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Saudi Arabia sentenced a woman to 34 years in prison for tweeting

theverge.com

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Re: Saudi Arabia sentenced a woman to 34 years in prison for tweeting

#61
post #54
post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not really. Tweeting your opinion is legal, leaking state secrets not so.

Strange, the US newspapers that wrote articles based on WikiLeaks leaks won prices. And WikiLeaks isn't the leaker but the publisher of that leaks.

That's pretty arguable.

Assange is in chat logs with Manning who then passed Assange a password hash and with Assange saying he will attempt to get it cracked. The password would have given Manning admin privileges on SIPRNet, allowing her to pull more files to leak and better cover her tracks.

That's being pretty directly involved in leaks imo.

src: https://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/5816949/Julian-Assang...

Re: Saudi Arabia sentenced a woman to 34 years in prison for tweeting

#62
post #17
post #14

I'm reminded of how under in the UK a person was made to do community service after making a tweet.[1] Obviously not as steep of a sentencing, but a prosecution nonetheless. I only point that out because reading these headlines now doesn't make me feel protective of liberal democracy, it only makes me despair of a global trend. 1. https://www.theverge.com/2022/3/31/23004339/uk-twitter-user-...

Britain is famous for convicting a guy who got his dog to do the nazi salute. And they just don't stop, they arrested a tweeter the other day along with a guy who filmed the first arrest. https://fee.org/articles/uk-man-arrested-for-malicious-commu...

BBC government media used to have Monty Python doing satirical nazi salutes on prime time television. Shows how easily standards can change without constitutional protections.

Re: Saudi Arabia sentenced a woman to 34 years in prison for tweeting

#63
post #14

I'm reminded of how under in the UK a person was made to do community service after making a tweet.[1] Obviously not as steep of a sentencing, but a prosecution nonetheless. I only point that out because reading these headlines now doesn't make me feel protective of liberal democracy, it only makes me despair of a global trend. 1. https://www.theverge.com/2022/3/31/23004339/uk-twitter-user-...

Turns out the white wigs they wear are actually clown wigs.

I guess they're on to tweets now because they've rid the island of scissors, kitchen knives and pointy sticks.

Re: Saudi Arabia sentenced a woman to 34 years in prison for tweeting

#64
post #40

Any time you read a headline like this, replace the innocuous-sounding non-crime (“tweeting”) with “upsetting people in power.” Suddenly you’ll realise that the same kind of thing happens everywhere in the world. E.g.: Julian Assange, who’s main crime was upsetting people in power . Unless you think it’s a crime worthy of being hounded for over a decade by multiple nations’ security agencies for trying to — and faili…

Anyone knows what she actually tweeted?

"Her Twitter profile showed she had 2,597 followers. Among tweets about Covid burnout and pictures of her young children, Shehab sometimes retweeted tweets by Saudi dissidents living in exile, which called for the release of political prisoners in the kingdom. She seemed to support the case of Loujain al-Hathloul, a prominent Saudi feminist activist who was previously imprisoned, is alleged to have been tortured for supporting driving rights for women"

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/aug/16/saudi-woman-gi...

A totally insignificant opponent of the regime; probably most of us reading this thread have made comparable comments about either the Democratic or Republican Presidencies.

Re: Saudi Arabia sentenced a woman to 34 years in prison for tweeting

#66

Any time you read a headline like this, replace the innocuous-sounding non-crime (“tweeting”) with “upsetting people in power.” Suddenly you’ll realise that the same kind of thing happens everywhere in the world. E.g.: Julian Assange, who’s main crime was upsetting people in power . Unless you think it’s a crime worthy of being hounded for over a decade by multiple nations’ security agencies for trying to — and faili…

The crimes he is alleged to have committed are detailed here by DOJ (during the Trump administration) and do not match your assertions. https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/wikileaks-founder-julian-assa...

"Russia used Republican political operative Paul Manafort and the WikiLeaks website to try to help now-U.S. President Donald Trump win the 2016 election, a Republican-led Senate committee said in its final review of the matter on Tuesday."

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-russia-senate/s...

