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Malaysian Blogger On Trial For Sedition
Posted by
ScuttleMonkey
on Mon Oct 06, 2008 06:39 PM
from the because-creating-martyrs-is-good-for-civil-obedience dept.
from the because-creating-martyrs-is-good-for-civil-obedience dept.
neonsignal writes "Raja Petra Kamarudin, a Malaysian blogger, is in court under the Internal Security Act, under which he can be detained indefinitely. He is well known for his commentary on the Malaysian government, and was arrested after a piece on the murder of a Mongolian woman, who was allegedly killed by two policeman and an associate of the deputy prime minister."
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Fuck "sedition" (Score:5, Insightful)
Man, it's about time that countries which value free speech got rid of sedition laws.. so as to send a clear message to countries that don't. What constitutes "sedition" is so vague, anyway, that the laws should be struck on just that basis.
Re:Fuck "sedition" (Score:4, Informative)
We've had one [wikipedia.org] since 1940. Thank you, FDR!
Parent
When in Malaysia.. (Score:5, Interesting)
.. I read in the local English news paper about the "victory" of a muslim group that stopped the government changing a women's ID card which had her religion as Muslim.
Since she converted to Christianity she wanted her ID card changed. Yeah, that was big news at the time and gives on an insight into how backwards the place can be.
I say backwards not because it's about religion, but because I can't believe these strangers that don't know her have nothing better to do then demand the government not give her a new ID if she wants one because "if you're Muslim, you're always Muslim"
Posting Anon - I might still need to go back some day.
Re:When in Malaysia.. (Score:5, Interesting)
Or this woman who been jailed for her terrorist poetry.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7084801.stm [bbc.co.uk]
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Re:When in Malaysia.. (Score:5, Insightful)
First sign of a problem was that her faith was on a government card at all.
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Re:When in Malaysia.. (Score:5, Informative)
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Re:When in Malaysia.. (Score:5, Insightful)
The catch with that is change does not occur unless, instability forces it. A minority of people speaking out who a willing to accept the risks of doing so are the ones who force positive change. The only other change that occurs, is negative change, the ones who wish to maintain a facade of traditional values, of religious observance, while they corruptly loot the country to sate their own greed and lusts. That is the reality and the religious crap is just that 'crap' a diversion to keep the poor general populace focused on other issues, rather than their livings conditions versus the living conditions of the rich and greedy or that the legal system is distorted to provide one set of laws to protect the elite and another set of laws to persecute the rest.
Change can happen very fast, it is naturally always disruptive, that is the nature of change and it is most destructive when it is blocked from happening and comes as a dam bursting. Do you know when this happens, it happens when the corrupt leaders at the top are focussed on keeping everything they have stolen and will do anything to keep the corrupt system going as it is, with nothing but platitudes of offer for the rest of the population.
Any government with sedition laws sucks, there is no excuse, they are full of it and those leaders should be treated with contempt by every one who values freedom and democracy. Slavery was a cultural thing for centuries in a lot of countries, north, south, east and west and today very thought of sickens and infuriates most reasonable people, so culture is just a weak excuse not a valid reason, neither is racism ie. they are all citizens of Malaysia so it is Malays who rule the country, Malays who control the economy and Malays who prosper in the legal and medical profession, if you see it any other way, recognise yourself, you are racist and a bigot.
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Re:When in Malaysia.. (Score:5, Interesting)
Given that Malaysia practices the most cruel and frightening kind of racial discrimination against Chinese and Indian minorities in all of South-East Asia, with their Nazi-like (and I'm not Godwinning here) racist ideologies of Ketuanan Melayu (Malay Supremacy) and Bumiputra (meaning "sons of the soil, which literally resembles Nazi Germany's "Blut und Boden" or "Blood and Soil") and engages in state sponsored discrimination against Indians and Chinese, I would imagine that some kind of aggressive change is long pending. That or remove the minorities from the country before the Malay racists conduct genocide on them all (which is their eventual intent). I;ve spoken to many overseas Chinese and Indians in he country, and most are literally afraid for their lives. Parts of Kuala Lumpur look like Russian Shtetls, or the Warsaw Ghettoes of WW-II, with violent, Malay mob-imposed racial segregation, discrimination and stigmatization.
