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Opensource contributor Bassel Khartabil detained in Syria. Needs help

184 points by BjornW 14y ago

Bassel Bassel Khartabil - an open source software contributor to projects such as Creative Commons & Mozilla has been unjustly detained for nearly four months without trial or any legal charges being brought against him. Read more & sign the support letter: http://freebassel.org/ ps: Help get this on the frontpage of HackerNews

rejon 14y ago
Please sign the letter and help the cause. We have more news to release as well in the coming days!
yhud 14y ago
unjustly how?
- BjornW 14y ago
  Please refrain yourself from making comments that can be read as plain trolling. Feel free to ask questions or comment with arguments instead of these oneliners.
  - MaleKitten 14y ago
    "ps: Help get this on the frontpage of HackerNews" Actually, I think you bear the burden of proof here by asking to get this to the front page. Asking for evidence and reasoning is hardly trolling.
    - BjornW 14y ago
      I was referring to yhud previous comment on being naive. Asking questions such as yours is indeed not trolling and apologize for the confusion. As for your question there is as far as we know little news coming from Syria and rejon who is commenting here as well is on the case to get more info.
      - derrida 14y ago
        MaleKitten, yhud said both "you are speaking about 'legal charge' and about a country like Syria at the same time ... How naive are you?" and "unjustly how?".
- rejon 14y ago
  No trial, even though the constitution says must have a trial within 60 days. He has been held for four months. There is no announcements or lawyers allowed access to him, so there is no information about why he is there whatsoever, and no journalists allowed in the country so there is very very little information about his state.
- kamaal 14y ago
  This is how.. >>detained for nearly four months without trial or any legal charges being brought against him. How can you hold somebody under detention without charges on him? This is like saying, he is innocent so far but yet needs to remain in Jail. Picking up some one throwing them in Jail, without saying for what mistake of theirs. And hoping them to stay like that indefinitely is just pure oppression.
yhud 14y ago
you are speaking about "legal charge" and about a country like Syria at the same time ... How naive are you?
- rejon 14y ago
  Very naive, but he is our best friend, so what would you do for your best friend?
derrida 14y ago
I wish him freedom, and I wish his good friends courage in this fight. Best of luck.
sandGorgon 14y ago
Just a suggestion - why do you not work with Avaaz.org A lot of people (like me) would be a little worried at sharing name and email addresses to an unknown site(no offence). In fact, it would have been better if you had linked to https://creativecommons.org/weblog/entry/33119 https://creativecommons.org/weblog/entry/33119 which vouches for http://freebassel.org/ http://freebassel.org/ Creative Commons supports efforts to obtain the release of Bassel Safadi, a valuable contributor to and leader in the technology community. Bassel’s expertise and focus across all aspects of his work has been in support of the development of publicly available, free, open source computer software code and technology. He pursues this not only through his valuable volunteer efforts in support of Creative Commons, but in all of his work in the technology field. Through his efforts, the quality and availability of freely available and open technology is improved and technology is advanced.
- zalew 14y ago
  Does Avaaz have any success stories? By success I mean freeing a dissident or sth. All their 'successes' I read of is 'raised appeal', 'collected xxxxxx signatures', blah blah, even the ones that actually resulted in some action are a bit controversial when it comes to counting their role in the whole process (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avaaz https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avaaz) and look more like correlation than causation. They even credit themselves for Libya, ridiculous. I subscribed some time ago to their newsletter, the ammount of campaigns 'sign here, click there' made me impossible to believe they actually do anything besides being loud. Clicktivism.
  - sandGorgon 14y ago
    Possibly (however, there's a lot of partially verified activism in Syria quoted here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avaaz#2012 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avaaz#2012). However, some aspects of them evokes a bit of trust: https://secure.avaaz.org/en/avaaz_expenses_and_financial_information/ https://secure.avaaz.org/en/avaaz_expenses_and_financial_inf... The question is - how is having a custom website any different ? From an end user (me) point of view, I trust Avaaz as a platform to reasonably not mess with my data.
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calbear81 14y ago
I don't know Bassel but the fact that he's been detained secretly in Syria suggests that the government thinks he's involved somehow with he uprising/democracy movement. I don't think signature campaigns will do any good since not even pressure from the US and Turkey has slowed down the bloodshed so do we really think they will care about a bunch of virtual signatures collected online? There's a few more viable options that should be considered: 1) Leverage someone who has influence with the Syrian government to take up the cause. Given Bassel has been an open source contributor, maybe look at which tech companies are still contracted by the Syrian government and try to get them to lend a voice of support. Make sure to play up the positive PR that releasing Bassel will have on improving Syria's image. 2) Stop collecting signatures and start collecting money to work the back channels. Let's be honest here, corruption is rife (high corruption index on Transparency International study) and the situation pretty chaotic, if you really want to free Bassel, consider a pragmatic approach.
- GiraffeNecktie 14y ago
  Or do what Amnesty International does, and send polite but urgent letters of concern to persons of authority and influence including ambassadors (UN, US etc) and to Basher Assad himself. People are likely to be better treated if the authorities know that they are the focus of international attention (conversely it totally sucks for the thousands of anonymous people being tortured today in Syrian jails).
  - tomjen3 14y ago
    Or cut the middle man and go directly to Amnesty. They might consider him for their letter campaign (they already have the lists of recipients and have been known to send so many letters that they can cover a jail cell).
ommunist 14y ago
There is war down there in Syria. When all covert ops yankees and poms will go home, the war will stop. And people of Bassel sort will be free again. Right now I only see this campaign as promotion of anti-Assad moods in digital communities. Dirty game. You better campaign for 'Yankee go home from Syria', before starting anything like that. See this one 4 hrs ago - http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/jul/03/military-intervention-syria-disastrous-people http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/jul/03/military...

