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Outrage In India Over Arrests For Facebook Posts

Posted by Soulskill on from the freedom-of-poke dept.

concealment sends in an AP report about an uproar in India over citizens arrested for their Facebook remarks. Quoting: "As India's financial capital shut down for the weekend funeral of a powerful politician linked to waves of mob violence, a woman posted on Facebook that the closures in Mumbai were 'due to fear, not due to respect.' A friend of hers hit the 'like' button. For that, both women were arrested. Analysts and the media are slamming the Maharashtra state government for what they said was a flagrant misuse of the law and an attempt to curb freedom of expression. The arrests were seen as a move by police to prevent any outbreak of violence by supporters of Bal Thackeray, a powerful Hindu fundamentalist politician who died Saturday."

5 of 90 comments (clear)

  1. Good thing we got these "real name" policies! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    ...that help keep online interactions civilized! (Surely there's no need for anonymous speech in my society. And of course, if you've got nothing to hide... oops, maybe we do have some things to hide because they are a bunch of NUTS out there.)

  2. Slashdot is becoming a long list... by hawks5999 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Slashdot is becoming a long list of arrests by the state for political speech on social media. The sad news is that there is so much to report. Keep bringing it to light /.

  3. Going to get worse ... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Lots of groups and countries are pushing for laws against the defamation of religion and blasphemy.

    But when you lose the right to say "well, see, I don't believe in your god, and I see no evidence for it" -- then society has been taken over my the most vocal (and in some cases violent) people.

    But, in some places, if I said "show me the evidence that Jesus was at least a historical person, let alone the son of god" ... or "Why should I believe that Mohammed was the prophet of god" ... there would be angry mobs ready to burn and stone me because I hurt their feelings. And in many countries, the police would be there to help them.

    We will be seeing more attempts by people to enshrine in law respect for their imaginary friend.

    1. Re:Going to get worse ... by Baloroth · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Hey dumb dumb the arrest had nothing to do with Religion. Such bigotry on this site.

      It did, actually, although somewhat tangentially. The leader she was indirectly speaking out against was a leader of a fundamentalist religious movement with a long history of violence that is trying to expel foreigners and non-Hindu ideologies (they call themselves "Shiva's Army", if that tells you anything about their stance).

      --
      "None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license." --John Milton
    2. Re:Going to get worse ... by neosaurus · · Score: 5, Interesting

      I'm from the region. FWIW that post had nothing to do with religion and Shiv Sena are a chauvinistic bunch of goons in the guise of politicians who are against everything and everyone who is not a native of their state irrespective of religion. They pander to the lowest common denominator and frequently vandalize all around the state and force city shutdowns with political clout and blatant violence. Unfortunately even the Central government has been responsible for similar arrests and attempts to curb free speech and expression in the recent past.