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Indian lawmaker arrested after tweet criticising Narendra Modi

theguardian.com

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Re: Indian lawmaker arrested after tweet criticising Narendra Modi

#111

Post by leephillips »

lolinder wrote: post #98
vkou wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do you assume a democracy can't censor? All that a democracy is is a form of government where people elect some part of the legislature and the executive. If the electorate wants censorship, then the electorate will get censorship. If the electorate doesn't care much either way about censorship, but the people they elect do, then they will get censorship.

There are two kinds of censorship: 1) Censorship of "offensive" content (for some definition of "offensive"), applied equally to all people. 2) Censorship of political opponents, either overtly (as in Russia) or under the guise of censoring "offensive" content. A democracy can theoretically sustain itself while engaging in censorship of type 1. A democracy that has chosen to engage in censorship of type 2 is on its w…

Very well said, I think. I would add that (1) and (2) overlap, as well. For example, speech railing against sharia might be classified as offensive to Muslims. But it becomes a political issue if a party or candidate supports a policy of allowing some limited form of sharia to have official status.

Re: Indian lawmaker arrested after tweet criticising Narendra Modi

#112

Post by actuator »

leephillips wrote: post #107
actuator wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Guardian largely doesn't publish false news as such but is incredibly selective about the events it chooses to write about.

Every newspaper is narrowly selective about what it writes about. Clearly the Guardian has chosen to write about free speech issues within the UK, regularly, putting the lie to what zozbot234 implied.

In the UK, yes. But my point was, recent incidents of suppression of free speech through law enforcement agencies by other parties in India haven't made it to Guardian coverage like this has. So they are selective about what they choose to write.

Guardian is as infallible as any other media organisation run by humans who have their own biases.

Re: Indian lawmaker arrested after tweet criticising Narendra Modi

#113

Post by pessimizer »

naruvimama wrote: post #80
MrBlueIncognito wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"who destroyed government or private property during a protest, strike or riot, and that if necessary, the property of the accused would be seized and auctioned to recover the money" — Narottam Mishra, Home Minister https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-61042315.amp If you’re a Muslim living in an illegally-built home and you were _accused_ of being involved in riots, they will bulldoze your life. The extremists…

Why should the country suffer the fanatic beliefs of a few rioters, have we not tried to settle that once and for all in 1947 at a huge price.

Why should the country suffer the fanatic beliefs of people with bulldozers?

Re: Indian lawmaker arrested after tweet criticising Narendra Modi

#114

Post by pessimizer »

mohanmcgeek wrote: post #38
veonik wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a ton of posts on here completely unrelated to programming, why not this one too?

yes. Let's turn this place into r/technology

> Please don't post comments saying that HN is turning into Reddit. It's a semi-noob illusion, as old as the hills.

Re: Indian lawmaker arrested after tweet criticising Narendra Modi

#115

Post by actuator »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #109
actuator wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Arresting lawmakers is de-stabilising. Very different from what's going on in China. People speaking opposing viewpoints are silenced in China as well, no? The only difference is that in case of India, either the courts or the public through agitations can intervene which might lead to instability.

> People speaking opposing viewpoints are silenced in China as well, no? One, different systems. Two, when Xi took out senior members of his opposition, it absolutely prompted concern abroad. There was no ensuing rioting or breakdown in the rule of law, so calm minds prevailed. This is a rando lawmaker being taken out for tweeting, not a rival power centre; it looks petty and stupid. Frankly, the whataboutism in resp…

> it looks petty and stupid.

It does, but I don't know how this can be even changed.

The Indian judicial system is broken and even the laws are very vague so law enforcement can always choose to act on them.

India has needed judicial reform from a long time but it hasn't been forthcoming.

Worse, every successive government makes laws more vague to suit themselves.

Re: Indian lawmaker arrested after tweet criticising Narendra Modi

#116

Post by walrus01 »

koshergweilo wrote: post #3

I admit I'm not super familiar with India's freedom of speech, is this a backslide or has it always been like this?

the instances of the Indian government censoring the internet are numerous and well documented:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_censorship_in_India

Re: Indian lawmaker arrested after tweet criticising Narendra Modi

#117

Post by ra7 »

hknapp wrote: post #58
mohanmcgeek wrote: post #29

Quoted post unavailable.

> On-Topic: Anything that good hackers would find interesting. That includes more than hacking and startups. If you had to reduce it to a sentence, the answer might be: anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Also in the guidelines.

> Off-Topic: Most stories about politics, or crime, or sports, unless they're evidence of some interesting new phenomenon. Videos of pratfalls or disasters, or cute animal pictures. If they'd cover it on TV news, it's probably off-topic.

This story is surely closer to politics than to intellectual curiosity?

Re: Indian lawmaker arrested after tweet criticising Narendra Modi

#118

Post by mayankkaizen »

koshergweilo wrote: post #3

I admit I'm not super familiar with India's freedom of speech, is this a backslide or has it always been like this?

Let me tell you my anecdotal experience. Modi came in power in 2014 and till than I was BJP (Modi's party) supporter.

Then I began to see how dangerous Modi is to society as a whole. In short, he is modern, complex sophisticated version of Nazi ideology. He carefully raised an army of hindu rightwing members who are bigots, intolerant and full of hate. He doesn't belive in democracy, freedom of speech, human rights, tolerance, diversity, press freedom and stuffs like that. Anyway...

Earlier I (and every other Modi opponent I know) would openly criticize him on various SM platofrms or whatsapp groups. Now we just stay silent. We now dont even talk anything against him even in familiar circles. Why? Because we are afraid. You may get beaten. You may be arrested. You may be shunned.

I live in an apartment in Delhi and there is a whatsapp group for that apartment where we share and discuss apartment related issues. Some Modi supporters often post highly inflammble propagandist anti muslims post on regular basis. One guy politely objected to it. He was immediatly declared anti-hindu and anti India. He was removed from the group. He was 'politely' told that he should be careful in future. The friendly neighbors have turned foes.

Even I was cornered and declared anti-national many times (luckily by people who were otherwise friendly to me.) This is happening all around in India. If you aren't Modi supporter, just keep your mouth shut.

Re: Indian lawmaker arrested after tweet criticising Narendra Modi

#119

Post by markdown »

Kab1r wrote: post #94
bruceb wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He was gone after not because of proving it false, but because he accused the church of purposefully lying I believe. One could call it not much different but it isn't the exact same as being prosecuted for debunking a "miracle" From wikipedia: he skeptic-rationalist author Sanal Edamaruku proved that the water stemmed from a faulty sewage system, which seeped due to capillary action. However, Edamaruku also accused…

Defamation should not be criminal imo.

That would give the rich the ability to defame the poor at will.

Re: Indian lawmaker arrested after tweet criticising Narendra Modi

#120

Post by lolinder »

ra7 wrote: post #117
hknapp wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> On-Topic: Anything that good hackers would find interesting. That includes more than hacking and startups. If you had to reduce it to a sentence, the answer might be: anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Also in the guidelines. > Off-Topic: Most stories about politics, or crime, or sports, unless they're evidence of some interesting new phenomenon. Videos of pratfalls or disasters, or cute animal pictures. If they'd cover it on TV news, it's probably off-topic. This story is surely closer to politics than to intellectual curiosity?

This story is about freedom of speech, which has been central to hacker culture for as long as there has been a hacker culture.
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