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Syrian Blogger Sentenced to Three Years in Jail
blind biker writes "The AP reports (via the Herald Tribune) of Tarek Bayassi, a 24-year old Syrian blogger sentenced to three years in jail for 'undermining the prestige of the state and weakening national morale.' The original sentence was six years but it was commuted on appeal. Apparently, this isn't an isolated case in Syria."
Lese majesty has been a crime since Roman times. Remember, it's only treason if you lose (the revolution).
No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism. - Winston Churchill
It sounds unlikely, but Bashar isn't really to blame here. He was never meant to be president. His brother was groomed for the role, but died in a car accident. When Hafez died, Bashar was working as an eye doctor in London. He was rushed back to inherit a job he never wanted. After he took control he quickly put in place measures to liberalise the country, loosening restriction on freedom of speech among others. However, this didn't last long. it soon became clear that he was not the one with the power. The real leaders were the senior official of the Baath Party who had been put in place by his father. They clamped down and reversed his reforms.
While he is the one whose face is on posters on the side of every building and on the wall of every shop and home, he's not in charge. There's obviously a lot of brainwashing going on, but he really does seem to be very popular in Syria. A lot of this is bread and circuses: people generally have a good quality of life, so tend to ignore the politics.
In any case, Syria is a beautiful country, with incredibly friendly people. It's sad to see stories like this, but there are signs of improvement in the regime. Even the fact that he had a trial and had his sentence reduced is a progress. It's unlikely he would have had that under Hafez. Despite the recent furore over the alleged nuclear reactor, there seems to be signs of progress towards peace with Israel. Only a couple of weeks ago, Turkey's president Erdogan was brokering talks about a possibly treaty. Time will tell.
The US Civil War was about secession (or rather, the right of a state to secede from the union), not directly slavery. The core of it was that Southern states tended to view them selves as belonging more to their State (so one was a Virginian or a North Carolinian before they were American). The Federal government to them was supposed to be a loose organization more analogous to the United Nations of today. It's existence was solely to provide a unified military defense and to facilitate interstate commerce. As such the southern states wanted the right to decide their own policies (of which slavery was indeed a major hot issue of the day). They also viewed it as their right to decline membership and go their separate ways if they felt so justified. The war was largely based on a disagreement in the interpretation of that relationship between the US and the individual states.
Slavery wasn't abolished until a year into the war and then ONLY in the Southern states (though at the time Lincoln didn't have control over them, so it was a bit toothless). Slavery in the North was still quite legal after the Emancipation Proclamation. Slavery didn't end there until the 13th amendment passed after the war ended, 3 years after the Emancipation Proclamation.
Indeed, General Ulysses S. Grant had owned a slave (though he set him free in 1859), and his wife owned four. Many other Union generals owned slaves too. Naturally slave ownership among the Southern leadership was quite common. On the other hand the VAST majority of the soldiers doing the actual fighting on either side did not own slaves at all (afterall, slaves cost a lot of money, and wars are often fought by the poor). In the eyes of the common soldier they were simply fighting to either keep their country from tearing apart or for their independence against an oppressive government, depending on which side they were on.
Not that I think slavery is good or anything (IMHO it's one of the greatest evils man can commit), but it just irks me sometimes when the American Civil War gets simplified into a no slavery vs slavery or good vs evil situation, when in reality it was far more complex.
"People who think they know everything are very annoying to those of us who do."-Mark Twain