I just can't stop posting about this story because it's just so interesting to me. Everyone's reaction to Hamza Kashgari's tweets was so explosive that it's literally being recorded everywhere. There are petitions to have him killed, petitions to spare his life. Over the course of a few tweets, Kashgari's life was literally turned upside down. I've found videos on youtube - unfortunately they're entirely in Arabic - explaining how good a guy Kashgari is. From what I've gather from these videos, there are enough people out in Saudi Arabia willing to risk slandering their government for this guy.
Pretty intense.
And now for the real update.
For a few years now, the overwhelming census is that social media is a good thing. It connected people during the Egyptian uprisings and helped organize the 2009 Tehran demonstrators (class reference! we just finished watching "Our Summer in Tehran" and "A Death in Tehran." both are very interesting and show two very different sides to Iran. check them out!). But here, with Hamza Kashgari, it's very obvious that social media is being used for "bad." As I've mentioned in other posts, almost immediately after his tweets about the Prophet Muhammad were posted, there was an onslaught of horrible, hateful responses.
Here's a video about one of the more negative responses to Kashgari's tweets (subtitled this time):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s9kAVlnGMTU
There are so many online petitons calling for his death that it's impossible to keep up. As you can hopefully see in the attached video, people are outraged and devastated over Kashgari's actions. They are actually moved to tears.
Differently, oppositely, I can't really think of an appropriate transistion, ANYWAY, from Kashgari's immediate arrest, groups declaring his innocence and demanding his freedom. A facebook group created in response - the "Save Hamza Kashgari" group - already has 8000 likes and is still climbing. As great as the negative response was, there is an equally strong force that doesn't agree with the way this situation is being handled.
Hussein Ibish, one of the most respected secular Arab scholars and a Senior Research Fellow at the Washington-based American Task Force on Palestine, said that he believed "Kashgari won't be executed due to the mounting public pressure on the authorities." However, even if this is the case, he will still remain in jail for a while, much longer than his crime requires.
One thing that is very clear after learning more about Kashgari's case? Reppressive governments will and are able to use social media to their own advantages, be it good or bad. More comparisons with China? They're so repressive that there's no way anyone could even tweet anything even remotely offensive about ANYONE. And in America, tweets like these happen. People freak out, but I have yet to see anything even near this extent.
Again, we see how disproportionate everyone's reactions are to this scenario. There are thousands of people calling for his death, and another thousand of people calling for his release. The responses to his tweets is amazing. And disturbing. I've found so many blogs and tweets and videos about Kashgari it's actually insane. There are petitions connecting people in Saudi Arabia to people here in the U.S. Despite the awfulness of the whole ordeal, the amount of different social medias being used to either worsen or help the situation is kinda awesome. Youtube, twitter, facebook, etc. All are being used because of this one guy. I'm still thinking that in this case censorship might've been a good thing. Hamza Kashgari wouldn't be in jail if it had been in place.
Just a little something to chew on.
Although I'm fairly certain Saudi Arabia will start monitoring the posts a little more closely now.
This is Leslie, signing off for the night. Another post will be coming at you later this week!
@see_you_sLATER
please, comment and link to our blog! send us any sources you may find about Hamza Kashgari, censorship, or the middle east! we'd love to read about it!
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