Malaysian Blogger On Trial For Sedition 183
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."
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]
Re:When in Malaysia.. (Score:1, Interesting)
I guess that makes me another anonymous coward. I'm in the same boat as yourself as I don't want any of my family to 'suffer' for speaking out freely.
But until the attitudes of many of those in power changes, it doesn't matter if the sedition law is removed. They'll still jail or murder opposition but without the justification of the 'law'.
Have we all forgotten the dark events of May 13th [wikipedia.org]? There are still people who have been arrested on that day who are still 'missing' today.
Re:Works for me (Score:2, Interesting)
Dissent and sedition are two separate things.
Sedition aims to disrupt the public peace. Most societies, I imagine are quite capable of surviving disruption of the public peace, but that doesn't mean all--or even any--such disruptions should be permitted.
But of course the specifics will vary from society to society. What may be good-naturedly tolerated as peaceful dissent in one society may be quite rightly suppressed as an unacceptable threat to the public peace in another society.
And of course none of this (while covered quite clearly in my original post) has anything at all to do with my point.
Re:A moment to admire your country (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Works for me (Score:3, Interesting)
I'll keep that in mind the next time I'm inciting your neighbors to riot, or urging them to lynch you, or advocating election fraud.
Malaysia..... (Score:3, Interesting)
Malaysia isn't such a bad place as far as countries that I've visited go... My wife is Malay, and she wouldn't move back. Every time I visit there, I get the feeling that it is slowly being dragged into the 21st century. There are still many laws that give native Malay's/Muslims preferential treatment over other ethnic groups (Indians/Chinese). My understanding is that this is fairly limited to things like low-interest government loans.... I dunno... I enjoy visiting there, I don't think that I'd want to live there though.
Re:Hmm.. Sedition (Score:4, Interesting)
Can you provide any examples of Muslim leaders who have been arrested in the US for preaching hatred?
Re:A moment to admire your country (Score:2, Interesting)
Constructive criticism, even if it is strident polemic, is fine and even worth aggressively defending by those who value true liberty.
What passes for "criticism" on slashdot, however, is not criticism in the political sense of the word, but knee-jerk Hesperophobia and anti-Americanism, and is grossly disproportionate on many levels. America, for all it's woes, is not as oppressive or repressive as Malaysia, Pakistan, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Balkan Countries, the Maghreb, or any other third world disaster area, nor will it ever be.
All this so-called "critiism" is largely the result of far-left "postmodernism" and "multicuturalism" in some sections of American society that is deeply disturbing. Both postmodernism and multiculturalism are Orwellian bullshit of the highest order, and are a third-world-leftist strategy to undermine the values and principles that define American society and the American Nation (which still gives refuge and succor to millions of immigrants like myself fleeing the third world paradises of the left).
The situation in Malaysia is truly dire, thanks to the institutional racism against overseas Chinese and Indian communities (based on their state ideology of "Ketuanan Melayu" ie Malay Supremacy and "Bumiputra" ie sons of the soil, similar to the "Blut und Boden" ie "Blood and soil" ideology of Nazi Germany), the de-facto Islamofascist theocracy, widespread corruption and a violent, genocidal collective attitude that makes all their neighbors uneasy.
Re:I call bullshit. (Score:3, Interesting)
Never been arrested I take it? I got arrested on a faulty warrant and then lost in a bus around the country for someone who's name, prints, etc didn't even match my own. This is in the United States of America, CCA jails, and TransCorps. This happened while I was at work. I was an eight hour drive from home, if I'd known that there was some sort of problem I could have driven home to deal with it.
It turns out that they used my name in part and had a SSN "near" mine. That was enough for a bench warrant.
It took me 23 days to get "home" and then another 5 days sitting in a county jail to get to court and be released with apologies.
I don't have much experience beyond that but I can say that 2 days == 30 days == 12 hours == 1 minute.
Nothing, at all, equates to being held against your will and powerless for something you did not do.
Re:Looked up Sedition on Wikipedia (Score:1, Interesting)
OMFG.
When in the course of human history it becomes necessary for free men to dissolve the political bonds that tie them and cast off their government, it's called a revolutionary war.
Now our government - being a limited social contract formulated amongst free men in a state of nature to secure life, liberty, and property - will of course attempt to survive/win a revolutionary war. That is part of it's mandate, to survive and provide "domestic tranquility" and the "common defense".
Naturally then, sedition would be and SHOULD be illegal.
It's like teachers vs. highschool kids. The kids job is to cheat, the teachers job is to stop them. Both sides know the rules...it's nothing personal. Just business.
The trick with a revolution is: you'd better win. The winner decides who the treasonous are.
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.