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A call to arms! Atheists around the world must unite against tyranny.

Dear All,

I am writing to you from Pakistan. I wish to bring to your attention the fact that Muslims across the world are launching protests against the right to free speech and
having social networking websites banned in their countries.

The court in Lahore, Pakistan, issued a sentence today, banning Facebook for an indefinite period of time. The URL of the social networking site will be blocked by the
telecommunication authorities. This action was taken in response to
some 20 people protesting against Facebook outside the court.

This entire hue and cry is a response to a facebook page inviting people to submit drawings of Mohammad on the 20^th of May to challenge the sheer intolerance of
Muslims when it comes to bringing their religious beliefs under
scrutiny.

The implications of this action can be dire for atheists, free thinkers, non-Muslims and relatively more tolerant Muslims residing in these countries. Such ill-conceived
attempts at trying to appease and pander to the religious
sensitivities of Muslims can be utilized in future to curtail any
semblance of democratic rights that we did enjoy in the past. Today
it is facebook, tomorrow it could be who knows what.

I call for all atheists and free thinkers to rise up in arms against such despotic attempts to curtail the freedom of expression in countries, such as mine. We could use
any and all help that comes our way. Appeal to your media, your
governments to pressurize governments like mine into revoking such
undemocratic orders.

In solidarity

Younas Chowdhry

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Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Hidden in the crowd. on June 9, 2010 at 6:04am

i'm sorry but you're country might be the only one stupid enough to do that, if you wish to still use FB tho an proxy site will prove to be useful, like "www.hidemyass.com" or something

Permalink Reply by Younas Chowdhry on June 9, 2010 at 8:32am

Its ok. I dont take offense to it. they've lifted the ban now . I am aware of the proxies. This sets a dangerous precedent nevertheless and hence the call for support.

Regards

Younas

Permalink Reply by HazratNakhuda on June 10, 2010 at 4:55am

" rise up in arms against "

I am not sure i can support that. Here is how i see the AlQaeda "They have an idea" ... "your idea is different than theirs" ... "they bomb you"

if we go down that road then it will be like " We have an idea ", "Their Idea is different than our" "We bomb them".

We don't need to become them to beat them

Permalink Reply by Younas Chowdhry on June 10, 2010 at 6:46am

Actually, you misread what i say here. Ive used it strictly in a metaphorical sense. My usage of it doesnt necessarily imply we pick up weapons and go gung ho now, or do we? On the contrary, our ideas are our weapons and we can write them, propagate them, make as much noise about it as we possibly can. That is what i suggested here. I am sorry of you misconstrued it.

P.S. Dawkins uses it as well in a talk of his posted on youtube. Does he at any point request atheists to pick up assault rifles and start slaughtering all the theists of the world?

Regards

Younas

Permalink Reply by HazratNakhuda on June 10, 2010 at 6:52am

i agree with you on the make noise bit. A lot of times, and i am talking specific to pakistan, our mainstream media takes a stance which remains unquestioned, primarily becuase it feels it is inline with the sentiments of the population of the country. Our media giants tend to populist rather than popular.

Make no mistakes about it Media in Pakistan is the new opinion making power house. We need to find atheists/freethinkers in the media and get them to put an alternative point across.

Permalink Reply by Younas Chowdhry on June 10, 2010 at 6:58am

There are no disagreements there. In fact, i would go even so far as to suggest that the alleged populist rhetoric too reeks of reaction rather than some semblance of progressive inclinations one would find in a conventional populist rhetoric.

They operate upon a well thought out agenda, which is in line with the perpetuation of the status quo. But nevertheless, there is some ounce of hope. We do hear voices of reason, albeit insignificant, even within the media. We already do have alternative mediums (social media et al). We must start using it to our advantage.

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