In a bid to arrest his declining popularity, Prime Minister Najib Razak has spammed Chinese New Year greetings from his 1Malaysia blog to thousands of Malaysians with email accounts.
But his critics say he would have done better just to assure the nation that he would not try to control the Internet much like Egypt's Husni Mubarak was doing in a bid to cling to power.
"Yes, BN supporters may squeal with delight, or at least they may be duty-bound to say what an innovative gesture this," Gopeng MP Lee Boon Chye told Malaysia Chronicle.
"But we see it as the two-facedness that typifies Najib's personality. How can he be so insincere as to use the Email to broadcast greetings while at the same time he is already plotting to change the laws to clamp down Netizens and bloggers. Malaysians must boycott him, we must show we have zero tolerance for this brand of hypocrisy."
Facetious
As anti-government protesters and policeclash in Cairo, internet service cut off in Egypt.
But how did the country manage to shut off the Internet?
A few possibilities have been raised: the routers directing traffic across borders can be shut down, digitally sealing the country off from the world, or routers can be shut down at the level of individual internet service providers so that those inside the country are also cut off from the Internet.
According to Gigaom, it's the latter that's occurred:
The signs are that the Egyptian authorities have taken a very careful and well-planned method to screen off internet addresses at every level, from users inside the country trying to get out and from the rest of the world trying to get in."It looks like they're taking action at two levels," Rik Ferguson of Trend Micro told me. "First at the DNS level, so any attempt to resolve any address in .eg will fail -- but also, in case you're trying to get directly to an address, they are also using the Border Gateway Protocol, the system through which ISPs advertise their internet protocol addresses to the network. Many ISPs have basically stopped advertising any internet addresses at all."
The Guardian added some insight to the breadth of the shutdown across the country:
The shut down involved the withdrawal of more than 3,500 Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) routes by Egyptian ISPs, according to Renesys, a networking firm. Only one ISP out of 10, Noor Data Networks, appeared largely unaffected. It connects to the outside world via an undersea cable operated by Telecom Italia.According to BGPMon, another networking firm, 88 per cent of Egyptian internet access was successfully shut down, however.
Yet, the Egyptian Stock Exchange is still functioning, writes the Financial Times:
But you'd really have to ask what the hell you're doing investing in this country -- its banks, its telecoms, and its transport infrastructure -- if security forces can block it all off at a moment's notice. You're investing upon Pharaoh's terms. That's why keeping the exchange site open is astonishing -- it just makes the charade transparent.
Renesys, the internet monitoring firm, calls these actions "unprecedented in Internet history."
For more on how Egypt shut down the Internet, check out our Twitter slideshow below.
Young people are upending the Middle East. They have both the numbers (approximately two-thirds of the Middle East is under 30) and the facility with the tools of 21st Century revolution (Twitter, Facebook, YouTube) to do so.
It was young people shouting "death to the dictator" from rooftops in Iran in 2009. It was young people who chased Ben Ami out of Tunisia. It is young people who are bravingtear gas and rubber bullets in Egypt. The threats keep coming, but they keep going -- and the whole thing is just getting bigger and spreading wider.
Asked about the uprisings at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Bill Clinton said it was a generation yearning for their place in the modern world. They want to have a say in their society, they want to shape their own destiny. This is a desire deep in the human condition.
Mohamed ElBaradei may well be the face of the opposition movement, but here in this snowy, sleepy Swiss hamlet, far away from the hot and smoky streets of Cairo, is the man who may have been the spark.
In his presentation at a faith community meeting here at the World Economic Forum, Amr Khaled said, "Arab and Muslim youth need to be listened to. No one listens to them. They have dreams. We need to bring out those dreams."
For decades it was extremist groups who understood young people best. It's not an accident that suicide bombers are in their teens and 20s. Al Qaeda and its allies target young people. They strike at that soft spot of identity, purpose and pride. They deliver their message in YouTube videos and sophisticated websites.
But Amr Khaled was unwilling to forfeit this rising generation of Muslims to the extremists. And he was unwilling to let their ugliness tarnish his faith. As the Muslim tradition says, "God is beautiful and loves beauty."
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Khaled started a website and invited young people to post their dreams. He put up pictures of Neil Armstrong reaching the moon, the then and now of Dubai, the rebuilding of Germany after the destruction of World War II. These are examples of dreams realized, he said.
Hundreds of thousands of Muslim youth sent Khaled their dreams.
"Love your religion," he told them. And once-secular Egyptian youth started to pray again.
"Build your society," Khaled told them. And thousands became involved in cleaning garbage from the streets of Cairo and starting rooftop gardens.
"Cooperate with each other, in your own society and across the world." Christians and Muslims in Egypt started doing joint volunteer projects and attended interfaith conferences Khaled organized.
