Malaysia Uses Anti-Terrorism Laws To Stop Bloggers

Academiphiliac writes to mention the BBC reported in an article this morning that the Malaysian government may start using tough anti-terror laws to censor bloggers who insult either Islam or the country's king. "The move comes as one of Malaysia's leading online commentators has been questioned by police following a complaint by the main governing party. The new rules would allow a suspect to be detained indefinitely, without being charged or put on trial. But officials insist the law is not intended to strangle internet freedom."

They love you.

The new rules would allow a suspect to be detained indefinitely, without being charged or put on trial.

But officials insist the law is not intended to strangle internet freedom.

"religion has actually convinced people that there is an invisible man living in the sky, and he has a special list of ten things he does not want you to do. And if you do any of these things he will send you to a place full of fire, and smoke, and burn and torture forever and ever 'till the end of time.... but he loves you. And he needs money." G. Carlin.

So the new rules can get you detained indefinitely, citizen. But don't you forget to pay taxes.

All countries are full of shit.

Oh, the irony

Considering that most terrorists are Muslim, somewhat ironic that anti-terrorism laws are being used to silence those who "insult Islam." How else is Islam going to be civilized and reformed from within if criticism and debate on the state of Islam in the modern world is crushed in a major Muslim nation, Malaysia, keeping in mind most of the world's Muslims live in Asia?

Re:Oh, the irony

Considering that most terrorists are Muslim,

Not true.

Until 9/11 the biggest act of terror committed on US soil was the Oaklahoma City bombing, committed by a right wing white supremacist. The act of terror that caused greatest loss of life in Europe is still the Bolgona railway station bombing perpetrated by a neo-facist right wing group.

Islamic terrorism is relatively new. The PLO was secular. Their friends, the Baader Meinhof gang and Action Directe were communists.

Most religious terrorism is sectarian, Catholics against Protestants, Protestants against Catholics, Sunni against Shi'ia, Shi'ia against Sunnis.

And since we are on the subject of terrorism, what do you call a government that employs torture, detention without trial, starts wars, disegards international law and treaties? Perhaps the term is not terrorist, but the corrupt crew are still a bunch of totally evil bastards regardless.

Re:Oh, the irony

And, I would really like to see some Muslim protests, in the street, against terrorism

And how many times have you taken to the streets protesting against terrorism? I never have because, well, what's the point. As Tom Lehrer said:

It takes a certain amount of courage to get up in a coffee house or a college auditorium and come out in favor of the things that everybody else in the audience is against, like peace and justice and brotherhood and so on.

People only bother protesting things if they feel that the majority, or those in power, have different opinions. If you took to the streets shouting 'Terrorism! It's bad!' people would look at you like some kind of crazy person, and wonder why kind of twisted world view you had that made you think it was necessary to actually bother saying that.

Re:Oh, the irony

>> Considering that most terrorists are Muslim,

> Not true.

Absolutely true. The number of Muslim terrorist acts in the last 30 years dwarf all other such acts through all recorded history.

You are, of course, applying the usual "massage the data" approach -- arbitrarily picking "greatest death toll in a single incident" as a yardstick.

And, oh by the way, trying to use the same tactic Muslims always use -- point fingers at others to distract from the issue at hand.

You are, sir, full of shit.

Re:Oh, the irony

However, we have lots of issues to clean-up "back at home", if we want to preach to Malaysia about such issues.

For example in the UK [wsws.org]

"More important still, the government's draconian antiterrorism laws have already been used by the police last month to arrest 144 people protesting against an arms fair in London. The civil rights group Liberty has challenged the use of emergency powers contained in sections 44 (1) and 44 (2) of the Terrorism Act 2000 as illegal. Liberty's court action has revealed that on two occasions--from August 13 for 28 days and from September 11 for 28 days--the Metropolitan Police had unrestrained power to treat everyone in London as a terrorist, and stop, search and hold them without cause or reasonable suspicion. The Met. has already declared that the provisions of the legislation could be used against those demonstrating against President Bush's November 19 state visit to Britain, which will be policed by up to 250 armed officers under the leadership of London's head of antiterrorist and security operations, David Veness."

NPOV link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DSEi#Protests [wikipedia.org]

Re:Oh, the irony

Considering that most terrorists are Muslim

Which is irrelevant, as most muslims are not terrorists. Since the portion of any large group that is terrorist is so low, you can't really say anything about someone based on what invisible sky ghost they worship.

