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Man Arrested In Greece For "Blasphemous" Facebook Page
An anonymous reader writes "A 27-year old man was arrested yesterday in Greece (Greek-language original) by the electronic crime police, for creating a Facebook page "Geron Pastitsios" which made fun of an extremely respected Orthodox Christian monk who lived in Mount Athos, as well as the Greek Church. The arrest came promptly after the Greek far-right party — which holds 7% of the parliament seats — submitted an official petition asking the government to take down the page. The charges that the young man faces are 'blasphemy' and 'disrespect to the religious beliefs of others.'" What would the UN say?
with all this freedom of speach.
Well, perhaps this kind of controversy is exactly what the Greek government needs to turn attention away from the economy.
Tracking down those vile criminals, one bit at a time.
What do I know, I'm just an idiot, right?
'blasphemy' is anachronism from middle ages. 'disrespect to the religious beliefs of others.' is exactly what he have done.
As the founder of the 42nd New Reformed Neo-Rebel Orthodox Pastafarian Church (newly created, 30 seconds ago), I find that all laws against blasphemy are blasphemous against my religion.
So such laws must be eliminated because they are self-violating.
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...to repeal the Greek blasphemy law is here.
I don't mind dating a girl that has been with everybody, as long as she had a good shower afterwards.
Politics is the same everywhere. I'm guessing it's an election year in Greece too. Politicians doing outlandish things they know will never hold up in any court is what we call "tuesday" across the pond. Conservatives over here have done things like pass laws forbidding global warming. Not research into it, or funding for it, but global warming itself. They've made being the Earth a crime. Elsewhere in America, there is a state now where, by law, every woman is pregnant. No, I'm not joking -- they legislated the definition of conception to be two weeks before sexual contact. No more virgins here, good sirs! Still no word on whether they're allowed to use the car pool lanes.
And those aren't even examples of religious non-sense, which makes the above examples look positively civil by comparison. *hugs* Greek citizens, we feel your pain too.
#fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
The monks on Mount Athos have a quite a history of corruption and greed (see, e.g., http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vatopedi_monastery#Land_deal_controversy). I wonder if this blasphemy case is a retaliatory measure against a whistleblower?
Tubal-Cain smokes the white owl.
So when someone makes a video attacking Islam, he's called "far right" and it is the moderates who make his film illegal and ban him from their country (as the UK did to Geert Wilders). But when someone makes a facebook page attacking Orthodox Christians, he's a moderate and the people who want the facebook banned are called "far right".
Just trying to make sure I understand the definition of "far right".
I often don't like the choices people make, but I like the fact that people make choices. That's why I'm a conservative.
Did one of them finally pay taxes?
Eloi are stupid, throw morlocks at them!
Greek government is blaspheming against Zeus, the true god of Greece. Time to arrest them all and put Sam Worthington (son of Zeus) in charge.
For this sort of behavior on the part of others claiming to be Christians. I don't want to be persecuted for speaking my mind and what I believe, and so I do not believe anyone should be arrested or harmed for speaking out or posting things online. There is a fine line to walk when things become violent (death threats) or obscene (pornographic), but in so far as possible we need to be open and free in dialog if we want to have civil and prosperous societies.
This is one of the few things that is still great about the US (where I live), though it is slipping day by day even here. But arresting someone for what they post? Or worse, in Islamic areas, killing people for what *others* post? I don't see how that sort of behavior can lead to anything good.
William George
The "Barbara Streisand" effect can actually be hazardous for the accused here. Supposing that the charge is actually valid enough to surpass a cursory ruling of the courts, his crime is essentially the equivilent of pointing something out that makes someone else look bad in public. If a lot more public are now aware of it, then potentially the harm or problems these actions caused are now compounded.
Blasphemy laws are not necessarily about hiding the certain speech. They are more to the point of stopping it altogether. The bigger the exposure the bigger the penalty might be in order to discourage the behavior in the future. Of course people outside of Greece's jurisdiction don't really need to worry about them.
Doesn't blasphemy require attacking actual deities or assorted holy objects/texts/persons, rather than mere religious functionaries, however pious?
If anything, isn't it (in the context of an ostensible monotheism, like eastern orthodoxy) verging on blasphemy to assert that satire against a mere man is blasphemous?
Obviously, religious functionaries have the same interest in conflating their own status with the priviliged status accorded to dieties, just as politicians generally do their best to conflate their own persons and administrations with lofty things like 'Nation' and 'The Office of the President'; but, in both cases, it is actually a vital part of the protection of the genuinely venerated things to mock and dissuade the assorted grifters who attempt to parasitize them. Not doing that swiftly turns your religion into a cult or your government into an autocracy...
The extreme right-wing party in question - let's call it what it is, neofascist - has been a much mocked tiny minority for the last thirty years or so in Greece. They ran magazines praising the values of Hitler's Germany, the old dodecatheon (I kid you not) of Zeus and Hera and kept to their own niche of society talking about ancient aliens that gifted the race with superweapons waiting for the day to come to rise again. But no more. When the economy took a dramatic downturn they turned their preaching toward populism instead. Gone are the mentions of the Gods from any speeches or articles now that they figured they can catch a lot more followers (and votes) by supporting the most fanatical aspects of the Orthodox Church instead. So this is what it's all about. An opportunity to appeal to the masses as defending Christianity when several of their higher ups weren't even Christians up to a few years ago, and a party openly supporting racism making a bid for political power any way they can get it. They could care less about the venerable monk.
