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Human Rights Groups Push To Save Condemned Programmer In Iran

First time accepted submitter debiangruven writes "Human rights Groups are making one final plea to save the life of Canadian programmer, Saeed Malekpour, who was sentenced to death for writing a program to upload photos to the Internet. From the article: 'Malekpour's supporters have created Facebook pages and websites in his support dating to at least 2009. Amnesty International has requested on its website that concerned individuals write Iranian authorities inside and outside the country to demand that Malekpour not be executed."

8 of 244 comments (clear)

  1. Goodwin be Damned by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Islam is shaping up to be the modern day Nazi movement. Intolerant and bent on world domination.

    1. Re:Goodwin be Damned by WrongSizeGlass · · Score: 5, Funny

      Execute the code, not the coder.

    2. Re:Goodwin be Damned by zarlino · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Religions are often just a "cover-up" ideology for economical interest and can be interpreted in many different ways. From the peaceful mystical one to the nationalist and revolutionary one.

      --
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    3. Re:Goodwin be Damned by mathmathrevolution · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Are you talking about the most recent Iraq War? Do you imagine your brutal invasion and occupation of a foreign nation premised upon falsified claims of WMDs to be merely "resistance to subjugation"? Do you consider the million Iraqi deaths caused by America's actions to be "fuel for Muslim's bullshit sense of victimhood"?

      So typical of Muslims. We must be destroyed and subjugated, and if we resist, we fuel your bullshit sense of victimhood.

      What a perfect exhibit of the Orwellian mindset that has taken over so many Americans. No matter how many Muslim nations Americans are occupying, bombing, and threatening, most Americans imagine themselves to be the victims. And then they portray the world's Muslim community as idiotic and belligerent in what amounts to a textbook case of psychological projection.

    4. Re:Goodwin be Damned by mathmathrevolution · · Score: 5, Insightful

      In other words, there is no such thing as a true, fixed interpretation of a religion or ideology. Ideologies emerge from a surrounding geopolitical and economic reality and are always in flux with that surrounding geopolitical and economic reality subject to individual interpretation. It is bogus to say "Christians believe in X, and Buddhist believe in Y, while Muslims believe in Z." Distinct individual agents are constantly reinventing their interpretation of their religious experience.

      Their is divide in human culture between those who believe in peace and those who don't. There are Christians and Muslims and Jews and Atheists in both camps, but the majority of people in all religions want peace. I saw this in my graduate program which had a good mix of Jews, Atheists, Muslims, and Christians in it. This was an educated crowd and everybody there wanted to get along. The trick for the human race is to not let our belligerent minorities set us against each other. They are eager to spark conflict and set us against each other for their own gain.

  2. That doensn't change the facts by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Execution does not fit the crime of making software that uploads images. The US government would not execute someone for doing this, and no government should, because the right to draw a breath is a basic human right which should only be denied in the most extreme of cases (which this does not remotely qualify).

    Arguments about political or religious relativism do not apply, in this case, for several reasons:

    1: We aren't talking about a fine, some community service, or a few months in jail. The stakes are much higher.
    2: We aren't talking about a person who deliberately exercised civil disobedience while within a country that has such punishments, he was just passing through after having done something harmless in a completely separate country.
    3: We aren't talking about laws that make a good attempt to balance the protection of safety and commerce against personal freedom; we are talking about the legislation of a code of morality based on ancient myths.

    While it is true that all governments, including America, wrongly impose their own interests on others, it is also true that these laws are oppressive and backwards and entirely based on a religion that is equally oppressive and backwards. We are entering an era, as a species, where we will not be able to function while simultaneously abiding such deleterious nonsense.

    People who are stuck in the past like this, to the detriment of those around them, should be ridiculed for it, and should be called to account for it. The harm they cause should be stopped.

  3. A Matter of Perception by MacGyver2210 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    American citizens ARE the victims, but our enemy is not Muslims, or some nameless and faceless turban-sporting brown person. In fact, Christians pose more of a threat to our way of life than any foreign government. Need proof? Read up on proposed policies by Santorum or Romney.

    Our enemy is our government. They are the ones taking away our civil rights, encroaching on our free will, intentionally unbalancing poverty and wealth levels to maintain the status-quo. They are the terrorists - not some fictional enemy Muslim.

    On a level of personal opinion, I think all religion is entirely bullshit, and the world as a whole needs to focus on reality and planning for the future instead of arguing over some unimportant stories of the long-distant past.

    --
    If the only way you can accept an assertion is by faith, then you are conceding that it can't be taken on its own merits
    1. Re:A Matter of Perception by gd2shoe · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I'm sorry, but you are a blind ideologue, and dangerously so.

      Any time you have a shift in the fundamental construction of social values and institutions there will be those opposing the change, and there will be those pushing for change in unwise directions. American politics currently reflects that.

      Equating any mainstream American Christianity with middle eastern Sharia Law Islam makes you look positively stupid. Compare your "encroaching" on "civil rights" to the Saudi practice of capital punishment for being raped. Or even this article of writing a program to upload photos...

      To draw the inequality sign the wrong way is just sick.

      Middle eastern radicalization (on the political level) is far more dangerous. If you want Americans to blame, blame the wealthy elite who buy laws and act with impunity abroad. They're the ones driving the real civil liberties crisis here and who stirred up the hornets nest over there.

      On a level of personal opinion, I think all religion is entirely bullshit, and the world as a whole needs to focus on reality and planning for the future instead of arguing over some unimportant stories of the long-distant past.

      You can go ahead and believe that, but be careful. The moment you start tarring all religion with the same brush, you become a bigot.

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