Raja Petra was sentenced to two years jail under Malaysia's draconian internal security act (ISA).
There is enough anecdotal evidence, such as that above, to strongly suggest that the harassment and persecution of social networkers -" be they bloggers, or users of Facebook, My Space, Twitter, or other media -" is increasing exponentially abroad as it is here at home. And this trendline is unlikely to reverse course any time soon.
If we had any doubts, they should have been quelled by the way social media told us all we'd ever need to know about the Iranian uprising, with citizen journalists taking to the streets following that country's fraudulent election.
On the side of the angels in all these any many more countries is a phalanx of informed, articulate, smart, and very courageous human rights groups. They, like those they represent, work under the most miserable conditions -" subject to unannounced raids on their offices, arrests without warrants, beatings at police stations, and all the other nefarious tools that authoritarian leaders have learned to use to well.
So now come the inevitable questions: Does the United States, by virtue of its place among nations and what we like to think of as our advanced morality, have an obligation to try to make things better? And, if so, what actions can we take that won't do more harm than good to human rights defenders on the ground? People whose only crime is speaking out?
Well, thankfully, we've given up regime change and preemptive invasions. That was more a pragmatic than an ideological decision: those strategies simply didn't work.
We've also pretty much given up on running so-called pro-democracy programs in these countries. The local organizations that participate with us in these programs often become the targets of government harassment; sometimes the organizations themselves ask us not to designate them for funds, lest they be accused by their government of illegally taking foreign grants or, worse yet, being under U.S. control. As Shirin Ebadi, the Iranian Nobel laureate said, "Being seen to take program money from the U.S. is perceived as our being in the pockets of the Americans."
Still, there are a few things we can do, although they will actually satisfy no one.
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