Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Iranian writer is sentenced to 12 years after tweeting a dot at supreme leader

npr.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

181–190 of 199 posts

Re: Iranian writer is sentenced to 12 years after tweeting a dot at supreme leader

#181

Post by Moorko »

avodonosov wrote: post #90
Dibby053 wrote: post #83

Buried under the rest of the article is this, since some people only do headlines I'll copy it here for visibility: >Shanbehzadeh was sentenced to five years for alleged pro-Israel propaganda activity, four years for insulting Islamic sanctities, two years for spreading lies online and an additional year for anti-regime propaganda. >His lawyer, Amir Raisian, told Shargh Network, a reformist newspaper in Iran, that he…

I sometimes asked people on HN, what news sites they consider to be of decent quality. And npr.org was recommended several times. Seeing this cheap manipulative article suggests they were mistaken. PS. Maybe his 12 years sentence is completely unjust, I don't know. But titles like this... How about "A man is sentenced to death after having cofee for breakfast" for an article about Charles Manson? (I suppose he had co…

[flagged]

Re: Iranian writer is sentenced to 12 years after tweeting a dot at supreme leader

#182

Post by Moorko »

boomboomsubban wrote: post #36

I'm not defending Iran over this, I fully expect his imprisonment to be for a reason I would consider bullshit, but this article doesn't present much evidence that the two events in the title have any connection. He tweeted a dot, at some point after was arrested. Technically the article never says the dot is related to the arrest, but it's certainly implied.

Any opposition who gets arrested will get those allegations by default in Iran. It doesn't mean that those are the real reason. The real reason is exactly what's written there: twitting a dot at supreme leader and getting more likes than him (he previously did say 'If I post a dot, I'll get more like than the supreme leader hahaha').

He was also posting satires about the religion of peace.... :) Source: I'm Iranian.

Re: Iranian writer is sentenced to 12 years after tweeting a dot at supreme leader

#183

Post by aguaviva »

quotz wrote: post #178
aguaviva wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good catch. It seems the U.S. organization did provide funds for military drones for Ukraine, at least for a certain time after 2016. Not that there's anything wrong with that, of course. Sounds like a perfectly wholesome thing to do, in fact, given the situation Ukraine has been facing since 2014. Whether it continued to do so by the time of her donation (in late 2023) -- being as Razom does seem to have shifted its…

At first I believed it was trumped up charges, but now I realize theres more to the story. We went from ukrainian charity, to they provided funds for military drones in 2016. And the western media is not reporting this of course. Its as much propaganda as the russian media...

Not intentional propaganda (as far as Western media goes), just the usual cut-and-paste reporting with no particular directives from the editors to look more deeply into the story. It may reflect a bias, but in this case most likely an entirely unconscious bias. This is quite different from the state-originated propaganda (especially coming from deeply authoritarian governments such as that of Russia) which is very intentional and often more or less scripted and templated.

Meanwhile let's remember that the arrest (and draconian sentencing) were in themselves a very deliberate form of propaganda. It's not like the various Russian agencies could begin to care about a $51 donation. They did what they did for certain reasons, one of which was to send some very specific messages -- on one hand to the U.S. government; but also to their own people, both inside the Motherland and abroad.

That latter message being: "We're watching you, wherever you are, and however small and unimportant you think you are - so don't you even begin to think of crossing us."

This case was probably particularly appealing to them in part precisely because the charges could be presented as borderline plausible (rather than being simply trumped up from scratch). Even if they would ultimately prove to be quite flimsy if evaluated by the standards of countries with actual working justice systems, as seems to be the case here.

It's just another part of their playbook.

Re: Iranian writer is sentenced to 12 years after tweeting a dot at supreme leader

#184

Post by AnimalMuppet »

throw10920 wrote: post #176
AnimalMuppet wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dude, cool your jets. The site guidelines call for you to assume good faith; you are failing at that. While you're at it, look up the definition of "lie". It doesn't mean "made a mistake out of confusion".

You're right, I should be better about assuming good faith - I'd say that at this point there's at least some evidence that the user is not acting in good faith, but it's still pretty tenuous, and I wasn't acting that way to begin with. Thank you for calling that out.

Well, see, I've never assumed bad faith... um... at least not today... so far...

Thanks for listening when called out. That's not easy.

Re: Iranian writer is sentenced to 12 years after tweeting a dot at supreme leader

#185

Post by nec4b »

eigenket wrote: post #175
nec4b wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm curious, what do you think "heads must roll" means? Is English your first language?