Re: Saudi Arabia sentenced a woman to 34 years in prison for tweeting

#67
post #14

I'm reminded of how under in the UK a person was made to do community service after making a tweet.[1] Obviously not as steep of a sentencing, but a prosecution nonetheless. I only point that out because reading these headlines now doesn't make me feel protective of liberal democracy, it only makes me despair of a global trend. 1. https://www.theverge.com/2022/3/31/23004339/uk-twitter-user-...

Looking at the tweets in question linked from that article [1], many of those are statements of blowing up airports or making death/rape threats. I, for one, appreciate the idea that making death threats online have consequences. Often these are the only signs you get before mentally ill people act on them, and in most cases police can do nothing until an actual crime is committed...usually that crime is murder.

There's a difference between getting arrested for tweeting for social change and for, well, calling for deaths. There's certainly a grey area about "jokes" here, but you haven't been able to joke about "the bomb in your pants" in airport security lines for the entire history of airport security, so it's hardly a new global trend. It's also different when someone with millions of followers "jokes" about something. Before Twitter, this woman would've still been arrested for what she was advocating, and that's what makes her situation awful...not that she got arrested for tweeting.

We should be compassionate when applying the law and continue to figure it out, but let's not throw the baby out with the bathwater.

1: https://www.theverge.com/2022/2/7/22912054/uk-grossly-offens...

Re: Saudi Arabia sentenced a woman to 34 years in prison for tweeting

#68
post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Britain is famous for convicting a guy who got his dog to do the nazi salute. And they just don't stop, they arrested a tweeter the other day along with a guy who filmed the first arrest. https://fee.org/articles/uk-man-arrested-for-malicious-commu...

Someone should report this guy to them https://images.thewest.com.au/publication/CD15E5C4C89CE4DA25...

They exiled him to Canada, no?

Kind of how they exiled King Edward VIII to the Bahamas.

Re: Saudi Arabia sentenced a woman to 34 years in prison for tweeting

#69
post #27
post #14

I'm reminded of how under in the UK a person was made to do community service after making a tweet.[1] Obviously not as steep of a sentencing, but a prosecution nonetheless. I only point that out because reading these headlines now doesn't make me feel protective of liberal democracy, it only makes me despair of a global trend. 1. https://www.theverge.com/2022/3/31/23004339/uk-twitter-user-...

This speaks to the myth of decentralized . Because the Internet was hailed as a great invention, with its decentralization bringing us to a sort of knowledge sharing and connectedness eutopia. But now, the Internet and associated technologies are the single greatest medium of centralized control ever. I always point to Adam Curtis' All Watched Over by Machines of Ever Loving Grace documentary.

> But now, the Internet and associated technologies are the single greatest medium of centralized control ever.

I strongly disagree with this assessment. The internet currently facilitates enormous amounts of black market trading in virtually every country in the world. The internet facilitates the only information exchange that can provide privacy guarantees between parties, again in virtually any part of the world. The internet has facilitated coordinating terrorist attacks against the most well funded military powers in the world alongside facilitating sharing cat memes. You can trade digital goods with extreme convenience regardless of centralized sanctions that may otherwise prohibit such trades.

I think you're mistakenly looking at centralized powers utilizing the internet to further their reach to incorrectly surmise that people have less ability today to act outside of the will of centralized planners, which in my opinion, is undeniably, demonstrably false.

Re: Saudi Arabia sentenced a woman to 34 years in prison for tweeting

#70
post #44

Any time you read a headline like this, replace the innocuous-sounding non-crime (“tweeting”) with “upsetting people in power.” Suddenly you’ll realise that the same kind of thing happens everywhere in the world. E.g.: Julian Assange, who’s main crime was upsetting people in power . Unless you think it’s a crime worthy of being hounded for over a decade by multiple nations’ security agencies for trying to — and faili…

Even here in Germany, a man was harassed and had his house raided by police for tweeting a pretty insignificant insult directed at a politician[0]. [0] https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2021/09/09/pimmelgate-g...

Not surprised. In germany its common practice for the police to monitor people based on ethnicity for instance, indiscriminately of wether they committed crime or not. A thing of the past one should think.
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