Notice how the racist GP stigmatizes, demonizes and dehumanizes Chinese and Indian minorities as "not tied to identity", just like the Nazis stigmatized Jews as "alien non-Aryans and unbound to the blood and soil of Germany", or whatever.
Numerous international NGO's have detailed files on the massive levels of Jim Crow-style racial stigmatization of minorities that takes place across Malay society, their media, their government, all their major institutions, and the like.
Malaysia is a massive genocide waiting to happen, unless some kind of change isn't implemented NOW, preferably through international condemnations and sanctions of some kind.
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Re:When in Malaysia.. (Score:5, Insightful)
7th-century barbarism? Try 17th - as late as the 1690s, people in some European countries were still liable to be executed, not only for leaving Christianity, but for switching to the wrong sort of Christianity.
This in no wise excuses what is done to people in some Muslim countries today should they try to renounce Islam; I'm merely pointing out that it's not been so long since such treatment was commonplace in the West as well.
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Works for me (Score:5, Insightful)
While I can't speak to the specifics of this particular government, or this particular implementation of the policy, I don't see any reason why sedition on a blog should be treated any differently from sedition on a streetcorner or a radio program or a billboard or a secret revolutionary committee meeting (for some definition of "sedition"; and obviously your mileage will vary based on local customs, values, and priorities).
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I don't see any reason why sedition on a blog should be treated any differently from sedition on a streetcorner or a radio program or a billboard or a secret revolutionary committee meeting
I agree. If a society can't survive dissent it shouldn't survive. None of these should be suppressed.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Free speech is meaningless unless speech is completely, universally free.
There should be absolutely zero restrictions on what can be said.
Re:Works for me (Score:4, Insightful)
Bah, I've had this argument before. Telling people to riot should be perfectly legal. If they actually riot, the charges should be incitement to riot. If they don't riot, there should be no charges at all.
Free Speech means you can say whatever you want. It doesn't mean that there is no accountability for what your speech causes. If the speech causes something illegal to happen, then the illegal activity is the problem, not the speech.
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Hmm.. Sedition (Score:3, Informative)
Have the plebes learned? One doesnt mess with those authority types, especially when they revel in power?
Happens here in the USA, happens in UK, happens in Germany, happens in Australia, and damn near everywhere else where there is power at a few people and the will to keep it.
Malaysia is NO different in that regard. We just cover it up a bit better.
Re:Hmm.. Sedition (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Hmm.. Sedition (Score:5, Insightful)
First they came for the communists...
Talk to the many muslim leaders in the US whom have been arrested for preaching hatred towards western civilization.
BTW, the bloggers are mentioned in the 5th stanza.
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Re:Hmm.. Sedition (Score:4, Interesting)
Can you provide any examples of Muslim leaders who have been arrested in the US for preaching hatred?
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Re:Hmm.. Sedition (Score:5, Insightful)
Don't you watch the news? There is no sedition in Western nations. There are only consumers, harmless foil-clad lunatics, criminals, and a few terrorists.
But yeah, cynical statements aside, there's less control here because the government simply doesn't fear us. Honestly, I could wear my fingers to the bone blogging about $700B bailouts, Iraq, Guantanamo, torture, the politicization of the DoJ, the Valerie Plame thing, etc, and nothing would happen to me because honestly my voice is worthless when it comes to these topics. People have seen it on the news so many times that the reaction is just, "Meh, shit happens." and nothing changes. Random words on the internet won't start riots, strikes, or boycotts, nor do they change anyone's vote in a meaningful way (how could they? elections are a popularity contest) - so why bother censoring?
Parent
Re:Hmm.. Sedition (Score:5, Insightful)
Mod parent insightful.