Khaled is beating the extremists on their own territory: media. He is prolific -- television shows, YouTube videos, website posts, Tweets. But all the messages are really just one message. God made you beautiful. God made you powerful. God gave you dignity. God gave you stewardship over this His most precious Creation. Use your beauty, your power, your faith, your dignity to accomplish your responsibility. Be a dreamer. Be a builder. Change your life. Shape your society. Invent your destiny.
Before something happens in the world, it has to happen in your mind. You have to imagine your freedom before you fight for it. You have to believe in your own power to change things before you actually change anything.
What we are seeing now in the Middle East is a generation of young people who learned how to love themselves, believe in themselves, change themselves.
And now they are changing the world.
This piece was originally published on the Washington Post "Faith Divide."
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The probe into the 2004 killing of alleged Lashkar-e-Toiba operative Ishrat Jahan and three others courted controversy on Friday when one of the three members of the Special Investigation Team (SIT), appointed by the GujaratHigh Court, filed an affidavit alleging that the encounter may have been faked by Gujaratpolicemen.
Joint Commissioner of Police Satish Verma, in his 80-page affidavit in the High Court, also alleged that his other two colleagues in the SIT, Karnail Singh and Mohan Jha, were trying to derail the probe. Singh and Jha are also Jt CPs. While Singh is from Delhi, Jha belongs to the Gujarat cadre.
Joint Commissioner of Police Satish Verma, in his 80-page affidavit in the High Court, also alleged that his other two colleagues in the SIT, Karnail Singh and Mohan Jha, were trying to derail the probe. Singh and Jha are also Jt CPs. While Singh is from Delhi, Jha belongs to the Gujarat cadre.
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Verma claimed there was enough material available to suggest that the encounter may have been “staged” by police. He has asked for registration of an FIR against the officers involved.
According to Verma, he came to this inference after recording the statement of Head Constable Moti Talja Desai who was posted with the Ahmedabad City Detection of Crime Branch (DCB) when the “encounter” took place. He said he also turned to forensic evidence to back his claim.
Gujarat police had claimed that Mumbra girl Ishrat Jahan and three others — Javed Sheikh alias Pranesh Pillai and two Pakistanis Amjad Ali Rana and Zeeshan Johar — were Lashkar operatives involved in a plot to assassinate Chief Minister Narendra Modi. Their bullet-riddled bodies were found near Ahmedabad on June 15, 2004.
Verma claimed there was enough material available to suggest that the encounter may have been “staged” by police. He has asked for registration of an FIR against the officers involved.
According to Verma, he came to this inference after recording the statement of Head Constable Moti Talja Desai who was posted with the Ahmedabad City Detection of Crime Branch (DCB) when the “encounter” took place. He said he also turned to forensic evidence to back his claim.
Gujarat police had claimed that Mumbra girl Ishrat Jahan and three others — Javed Sheikh alias Pranesh Pillai and two Pakistanis Amjad Ali Rana and Zeeshan Johar — were Lashkar operatives involved in a plot to assassinate Chief Minister Narendra Modi. Their bullet-riddled bodies were found near Ahmedabad on June 15, 2004.
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D G Vanzara, key accused in the Sohrabuddin Sheikh killing case, was Deputy Commissioner of Police in the DCB then.
In 2009, an inquiry by Metropolitan Magistrate S P Tamang too concluded that the encounter in which Ishrat Jahan was killed had been staged by police.
“There are two possibilities in the case; one is that four people (who got) killed in the encounter had come to kill the Gujarat Chief Minister (Narendra Modi), and the other is that they were killed in cold blood by the police. There is a possibility of the second one (having taken place) irrespective of the first one,” Verma told the High Court.
D G Vanzara, key accused in the Sohrabuddin Sheikh killing case, was Deputy Commissioner of Police in the DCB then.
In 2009, an inquiry by Metropolitan Magistrate S P Tamang too concluded that the encounter in which Ishrat Jahan was killed had been staged by police.
“There are two possibilities in the case; one is that four people (who got) killed in the encounter had come to kill the Gujarat Chief Minister (Narendra Modi), and the other is that they were killed in cold blood by the police. There is a possibility of the second one (having taken place) irrespective of the first one,” Verma told the High Court.
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He submitted the affidavit in response to a petition moved by SIT chairman Karnail Singh for the appointment of an amicus curiae to assist the SIT.
The court today appointed advocate Yogesh Lakhani as amicus curiae in the case but Verma said that the decision to move the petition was not discussed with him and he did not support it.
He accused his colleagues of “obstructing” and “controlling” the investigation into the 2004 killing.
He submitted the affidavit in response to a petition moved by SIT chairman Karnail Singh for the appointment of an amicus curiae to assist the SIT.
The court today appointed advocate Yogesh Lakhani as amicus curiae in the case but Verma said that the decision to move the petition was not discussed with him and he did not support it.
He accused his colleagues of “obstructing” and “controlling” the investigation into the 2004 killing.
