There's a blog/campaign to raise awareness about Saeed and efforts to free him: http://peoplewithoutnation.wordpress.com/ -- He's an Iranian who became a Canadian permanent resident in 2004; Returned home in 2008 to visit his father and was arrested and imprisoned since. He open-sourced some photo uploading software which a number of adult sites utilize; Iran arrested him on charges of designing/moderating porn sites.
I'm not a big follower of Middle Eastern politics, but my understanding is there's attempts by Iran's current government to put it's darker, more aggressive past behind it. A "friendly Iran" is a hard pill to swallow when we hear stories like this. I feel worst for the people of Iran who I doubt support the extremist nature of their government, but have to suffer the global consequences.
I just saw this and felt compelled to start something. Let's raise money for Saeed, for flights, lawyers, visas, awareness... whatever he / his family needs!
I read this last night and found it heart-rending but also incomprehensible ; for it to gain traction, I suggest that the summary is rewritten to explain (and refute) the claims against him much more clearly.
Essentially he's accused of distributing porn, which is a big no-no in a strict theocracy like Iran. his supporters argue that he built a photo-sharing tool which was used by others to swap porn.
I don't see the difference. When you open source something, you have no control over who uses it. That's the point.
I've open sourced a bunch of code. Now some enemy of the Iranian state uses it, and I go to Iran, and I am guilty by association and kidnapped and tortured?
This reminds me of Javed Iqbal, an American satellite dish repairman who was thrown in jail for allowing Americans access (Hezbollah and supposedly Iran backed) Al-Manar television.
Actually the article from NPR, a station often described as liberal, doesn't seem all that incredulous over it happening when the shoe's on the other foot. Headline: "N.Y. Man Charged with Aiding Hezbollah TV Channel". First sentence: "This past week, the Department of Justice charged a New York City man for aiding a terrorist organization.". Geez, to the average American it starts making it sound like he did something wrong and kind of deserves to be in jail. I guess Iranians feel the same way with their guy.
Why are you making insinuations and apparently quoting, but declining to link a source? The info you quoted is basic headline facts, but you insinuate a bias while seemingly making an effort to stop that part of the evidence.
Not to suggest any sort of conspiracy, but why is it that this link has (as of 4:21 EDT) 103 points, 43 comments, and was posted one hour ago, and yet is ranked 33rd on the HN homepage — meanwhile, the #1 ranked link, also from an hour ago, has only 20 points? And an 11-hour-old 13-point link is #13?
Does it have to do with the poster's karma or recently-joined status, or the linked site? I'm genuinely curious what goes into this ranking.
I blame Islam. How insecure do you have to be about your violent beliefs that you have to kidnap and torture somebody who you think participated in insulting your beliefs.
The charges against him are insane, just like the religion itself.
I blame ignorance rather than religion. A particular religion is the flavor of the week or few centuries, but lack of actual understanding is the reason for this situation and most other religious strife. For if people understood what this man did, like all of us do, they'd see their accusations are without merit.
Education and religion were tightly intertwined for centuries and still are in the regions with most the perceived "problems" now. Often the only education you can receive in these countries and regions is at a madras and perspectives outside of the dogma in the curriculum don't exist and are suppressed.
Say what you want about the US and Western education system's failings, but it sure gets this part of the test 100% right. Of course, discounting strange behavior in Texas regarding creationism and disputing evolution. And a few other rural places pushing their locally artisan agendas of ignorance.
I'm no Muslim (just to clarify absence of personal bias), but your statement represents the ideology of a small sample, claiming to represent the ideologies of a collective, larger, possibly different sample (the entire Muslim population), with which it may not even be compatible with. And therein lies the flaw.
It's a range of different surveys on different questions. If you take a particular question, like whether those who quit Islam should be killed, it's not a wide range.
>>Non-Muslims sometimes don’t realize how much hatred and negativity gets thrown at Muslims and how utterly soul crushing it can be to have to defend yourself and your beliefs on a daily basis.
There is no place on HN for bigotry. There is nothing wrong with Islam itself. You confuse radicals, which are present in every major religion, even Christianity.
While I don't disagree that his comment is inappropriate, this has nothing to do with radicals. It's simply http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sharia which is used for criminal law in a number of countries including Iran, Iraq and Saudi Arabia.
