Slashdot Mirror
Egypt Arrests More Bloggers
2think writes "The BBC is reporting that after bloggers highlighted recent public sexual harassment within view of Egyptian police, the government of Egypt has been arresting bloggers." From the article: "The most recently detained blogger, Abdel Kareem Nabil, was detained in Alexandria on 6 November and was charged with disrupting public order, inciting religious hatred and defaming the president. Amnesty International says Mr Amer appeared to have been detained for expressing critical views about Islam and Egypt's al-Azhar religious authorities."
It should be no surprise that countries with little or no protection of free speech are arresting people for their comments online. Many bloggers use their real names (or make it easy for police to trace them. The people who would be arrested for public dissent should not be surprised if they are arrested for dissent online ... I would hope that many of these people relish the thought of being arrested for blogging, as it sometimes creates worldwide recognition to their cause or their plight.
... it's not like governments are quick to catch up with technical trends.
It certainly seems that blogger arrests are on the rise, such as the recent Greek blogger arrested for content he didn't write, and the constant string of arrested bloggers and other internet users in China (such as documentary filmmaker Hao Wu). This is probably an indication that Governments are just now learning about the influence commanded by a popular blogger rather than a change in policies around the globe
Huh? Don't mind me, I'm just the new guy.
Egypt is one of those countries which has a horrible human rights records that you rarely hear about in the United States because they have been allies with our government. In other words, our media and government normally look the other way at the human rights abuses in Egypt. You can listen to a very informative interview here about an attorney in the United States who has been imprisoned for helping a prisoner to communicate with political allies in Egypt.
Movig along to the quip... 'from the not-everyone-has-a-1st-amendment dept'
I always find it odd that Americans needed an amendment to get these rights instead of them being included from the start.
I ate your fish.
Anyway, if you defend this guy, you're being played like a fiddle by the very forces that seek to destroy Western culture. Happy defending, Free Speechnauts!
On the contrary, if you choose not to defend this person's free speech, you are personally doing what you can do to destroy the bedrock value of Western culture. You can argue against his ideas. But when you support his imprisonment for those ideas, you might as well move to Egypt. You clearly don't support the values of Western culture. You actually appear to be a force seeking to destroy Western culture.
"...and was charged with disrupting public order, inciting religious hatred and defaming the president."
All we need now is a set of 8 X 10 glossies, some turkey stuffing and a gang of father-rapers.
Face it - if a pair of handcuffs have your name on them, you're going downtown and the charges only have to stick for as long as it takes to throw you in the back of the paddy wagon. Once they find out how this all works, they'll put this guy, or someone like him, on their payroll with those otherwise shady tactics working for their own purposes.
That the blogger was anti-Islam seems to be totally irrelevant since Egypt is a secular state (much like Turkey).
Interesting definition of a secular state- do you think they'll be abandoning the Koran in their constitutions anytime soon? Or will the Turks accept the Kurds and the remaining few Armenians with open arms? I think if they did, they could help solve one of President Bush's major problems by annexing the northern third of Iraq. I'm now convinced that America has no friends in the middle east- only trading partners controlled by the enemy of us all, the petroleum corporations.
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
I've never heard of Christians beheading people- though this response does seem mild in comparison to what other Islamic sects do.
Nevermind that whole crusades thing...
Face facts- the reason why Islamic terrorism is so popular is precisely because atheists have become common.
That's a subjective, self-serving, bullshit statement if I've ever heard one.
Some of the founders didn't want a bill of rights. They were completely fine with the rights idea, they were just afraid that people would decide it was an exhaustive list or get the idea that the government grants rights.
Free speech is the cornerstone of western culture. That means free speech for christians, muslims, capitalists, socialists, communists, whatever. Radical or otherwise. I can't imagine evil machinations at work that are trying to get people to support free speech for some nefarious goal.
Here is the type of incident they have been blogging about.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B2SGamUeMec
Whenever the offence inspires less horror than the punishment, the rigour of penal law is obliged to give way...
the reason why Islamic terrorism is so popular is precisely because atheists have become common.
Congratulations for the brilliant non sequitur, sir. Not only did you manage to pull atheism completely out of the blue, but you also managed to use it to contradict yourself. I am nothing compared to you.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
Islam is 1/6th the planet's population. EXTREME Islam, the type we're fighting against, is a mere 10% of that- maybe 10 million strong. To them, secularism is everybody in the United States- we're all atheists to them- 300 million strong. And that's not even counting Europe. Do you see why they MIGHT feel a bit threatened?
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
"But when you support his imprisonment for those ideas, you might as well move to Egypt. You clearly don't support the values of Western culture. You actually appear to be a force seeking to destroy Western culture."
Which may be why grandparent is called "Bad Analogy Guy".
Computers are useless. They can only give you answers.
-- Pablo Picasso
"Rape is punishable by death in Islam"
Yep, in some parts they regularly execute the victims.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
Hmmm, and here I was thinking how easy it was to imagine 'USA' in the place of 'Egypt'
A positive attitude may not solve all your problems, but it will annoy enough people to make it worth the effort.
I'll take athiest secularists -- of any political philosophy or stripe -- any day, versus any nonsecular religious wingnut who wants to destroy the separation of church (whether it's Islam or Christianity) and state.
A whole lot of the problems that exist right now in the world, can be traced back to foreign policy decisions on the part of the West, where we decided to fund or otherwise support religious nuts of various flavors, in order to indirectly get at our political enemies at the time, the Soviet Union. However, in retrospect, I think that we'll find that radical Islam is probably a far more insidious enemy than Communism ever was. Pandering to religious fanatics is what got us into the mess we're in right now, and they're not something you can argue with on any sort of rational plane.
