Is it meant for me?

They don’t like people to speak too much. Be it communist, military or even democracy, no govt likes their countrymen to speak too much. Ever since people started blogging on the internet these govts realized that it was a major tool available to commoners which could be used to whip up public opinion, in many cases against them as well. And they could never allow that. Over the last few years there have been innumerable cases wherein bloggers have been jailed for periods upto twenty years(sic). I’ll highlight a few cases to substantiate my point.

The first one whom I want to talk about is a Burmese guy called Nay Phone Latt, all of 28 years of age who in Nov 08 was sent to jail for twenty years by the military junta for posting a cartoon of the military leader Than Shwe. TWENTY YEARS for posting a cartoon? Huh! He might as well have committed a few more crimes before uploading the cartoon. His friend and colleague Thin July Kyaw has also been sent to jail for two years for this. You can read all about this here.

The second one is a Moroccan blogger Mohammed Eraaji who was imprisoned in Sep 08 for two years for showing “lack of respect to the king”. This was not the first time a Moroccan has been jailed for peacefully expressing his views on the monarchy, which is a “taboo” subject in Morocco. You can’t talk about the king in Morocco. Good or bad. Period (reminds me of the movie 300 in which the Persian king thought that he was no less than God!). For more on this check here.

Next is about a blogger from Malaysia, Raja Petra Kamaruddin who was jailed for saying that the Deputy Prime Minister of Malaysia was involved in the murder of a woman. Well, in this case it may be  debatable whether a blogger can say something like this or not. Mind you guys, Malaysia is a democracy and there has been a lot of show of support for Kamaruddin in the country. You can check this story here.

The next one is very important as it reflects the attitude of our internet giants, in this case Yahoo!. In May 06 it came to light that based on information given by Yahoo! the Chinese authorities had arrested a blogger Li Zhi who had blogged about corruption in China. And what kind of information did these guys give to the authorities? It was the personal email account information of Li Zhi which was then used by the Chinese to build up a case against Li.  When asked, the spokesperson of Yahoo said that Yahoo! regarded the internet as a positive force in China. If this is what is meant by being positive I wonder what will being negative be? We all know very well why Yahoo! gave this information, don’t we? Because had they not cooperated they would’ve been thrown out of China and that would mean loss of lot of money. This is not the first time Yahoo! has ‘cooperated’(sic) with the Chinese on such issues. Pathetic. Check out this story here. By the way how many of you guys have an email account with Yahoo? Think again if you want to carry on with them.

And if you thought that these kind of things do not happen in US or any western countries, think again. In Aug 06 Josh Wolf, 24, a freelance journalist and blogger was sent to jail in San Francisco because he refused to turn over his tapes to the authorities. The video carried images of arson and violence which took place during the protests against a G8 meeting in California. Josh said that he cannot do this because it would jeopardize his source. What a shame? I mean he cooperated with these guys but only upto a point beyond which he found it unethical to share his information. That should’ve been commended. Instead, the young blogger was jailed. Read more on this here.

The last one I want to talk about is of a 19 year old Indian (his name has not been given out as yet) who has been jailed for making a community on Orkut which was against Shiv Sena, which we all know is a Hindu Nationalist party. Now what actually happened is that a lot of people posted comments in this community which were not exactly in good taste. They implied that Shiv Sena is trying to divide the nation. A case was filed by Shiv Sena aginst this boy. According to the court comments posted on this community are his responsibility since he was the moderator. I agree that he was the moderator but if people feel that Shiv Sena is trying to divide the nation there has to be a reason for them to say so and they do have a right to speak, don’t they? And if they do why has this young boy been arrested? What it actually means is that even I can be jailed for writing this post. What crap? It’s like going back to the days of Emergency when you couldn’t speak up. But these guys are sadly mistaken if they think that they can get away with something like this. Freedom of speech is our fundamental right and no one, I repeat no one can take it away. Such arrests will not deter me from writing what I feel is correct.

Alright, let’s find out. Let me ask you guys. Are any of you guys scared of speaking up? Do you feel threatened by the actions of the authorities? Tell me if you are. Tell me if you feel strongly about your own freedom. Show these people that you will not be cowed down by such actions. I’m waiting.

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Posted on February 27th, 2009 Best Articles, Feelings, Track the world • Tags: blog, blogger, freedom, govts, imprison, jailed, speech. • RSS 2.0 feed • Leave a response, or trackback