News: Saudi Religious police to have less power

[Doubting_Thomas]

BBC reporting: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-19819791

Just thought I'd share in case people hadn't seen.

[cratehorus]

BBC reporting: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-19819791

Just thought I'd share in case people hadn't seen.

nice! I'm guessing this is in response to the protests against the 409 nigerian women that were arrested during a pilgrimage to mecca

http://www.floridatoday.com/usatoday/art...ws0302%7cs

[Doubting_Thomas]

Probably although the article gives other examples too.

I think that in part we can thank the combination of the mobile phone camera and the Internet. That goes for all low-level state abuse not just religious ones. If you see a police car put on its lights for the sole purpose of jumping a traffic light you can put them on YouTube. I guess that's why some autocratic states are so keen to limit the Internet their people can see. Iran and north Korea being obvious examples.

It's a shame that the religious police still exist of course.

Not to go too far off topic but it's a real shame vietnams brief flirtation with freedom of expression on the Internet seems to have ended. One country takes a small step forward with civil liberties, another steps backward.

[cratehorus]

The worst internet offender in the world according to the UN is Iran, North Korea doesn't even make the list, Estonia is technically worse, but I think China (which the UN rates #2) is really the worst currently they have over 1 billion people and aren't involved with any real, military conflict.

http://www.globalpost.com/dispatches/glo...-offenders

The US also has internet monitoring and censorship, mostly thanks to "the Patriot act" although most people don't realize it. I imagine people in China walk around, like most Americans, with no real idea that they're being monitored and censored. I imagine they don't understand certain websites aren't available to them, I imagine they would even have somekind of a, well thought-out argument, as too why these sites should be banned, monitored, and/or censored to the public

On April 6, 2004, the American Civil Liberties Union sued the FBI and DHS over the USA PATRIOT Act's authority to demand that a business hand over records that may contain private financial or business information that is not pertinent to an ongoing investigation. The specific action in question was the request of the FBI and DHS for the account information for users of an Internet service provider.

Citing possible secrecy provisions of the USA PATRIOT Act, the Department of Justice prevented the ACLU from releasing the text of a countersuit for three weeks. After judicial and congressional oversight, sections of the countersuit that did not violate secrecy rules of the USA PATRIOT Act were released.

The lawsuit filed by the ACLU was dropped on October 27, 2006.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patriot_Act#Controversy

EDIT: China actually dropped to number #3 worst, the new report just came out from freedom house 2 days ago

http://www.rr.com/finance/finance/articl...ernet_Most
http://www.freedomhouse.org/report/freed...m-net-2012

[Doubting_Thomas]

The worst internet offender in the world according to the UN is Iran, North Korea doesn't even make the list,

That'd be because the internet is generally unavailable in north Korea, especially to normal people, and many north Koreans haven't even heard of it. North Korea has it's own national intranet and most of it's true internet sites, basically propaganda sites, are hosted overseas. Although many would argue that North Korea is atheist in the mono-theist sense, it's a nationalist* dead-leader cult with strong parallels to theocratic rule.




* You see it labelled "Stalinist" a lot but this is a weak description; national-socialist in the descriptive sense would be a better fit if it wasn't for that term being inextricably linked to Nazism, which they are not. Also, unlike Nazism their main 'enemy' is external, although they do not tolerate free thinking internally. As Hitchen's classically said, at least you can die and leave North Korea.

[cratehorus]

That'd be because the internet is generally unavailable in north Korea, especially to normal people, and many north Koreans haven't even heard of it. North Korea has it's own national intranet and most of it's true internet sites, basically propaganda sites, are hosted overseas. Although many would argue that North Korea is atheist in the mono-theist sense, it's a nationalist* dead-leader cult with strong parallels to theocratic rule.

North Korea (or as they like to call themselves, Korea) have been under a military dictatorship since their war with the US started in 1950, the war has not ended, therefore they keep they're military-style government. The US, would not only do the same thing, if they were at war with greater or more powerful country, but the US has done so in the past, the japanese internment doesn't exactly seem like "democracy"....to me atleast

North Korea also has strict laws against all forms of private property and advertisement, this obviously causes problems since the internet's main revenue stream has always come from their advertisements, and trademarked software.

Freedom house, however is a collection of journalists that rate countries based on "which monitor censorship, intimidation and violence against journalists, and public access to information" While North Korea's internet is not "free", saying that is similair to saying Somalia's internet is not free, while true it's diferent from the regimes that use filtering mechanisms, on your phone calls and emails, or those that ban content offensive to the states chosen religion, which can range from porn sites, to atheist forums like this one

North Korea is cut off from the internet, much as it is from other areas with respect to the world. Only a few hundred thousand citizens in North Korea, representing about 4% of the total population, have access to the Internet, which is heavily censored by the national government. According to the RWB, North Korea is a prime example where all mediums of communication are controlled by the government. According to the RWB, the Internet is used by the North Korean government primarily to spread propaganda. The North Korean network is monitored heavily. All websites are under government control, as is all other media in North Korea.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_ce...by_country

* You see it labelled "Stalinist" a lot but this is a weak description; national-socialist in the descriptive sense would be a better fit if it wasn't for that term being inextricably linked to Nazism, which they are not. Also, unlike Nazism their main 'enemy' is external, although they do not tolerate free thinking internally. As Hitchen's classically said, at least you can die and leave North Korea.

Stalinists, or Marxist-Leninist's as they prefer to be called, would be more appropriately defined as state capitalists, rather than communists (or national socialists), which they seem to argue is incremental socialism, but most modern communists seem to argue Marxist-Leninism is simply a right-wing corruption of communism.

North Korea actually removed all mentioning of the term communism from their constitution a few years ago, they also have a strange state religion called Jucheism which is "atheistic" but I am not too familiar with it, but either way they're not exactly a extreme leftist paradise, as most right wingers would like you too beleive

[Doubting_Thomas]

Today it was in the news that the Saudi religious police will start admitting females. Whilst I cannot reconcile the concept of religious police, any small step in the direction of equality is a good thing.

[cratehorus]

Today it was in the news that the Saudi religious police will start admitting females. Whilst I cannot reconcile the concept of religious police, any small step in the direction of equality is a good thing.

WTF? they respond by allowing women to join the same group of oppressive "ethics" police....... that's right-wing feminism alright

http://www.theepochtimes.com/n2/world/sa...05101.html