Syrian Open Source Developer Bassel Khartabil Believed Executed (www.cbc.ca) 151
TheSync writes: The Syrian open source developer, blogger, entrepreneur, hackerspace founder, and free culture advocate Bassell Khartabil was swept up in a wave of military arrests in March 2012. A CBC report states that his wife wrote on Facebook late Tuesday that she has received confirmation that security services executed Khartabil in October 2015 after torturing him in prison. Before his arrest, his most recent work included a 3D virtual reconstruction of the ancient city of Palmyra in Syria.
At the time of his arrest, Khartabi was 30 years old -- after which he started a blog called "MeInSyrianJail" and a Twitter account called "Live from my cell." Though he spent the last three and half years of his life in prison, he once tweeted that "Jail is not walls, not the executioner and guards. It is the hidden fear in our hearts that makes us prisoners." The latest tweet on his feed says "Rest in power our friend."
Thursday the Creative Commons nonprofit described the developer as "our friend and colleague," and announced the Bassel Khartabil Memorial Fund, "which will support projects in the spirit of Bassel's work."
At the time of his arrest, Khartabi was 30 years old -- after which he started a blog called "MeInSyrianJail" and a Twitter account called "Live from my cell." Though he spent the last three and half years of his life in prison, he once tweeted that "Jail is not walls, not the executioner and guards. It is the hidden fear in our hearts that makes us prisoners." The latest tweet on his feed says "Rest in power our friend."
Thursday the Creative Commons nonprofit described the developer as "our friend and colleague," and announced the Bassel Khartabil Memorial Fund, "which will support projects in the spirit of Bassel's work."
Downside of choosing between two evils (Score:1, Redundant)
a) Assad regime
b) ISIS
pick any one
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g h i j ...
The various Kurdish forces, and the moderate Syrian forces (back before their decline because no one was backing them).
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The Kurds are today powerful enough to hold their own. But they don't have territorial ambitions beyond where they live. So they'd happily take places like Kirkuk & Kobani, but they wouldn't be interested in Raqqa or Mosul. So it doesn't make sense to look at Kurds as the overall solution
Besides, this year, the Kurds in Iraq will hold a referandum on seceeding, and will likely be joined by their Syrian comrades. So Arabs ain't likely to look at them as partners in anything
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c d e f ....
Any number of rebel jihadist factions such as the infamous "white helmets".
Non ISIS Jihadists are still Jihadists. Even during good times, they'll attack not just Christians, Yazidis, Kurds & Druze, but also Muslims of sects other than their own. If they are one of the Saudi-backed Islamic Front groups or the Jabaat al-Nusra, they'll attack Alawites and other Shi'ites. If the McCains and other warmongers had their way, Syria would resemble either Morsi's Egypt, or Qatar. Even Egypt, which previously supported the insurrection in Syria, now supports Assad b'cos they're bot
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Yeah, tell that to the Copts, who were shit scared during that time. Or Israel, which expected its 30 year long peace treaty w/ Egypt to come to an end. The Muslim Brotherhood is the parent organization of al Qaeda & Hamas, and Qatar is one of the few Muslim countries that recognizes it as mainstream.
The al Sisi regime ain't murderous, unless one happens to be a Libyan ISIS guerilla who beheads Copts, or launches attacks on Egyptian forces in the Libyan desert
Syrian Rebels (Score:1)
Nah, that's a false dichotomy. USA backed Syrian rebel forces, until Trump switched to backing Assad due to his Russian links.
So he's currently ended CIA training of Syrian Rebels.
We could also have stayed out of it till ISIS and Assad had fought to the end, then knocked out the now weakened winner. But that option was stopped when Putin came in to 'fight ISIS', i.e. bomb the crap out of Syrian Rebels under cover of boming ISIS.
Trump's choices are similar to the Ukraine thing, GOP platform is to provide Ukr
"Backed Assad" (Score:1, Informative)
USA backed Syrian rebel forces, until Trump switched to backing Assad due to his Russian links.
I sure hope the U.S. does not "back" me anytime soon given what they did to Assad [theguardian.com] under Trump.
If you want to see someone who truly supported Russia, look no further than Obama (who ignored them shooting down a commercial passenger jet) - or Hillary (who sold them oodles of uranium's secretary of state).
