Slashdot Mirror
Journalist Arrested By Interpol For Tweet
New submitter StarWreck writes "Police in Kuala Lumpur detained Hamza Kashgari, 23, 'following a request made to us by Interpol' on behalf of the Saudi authorities. Kashgari, a newspaper columnist, fled Saudi Arabia after posting a tweet which read: 'I have loved things about you and I have hated things about you and there is a lot I don't understand about you I will not pray for you.' Said tweet sparked outrage in Saudi Arabia and resulted in multiple death threats. Kashgari faces the death penalty in Saudi Arabia."
Can someone enlighten me, please?
And it's not just those backwards fools everyone in the middle east talks about. There are upstanding, progressive regimes in Europe where there are literally things you can say that don't involve a threat of violence or which won't cause immediate danger to those around you ("I'm going to kill you!" or "Fire!") which are still considered illegal.
It's cute because these same nations are held up by many as paragons of virtue in terms of human rights, health care, standard of living, etc... Just don't voice an illegal opinion and you'll be fine, that's all.
Interpol has no "officers" to arrest anyone. It is a multinational organization that facilitates the sharing of info, and arrest warrants, between countries. Here, Saudi Arabia sent out an arrest warrant to Interpol and Interpol transmitted it to police in Kuala Lumpur. The police in Kuala Lumpur arrested. Interpol is just a middle man. We can argue whether it's good or bad (probably both), but Interpol doesn't "arrest" anybody and they didn't force the Lumpurian authorities to arrest. Interpol can't force the police of any State to act. Kuala Lumpur probably doesn't care about this guy and figured better relations with Saudi Arabia is more important.
Somehow this is an insult to Mohammed? Wha? Makes no sense whatsoever. And Interpol should be saved for big stuff anyway, not doctrinal differences. Whoever authorized the arrest needs some remedial training.
Uh, "if it looks roughly mouse-shaped according to my infra-red sensitive pit, eat it"? --Chris Burke 09-08-10
The US Demanded that Interpol Arrest all the millions of citizens of the world who have at some time or another demanded 'Death to the US'. They even cited a number of people who led the demonstrations against the Vietnam war in the late 1960's.
Ok, so I'm joking but it shows how absurd this is.
I'll be waiting for a knock at the door and my speedy extradition to the USA where no doubt I'll get 999 years in Jail for daring to criticise the USofA.
From what I understand, Interpol does not arrest, they simply forward arrest warrants from member states. They don't even judge the merits of the warrants sent to them, they are assumed to be legitimate (as this probably was under Saudi Law). Regardless of cases such as this, Interpol is a very important agency in that it allows for cooperation between law enforcement agencies across the country, and keep criminals from simply skipping the country and getting off scott free.
The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
The situation is sad, but I could not resist a joke to add some levity to the conversation.
/. :
The same could be said about
'I have loved things about you (great submissions, brilliant posts) and I have hated things about you (useless news, trolls, goatse) and there is a lot I don't understand about you (why your code is still buggy after so many years) I will not pray for you.(But I will still read)'
Silence is a state of mime.
I'm just gonna say it right out. Fuck Muhammad and Islam, Fuck Jesus and Christianity and Fuck you and all religions where you have to pray to show devotion and destroy your enemies. Got to love this world. One one side you're getting fucked by your government, right next to it you are getting fucked by corporation and right next to that you're a target some some fucking religious freaks that instead of keeping away from you and minding their own business are trying to enslave or kill you.
by TheSpoom (715771) Uncaring Linux user here. I have nothing to add to this but please continue. *munches popcorn*
As unpleasant as it is for both you and him, social change is not made by people who muddle quietly along the mainstream. Progress is only made by people who test the edge of acceptable behavior.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
A French-Armenian architect who had worked for years in KSA was once asked what he thought of that country. His response: 'Money can buy anything! Except civilization.'
"Kashgari faces the death penalty in Saudi Arabia."
In the name of Allah, the merciful, the compassionate - funny how that works.
If you don't get what I'm saying go thumb through the Quaran.
Brought to you by Carl's Junior.
When the time came for him to leave they had a big party and he asked someone if this guy really worked for the KGB, only to get the reply "No, no, so-and-so is the KGB rep, he's OK, that other guy just thinks everything is better in the West and keeps trying to prove it to us."
