Slashdot Mirror
Boycott Novell Protesters Manhandled In India
James Mathew writes "This is an interesting story from Kerala, India, where the ruling Communist Party organized a national conference in its efforts to hijack the Free Software Movement, which has enviable roots in the state. They got Novell to sponsor it. On the second day of the conference, a few free software activists who displayed posters against Novell were manhandled by the organizers and police — typical of what is expected from them. Most of the snaps taken during the scuffle were forcefully deleted by the organizers, after seizing the protesters' mobile phones. Still they couldn't delete all. Here is another blow-by-blow account."
Well, I can imagine the scene. Someone holds up a poster during a presentation, blocking the view of the people behind them. They make some sort of noise to get attention, when the organizers attempt to removed them, they don't budge which causes the police to get involved, when he doesn't leave then, they drag him out. Then they realize it was just a publicity stunt and attempt to delete the pictures of the people apparently filming it. And here you have the Sensational headlines- communists man-handle protester who was minding his own business doing nothing to anyone, anywhere, anyhow. Look at how evil Novel is now and oh yea- the Indian government who likes to kick puppies and wants to take your free software... oh yes, again, they attempted to CENSOR the events by deleting people's pictures of it.
It all sounds like some stages publicity thing to me in order to get a word out. Of course My first thought was people are actually still going after Novel, what idiots, then I realized they were serious and I just felt sad for them. The entire Novel is evil bit wasa farce in the first place.