184 points by BjornW 14y ago

rejon 14y ago

Please sign the letter and help the cause. We have more news to release as well in the coming days!

yhud 14y ago

unjustly how?

BjornW 14y ago
Please refrain yourself from making comments that can be read as plain trolling. Feel free to ask questions or comment with arguments instead of these oneliners.
- MaleKitten 14y ago
  "ps: Help get this on the frontpage of HackerNews" Actually, I think you bear the burden of proof here by asking to get this to the front page. Asking for evidence and reasoning is hardly trolling.
  - BjornW 14y ago
    I was referring to yhud previous comment on being naive. Asking questions such as yours is indeed not trolling and apologize for the confusion. As for your question there is as far as we know little news coming from Syria and rejon who is commenting here as well is on the case to get more info.
    - derrida 14y ago
      MaleKitten, yhud said both "you are speaking about 'legal charge' and about a country like Syria at the same time ... How naive are you?" and "unjustly how?".
rejon 14y ago
No trial, even though the constitution says must have a trial within 60 days. He has been held for four months. There is no announcements or lawyers allowed access to him, so there is no information about why he is there whatsoever, and no journalists allowed in the country so there is very very little information about his state.
kamaal 14y ago
This is how.. >>detained for nearly four months without trial or any legal charges being brought against him. How can you hold somebody under detention without charges on him? This is like saying, he is innocent so far but yet needs to remain in Jail. Picking up some one throwing them in Jail, without saying for what mistake of theirs. And hoping them to stay like that indefinitely is just pure oppression.

yhud 14y ago

you are speaking about "legal charge" and about a country like Syria at the same time ... How naive are you?

rejon 14y ago
Very naive, but he is our best friend, so what would you do for your best friend?

derrida 14y ago

I wish him freedom, and I wish his good friends courage in this fight. Best of luck.

sandGorgon 14y ago

Just a suggestion - why do you not work with Avaaz.org A lot of people (like me) would be a little worried at sharing name and email addresses to an unknown site(no offence). In fact, it would have been better if you had linked to https://creativecommons.org/weblog/entry/33119 https://creativecommons.org/weblog/entry/33119 which vouches for http://freebassel.org/ http://freebassel.org/ Creative Commons supports efforts to obtain the release of Bassel Safadi, a valuable contributor to and leader in the technology community. Bassel’s expertise and focus across all aspects of his work has been in support of the development of publicly available, free, open source computer software code and technology. He pursues this not only through his valuable volunteer efforts in support of Creative Commons, but in all of his work in the technology field. Through his efforts, the quality and availability of freely available and open technology is improved and technology is advanced.

zalew 14y ago
Does Avaaz have any success stories? By success I mean freeing a dissident or sth. All their 'successes' I read of is 'raised appeal', 'collected xxxxxx signatures', blah blah, even the ones that actually resulted in some action are a bit controversial when it comes to counting their role in the whole process (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avaaz https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avaaz) and look more like correlation than causation. They even credit themselves for Libya, ridiculous. I subscribed some time ago to their newsletter, the ammount of campaigns 'sign here, click there' made me impossible to believe they actually do anything besides being loud. Clicktivism.
- sandGorgon 14y ago
  Possibly (however, there's a lot of partially verified activism in Syria quoted here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avaaz#2012 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avaaz#2012). However, some aspects of them evokes a bit of trust: https://secure.avaaz.org/en/avaaz_expenses_and_financial_information/ https://secure.avaaz.org/en/avaaz_expenses_and_financial_inf... The question is - how is having a custom website any different ? From an end user (me) point of view, I trust Avaaz as a platform to reasonably not mess with my data.

deleted 14y ago

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deleted 14y ago

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calbear81 14y ago

I don't know Bassel but the fact that he's been detained secretly in Syria suggests that the government thinks he's involved somehow with he uprising/democracy movement. I don't think signature campaigns will do any good since not even pressure from the US and Turkey has slowed down the bloodshed so do we really think they will care about a bunch of virtual signatures collected online? There's a few more viable options that should be considered: 1) Leverage someone who has influence with the Syrian government to take up the cause. Given Bassel has been an open source contributor, maybe look at which tech companies are still contracted by the Syrian government and try to get them to lend a voice of support. Make sure to play up the positive PR that releasing Bassel will have on improving Syria's image. 2) Stop collecting signatures and start collecting money to work the back channels. Let's be honest here, corruption is rife (high corruption index on Transparency International study) and the situation pretty chaotic, if you really want to free Bassel, consider a pragmatic approach.

GiraffeNecktie 14y ago
Or do what Amnesty International does, and send polite but urgent letters of concern to persons of authority and influence including ambassadors (UN, US etc) and to Basher Assad himself. People are likely to be better treated if the authorities know that they are the focus of international attention (conversely it totally sucks for the thousands of anonymous people being tortured today in Syrian jails).
- tomjen3 14y ago
  Or cut the middle man and go directly to Amnesty. They might consider him for their letter campaign (they already have the lists of recipients and have been known to send so many letters that they can cover a jail cell).

ommunist 14y ago

There is war down there in Syria. When all covert ops yankees and poms will go home, the war will stop. And people of Bassel sort will be free again. Right now I only see this campaign as promotion of anti-Assad moods in digital communities. Dirty game. You better campaign for 'Yankee go home from Syria', before starting anything like that. See this one 4 hrs ago - http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/jul/03/military-intervention-syria-disastrous-people http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/jul/03/military...