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Re: "Backed Assad" (Score:1)
Uranium - Hillary has been debunked. If not for Obama it wouldn't be known Russia shot down the airliner and he countered the Russian agenda in the Ukraine. Now it's Russia - Trump's time under the microscope. Keep deflecting it makes it more obvious there is something to hide.
Rebunked (Score:1)
I noted you provided no links for your revisionist lies - Hillary provided uranium to Russia, that is a fact [nytimes.com], end of story [forbes.com].
The link you failed to provide was probably Snopes, and if you are so stupid as to believe a known mouthpiece for Hillary [wearechange.org] over the NYT and Forbes - well I don't know what to tell you. Actually I do, it's think for yourself, but I know you will not so why bother trying?
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USA backed Syrian rebel forces, until Trump switched to backing Assad due to his Russian links.
I sure hope the U.S. does not "back" me anytime soon given what they did to Assad [theguardian.com] under Trump.
Trump doesn't have a policy on Syria, he has a series of reactions that change with the news cycle.
If you want to see someone who truly supported Russia, look no further than Obama (who ignored them shooting down a commercial passenger jet)
And exactly what reaction was Obama supposed to have? The biggest question during the invasion of Ukraine was how to get Putin to stop with just Eastern Ukraine.
- or Hillary (who sold them oodles of uranium's secretary of state).
we'll get right on that after we've fought off the invasion from the lizard people.
Hillary's fault (Score:2, Insightful)
We could also have stayed out of it till ISIS and Assad had fought to the end, then knocked out the now weakened winner.
Hillary Clinton could also have not assassinated Qaddafi [nytimes.com], which left Libya a failed state and a terrorist haven. Qaddafi was not one of the good guys, but he was keeping all the local terrorism in check.
Intelligence sources brought the opportunity to Hillary while she was SOS, and also noted that killing him would be a bad idea and predicted the rise of terrorism and [something similar to] ISIS if he was killed.
Hillary overrode that decision and had him killed anyway(*).
Nah, that's a false dichotomy. USA backed Syrian rebel forces, until Trump switched to backing Assad due to his Russian links. So he's currently ended CIA training of Syrian Rebels.
He doesn't like Assad one bit (he's s
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The deal w/ Syria (Score:5, Informative)
No, the other choices were Muslim Brotherhood - the only longstanding opposition in Syria not only during this president's reign, but also during that of his father, Hafez al Assad. As well as Jabaat al-Nusra, an al Qaeda affiliate, and other myriad Jihadist parties all over the country that united under the Islamic Front banner, and had allegance to the Saudis. The Kurds were a local force in the NorthEast, and in any case, running into problems w/ the Turks, who fear that an independent Kurdistan would just inspire their own Kurdish population in the East to either revolt or secede.
Also, this Assad was a moderate, and started off as a reformer. His father, Hafez al Assad, was a real terrorism backer throughout the region. He came to power in 1970, made Syria the successor state to Nasserite Egypt as far as being a Soviet ally went, and backed terrorist organizations throughout the region. For the longest time, Hamas and Islamic Jihad had major offices in Damascus, which they only closed when this civil war started. Hafez Assad also stood out in being one of 2 Arab regimes to support Iran in the 8 year long Ira war b/w Iran & Iraq, and did all he could to make Lebanon a de-facto part of Syria, including assassinating their president elect Bashir Gemayel. Only in 1991 did relations w/ the US improve, b'cos Syria supported the allied side against Iraq, due to Assad's personal enmity w/ Saddam Hussein.
When his son came to power in 2000, he was a novice, and decided to start a perestroika like process in Syria. Which went on well until the Arab Spring started. Once regimes in Tunisia, Egypt & Libya started falling, the Saudis decided to inspire a Sunni insurrection in Syria that would disrupt Iran's Shi'ite Crescent of Iran, Iraq, Syria & Lebanon, since that would fall under the guise of the 'Arab Spring'. Except that unlike Egypt or Tunisia which have homogeneous populations and where none of them stood to be massacred should regimes change (except the hapless Copts), in Syria, that had lethal implications for the Alawites, whom Sunnis and even some Shi'ites regard as heretics. The Baathist coalition of Alawites, Shi'ites, Christians & Druze feared that they'd be massacred if the Assad regime fell, which explains why the insurrection turned into a civil war.