Yes. That's the thing. Hiding in plain sight. The truth is in fact out there, plain as day. But no-one cares. The fact that the media is for the most part complicit or even controlling much of what happens in the West notwithstanding.
This is the mistake of Malaysia and China and the old soviet states. Don't throw people in prison for speaking out, just make sure that reality tv and celebrities behaving badly is much bigger news. That way you can do anything you like. Anything at all.
Bread and circuses. It's astonishing that it's taken modern Governments so long to figure this out, the Romans nailed it 2000 years ago.
Parent
I call bullshit. (Score:5, Insightful)
Really? Happens all the time? Interesting. Then I suppose you can cite one instance in the USA, UK, Germany, or Australia where a citizen has been incarcerated for a minimum of two years without trial for a blog post that is critical of the government. Go ahead and include some links under my post. Take your time. I'll wait.
Your post is offensive on multiple levels: It minimizes Kamarudin's plight ("well what else should you expect when you criticize the government?"), but it also makes the claim that *every* other nation has just as bad a civil rights record. I can tell that you've never spent much time in Malaysia.
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Re:I call bullshit. (Score:5, Insightful)
Are you referring to the Prevention of Terrorism Acts [wikipedia.org]? From what I can tell you could be held for up to seven days without being formally charged with a crime. It would be a *big* stretch to equate this with Malaysia's Internal Security Act, under which they can hold you *indefinitely* (though the Malaysian government claims that Kamarudin will be held for at least two years).
I'm not making the claim that these other countries are perfect. I'm refuting the GP's claim that all countries are just as bad. To say such a thing is just lazy relativism that trivializes the situation that this blogger is in.
Parent
uhh... no (Score:5, Insightful)
there is actually a difference between your rights in the say, germany, and malaysia. germans are more free than americans in some freedoms of expression, but don't dare mention nazis, for example, in germany. but in germany and australia and the usa, overall, your rights and freedoms to express views which run contrary to those in power is respected. no really, it is. to conflate that with what goes on in malaysia, and egypt, and iran, and china, and other places, where you can, and will be put in brutal conditions, simply for expressing a political opinion. of course its not pure freedom of expression in the west, but there are orders of magnitude in difference
to talk about your rights to expression malaysia in the same breath as roughly comparable to your rights to expression in germany, is to be woefully ignorant of the reality of the situation. this doesn't mean you aren't free to say lots of critical things in malaysia and get away with it. this doesn't mean you can't get abused by the authorities for simply expressing yourself in germany. but, overall, there are orders of magnitude of difference in the kinds of things you can safely say, and the punishment you face for saying unpopular things
and to not realize that, and to not think the difference is important and large, is pure ignorance on your part
Parent
It gets even better (Score:4, Informative)
Read his comment at his website: http://mt.m2day.org/2008/content/view/12913/84/ [m2day.org]
Basically:
"You've insulted Islam, a jailable offense, even though we cannot prove that in the articles that we've printed out. But your style of writing is too sophisticated, and dumb people who are not at the same intellectual level as you could misinterpret what you say, and mistakenly think what you wrote as an insult to Islam. Hence, we are going to send you to jail for insulting Islam."
Re:trial shmial (Score:4, Insightful)
Yeah, but I'd rather be in gitmo then a Malaysian prison, or worse its neighbour, a Thai prison. In a Thai prison the guards will give you a chance to run for freedom and get shot rather then spend your sentence there eating cockroaches for nutrition (no I am not exaggerating).
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Re:that link is not safe for work in some places (Score:5, Insightful)
What's the problem with al-Jazeera? They're about the only independent Arabic-language station there is, consisting in large part of ex-BBC staff who went their own way after the World Service shut down their Arabic branch. Everyone else is under the thumb of some government or other. Are we not in favour of freedom of speech and information here? Plenty of Arab governments have tried from time to time to silence al-Jazeera, and so have the Americans, occasionally with GPS-guided explosives, yet they're still going - must be doing something right.
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