Latest: He has been released

According to his latest blog entry [malaysia-today.net], he has been released after 8 hrs, and the reason for his temp detention was comments made on the website

Confusing the extremists

The Islamic terrorists are going to have a tough time figuring out where they stand on this: are they in favor because it punishes people who insult Islam or are they opposed because it's part of an anti-terrorism effort?

For that matter, the right-wing conservatives are also going to have a tough time with this: are they opposed because it punishes people who insult Islam (a favorite pastime of right-wing conservatives) or are they in favor because they reflexively support anything that falls under the guise of anti-terrorism?

It Doesn't Matter What the Intent of the Law Is

The intent of the law doesn't matter one iota. What matters is what it allows. If it can be abused, then its very likely that it will be at some point. Even if the guys currently in charge use it responsibly, there is no guarantee that it will remain that way when leadership changes hands.

Of course, it's always disheartening to see things like this:

"I was alleged to have insulted the king, and also Islam and incite racial hatred, so I am going in there to reply to all these charges. I promise I'm going to give them a hell of a tough time," he told the BBC before he turned himself in.

Freedom of speech, except for the speech we don't like. Somehow their assurances concerning the intent of the law don't give me much confidence.

The Problem with Insulting Islam...

The problem with insulting Islam is...
That it's far too easy to do!

Re:The Problem with Insulting Islam...

Religion deserves to be made fun of. Too many people take it too seriously and want to force it on people.

When you look for terrorists

Everything you find will look like a terrorist to you.

Just think of our experiences in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan - daily we hear reports that 70 terrorists were killed - and yet up to 50 percent of those terrorists are in fact younger than 10 years old.

The same will be true of Malaysia's looking for terrorist blogs. Lots of innocent people, upset at their government or a cop who copped a feel while "searching" their sister, will be declared to be terrorists.

And, since they will be said to be so, they won't be given adequate legal trials or lawyers or able to see their accuser or hear the evidence.

Evidence like: "Sometimes I feel like pouncing on cops and beating them up." Which could be said by someone who had a cop ignore their stolen bike.

But they'll be terrorists ... sure ...

History Repeating Itself...

You know, back in the days of the Cold War, it used to be that in the "West" Communists were feared. In the USSR, it was the "Spreaders of American Imperialism". It would seem that history is repeating itself, but with the added proviso of having a unified enemy. One that can literally be indistinguishable from the common person, and even more disturbing, cannot be defeated. Now, I know that is nothing new in this crowd, but think about it, a Communist can be defeated, I would say for the most part they have been. The USSR fell, Cuba has its own problems with Castro falling to old age, China a communist country in name, now has "capitalist zones" throughout -- Communism is a dead horse and it has been flogged to death.

Terrorism, however, is a bird of a different colour. How would you defeat Terrorism? Overthrow the state that the Terrorists occupy? Nope, look at Iraq. Do you put up a cute little "Terror Alert Scale"? Oh yeah, that was really effective! Nope, you can't "defeat it", and anyone saying you can has not thought enough about the concept. Regardless, however, it would seem that many (frivolous) laws are being put in place to combat terror, even in countries one wouldn't expect this in (Say Canada, for example...). What is perhaps scariest is that these laws will probably not go away quickly -- giving anyone who wants to abuse them more than enough chance to get away with it and cover up evidence.

By no means, am I advocating that there was some "master plan" by some Evil Genius(tm), instead I think it is just a general ideology that comes with the times. What disturbs me is in this enlightened age, we seem to completely avert our eyes to the consequences of these laws. While some might ultimately get repealed, most will not and some may even snowball into much bigger, much badder laws that essentially go from government monitoring, to Government Sanctioned Living(tm).

I am also not, by any means, saying that I have all the answers -- which always seemed like a cop out to me, to criticize without at least adding your own view and possible solution -- but I do have a couple of thoughts.

*Every law should have a sunset clause -- an expiration date, if you will. This would be an immutable amount of time (say five years), and the law would be required to be reviewed and passed through whatever checks and balances exist (if any). The law could of course be repealed, but it could not be extended anymore than 5 years from the date of review. This would still be open to abuse, but would certainly stop a lot of the stupid laws that stay on the books and are used solely for abusive purposes by law enforcement or Government Men (tm).

*Laws should be "subdivided" into categories. So laws dealing with "Terrorism" would all be put into that category and that way one could remove them from the system wholesale. No need to go hunting and pecking. Obviously, this too would present problems, but I think it would simply things.