Heads must roll has two meanings to me 1. The original meaning is that people must be killed. 2. The more common meaning these days is that people must be punished in some less dramatic way (usually fired). It is typical of racists to use phrases with double meanings like this. The idea ia that when their words are quoted back at them they can attempt to avoid consequences by claiming they intended the other meaning.…

>> It is typical of racists to use phrases with double meanings like this.

Using phrases with double meaning (euphemisms) is a sign of people who read a book or two and have the intelligence to understand the play on words. Some people unfortunately don't have this ability and they take everything as literal.

Re: Iranian writer is sentenced to 12 years after tweeting a dot at supreme leader

#186

Post by solardev »

mmmBacon wrote: post #88
34679 wrote: post #76

Voice of America is a US government propaganda outlet that was barred from broadcasting directly to US citizens until the Smith-Mundt Act was amended in 2013. VoA is the primary source for this article.

Seems like you are trying to discredit the source as a way to get people to question the facts. The facts are that this story has been widely reported. It’s well documented that the Iranian government persecutes and foments violence against authors critical to their regime.

Then it should be easy to find an alternative source, right?

I don't question the particular facts of this situation, but Voice of America is literally a propaganda outlet. It is not meant to be objective journalism, and was used during the Cold War to counter Soviet propaganda. It should not be cited as a reliable source.

Re: Iranian writer is sentenced to 12 years after tweeting a dot at supreme leader

#188

Post by bufferoverflow »

defrost wrote: post #177
bufferoverflow wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ok, you failed to show a single article with the right-wing perspective. How are they not far-left again?

I failed at nothing, I simply don't follow your orders .. perhaps try your "commands" on your dogs and|or children and see if you fare better. As for NPR they have only a slight to moderate bias in story selection to the left and they report news not apply Fox | Sky News level spin to it.

"Slight to moderate bias" when every single article is left-leaning. Suuure.

My child has better reasoning skills.

Re: Iranian writer is sentenced to 12 years after tweeting a dot at supreme leader

#189

Post by arp242 »

quotz wrote: post #179
arp242 wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Like I said, I don't recall exactly where he was from and can't be bothered to look it up, because it doesn't matter. But just because most people from location X don't have opinion Y, doesn't mean some don't. Either way, I certainly don't think he was making stuff up. He could have left at any time without any reason. We weren't holding him captive.

I reread your comment now I apologize. He was afraid of not getting arrested in Russia, rather then in his home country in the balkans. My bad.

Not so much arrested as denied entry.

Re: Iranian writer is sentenced to 12 years after tweeting a dot at supreme leader

#190

Post by avodonosov »

hippich wrote: post #169
avodonosov wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you find the source in the coming days, while the HN thread is not yet blocked for posting - please share. I'd like to be aware of facts like this. Question. If you read Belarusian news, have you noticed that tut.by, being a quite decent, balanced news site in, say, 2013, 2014, in last years of its existence, maybe 2018, 2019, 2020 was quickly degrading, somewhere towards the Radio of the Thousand Hills? Deliberat…

I did not notice deliberate attempts like that, but in the vacuum created post 2020 there is not much left to be trusted besides zerkalo. They rely on sources they likely can not verify all the time, and as such they do make mistakes occasionally and post corrections - this indeed happens from time to time. If you have suggestions of better source of news - please share.

I can't suggest good sources, but I can suggest a method. The Scientific Method. For news reading, in a nutshell, it means to search for information that contradict one's views. Because one of the main methods of manipulations today is selective presentation of true facts.

There are no sources to be trusted. And let me warn you against trusting Zerkalo.

But armed with the scientific method, one can use any propaganda as an informative source. And the more it contradicts one's views the more informative it is. On the other hand, reading confirmations of what one saw already confirmed many times is basically a waste of time.

My attempt for a more elaborate version of this: http://avodonosov.blogspot.com/2024/09/scientific-method-for...

As for the deliberate manipulations and back to the HN topic. Have you noticed that the Iranian man was sentenced "after" tweeting a dot? Not "because", not "for" , but simply "after"? If you read the article, there is no evidence of causal link between the dot posted and the arrest. The arrest just happened chronologically after. The actual charges are different and the man has a long history of being at odds with the ruling regime.

I think that's an intentionally misleading title. And you seem fallen for it, replying "what for people in Belarus are being locked up".

Post reply on HN