Slashdot Mirror
Malaysia Frees "Anti-Islamic" Blogger
quarterbuck writes "The Malaysian blogger who was under arrest on sedition charges has been freed by the courts. Raja Petra Kamarudin's comments were interpreted by the government as being anti-Islam and anti-government; he was arrested under Malaysia's Internal Security Act. Now, a court has ruled that the government was overstepping its limits in what is being called a landmark ruling."
Raja Petra's blog. Less "blog" and more "discussion site", I guess.
Really, though, I'm not too sure how relevant the article is to Slashdot - how many countries have an Internal Security Act that allows the government to detain anyone, without trial, for as long as it wants? And among countries that do - both Malaysia's and Singapore's governments reaffirmed their intention to retain the acts this year, so it's not going to go away soon (the opposition in M'sia is a coalition that includes the radical Islamic right. Not exactly a civil rights champion, there. The opposition in Singapore is virtually nonexistent).
Trivia: the Malaysian government which is pulling this is not the radical Islamic wing. The Internal Security Act has even been used against the Islamic party. Make of that what you will.
Speaking freely is un-Islamic.
Treating women with respect is un-Islamic.
Freedom is un-Islamic.
Peace is un-Islamic.
It wasn't that long ago that all of those things you mention were un-Christian.
I ignore Anonymous Coward posts. If you want to discuss something, that's awesome. Log in.
A previous charge of sedition is still pending against the blogger.
...
When the Internal Security Act was introduced in 1960, the government said it would be used to protect people "from Communist subversion."
Sounds like Malaysia is still enjoying the good old days of McCarthyism.
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
National Security is a loose term and can encompass enforcement of several worldviews. However one common outcome of National Security is erosion of civil liberties and YMMV.
Face your daemons!
The Roman Catholic Church had the Inquisition starting in the 1200s to persecute heresy, which the Popes saw as a threat to their power in Europe.
Women only "recently" gained equal rights. In 1979, the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women was passed by the United Nations. Not exactly a long standing history of women rights. Oh, and the United States is the only developed nation that hasn't even ratified this convention.
And lets talk about freedom. California has passed Proposition 8, along with other amendments in Florida, which removes the civil rights for gays and lesbians to marry.
Replace the words "Gay" in Gay Marriage with "Interracial" and all of a sudden its something completely different to people. Yet its the same thing: removal of the freedom for people to choose who can visit them in the hospital, who can make medical decisions for them, automatic inheritance, spousal/child support, support to sue for wrongful death of a spouse and so on. And while religious groups claim that marriage is a holy sanction, remember that Freedom of Religion is also Freedom FROM Religion. When you allow religion to choose your civil liberties, you are no better than the muslims who stone raped women accused of adultery in stadiums because its in their religion. It wasnt long ago that African-Americans had their own schools, doors and drinking fountains.
And considering we just had 8 years of Bush, a United Methodist, with him invading sovereign nations, I find "peace is un-islamic" a bit of a narrow definition.
Christians somehow managed to learn a little tolerance. Let's hope Muslims can step up soon and do the same.
Speaking freely is un-Islamic.
Treating women with respect is un-Islamic.
Freedom is un-Islamic.
Peace is un-Islamic.
It wasn't that long ago that all of those things you mention were un-Christian.
It wasn't that long ago that all of those things were un-Everything (un-British, un-Hindu, un-African, un-Whatever). That's just the way things were everywhere until fairly recently. Maybe you and the parent should keep the broadbrush in its holster a little longer next time.
I posted the story originally with the title "Malaysian Court Frees Blogger" (I remember because I used the same title that New York times did).
The "anti-islamic" comment is not mine
I don't believe this has anything to do with religion, most developing nations use religion, public order, morality etc. as an excuse for authoritarianism.
