Zimbabwe Makes Arrest Over Facebook Comment 100
inasity_rules writes "It seems using Facebook/Twitter to try overthrowing a corrupt government can backfire a bit, especially if they are expecting it. In Zimbabwe your Facebook posts can get you arrested. Probably for anything up to and including treason."
Re:They can anywhere. (Score:3, Insightful)
If I post "Obama should be over thrown, lets have a protest over X Saturday", the Secret Service won't come, they won't arrest me.
If I live in Zimbabwe and post "Overthrow ZANU-PF, lets have a protest Saturday!" I'll be arrested or killed.
Re:They can anywhere. (Score:4, Insightful)
Or just be prepared to face the consequences of your actions.
I mean, working within the system hasn't exactly always been a meaningful option.
Re:robert mugabe was the leader of a revolution (Score:4, Insightful)
Remember that Moammar "threw off" tyrrany to declare his own dictatorship.
Also remember that Eastern Europe threw off tyrranies to create actual democracies. Just because a revolution happens doesn't mean that the end result is predictable.
Remember that when you're posting stupid shit on slashdot.
--
BMO
Re:In Zimbabwe anything can get you arrested (Score:2, Insightful)
Reading today's Wall Street Journal, it appears that "what we call rule of law" is pretty goddamn rare. I think it was seen briefly in Finland but that might just be a rumor. I don't think it's been seen in an English-speaking country for at least 30 years.
But at least we have Zimbabwe to look down on. And they get to look down on Somalia.
By the way, considering Somalia doesn't seem to have any government, I guess that'll be the place John Galt moves to. I wish that poofter luck.
Where's my false equivalency posts? (Score:4, Insightful)
Where are the fools who always pop up under a story like this to explain to us, with great indignation, why it is no better in the West, that the West does the same thing? Whenever China, Iran, North Korea, Egypt, Zimbabwe, etc., does anything vile with human rights, I need the solace of my false equivalency fools who are always there to tell me why in the West it is exactly the same, and no better.
Of course, these brave false equivalency fools are always so critical of the West... from within the West. What I want to see is their "bravery" and lazy iconoclasm, from within another country. Let's see how brave they are to post criticism of China, from within China, to post criticism of Iran, from within Iran, of Zimbabwe, from within Zimbabwe.
Any takers?
(crickets)
Don't seem so brave and counterculture now, do they? And maybe that means more about the true relationship between your rights and freedoms in the West versus those in countries that genuinely grant you no rights to expression or other simple aspects of human dignity, whatsoever.
The West does plenty wrong, and the West can improve, of course. But if you understand how good you have it RELATIVELY SPEAKING (never mind that we can do better), only then you can begin to say something intelligent about the world you live in. But if you think you are saying something intelligent by equating human rights in the West versus Zimbabwe, or China, or Iran, you're just announcing how sheltered and ignorant you are.