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Referring to the statement of Head Constable Desai, Verma, in his affidavit, stated: “This policeman had revealed before me that he and some other personnel of DCB, Ahmedabad City had indeed confined one person, stated to be a Pakistani, in the sample house of Arham Farm. He also stated that this person was brought to the scene of encounter and made to stand blindfolded across the road divider.”
“Furthermore, he had stated that the Indica car of the alleged terrorists was also there at the time, and that the police had fired on the Indica and the person near the road divider, killing them all,” Verma said.
Desai had complained that his statement was recorded by force. But Verma, in his affidavit, alleged that Jha was the person behind the “retraction”: “Mohan Jha reasonably appears to be connected with the exercise of obtaining the retraction and complaint of Moti Talja Desai, and it also appears that the applicant (Singh) and Mohan Jha then decided upon the tactic of sending this complaint covertly toGujarat High Court for furthering what could be nothing else but the motive of raising a doubt about the deponent’s (Verma’s) impartiality and integrity.”
Verma also had the statement of Arham Farm owner Raju Jeerawala recorded. He also put forward other forensic evidence to suggest that the encounter had been faked.
He stated that “scientific evidence goes against the FIR version lodged by DCB officials” at that time, that cartridge cases found at the scene did not match with either the weapons of the DCB officials or persons killed in the encounter.
“Though the FIR mentions an intelligence input received by the CP, there is no record of any intelligence received by him,” he said. “The illustrative evidence summarized in Section IV brings out the well-founded allegation of a fake encounter,” Verma stated in the affidavit.
4 years, 21 encounter deaths
* This is the third Gujarat police encounter to earn a “fake” tag — the other two cases relate to the killing of alleged gangster Sohrabuddin Sheikh and his aide Tulsiram Prajapati.
* In his 2009 report, Magistrate S P Tamang maintained that police faked the encounter in which Ishrat Jahan and three others were killed. Gujarat government protested the inquiry findings.
In response to a query in the Assembly, the government listed 21 “encounter details” between 2002 and 2006, including the 2004 killing of Ishrat Jahan. It was silent on the cases of Sohrabuddin Sheikh and Samir Khan Pathan.
* This is the break-up of the encounter deaths: Ahmedabad (7); Rajkot City (2); Rajkot Rural (1); Junagadh (1); Vadodara (1); Anand (2); Surat City (2); Surat Rural (1); Valsad (4). (Courtesy: The Indian Express)
Referring to the statement of Head Constable Desai, Verma, in his affidavit, stated: “This policeman had revealed before me that he and some other personnel of DCB, Ahmedabad City had indeed confined one person, stated to be a Pakistani, in the sample house of Arham Farm. He also stated that this person was brought to the scene of encounter and made to stand blindfolded across the road divider.”
“Furthermore, he had stated that the Indica car of the alleged terrorists was also there at the time, and that the police had fired on the Indica and the person near the road divider, killing them all,” Verma said.
Desai had complained that his statement was recorded by force. But Verma, in his affidavit, alleged that Jha was the person behind the “retraction”: “Mohan Jha reasonably appears to be connected with the exercise of obtaining the retraction and complaint of Moti Talja Desai, and it also appears that the applicant (Singh) and Mohan Jha then decided upon the tactic of sending this complaint covertly toGujarat High Court for furthering what could be nothing else but the motive of raising a doubt about the deponent’s (Verma’s) impartiality and integrity.”
Verma also had the statement of Arham Farm owner Raju Jeerawala recorded. He also put forward other forensic evidence to suggest that the encounter had been faked.
He stated that “scientific evidence goes against the FIR version lodged by DCB officials” at that time, that cartridge cases found at the scene did not match with either the weapons of the DCB officials or persons killed in the encounter.
“Though the FIR mentions an intelligence input received by the CP, there is no record of any intelligence received by him,” he said. “The illustrative evidence summarized in Section IV brings out the well-founded allegation of a fake encounter,” Verma stated in the affidavit.
4 years, 21 encounter deaths
* This is the third Gujarat police encounter to earn a “fake” tag — the other two cases relate to the killing of alleged gangster Sohrabuddin Sheikh and his aide Tulsiram Prajapati.
* In his 2009 report, Magistrate S P Tamang maintained that police faked the encounter in which Ishrat Jahan and three others were killed. Gujarat government protested the inquiry findings.
In response to a query in the Assembly, the government listed 21 “encounter details” between 2002 and 2006, including the 2004 killing of Ishrat Jahan. It was silent on the cases of Sohrabuddin Sheikh and Samir Khan Pathan.
* This is the break-up of the encounter deaths: Ahmedabad (7); Rajkot City (2); Rajkot Rural (1); Junagadh (1); Vadodara (1); Anand (2); Surat City (2); Surat Rural (1); Valsad (4). (Courtesy: The Indian Express)
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