I'll take a political radical over a religious radical any day of the week. At least there's hope of rational discussion -- or at least conceptual understanding -- of the political adversary; with the religious radical, since there's no rational basis to begin with, there can't be any discussion or compromise.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
What's going on here? Not a single comment blaming this on the Iraq war? Nobody trying to tell us that the US is a much worse police state? Wow. Must be an off-day for the slashdot trolls.
The constitution limits the government's power, it doesn't give us any rights. It's assumed that everyone has all rights upon birth, but the constitution lays out which rights our government will honor.
Not a Twitter sockpuppet... but I wish I was.
The Egyptian government was embarrassed, but its response was to completely deny the incident and censor its press from reporting it. Hence, the outrage came out in the blogs. Note that this happened almost 4 weeks ago on Oct 24 and it's just NOW starting to come out. The government has also taken the stance that the bloggers are trying to "humiliate" Egypt and Islam by talking about the incidence and that's why they are persecuted. Please read these articles for more information
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/15/world/africa/15c airo.html
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=56301& SelectRegion=Middle_East
http://www.sandmonkey.org/2006/10/30/the-eid-sexua l-harassment-incident/
In Pakistan, they finally changed the law that required four male witnesses to convict a rapist. Without those four witnesses, a women stood a good chance of being punished for infidelity. The religious community is up in arms about this legal change, denouncing it because it will result in sexual promiscuity.
In Saudi Arabia, a 17 year old girl was recently sentenced to death for killing one of the three men who attempted to rape her and her cousin. The remaining two men were not charged with any crime.
Don't pretend for one moment that women have any legal rights in an Islamic country. The laws do a better job of protecting horses than women. I'm not being sarcastic. That is an honest fact. Horses have a higher rank in Islamic societies.
Islam is a religion of oppression and hate. We can all sit in a happy circle and sing kumbaya wishing for peace, but that is a fantasy. The stated goal of Islam is to convert the entire world, by the sword if necessary.
I will hold this stance against Islam until the major leaders of that sick religion denounce all forms of violence to obtain their goals.
-- Will program for bandwidth
I'm now convinced that America has no friends in the middle east- only trading partners controlled by the enemy of us all, the petroleum corporations.
Of course America has no "friends" in the Middle East, at least not unless you count Israel. But why should we? I don't mean this in terms of 'america is evil, blah blah blah,' but in terms of what, exactly, do Americans and most people in the Middle East (Muslims in particular) have in common, in terms of political philosophy? Precious little, at least from where I'm sitting.
A secular government, where religious freedom is taken for granted, and the government draws its power and legitimacy from the consent of the governed, and not from a mandate from God, is one of the cornerstones of Western society. Every schoolchild in the U.S. can (or at least, should) be able to tell you that the separation of Church and State is one of the keys to our whole system.
If you went to most places in the Middle East and asked average people about their thoughts on religious freedom, I'm not sure that you would find wide support for governments that didn't base themselves on religion. In the same way that a secular government is just assumed in the West, I think in the Mideast (excepting Israel, which is for all intents and purposes Western), an asecular quasi-theocracy would just as easily be assumed. A government that didn't recognize and allow for some form of Sharia law or have an Islamic-derived constitution would be a non-starter in many places.
Expecting these two philosophies to coexist as "friends" is ridiculous. They're not compatible, nor reconcilable: they begin from radically different assumptions about the function and place of religion and government. Barring a few million Muslim people waking up one day and deciding that, yes, religion should definitely take a back-seat to government, the U.S. will never have any "friends" in the Muslim world: it cannot. At most, the East and West ought to be able to tolerate and trade peaceably with each other, agreeing to disagree in public while probably scorning the other afterwards in private, and hopefully finding common ground on particular issues of mutual geopolitical advantage.
But expecting the U.S. to ever have a relationship, as a nation, with Jordan or Saudi Arabia, as it does with Great Britain or Israel is silly. It's not going to happen: Western nations are just much closer to each other on a host of fundamental political and philosophical issues.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
WHAT? you just called Egypt islamic??
HAHAHAHAHAHA.... what? you don't get the joke? oh nevermind
And what's with the beheading crap, that's for murderers (with full intent, not accident or self-defense).
On other note the Egyptian government is FUBAR, and you should take any Islam (or any religion for that matter) related stuff from them with a whole sack of salt.
Example: A 'fatwa' from them said smoking is OK for the rich but prohibited for the poor.
See, a government full of shit.
P.S: Smoking is prohibited in Islam under the don't-hurt-yourselves debt. (more accurately don't-kill-yourselves debt.) but governments don't enforce anything on that matter (at least where I am).
Syllable 0.62 is here at last!!!
So making it dangerous to grope a woman makes it ok to execute her when she has the nerve to defend herself from gang rape?
As for misunderstanding, since the koran (now in two-ply) specifies that conversion by the sword (along with lots of other "fun" stuff) is perfectly acceptable, I don't see how I misunderstood a damn thing. Since major islamic religious leaders repeat this sentiment, it's reasonable to assume the belief is alive and well.
I simply don't understand the extreme left. The islamic world is completely opposed to every damn thing they believe in, yet the ultra-lefties go out of their way to side with them. It's people like this that caused me to drop my Democratic party affiliation and register independent.
-- Will program for bandwidth
Tell that to Mirza Tahir Hussain, who just got released from Death Row in Pakistan for a self defence incident when he was being sexually assaulted at gunpoint by a taxi driver. It took Prince Charles, Tony Blair and many more before them to get him freed, not killed, after being found innocent but then retried under Islamic law.