Sharp Rise In Jailing of Online Journalists; Iran May Just Kill Them 233
bckspc writes "The Committee to Protect Journalists has published their annual census of journalists in prison. Of the 136 reporters in prison around the world on December 1, 'At least 68 bloggers, Web-based reporters, and online editors are imprisoned, constituting half of all journalists now in jail.' Print was next with 51 cases. Also, 'Freelancers now make up nearly 45 percent of all journalists jailed worldwide, a dramatic recent increase that reflects the evolution of the global news business.' China, Iran, Cuba, Eritrea, and Burma were the top 5 jailers of journalists."
rmdstudio writes, too, with word that after the last few days' protest there, largely organized online, the government of Iran is considering the death penalty for bloggers and webmasters whose reports offend it.
Re:Eritrea? (Score:2, Informative)
It's a country on the northeastern edge of Africa, bordering the Red Sea. It gained independence from Ethiopia in the 1990s.
Re:Here's a thought (Score:3, Informative)
And even if the CIA said all that, and actually meant it... Iran's government wouldn't believe it, or they'd believe the journalists were spies for someone else (e.g. Israel), or they wouldn't care whether it was true or not because it was just an excuse to kill annoying journalists anyway.
Re:Here's an idea (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Here's a thought (Score:1, Informative)
Exactly. Iran is a country that
Doesn't have any gays [hotair.com]. How exactly these executions of non-existing homosexuals work is a mystery to all ... [nowpublic.com]
Doesn't have any protests against islam* (just look through the link, you'll find no mention of protests, and certainly none of what exactly was protested against) [presstv.ir]. However despite there not being any protests, they must stop, or the Iranian state will start killing people [presstv.ir]
* strictly speaking it's protests against "islamic government". However, if you take the laws out of islam there's nothing left, like with judaism. All parts of the islamic "religion" and practice are centered around the islamic state (there's no real equivalent in Judaism anymore), the "caliphate". Due to the last caliph ditching the muslims after (well, actually shortly before) being ousted by a gay Ottoman colonel, however, generally one refers to the "ummah" instead of the long dead headless carcass that is the islamic state. In theory muslim laws state that any muslim who does not live in the (now non-existent) muslim state should either emigrate (but one can't emigrate to a non-existent country of course) or kill themselves, to avoid helping infidels. Not many followers of that specific law, though. Ayatollah khomeini (a child-rapist, like the muslim prophet), found of the islamic republic, famously said that there is no spirituality of note in islam, there are only laws. Factions attempting to introduce various forms of spirituality, foremost the Sufi muslims, are persecuted and even massacred for it.
How any muslim can (legally) be a muslim, given that the state islam doesn't actually exist, is not very clear, a fact that is frequently explosively illustrated by the more nutty terrorists among them. This may seem like an idiotically absurd issue, not legally (according to sharia obviously) being a muslim, but for a hell of a lot of people in the middle east this is a huge issue. Jews have a similar issue, due to Israel, while claiming to be a Jewish state, actually follows western law with a few tiny exceptions (ie. marriage). It does not, for example, follow the "a tooth for a tooth" principle of Jewish law. If you injure a Jew in a car accident in Israel, the police will not chop of your leg (muslims have inherited this law from judaism, but even in the worst muslim states, the practice is dying). Nor will you lose limbs for stealing. For many Jews, Israel is a state where Jews are safe, not so much a Jewish state. And for people who live by the most idiotic of laws, which may (or may not) have been reasonable at one time, but have long since lost all meaning, this is a huge problem.
One thing people don't understand is the fundamental differences between ideologies. Jesus Christ (the figure, real or not, described in the new testament) abolished this practice of blindly following laws. Faith in Jesus Christ, according to the gospel, is supposed to follow not from rigid adherence to rules, but from love and trust in the Lord, Jesus Christ. The standard of behavior for Christians is not a rigid set of laws, but a following of a good example. A Christian in trouble would sit down and pray, and honestly believe, that God will rescue him/her, a strange, but very Christian, behavior you will not find amongst muslims. Even in medieval books describing good behavior you will find this reflected : Christian books lead by example, while Jewish and islamic behavioral laws are strict laws.example 1 [islamqa.com] example 2 [islamweb.net] The tinyest of behaviors is exactly regulated, and a muslim is supposed to follow these rules,
Re:Here's a thought (Score:5, Informative)
That isn't as effective as you would think. Body language is a huge give away. Women in a burqa with a full veil are very submissive, they look down at almost all times when in public. Men trying to pass as women in a burqa have a hard time copying this. Woman may look up, but if you make eye contact, the look down in a hurry and will not look up again. Men have a tendency to not only look up, but to glare if eye contact is made. Its a dead giveaway.
And we caught one insurgent who's beard started poking out from under the veil.