Also, if one notices some of the activities of the 'rebels' during this war, there had been ethnic cleansing of Christians and Alawites from cities like Aleppo, Homs, and so on. In fact, after the first Iraqi 'democratic' Shi'ite regime came to power, the persecution of Iraqi Christians by the Shi'ites started, causing them to flee to Syria. In Syria, they joined their religious comrades, and again found themselves driven out into Lebanon. So the idea that it was just Assad who by releasing the terrorists, contaminated the 'freedom loving' pool is just hogwash. That made sense for Saddam to do in 2003, but not Assad: releasing Sunni terrorists would just increase the ranks of his enemies.
Anyway, fact remains that even w/o ISIS - which was essentially remnants of Zarqawi's al Qaeda spinoff - all the 'rebels' in Syria were Sunni Jihadists who during their campaigns massacred or drove out the ethnic peoples they opposed. If Assad were to get overthrown, it's they who would come to power, and make Syria an even greater bloodbath than it already is. Israel, which never was a friend of Syria's, made it a point to stay neutral but root for Assad: the last thing they want on the Golan border is a Hamas like Muslim Brotherhood regime like Morsi's. Egypt, which was w/ the rest of the Arab League & OIC in expelling Syria due to the war, recently decided to re-open channels w/ Syria, b'cos like Syria, they know the pitfalls of falling under the Muslim Brotherhood. Even though al Sisi is no friend to Iran or Hizbullah.
Re: The deal w/ Syria (Score:1)
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Give 'em a chance and see. Or rewind Christianity a few centuries. Heck, rewind Islam enough centuries Islam is the biggest problem religion now, but that's just for now.
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You'd have to rewind Christianity to the 1600s to get the Thirty Year War, when the Catholic Habsburgs had it it on the Protestant Germans & Swedes. Although there were exceptions - Catholic France fighting on the Protestant side (while persecuting the Hugenots) and Lutheran Denmark fighting on the Catholic side.
Anyway, Islam has been given plenty of chances over about half the globe - from Gambia to Brunei, and everywhere, it's been a bloody tale. Only place that's peaceful are the former Soviet '
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False dichotomies FTW, amirite?
It's Sunday, Slashdot (Score:3, Insightful)
his wife wrote on Facebook late Tuesday
And the CBC report is from Thursday.
Today is Sunday, Slashdot. What took you so long to put up this story?
"Slashdot: old news for nerds, stuff that once mattered."
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Not uncommon now (Score:2)
... for stories to sit in the firehose for days.
It used to be Slashdot breaking these kind of stories.
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Today is Sunday, Slashdot. What took you so long to put up this story?
They are going for a new speed record.
Maybe you would be better served with the article on phone addiction and impatience of the current generation.
Interaction with him (Score:3)
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Well, behaviour like that would have got him a bullet in the head from either of the 4 or 5 sides in the area at this time. What did the Peacemonger-In-Chief once say? "If you're not with us, you're against us." Listening to others is dangerous to such attitudes and ... well, your associate paid the price.
He wasn't the first, and won't be the last. He's unlikely to be in the last tens of millions.
Re:Interaction with him (Score:5, Informative)
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The open source movement includes not just programming
But he's specifically called Open Source Developer , and that means "programmer".
Re: Interaction with him (Score:1)
Being involved in open source means more than just writing code. Regardless, it took minimal effort to find that he was a contributor to Firefox.
Quit being such a stuck up soggy twat waffle.
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Re:Interaction with him (Score:5, Informative)
I don't know what you're mouthing off about.
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https://github.com/aikiframework/aikiframework/commits/master?author=bassel
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There's a lot of boilerplate, trivial stuff in there or commits in which two lines in one file are changed and then all of the minified Javascript is regenerated. But that's true for me and all of the people I work with, too. There are still dozens of commits with serious, non-trivial code changes. The accusation that this guy was not an open source software developer is incorrect.
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That's really sad considering Donald Trump just left him to die. Trump cares about nothing except his own money and how many lies he can get away with. Get away with.
For fucks sake, "executed Khartabil in October 2015." Trump haters are idiots.
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But either way it's absurd. It is the Syrian government killing a Syrian citizen - terrible, but the US government can't exactly force every other government in the world to choose its executions and pardons based on our decisions.
