Wednesday, May 2, 2007

BLOGGERS JAILED

Whenever I start feeling depressed and put upon, I just remember how good I have it here as a Blogger in a free society.

Abdel Kareem Nabil, a 22 year old student in Egypt ... and fellow blogger is now in jail for 4 years. He was sentenced to 3-yrs for insulting Islam in his Blog and for a year for insulting Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak. Bloggers face similar repression around the world. There are currently 65 "cyber dissidents" imprisoned worldwide (50 of them in "surprise" China).

Kind of makes our problems seem minor.

Sphere: Related Content

6 comments:

Mike Minzes said...

While I agree free expression is a good thing, China has been around for 6000 years for a reason. American at a little over 200 years isn't even a drop in the bucket.

Think if it this way. I bet you don't like it when someone pushes their religion on you. It's the same thing when we push our way of life on someone else.

Don't get me wrong. I think it's a bad thing to suppress someone's opinion of the government, but then we have our own way of government and they do too. They don't suppress all speech. They just filter out what they feel is bad for publicity. The U.S government does this in their own way too.

When you KNOW your doing something wrong in the eyes of the law, it's it right to do it because of a point of view?

I agree 4 years is a long time, but this guy had history of doing things like that as did the folks in other countries that control the flow of information.

Freedom of expression is a right of the American people because it was written in the core of our foundation and if they tried to take it away from me, I would fight to the death for it. In China, people are free to express the views, but there is a limit. That is at the core of their government. If the people didn't like it, I'm sure 1.6 billion people could do something about it. I bet in time they will.

Paul Champagne said...

mike ... I was just saying that I am glad I live where I don't have to worry how much I run off at the mouth.

As for the Chinese people over-running the government ... can't happen. They don't have a second ammendment, and without guns, they have no chance against a 2+ million strong army.

Mike Minzes said...

It's happening more and more everyday. The farmers in the north of China protested the government (1000's of them) after they basically took land away. The farmers won. This is just one example of the change that is going on there.

Every journey begins with a single step.

On your comment, Religious extremists fall into the "hate" category. Every religion teaches not to hate. The ones teaching their kids to hate are lost and can't find the river.

If it's ok, I going to add a link to your blog from mine.

Paul Champagne said...

mike m ... link away :D

Anonymous said...

Hi Paul,

Thank you for stopping by my blog - and thank you so much for the prayers! =)

I read this to my boys - we have frequent discussions here about why we are thankful to be American and that it is also a responsibility to be American. Freedom of speech is a biggie. We live in the greatest country on eartch (in my humble opinion) and I am thankful to be able to voice my opinion, dance in public, listen to music, etc. without threat to my life or the lives of my family.

I got what you were saying!

God Bless!

Paul Champagne said...

Donna ... well at least someone understands me.