*Lastly -- every law should be understandable at a (4/5/6/7/8th) grade reading level, written in plain English. If the common man (and yes, I am inferring that the common man isn't the "sharpest knife in the drawer") can't read it, it can't pass.

Anyway, yeah, pipe dream.

How do you defeat terrorism?

By not letting yourself be perpetually terrified.

Re:History Repeating Itself...

Terrorism, however, is a bird of a different colour. How would you defeat Terrorism?

Stop fucking the middle east.

Intent of the law

But officials insist the law is not intended to strangle internet freedom.

No, of course it isn't intended to do that. That wasn't a bug, it was just an unintended feature.

Lesson (which should have already been) learned: It doesn't matter what the law was intended to do, but rather what the law can be twisted to imply. If a law can be interpreted in a manner, it will be interpreted manner. That's the most important thing to understand from this article.

Muslims could do with some insults to wake them up

Islam used to be a peaceful and pretty advanced religion. The arabs came up with a number of scienfitic advances under islam and until recently islam co-existed peacefully with other religions. However it seems to increasingly have been taken over by the stupid, the mentally deranged and the oppresive sadists who seem to want sharia law (otherwise known as hell on earth for anyone who values freedom, particularly women) for reasons personally I can't fathom other than they're so totally fixated on their Koran that they've lost touch with reality (mind you , doesn't that sum up most religious people). Its about time average muslims did something about this , not just pay lip service to it. Perhaps if they see their religion being insulted they might try and eviscerate the cancer thats currently spreading through it.

Re:Muslims could do with some insults to wake them

Personally I think of Islam as currently being in the place where Christianity was hundreds of years ago. You know - crusades, inquisitions, witch hunts, and all that other neat stuff.

Devolution of Information

Headline: "Malaysia Uses..."
Article: "The Malaysian government may..."
TF(BBC)A: "The Malaysian government has warned that it could..."

When I had to listen to it on shortwave, BBC was a great alternative to the then already groupthink polluted US media. Now it's Fox News with British accents. Despite their Reynolds Wrap hard hats, some people think this happens on purpose, forced by some shadowy puppet governments or government puppets. This example shows how it happens due only to inattention to detail, and desire to make a point, even here on /.

Mohammed enjoys anal sex with Allah and the devil!

... I'd better not go to Malaysia. Ever. But I believe in free speech, damnit.

I'm glad of one thing, at least

"The new rules would allow a suspect to be detained indefinitely, without being charged or put on trial."

It's a good thing America doesn't do anything like that, right?
Oh, wait.

The lying - lack of principles

This is what is depressing about modern life.

At one point, if someone was a racist, or religious bigot, or a tin-plated dictator with delusions of godhood, they said so and were up front about it.

These days it seems like everyone lies so freely and easily and without guilt that you can't make a rational decision since you can't trust anyone.

Islam out and out says it is okay to lie to non-believers (I think judiasm does in the torah too).

But lots of government officials in the US these days lie constantly. Corporate types lie as well.

"officials insist the law is not intended to strangle internet freedom" while right in front of you they are strangling internet freedom.

It's like the sid ceasor skit where the wife catches him in bed with his lover and he denies it constantly until the bed is made and the lover has left the room and then the wife is not even sure if it happened any more.

Excuse for Power

I've been to Malaysia. It's a shame, and scary for everyone, to see it descend into "Islamist" dictatorship. Because it was a "Muslim country" mostly in heritage and meaningless rhetoric until recently. It was almost, but not quite, as officially "Muslim" as, say, Canada is "officially Christian". Canada's still got a queen, too, but she's mostly reduced to a bust on coins. Malaysia's king was more powerful (and more local) than that, but not a whole hell of a lot, especially compared to the secular/elected government. And monarchy was steadily decreasing in any legal influence at all.

But now, Malaysia has the excuse to wield tyrannical powers by working with the terrorists in escalating terror supposedly "to stop terrorists" - by joining them in terrorizing the population. That's the excuse of the powermongers, mainly because terrorized people often accept it. For a while, at least, until it's too late to go back. Even the "Muslim" pretext is just another popular excuse. The authorities don't care about any of that. They care about only power. And the money that power brings, and the power that money brings to stay in power to get more money.

I just hope Canada can hold out longer.

Sounds like "this island earth" by mst3k

re:"but officials insist the law is not intended to strangle internet freedom."

And then I'll ram by ovapositer down your throat and lay my eggs in your chest - but I'm not an alien!