As my colleague remarked, imagine an American engineering company where one of the engineers kept trying to tell everybody that life was better in the Soviet Union. All right, he would be massively wrong, but he would also get fired very quick.
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
Hamza Kashgari is a Saudi. The offense was committed in Saudi Arabia, from which he fled to Malaysia. That's a standard fugitive situation. He was in transit to New Zealand where he apparently intended to request political asylum.
Al Jazeera has images of his Twitter feed, with English translations. Here's the full text:
"On your birthday I find you in front of me wherever I go, I love many things about you and hate others, and there are many things about you I don't understand. On your birthday I won't bow in front of you, I won't kiss your hand. Instead, I will shake it as an equal, I will smile at you and you will smile back and I will talk to you as a friend, no more. All the great gods that we worship, all the great fears that we dread, all the desires that we wait for impatiently are but figments of our imagination. No Saudi women will go to hell, because it's impossible to go there twice."
It's amazing how touchy the Islamic theocracies are about this sort of thing. It's as if they're terrified that their whole religious edifice will collapse if there's any criticism. Islam has never had a Martin Luther.
If you know shouting "Fire" is likely to cause injury to others, and you do it, you may not be arrested (but you might be taken into custody for your own safety), and you may not be subject to criminal proceedings. But expect civil lawsuits that may well ruin you, and the bar for proof is lower than for criminal activity. Since damages in civil lawsuits in the US tend to be much higher than in the rest of the world, you could argue that, unless like the Westborough Baptists, you investigate the law beforehand, the consequences of anti-social behaviour can be much worse.
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
If God can be damaged by words, then God cannot be all powerful. If a Muslim's faith can be shaken by words, does the Muslim really have any faith at all?
see this link someone else posted.. it does explain a lot, and details his as well as other reactions in the aftermath, too:
http://stream.aljazeera.com/story/hamzahkashghri-sparks-polarising-debate-twitter-0022029
He was arrested by the Maylasian police. Interpol just forwarded the request from Saudi Arabia. That's what they do. Don't impute more power to them than they already have. They'll have arrest powers soon enough and will start hauling people off to the ICC for "hate crimes" and "crimes against humanity". You'll all applaud. At first.
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
The problem with this statement is very simple. If you actually implement this, you are basically making it impossible for muslims to live their religion. It is how their culture works and self-polices. Cut this out, and you destroy it.
Additionally, this is no joke. Saudis and a lot of muslims will scream (quite literally sometimes) about racism if you criticise their attitude towards "hate speech" (executing anyone they perceive as insulting, and there's plenty of example where the person didn't even say anything, it was just "generally thought" (sometimes because of lying) that he said/did/... something). Reading the actual primary sources of the religion, it's plain and obvious that this is how islam works, and they're vastly more flexible than the muslim example. The prophet had people buried in sand in the desert to watch them die for criticizing him.
Cutting out this means flat out declaring the central figure of islam to be an inhuman moronic, cruel paedophilic bastard.
Of course, that's exactly what he was.
Until we face this reality, and force muslims to accept people saying this everywhere on this world, this won't end.
He didn't say ideology, he said religion; and then backed that up even further by mentioning irrational beliefs.
These comments are my personal opinions and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the other voices in my head.
Some religions are worse than others. Pacifists generally don't run about murdering people. "Moderate" members of most mainstream religions don't generally murder people for saying they have silly beliefs.
But all religions promote irrational belief without any supporting evidence. All religions promote adhering to some beliefs no matter how barbaric, and then acting on those beliefs. All religions make it a virtue to ignore evidence, and promote stubborn pig headedness.
Anarchists never rule
It is really confusing. One of the fundamental tenet of Wahhabism, was to reduce the amount of veneration of Mohammad. They claim even having the idea of a holy site associated with mortals is idolatry. Wahhab was worried Muslims of elevating Mohammad to the status of God. Sunni's fundamental complaint against Shias is that the Shias worship many saints in addition to Allah. Now the bastion of Wahhabism, Saudi Arabia, is turning against a journalist for treating Mohammad as a human being?
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
As an atheist, my list of "do not visit" countries is getting longer and longer.
When the fuck are we humans going to make it properly out of the dark ages?
Awesome furniture, accessories and cabinetry in Santa Rosa, CA: http://humanity-home.com/
But according to Islam, didn't early man fall away from God, causing death to exist in the first place?
