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Facebook Postings Lead To Arrest for Heresy In the West Bank
forand writes "Using screen shots of a customer's Facebook profile, owners of a West Bank internet cafe helped Palestinian intelligence forces capture a man accused of heresy." According to sources quoted in the story, residents of both Gaza and the West Bank face ongoing scrutiny of their online activities; in Gaza, "Internet cafe owners are forced to monitor customers' online activity and alert intelligence officials if they see anything critical of the militant group or that violates Hamas' stern interpretation of Islam."
...is what they are! This shows how dangerously crazy these people are. They are the enemies of freedom like all religious fanatics! Anybody who thinks people should be locked up for life or even murdered because of antireligious religious statements are people that are enemies of western values. The problem is that we have no good way of dealing with these lunatics when large parts of entire societies are thinking like this. It's like the West in the Middle Ages.
When 1person suffers from a delusion,it is called insanity.When many people suffer from a delusion,it is called religion
I'm glad to know that this is the kind of freedom the brave Palestinian fighters are fighting Israel for. To have a Taliban lifestyle imposed on themselves.
I agree.. if western cultures defended freedom with the same vigilance (not the same methods) as hamas, hamas wouldn't exist..
It's not the particular religion that's the issue, it's the development level of the countries. I'm too lazy to elucidate the whole argument right now, but in a nutshell: look at the extreme forms of Christianity practised by some in Africa.
And yet the development level of Saudi Arabia - one of the strictest practitioners of Sharia in its most extreme, literalist forms - is way above many Latin American countries, for example; and yet the latter do not stone people to death for homosexuality, or amputate hands and feet for theft. Ditto for Iran.
Apparently you're also too lazy to educate yourself on Christianity in Africa as well. I live in Mozambique, have lived in Botswana, Angola, Namibia and South Africa and traveled extensively to all of their neighbors. I can tell you that nowhere in (at least southern and east) Africa is there Christian oppression like this. There are many many people who are critical of Christianity in all of those southern African countries and there are no consequences like this in the least. Sure all of these countries have their problems but nothing in this vein.
Honestly, the only time you'll run into religious oppression like this is from muslim communities. Mozambique has a large muslim population (especially the north of the country) and there are many people who are oppressed because of their decisions to leave islam there.
I think islam has specific tendencies that lead to specific abuses. I think christianity has specific tendencies that lead to specific abuses. They often overlap but in this area they don't. At the core of each religion, neither promotes these tendencies or abuses. Yet because people get corrupt and are power-hungry you get wild derivations from central ideas in a religion. For example, for some reason, christian leaders who get large followings, often end up taking advantage financially of their followers who come looking for a blessing of some kind (healing, personal financial blessing, etc.) and I've never seen that in islam. Islam, by contrast, when embraced at a government level tends to overbear followers and suppress voluntary belief or non-belief. Neither religion teaches these things in their basics yet men (usually not women) who end up in religious leadership often abuse those they lead.
From the article:
The media in the Palestinian Authority, as in the Arab world in general, are largely government-controlled, driving dissenting voices to the relative freedom of the Internet. The blogger's arrest showed a willingness on the part of the Palestinian government to clamp down on freedom of speech on the Web as well. He now faces a potential life prison sentence on heresy charges for "insulting the divine essence."
Many in this conservative Muslim town say that isn't enough, and suggested he should be killed for renouncing Islam. Even family members say he should remain behind bars for life.
"He should be burned to death," said Abdul-Latif Dahoud, a 35-year-old Qalqiliya resident. The execution should take place in public "to be an example to others," he added.
Few have come forward to defend him. One was Zainab Rashid, a liberal Palestinian commentator, who wrote in an online opinion piece that Husayin had made the important point that "criticizing religious texts for their (intellectual) weakness can only be combatted by ... oppression, prison and execution." ...
Gaza's Hamas rulers also stalk Facebook pages for suspected dissenters, said Palestinian rights activist Mustafa Ibrahim. He said Internet cafe owners are forced to monitor customers' online activity and alert intelligence officials if they see anything critical of the militant group or that violates Hamas' stern interpretation of Islam.
Freedom. I do not think this word means what you think it means.
"ignore the two wars that US just launched over there"
The US is in Iraq & Afghanistan. This atheist blogger incident took place in the West Bank. I feel like you're trying to be misleading when you deliberately confuse these two pieces of information or try to turn into a "West vs Arab" attack comment.
This isn't some childish game where both parties can erase their crimes by making longer lists of the other side's faults. If person A steals 5 cars, person B doesn't get a free pass to steal 4 cars and yell like a crazy person when they get caught and always trying to deflect attention to person A's crime. Both are guilty of what they have done wrong.
You seem to have forgotten this. And I feel like you're trying to deceive me.
In this case, it means the freedom to be oppressive and violate the freedom of others, in accordance with their religion.