I do hope that it will change and that freer communications and exposure to the rest of the world is a factor in bringing about cultural change, not just change to internet.
http://slashdot.org/submission/1062723/Cheap-mobile-data-plan?art_pos=2
It wasn't that long ago that all of those things you mention were un-Christian.
And the un-Christian part has not changed much. What has changed is Christianity being separated from Government. Put them in charge and they'll bring back the dark ages.
I'm an atheist, but I've only became one after I read and learned as much as I can about the religions that are out there. And I can safely say that every sentence in your post is a flat-out lie.
Speaking freely is un-Islamic.
False. Free speech and debate is, and has always been, encouraged in Islam. As a matter of fact, the lack of it was what gave Islam such a hard time in its beginning. (Don't confuse free speech with random insults though, they're different.)
Treating women with respect is un-Islamic.
Quite the opposite. Islam was rejected in Mecca because it respected women. Before it came, families would bury their babies alive if they discovered they were girls. Also, Islam is the _first_ law in history that gives women a share of inheritance. Books can be written about respect for women in Islam, but this isn't the place.
Freedom is un-Islamic.
How so if the atonement of pretty much most of the major sins in Islam is freeing a slave? That's 1172 years before the the Slave Trade Act. Many of the very first muslims were slaves and their masters tortured them just for that.
Peace is un-Islamic.
That doesn't even make sense... Muslims had to have a military, just like EVERY OTHER JOE-KINGDOM AND ITS SISTER JANE-EMPIRE HAD ONE. Without one they would all die. It's as simple as that.
You look like you're confusing Islam-the-religion with government-regimes-that-happen-to-have-a-muslim-majority-and-therefore-claim-to-muslim.
Parent is exactly right. Insulting religion is an easy excuse and makes for an easy target to charge someone in this country when nothing else sticks. The actual reasons are entirely political.
What was left unsaid is that RPK was a persistent thorn in the side of the present government: he has published an ongoing series called 'The Khairy Chronicles' about the allerged corruption and abuse of power of the outgoing prime minister's son-in-law (PM Abdullah Badawi, now being forced out), and have publicized much of the allerged evidence linking the next incoming prime minister (equivalent:president) to the grisly and ghastly sex-and-murder case of a Mongolian interpreter who was brokering a weapons deal (the private investigator hired by Najib's goons confessed in an affidavit that future-PM Najib have said that the interpreter likes anal sex, and she was blown up with C4 explosives by the police detail assigned to protect Najib, using C4 explosives obtained only from the army where Najib is the Defense Minister. The trial is ongoing but Najib was never charged even when many roads point to him. The PI & his family promptly disappeared the day after the affidavit and was never seen again).
Yep, this dude has been anointed to be our next prime minister by the ruling party, and there is nothing they can do about it for now. Lovely country, ain't it, put your Ted Stevens to shame :)
"Christians somehow managed to learn a little tolerance."
Now if only they could learn just a bit more ...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Proposition_8_(2008)
What the hell are you even getting at?
I ignore Anonymous Coward posts. If you want to discuss something, that's awesome. Log in.
Also, Islam is the _first_ law in history that gives women a share of inheritance.
That's not quite correct. Check out Numbers 27:1-11... sure, the daughters only get something if there aren't any sons, but that's hardly reason to discount this incident entirely.
The daughters of Zelophehad son of Hepher, the son of Gilead, the son of Makir, the son of Manasseh, belonged to the clans of Manasseh son of Joseph. The names of the daughters were Mahlah, Noah, Hoglah, Milcah and Tirzah. They approached the entrance to the Tent of Meeting and stood before Moses, Eleazar the priest, the leaders and the whole assembly, and said, "Our father died in the desert. He was not among Korah's followers, who banded together against the LORD, but he died for his own sin and left no sons. Why should our father's name disappear from his clan because he had no son? Give us property among our father's relatives."
So Moses brought their case before the LORD and the LORD said to him, "What Zelophehad's daughters are saying is right. You must certainly give them property as an inheritance among their father's relatives and turn their father's inheritance over to them.
