Young man arrested for satirical facebook page (Greece)
September 24, 2012 at 9:56 am
(This post was last modified: September 24, 2012 at 9:57 am by Crys.)
(Copy-paste of a message I posted on FB)
I know internet petitions only rarely work (if ever), but I wanted to turn your attention to something happening in Greece. Unfortunately, my country's constitution has yet to abolish anti-blasphemy laws and a young man is now paying for it, because he committed the unspeakable crime of creating a satirical facebook page meant to ridicule the commercialization of faith (check out the #freegeronpastitsios tag on twitter).
Said page made its point abundantly clear when, a few months ago, the creator, in an attempt to showcase just how easy it is to get people to believe in miracles, created a pastiche (pun intended) of previous 'miracles' and e-mailed the result to several religious websites/blogs. The 'miracle' deliberately contained many false pieces of information that none of the blogs even bothered to double check, and instead posted the 'miracle' in its entirety without batting an eyelash.
The page had been the recipient of a salvo of threats for many months now, until it caught the eye of a member of the parliament who belongs in the far right wing of the Greek political landscape (a neo-Nazi party, to be precise). Within a few days of the politician's complaint, the page was taken down and the creator arrested.
If the fact that this is happening in a European country bothers you as much as it bothers me, please take a moment of your time to show your support for this cause in any way you can. Sorry for the long post, but I felt this was something that needed to be shared and acknowledged for the atrocity it is.
http://www.change.org/petitions/greek-pa...phemy-laws
I know internet petitions only rarely work (if ever), but I wanted to turn your attention to something happening in Greece. Unfortunately, my country's constitution has yet to abolish anti-blasphemy laws and a young man is now paying for it, because he committed the unspeakable crime of creating a satirical facebook page meant to ridicule the commercialization of faith (check out the #freegeronpastitsios tag on twitter).
Said page made its point abundantly clear when, a few months ago, the creator, in an attempt to showcase just how easy it is to get people to believe in miracles, created a pastiche (pun intended) of previous 'miracles' and e-mailed the result to several religious websites/blogs. The 'miracle' deliberately contained many false pieces of information that none of the blogs even bothered to double check, and instead posted the 'miracle' in its entirety without batting an eyelash.
The page had been the recipient of a salvo of threats for many months now, until it caught the eye of a member of the parliament who belongs in the far right wing of the Greek political landscape (a neo-Nazi party, to be precise). Within a few days of the politician's complaint, the page was taken down and the creator arrested.
If the fact that this is happening in a European country bothers you as much as it bothers me, please take a moment of your time to show your support for this cause in any way you can. Sorry for the long post, but I felt this was something that needed to be shared and acknowledged for the atrocity it is.
http://www.change.org/petitions/greek-pa...phemy-laws
