leaves room for it to happen trillions of times. And all we need is for it to have happened once -- and it obviously did, since here we are.

Have you ever investigated the historical man Jesus Christ, and assessed his claims and the claims of his followers? Reading the new testament of the bible is a good start: it's not very long, and you can't claim lack of evidence without having read it. It's also worth looking at historical analyses of it.

The historical man Jesus Christ is known from exactly four documents: the four Gospels. There are, to the best of my knowledge, no other known documents claiming first-hand knowledge of the man.

Tell me something: if I and three of my friends wrote stories claiming that we had seen a man perform great miracles, claim to be the son of Allah, and endorse Islam as the one true path, would you instantly trust me, discard all other religions, and follow Islam?

That is exactly what you done. Replace "Allah" with "God" and "Islam" with "Christianity" and you ha

Read the rest of this comment...

Re:It makes sense.

That, dear sir, brings a tear to my eye. I was walking forlornly through the rain last week, throughly depressed at the evident truth that nobody knows how to troll anymore. And today, the sun is shining, the birds are singing, and you have shown me that there is at least one person who still practices the ancient art. Thank you.

I smell a definition flamewar.

I have a feeling that you're trolling, but I'll bite anyway. There is much debate regarding the definition of atheism. Most self-identifying atheists define it as a "lack of belief in deities". Many theists and flame warriors define it as "belief in a lack of deities". Some people lack the ability to distinguish the two positions. Some people claim that the first position is actually "agnosticism", while others will reply that "agnosticism" means a belief that the truth or falsehood of the existence of deities is unknowable, and will point to the definition of Aldous Huxley, who coined the term.

I may have left out some positions in the flame war. Feel free to add any that I missed.

Re:It makes sense.

When will you Atheists realize that your beliefs are just as much a religion as anything you find in the Bible or the Quran?

Uh, no. By definition, Aethism is the absence of belief, so, the non-existence of something is NOT something (see your Greeks for an explanation of that one). You don't have to actively not-believe in something, and even if you do, it doesn't constitute a religious belief.