No, golden age wasn't Islamic (Score:4, Insightful)
Interestingly enough, that 'golden age' only occurred at the beginning of Iran's conversion to Islam: some of the people usually lionized had unknown origins, and were clearly converts to Islam from something else - be it Zoroastrianism, Christianity or Judaism. Iran did have a great culture during the Sassanid dynasty, and that didn't collapse overnight. The Samanids, who aside from Islam, were proud of their Iranian heritage, continued to patronize that for a bit, but once their empire collapsed, it went south from there.
Aside from that, there is also the fact that a lot of the 'achievements' were imports from the east - be it China or India. They love boasting about the 'Arabic' numerals, ignoring the fact that those things, and the number zero, originated in India, and was at one time called either 'Hindu numerals' or at worst 'Hindu-Arabic numerals'. Other works were translations into Arabic or Farsi, which, while noteworthy, is not the same as being an original creator.
Also, if all these achievements were products of Islam, why wasn't that replicated anywhere else in the Islamic empire? There were a myriad number of Muslim sultanates and emirates throughout history, from Mali to Brunei. So why weren't there more Islamic scholars from these various kingdoms who contributed meaningfully to culture? Reason is that 'bida', or innovation, is considered verboten in Islam, which is why it's rarely done.
www.al-awa2el.com (Score:1)
This is what real fascism looks like (Score:5, Informative)
For all those winers out there that are always complaining the U.S. is a fascist dictatorship - this is what real fascism looks like.
Re:This is what real fascism looks like (Score:5, Insightful)
I won't claim that the U.S. is a fascist dictatorship, but your pointing at another country torturing people and executing civilians without a proper trial isn't really a good example, don't you think?
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your pointing at another country torturing people and executing civilians without a proper trial isn't really a good example, don't you think?
Actually I DO think, and I am curious why you think otherwise...
To be honest, not actually curious so much as sad that you think so. The poison of moral equivalence is as strong as it is deadly to the mind.
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I have an open mind, so explain yourself. Do you disagree that the United States tortures prisoners and kills civilians?
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Just because somewhere else in the world is an unbearable shithole doesn't mean one should accept a mediocre government back home.
Re: This is what real fascism looks like (Score:1)
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For all intents and purposes, compared to the rest of the US government he is.
Local politics must be viewed in a local context or you're racing to mediocrity if not to the bottom.
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For all those winers out there that are always complaining the U.S. is a fascist dictatorship - this is what real fascism looks like.
No one here is complaining that the U.S. is a fascist dictatorship, they're complaining that Trump is moving the country in the direction of fascism, and that the leaders who he most often expressed admiration for tend to be fascists.
Take a pre-war Assad and make him Christian he's probably joining Putin and Duterte on Trump's wall of inspirational posters.
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Yeah, we have Fascism Lite. Now With Longer Elections!
Seriously though, The US doesn't (often) extra-judiciously kill it's own citizens. But it admits to torturing people, and has innocent blood on its hands.
There's a case to be made that it genuinely does all this in the name of getting the "bad guys", but how hard is it for us to get our government to stop torturing people, even people who have done terrible things, and stop killing innocent civilians in our name? If we still have this power, as a peop
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Yeah, those uppity Black Lives Matter folks should just shut up and move back to the back of the bus.
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You're right, of course, and my comment (particularly taken out of context) rightly deserves your sarcasm.
Sometimes the police look more like state-sponsored gangs than people "protecting and serving" -- which might be the most scathing indictment of our system, and definitely ticks a box on the "Are we fascist yet" list.
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The sarcasm was not meant personally, I'm just a sarcastic bastard. But yes, your comment sounded as if you had overlooked that.
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Barbaric (Score:2)
No crime is so severe that it justifies a government sanctioned murder.
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wrong and naive.
look at these pedophiles that kidnap, torture and then kill a child. Removing them from the planet is the logical thing to do.
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pointless looking for "atonement" or "guilt" or "remorse"...take out the trash!
Odd (Score:1)
He was allowed to blog and tweet from prison... in Syria? All the while being tortured and eventually executed. The world is indeed a peculiar place.
Power vacuum (Score:2)
Post joke society (Score:2)
This guy just died, and YOU are JOKING about it, jackoff.
Ah, social justice.
We're now living in a post-joke society.
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Re: Post joke society (Score:1)