The Article in Question

This is one of the articles that caused it all

http://malaysia-today.net/blog2006/holds.php?itemi d=6714#c [malaysia-today.net]

Re:Sharia Law? No thanks.

I support the King and the censoring of all anti-Islam speech in Malaysia. If Malaysians don't like it, then they need to get up off their asses and do something about it.

Maybe I'm just getting old and cynical, but I'm really getting tired of seeing governments screw people over, and the people don't do anything about it. Maybe we all deserve to live in misery, being oppressed by bad rulers, since we're not willing to do what it takes to retain our freedom.

Re:Sharia Law? No thanks.

But you are surely not in agreement with the principles of Sharia law? As in, everyone who doesn't believe in the correct magical superman is murdered by the State? You wouldn't want that in your own country, right?

Sharia law is evil in exactly the same sense that Communism and Nazism are evil. Exchange worship of a Stalin/Mao figure for a deity, and change a few economic policies, and you have exactly the same thing. People are required to think certain thoughts and adopt certain lifestyles, and punished by death if they do not. Any thinking person should be strongly opposed to such an idea. But then, all religions know how to brainwash people so that they cannot think critically about their own faith.

We criticise and challenge Christians about silly beliefs like Creationism, and Christians ignore us and go on believing what they want. Fine. We should criticise and challenge Muslims about their silly beliefs too. But (at least in my country) no-one dares to do that, because the Muslims won't just ignore it.

Re:Sharia Law? No thanks.

I'm sure any sane person would rather vote for a new government than take up arms and shoot people (and get shot at) to achieve a new government. It's just a matter of when "enough is enough", and enough people have decided it's time for the latter.

In western countries with representative democracies, we still have the faint hope that we can vote our way to a better government. As bad as Bush is, unless he decides to unilaterally declare himself dictator, or call off elections and declare himself President until he decides to step down, he's going to be out in 18 months.

And we still have things like freedom of speech, for the most part. There's some bad things, like the government being able to see which books I check out from the library without a warrant, but that's really nothing like being jailed indefinitely just for insulting a stupid religion.

In these other countries, things aren't like this. Not only can they be jailed for insulting a stupid religion, their government is a monarchy, so they can't ever change it.

Re:Sharia Law? No thanks.

Or just cancel old, bad laws, new laws be damned. It's not like they HAVE to replace every shitty restriction imposed on the public with another, perhaps slightly less shitty, restriction.

Re:Sharia Law? No thanks.

We do, actually.

I assure you that no US military unit would follow the orders of a president that refused to turn over power unilaterally. And the closest thing we have to a Praetorian Guard, the Secret Service is not large enough to pull off a coop.

More likely the scenario would be just like it has been in past Republics, the Senate/Congress would proclaim a dictator with the SCOTUS approving it, or a constitutional convention would simply change the rules completely and allow for a dictator.

That would be soemwhat more problematic because you would have some ligitimacy.

Re:Sharia Law? No thanks.

And the closest thing we have to a Praetorian Guard, the Secret Service is not large enough to pull off a coop.

Probably because they're too chicken.

Re:Sharia Law? No thanks.

Huh? Sure we do, at least a lot more than most other countries.

First, there's the other branches of government. They don't have to go along with the President, especially since they control the purse-strings. That's how we finally got out of Vietnam, remember.

Second, there's the military. The President can't stay in power, in contravention of the Constitution, without support from the military. Most countries are this way, since the military usually has all the guns.

Lastly, there's the citizens. Many of us are armed, unlike in many other countries. The military may be powerful, but it's nowhere near as large as the citizenry. And Iraq is showing us every day exactly how effective guerrilla insurgents with improvised explosives and small arms can be against the world's most powerful military force. Besides, it's not likely most of the military would voluntarily go against their own countrymen.

Re:Sharia Law? No thanks.

If the people that I know in the military are any indication, then the day a President unilaterally declares himself king/emperor/dictator for life is the day that some missiles are "accidentally" launched at said dictator. There are a lot of military folks who take that "uphold the Constitution" part of their duty very very seriously.

USS Death Star

Governor Tarkin: The Imperial Senate will no longer be of any concern to us. I have just received word that the Emperor has dissolved the council permanently. The last remnants of the Old Republic have been swept away.

General Tagge: But that's impossible. How will the Emperor maintain control without the bureaucracy?

Governor Tarkin: The regional governors now have direct control over their territories. Fear will keep the local systems in line. Fear of this battle station.

or something like that...