Sharia actually prescribes death (which is exactly what they are planning on doing with that developer) in the case of insulting Islam and/or "prophets". A direct quote from the Islamic website:
"The scholars are unanimously agreed that a Muslim who insults the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him) becomes a kaafir and an apostate who is to be executed. This consensus was narrated by more than one of the scholars, such as Imaam Ishaaq ibn Raahawayh, Ibn al-Mundhir, al-Qaadi ‘Iyaad, al-Khattaabi and others. Al-Saarim al-Maslool, 2/13-16"
You just got brainwashed by the Islam's PR department. Every time they do something violent in the name of their religion, they come out in droves and sing their "it's just a tiny minority of extremists" song.
This sounds similar to arguments that Nazism doesn't define the wholesale slaughter of jews. But if you take that philosophy to its logical conclusion, it's hard to see how you wouldn't end up there.
That systems of law based on thoughtcrime tend to get violent should not be a surprise to anyone.
Careful with your analogy - recall your history here, Nazism does not define "wholesale slaughter of jews", they were a political party. Majority of the Nazi party, military, and regime had no clue about the "wholesale slaughter of jews" until after the war. Most knew about the imprisonment, similar to the internment camps here in the US during the war, but the actual executions were kept very down-low. Of the ones that did know about the executions en mass, majority had issue with it, and famously some officers defected, some tried to assassinate Hitler, and some were themselves imprisoned for not cooperating and going along.
The point is, just because there are a few who use their religion, affiliations, or power to drive forward an agenda, does not mean the entire mass thinks or feels the same way.
This point has been rehashed by historians pretty endlessly already, and the general consensus seems to be that while most Nazis may not have been directly aware of the full horror perpetrated by their regime, their culpability can be fairly compared to "will no one rid me of this turbulent priest?" You don't have to scratch your head too hard wondering how an ideology based on hatred and persecution turned into genocide. Or why it keeps happening in the world today, just the names of the groups change.
Systems of law based on thoughtcrime get ugly, since there's no way to prove thoughtcrime except torture, fear, and arbitrary violence. See: the Inquisition, any communist state in the 20th century, anywhere in the world that Sharia law is enforced.
Not agreeing with parent, but 'religion subscribed to' and 'insane' go hand in hand for me.
I have never encountered a religion that didn't require a lack of focused logic and a certain suspension of disbelief in order to be a follower.
Half of (some random religious group) followers say something like "Well, it's all symbolism, the stories are not meant to be taken factually but rather metaphorically", and the other half say "Well, it's a historical document and entirely true.".
I'm may be a bigot and jaded with bias, but if I learn that you put a lot of faith into a deity based hocus-pocus religion i'll likely end up putting less faith in your personal reasoning skills as a human.
I'm a dirty commie atheist, I just feel like the energy put into hating religion by people like Dawkins would be much better spent elsewhere.
I've met plenty of at least nominally religious people whom I've been happy to associate with, and whom are the some of the smartest people I've met. I've also met plenty of the Dawkins-type anti-theists whose company I've evacuated post haste.
That is not just 'pointing out religious violence' it's assigning blame.
Edit: It's also debatable that it's actually 'religious violence.' Iran is an oppressive regime that uses religion to legitimize itself. It's no more the 'fault of Islam' than religious justifications for slavery (in pre-Civil War US) are the 'fault of Christianity.'
Why? Is it because in your sheltered view of reality all religions are reformed, and everyone is just longing to live by the values you believe in?
Please. Just as smaller cults that are considered to be dangerous. The freedom of religions that have something to say about who lives and who dies should be "reconsidered".
You can say that Christians have some extremists too, and that's true. These rules need to apply to them too. However, you don't see the Pope calling for the extermination of the infidels, do you?
Then how do you explain things like genocide in Rwanda and cartel killings in Central America? Islam?
The fact of the matter is, humans by and large have been pretty shitty throughout history. Some places in this world are on a different timeline. Some happen to be Muslim countries, others happen to be Christian, and some have no majority religion at all.
Stoning people for adultery, beheading people over drug possession, and a lack of women's rights are all things you could criticize muslim countries for wrt Shariah law. Torturing people over political dissent isn't.
Of course the context is entirely different, yet many aspects are similar. To me it appears it is power with no accountability which lead to these abuses. You can find this everywhere, no need to attribute it to one specific religion.
Most likely he was just used as a scapegoat. Someone wanted somebody else behind bars, either so they could say that some issue was being dealt with or that the issue has been dealt with, and some other person was used to fill that role.