As per usual, it's sloppy shorthand for "do not like".
As per usual, it's just someone calling a political party what it calls itself. They are talking about Golden Dawn. If you'd like to go into Wikipedia and change the political position of Golden Dawn to "do not like" from "Far-right" I think you will find that both liberal and conservative editors will tell you to take a hike.
My work here is dung.
-- Roman law maxim
Non-Linux Penguins ?
I can understand that you have no concept of anything outside America. But you should note that this is about Greece, not the US. Crying about what you think is wrong in the US has nothing to do with the situation in a foreign country.
I am a Christian. I am not Orthodox, but I have enjoyed reading about their church and traditions online, and I have a lot of respect for them as compared to a lot of Protestantism.
But this is intolerable. Requiring anybody to respect anything is slavery and is an unChristian violation of liberties. The Bible says in the New Testament in 1 Corinthians 15 that the church's judgment is to be enforced only within the church. Even St. Paul the Apostle expressly denied that he had any authority to judge those who are outside of the church.
This is wrong, immoral, and unChristian.
Secession is the right of all sentient beings.
This could be construed as "incendiary", like in Holocaust denial laws in Germany, or yelling "fire" in a crowded theater (bad pun intended).
Getting fined in California for selling foie gras, or jailed for growing grass strikes me as far more absurd.
Set your phasers on "funky"!
A 27-year old man was arrested yesterday in Greece (Greek-language original) by the electronic crime police
look, can't we just remove their batteries or reboot them or something? maybe a re-install is needed?
--
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
One brain at a time. It was a pretty serious infestation. Just give it time.
this guy had this page for a long time. he was mocking a (dead now) religious figure (father Paisios) who is supposed to have prophesied a lot of thing about the future of Greece and how Greece will take back lands from Turkey etc. etc. This father Paisios is very famous among the right-wing-religious-low-education nutjobs in Greece. Also a big deal of those prophecies have been constructed by others after his death. Also he is known for "miracles" that he has made after his death ( saving people blabla )
.. and you know the rest.
The problem was not the site that his guy had in facebook making fun of paisios. What hurt the religious nutjobs in Greece was the fact that this 27 years old guy, recently ( august if i'm not mistaken ) fabricated a new miracle of Paisios ( a story of how the mother of a young boy who had an accident and was in critical condition, visited the tomb of Paisios and the next day the boy miraculously came out of his coma ). So he spread word of his own fabricated miracle to a couple of Greek religious blogs and from then it was very easy for the most part of the (right,religious) Greek blogosphere and news site to reproduce the news. Hell, even a newspaper had a whole front page cover story on the miracle. The miracle was also front page in the Greek neo-nazi party ( golden dawn ) website
link with screenshots of the story where he confessed his prank: http://vlahatasamis.blogspot.gr/2012/08/blog-post_1999.html
You can imagine now how the story ended. The guy came forward and said "gotcha, the miracle wasn't real, I just imagined it". So he actually trolled them and they bit hard. Of course that hurt a lot, and from that point it was only "logical" that those right-wing guys would ask for his arrest. The golden dawn party indeed brought the issue to the parliament
Hi mate, thanks for your kind words.
Let me start by saying that luckily there is no "save Greece" fund, and if it were, please do not ever EVER contribute to it. The money will go to the same fat politicians and businessmen that have ravaged this country's public wealth for years. You see, although there is an international economic crisis all over the world, I can guarantee you that we Greeks have contributed to our own demise by allowing deep political corruption for at least the past 20 years.
As far as the part where you feel that you "owe" us things, I see this differently. It maybe true that sometime far far away some of our ancestors did something good for the world. We would only be worthy of referring to them and their achievements if we had kept up with their tradition and built upon their heritage to do even further good. We did not. I don't know whether it's because we were enslaved by the Turks for more than 400 years, or because we were hit hard by the 2nd world war and the consecutive civil war after that, but we are not the same Greeks as the ones that you refer to.
These are hard times for us. I am lucky enough to still have a job, but I see people close to me unable to feed their children or pay for their bills. Some acquaintances have even been unable to pay the rent. Our streets are filled with homeless people, decent people who just recently found themselves unable to get by with their pension which has been slashed two or three times by our government. Instead of helping each other, most of the people in my country turned -again- to religion and to hatred (i.e. the golden dawn political party). In my opinion the worst thing that came out of this crisis is not the poverty but the realization that most of us are uneducated animals who are guided by the media and turn on each other. Greeks hating Greeks just because they have a different opinion. And we still elect the same people who got us here. After our last election, since no party had the majority of the votes we (the people of Greece) allowed three parties to form a government. Two of these three were the ones who brought us to this situation. Just for fun, image google for "evangelos venizelos" and tell me if he looks trustworthy (just dropped a name out of the corrupted 300 that are now in the parliament).
Personally I would bail out. I would go somewhere else, probably to America where I revisited recently and I found that it really suits me. Unfortunately, family obligations as well as my girlfriend keep me here. I foresee very dark things in our future, not because of the global situation or the economic crisis, but because we -as a nation- allow them to happen. I hope I am wrong, cause it is really a beautiful country and I used to enjoy being here...