"Say to the Israelites, 'If a man dies and leaves no son, turn his inheritance over to his daughter. If he has no daughter, give his inheritance to his brothers. If he has no brothers, give his inheritance to his father's brothers. If his father had no brothers, give his inheritance to the nearest relative in his clan, that he may possess it. This is to be a legal requirement for the Israelites, as the LORD commanded Moses.' "
Speaking freely is un-Islamic.
False. Free speech and debate is, and has always been, encouraged in Islam. As a matter of fact, the lack of it was what gave Islam such a hard time in its beginning. (Don't confuse free speech with random insults though, they're different.)
Treating women with respect is un-Islamic.
Quite the opposite. Islam was rejected in Mecca because it respected women. Before it came, families would bury their babies alive if they discovered they were girls. Also, Islam is the _first_ law in history that gives women a share of inheritance. Books can be written about respect for women in Islam, but this isn't the place.
Freedom is un-Islamic.
How so if the atonement of pretty much most of the major sins in Islam is freeing a slave? That's 1172 years before the the Slave Trade Act. Many of the very first muslims were slaves and their masters tortured them just for that.
Peace is un-Islamic.
That doesn't even make sense... Muslims had to have a military, just like EVERY OTHER JOE-KINGDOM AND ITS SISTER JANE-EMPIRE HAD ONE. Without one they would all die. It's as simple as that.
You look like you're confusing Islam-the-religion with government-regimes-that-happen-to-have-a-muslim-majority-and-therefore-claim-to-muslim.
You keep pointing back to the early days of Islam. Yes, maybe back then, compared to the environment around it, Islam was progressive. But what about today? Shari'a law? The church running the state? Stoning of rape victims in stadiums? Threats of murder and bombings over a cartoon of Mohammed? Women having to cover their faces in public, being expected to walk N steps behind their men? Doesn't sound all that progressive to me.
Downmodding is the refuge of the weak. Don't downmod, make a better argument!
Free speech and debate is, and has always been, encouraged in Islam.
So, preaching that Islam is a religion based on a false prophet is ok then, right?
(Don't confuse free speech with random insults though, they're different.)
Bullshit. Being able to offend somebody is the hallmark of free speech.
You in turn are confusing Islam-as-it's-actually-practiced with pie-in-the-sky-utopian-Islam-that-doesn't-exist.
Your vision of Islam is as ridiculous as a vision of Christianity where every believer gives away all their worldly posessions and goes around inviting people to slap them on the cheek all the time.
A religion is what people actually do with it, not some fantasy world you conjure up with preposterously charitable cherrypicking from its holy book.
"Patriotism is your conviction that this country is superior to all other countries because you were born in it." -- GBS
I think that this singular sentence is wholly representative of the level of civilization, sophistication and understanding that Western peoples have achieved.
200 years of civil development, a war of independence, a civil war to free slaves and a current war supposedly to defend freedom and what is the pinnacle achievement of your society's developmental process?
The right to call me a jerk.
Please stop exporting "American Culture" to the rest of the world. A bunch of spear weilding African bushmen would have a higher level of civilization than you do.
I hate printers.
The right to call me a jerk.
Yes, that's right. It also means I can criticize your religion, government policy, or whatever else somebody in power mind find "offensive".
Please stop exporting "American Culture" to the rest of the world. A bunch of spear weilding African bushmen would have a higher level of civilization than you do.
I find this statement insulting and offensive. Please report to the nearest re-education camp.
Indeed - in the UK, it was only in the last year that we finally repealed the Christian Blasphemy law, after someone tried to sue the BBC using it.
Your attempt at making a point falls flat on its face. Even though I don't believe in those things in the slightest, and think it would be silly to do so, that gives me no right to engage in mud-slinging toward people who disagree with my assessment.
"16MB (fuck off, MiB fascists)" - The Mighty Buzzard