No, Islam is not Christianity, and does not have the idea of mortality as a punishment for, or consequence of, sinning and thereby falling from "perfect state". Rather, mortality is seen as inherent to humans, Adam and Eve included (that, by the way, is why Muslims consider the Christian idea that Jesus rose from the dead, in human form, as a blasphemy).
The story with forbidden tree is present there as well, but with a twist - Satan was actually tempting the humans with becoming immortal if they tasted its fruits, like "perfect beings" (i.e. God and his angels). Consequently, the tree itself is referred to as Tree of Immortality, rather than Tree of Knowledge.
It is not really treated as "falling away from God", either. It was a sin, confessed and such, and forgiven as such - and so it only applied specifically to Adam and Eve, not their descendants.
Admittedly, there's no compulsion to join it (not quite true in practice historically, but it's the standing doctrine). Once you do join, however, the only way out is in a box. Also, if you're born to a Muslim father and raised by a Muslim family, you're considered to have opted in by default.
It's true that some religions are nicer and more rational than others. I think Buddha's teachings are alright, in that he encourages skepticism and doubt as the means to get past illusions, even including the illusion of the ego. In Buddha's philosophy sectarianism and blind belief are errors born of ignorance. The religions built around Buddha sometimes have superstitious elements, but that doesn't indict the rational psychological core. So I try to encourage people who believe in nutty things like the Son of God to look at Eastern philosophy more closely, to augment and clarify the rationale for their ethics and meditative practices. That makes me more of a Sam Harris style atheist, in that I perceive great value in things like yoga and meditation.
-- thinkyhead software and media
every government that existed. every government that exists, and every government that ever will exist, will classify some speech as illegal. like child porn. for good reason
so first, get the fuck over the fact that some speech is illegal. grow up. the world is not a place where absolute adherence to any ideology is possible, including the ideology that all speech can or should be legal. to judge the world from this simpleton's point of view is to simply pick a logically impossible standard. making your judgment useless. it's pretty stupid to say "germany outlaws nazi speech. this is the same as china making all political speech illegal or saudi arabia making any religious speech illegal." NO. it is NOT the same thing
maybe some day you can actually begin to say something useful and intelligent by talking about what KINDS of speech are illegal, rather than picking this ridiculous easy and intellectual lazy point of view "all governments categorize some speech as illegal, so they are all the same." no they are NOT all the same, you halfwit. grow up and stuop being such a lazy fundamentalist. yes: you are a fundamentalist: you adhere ridiculously and absurdly to an idea that simply does not work in real life, just like a religious fundamentalist. you just happen to be a free speech fundamentalist. just as useless and dumb as any other sort of fundamentalist in this world
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
If you had no oil, your women would be going topless and your sons would listening to death metal. Because you'd have no power structure to impose your medieval thinking in the modern world. The only reason you can, is because we, in the part of the world that actually builds things and actually works and actually tries to build civil and fair societies, we need to pay you for your oil.
But we in the modern world are pretty sick of your backwards thinking, and someday we'll figure out how to get off our addiction to the stuff I guess Allah buried in your sand. When we do that, you can be pretty sure that there will be no more force left in your ability to impose your ridiculous absurd thinking about religion on anyone, most definitely including your own children and grand children. AND YOUR WAY OF THINKING WILL DISAPPEAR.
In short, I have every respect for Islam, but I have nothing but disrespect for your way of thinking of your religion. Fuck you you backwards ignorant tribal assholes. You don't stand for Islam. Any REAL Muslim with REAL CONFIDENCE in their religion would not care what some doubtful journalist tweets. Any cowardly, spineless, and completely without confidence person, who does not represent anything good about Islam, would get upset so easily.
When the world's reliance on your oil comes to an end, your society disappears into the sand in a heartbeat. Nothing props it up but oil. Certainly not the glory of Islam, because you don't represent the glory of Islam, you represent feeble cowardice, lack of confidence and frailty, masquerading as religious devotion. And you call that your faith? It's pretty sad that this Westerner has more knowledge of the DIGNITIY and NOBILITY of YOUR FAITH than you do, judging by the cowardly way you think your religion needs to be defended. Congratulations on making your religion a joke by your cowardice and lack of confidence.
The prophet was a man, you are frightened little children. You destroy your own religion.
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it