Malaysia Frees "Anti-Islamic" Blogger 53
quarterbuck writes "The Malaysian blogger who was under arrest on sedition charges has been freed by the courts. Raja Petra Kamarudin's comments were interpreted by the government as being anti-Islam and anti-government; he was arrested under Malaysia's Internal Security Act. Now, a court has ruled that the government was overstepping its limits in what is being called a landmark ruling."
Re:Blogger's blog (Score:4, Interesting)
Apart from Malaysia, Britain's probably the worst - luckily the Neues Arbeit administration was stopped from extending detention to 42 days from 28, but guess what?
The very next day, Wacqui Jacqui Schmidt (our truly imbecilic Home Secretary) tabled legislation that would allow 42 days to be voted for by the House of Commons, "in an emergency".
Even places like Turkey restrict detention without charge or trial to 7 days - why is my country different?
Re:Speaking freely (Score:1, Interesting)
The Roman Catholic Church had the Inquisition starting in the 1200s to persecute heresy, which the Popes saw as a threat to their power in Europe.
Women only "recently" gained equal rights. In 1979, the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women [wikipedia.org] was passed by the United Nations. Not exactly a long standing history of women rights. Oh, and the United States is the only developed nation that hasn't even ratified this convention.
And lets talk about freedom. California has passed Proposition 8, along with other amendments in Florida, which removes the civil rights for gays and lesbians to marry [msn.com].
Replace the words "Gay" in Gay Marriage with "Interracial" and all of a sudden its something completely different to people. Yet its the same thing: removal of the freedom for people to choose who can visit them in the hospital, who can make medical decisions for them, automatic inheritance, spousal/child support, support to sue for wrongful death of a spouse and so on. And while religious groups claim that marriage is a holy sanction, remember that Freedom of Religion is also Freedom FROM Religion. When you allow religion to choose your civil liberties, you are no better than the muslims who stone raped women accused of adultery [bloomberg.com] in stadiums because its in their religion. It wasnt long ago that African-Americans had their own schools, doors and drinking fountains.
And considering we just had 8 years of Bush, a United Methodist [wikipedia.org], with him invading sovereign nations, I find "peace is un-islamic" a bit of a narrow definition.
Re:Blogger's blog (Score:2, Interesting)
Well, speeding causes more deaths in the UK every year than terrorism has in the last decade - roughly 6-12% (depending on the source) of fatal accidents are related to excessive speed, and at around 3000 per year, that gives between 180 and 360 deaths per year.
Even the lower limit is roughly 3 times the number of people killed in terror attacks in the UK in the last 10 years, including the 'Real IRA' Armargh bombing.
And don't get me started on those bastard litterbugs...
Re:Speaking freely (Score:3, Interesting)
Parent is exactly right. Insulting religion is an easy excuse and makes for an easy target to charge someone in this country when nothing else sticks. The actual reasons are entirely political.
What was left unsaid is that RPK was a persistent thorn in the side of the present government: he has published an ongoing series called 'The Khairy Chronicles' about the allerged corruption and abuse of power of the outgoing prime minister's son-in-law (PM Abdullah Badawi, now being forced out), and have publicized much of the allerged evidence linking the next incoming prime minister (equivalent:president) to the grisly and ghastly sex-and-murder case of a Mongolian interpreter who was brokering a weapons deal (the private investigator hired by Najib's goons confessed in an affidavit that future-PM Najib have said that the interpreter likes anal sex, and she was blown up with C4 explosives by the police detail assigned to protect Najib, using C4 explosives obtained only from the army where Najib is the Defense Minister. The trial is ongoing but Najib was never charged even when many roads point to him. The PI & his family promptly disappeared the day after the affidavit and was never seen again).
Yep, this dude has been anointed to be our next prime minister by the ruling party, and there is nothing they can do about it for now. Lovely country, ain't it, put your Ted Stevens to shame :)