Bloggers Being Persecuted

Bloggers being persecuted

Sayed Perwiz Kambachsch ( other spelling: Sayed Kambaksh) was sentenced to death on the gallows by a court in Masar-I Sharif in Afghanistan in January 22nd 2008. His “offence” had been that he had downloaded and distributed texts about womens rights in the context of the Koran from the internet. The court in Masar-I Sharif considered this as blasphemy. (source : http://imcradiodotnet.wordpress.com/2008/03/page/2/ ). The organisation “Reporter ohne Grenzen” was able to convince the Afghan judges in Masar-I Sharif to convert the death sentence into a 20 years term in jail on October 21st 2008 (source: http://www.reporter-ohne-grenzen.de/kampagnen-aktionen/kampagne-kambachsch.html) . Amnesty international reports that Kambachsch has been tortured in jail, Afghan security forces broke his nose and his hand. (source: www.amnesty.de) Kambachsch had worked as a journalist for the newspaper Jahan-e-Naw ( literally translated: The New World ) in Afghanistan. Dear readers, there are three ways in which you can help and support him: First is, spread this news in your blogs and online journals. Second: Sign the petition on the website http://www.rsf.org/ ( available in English, Spanish and French language). The German army (Bundeswehr) has soldiers in Masar-i Sharif and Germany trains policemen there, so I wonder why neither the German army nor police were able to help Sayed Perwiz Kambachsch. Maybe it helps if you send e-mails about this affair to the following German authorities: www.bundeswehr.de (German army), www.frank-walter-steinmeier.de/ ( foreign secretary of Germany) and www.bmvg.de/ ( German ministry of defence).

The military junta of Burma has sentenced three Burmese bloggers and journalists to three very harsh terms in jail ( very likely there is torture in Burmese jails): Mr. Zarganar has been given 45 years in jail, the sports journalist Zaw Thet Htwe 15 years in jail and the blogger Nay Phone Latt 20 years in jail. ( source: http://www.rsf.org/article.php3?id_article=29379).

I would also like to remind the internet community not to forget the Iraqi blogger riverbend. She has not published anything now for quite a while (she is now in a refugee camp in Syria). I very much liked to read her blog, the book about it and her reports on OhmyNews. She has a fine mastery of the English language, excellent knowledge of Iraqi politics and a good writing style. I hope she is well and will be online soon again and send us her interesting stories and reports.

“To the future or to the past, to a time when thought is free [...], to a time when truth exists and what is done cannot be undone: From the age of uniformity [...], from the age of Big Brother, from the age of doublethink - greetings!” goes the quote from George Orwell ( in his book“1984”)

History of mankind is a history of folly, hideousness and cruelty. Most of the leaders of tribes, empires, armies and states have been selfish, ignorant, stupid, even perverse and sadistic. Only very few of the statesmen of the past were good-natured or even wise. The book “ The march of folly” by the late US-American professor of history Barbara Tuchmann has analyzed history in this regard. Why was mankind so forsaken, so doomed and bellicose ? Intelligent men and women have been around all the time in history and so were good men and women. The problem was that they could not unite for a cause, they didn´t even know about each others existence. All inventions and ideas could not spread over our planet, due to poor communications. One man in Africa may have found out a new geometric formula and a woman in Asia may have written down clever ideas about human psychology. People couldn´t exchange their ideas, couldn´t communicate with each other, so the whole puzzle of human knowledge was distributed over the whole planet in different pieces in different places. Our time saw a revolution in telecommunications and methods to store data. For the first time in history the big pieces of the puzzle of human ideas and inventions can be put together into one piece and made accessible to anyone and everyone. We are just witnessing the beginning of a new era. There is good reason to believe in a better future in peace and in enlightenment, in mankind to become freer and healthier, wiser and wealthier.

There should be an international solidarity of all journalists to help and support all those who are being persecuted , jailed or tortured for expressing their thoughts and opinions on the internet, be it in Zimbabwe , Burma, the Peoples Republic of China or Afghanistan ( in North Korea there is virtually no Internet ). Freedom of speech is an essential human right. Bloggers of the world, unite!