The mysterious case of Hamza Kashgari

21 Feb 12 | Asia and Pacific, Middle East and North Africa, News and features

In deporting Saudi journalist Hamza Kashgari for his blasphemous tweets, the Malaysian government acted in its own interests and prioritised diplomacy, even if it might ultimately cost the columnist his life, argues Malik Imtiaz Sarwar

A version of this piece was first published in The Edge on 18 February

Hamza Kashgari TwitterOn 12 February Malaysia deported a young Saudi journalist named Hamza Kashgari where he is to face charges of blasphemy, an offence that carries the death sentence.

Kashgari fled Saudi Arabia after a controversy erupted after he used to social network Twitter to imagine a conversation with the Prophet Mohammed. Kashgari apologised and deleted the tweets in the hope that this would calm the situation. His efforts were insufficient and a directive was issued for his arrest for blasphemy. Kashgari fled the country, he hoped to secure political asylum in New Zealand but was arrested in Kuala Lumpur while in transit.

It seems that the Malaysian authorities would have rather kept the arrest and deportation off the radar. However, the news began to spread. The authorities began trying to justify themselves and their intended actions. It was suggested that the arrest was part of an Interpol initiative, though Interpol denied any knowledge of the matter.  Attempts were then made to characterise the affair as being part of an extradition exercise but Malaysia does not have an extradition treaty with Saudi Arabia.

Lawyers were appointed and began efforts to meet their client and to secure his release. They appear to have been given the run-around or kept in the dark about the fact that the authorities had already unilaterally decided to return Kashgari to Saudi Arabia. The procuring of an injunction from a High Court judge on Sunday to temporarily restrain the deportation came to nought; Kashgari had been deported earlier that morning despite awareness of the intended legal challenge.

One cannot help but question the manner in which the Malaysian authorities conducted themselves. Malaysia was under no legal obligation to return the journalist to Saudi Arabia and the two countries are not bound by an extradition treaty, meaning what Kashgari has done in Saudi Arabia is not of relevance in Malaysia. Kashgari had not committed any offence in Malaysia and had entered the country on a valid travel document. He was not intending to stay in Malaysia; his final port of call was New Zealand.

There is a more fundamental question: what was Kasghari arrested for? That has not been made clear by the authorities; all they have said is that he is wanted in Saudi Arabia. Under Malaysian law a person is guaranteed life and liberty and can only be arrested for having committed a crime. Kashgari did not commit a crime here, he was entitled to contest the legality of his arrest. This is why his lawyers ultimately filed a habeas corpus application.

The situation is ironic. The Home Minister has attempted to justify the deportation as an extradition. But were this to be the case, the person sought to be extradited would be entitled to challenge the validity of the extradition order. Those who have been following the extradition proceedings concerning Julian Assange would have seen how aggressively he has opposed extradition. In the same way, General Augustus Pinochet had fought his extradition to Spain. In such cases it is open to the person sought to be extradited to show that were he to be extradited, he would face consequences that were harsher than those permitted in the deporting country.

Where Kashgari is concerned, this was clearly the case. He is facing a death sentence for having done something that would either not have been an offence in Malaysia or would not have carried a death sentence.

The very real possiblity of Kashgari being sentenced to death has been studiously avoided by the Malaysian authorities. They take the position that this is an internal Saudi matter. Curiously, the Home Minister has gone on to say that Malaysia is not to be seen as a haven for terrorists; the offence Hamza is said to have committed does not concern an act of terrorism.

And underlying all of this is the fact that the Malaysian authorities did not have to intervene at all. Kashgari could have been left to take his flight to New Zealand and the problem would have been New Zealand’s.

All of this marshals into one inescapable conclusion. The Malaysian government acted only in its own interests and chose to prioritise diplomatic expediency over the lawful rights of Hamza Kashgari, even though this may ultimately cost the columnist his life. In doing so, the government acted in complete defiance of legal obligations it was under.

I am not alone in this view. The National Human Rights Commission (SUHAKAM) has condemned the authorities for having acted as they did.

For all its talk about moderation,  progress and commitment to the fundamentals of the international human rights framework, it is regrettable that the Malaysian government appears to be willing to uphold human rights only where it is politically convenient to do so. Put more plainly, it just does not seem to care.

Were it otherwise, Hamza Kashgari would have had his day in court.

Malik Imtiaz Sarwar is a practising lawyer and the president of the Malaysian National Human Rights Society. He tweets at @malikimitiaz

Mexican politicians embrace social media

17 Feb 12 | Americas, Mexico

Mexican politicians are using social networks in sleight of hand similar to the ones they used in elections before the age of technology, say critics.  Instead of paying voters to show up for the vote, or stuffing boxes — known practices in previous mid-term or presidential elections —  today’s savvy campaign managers are helping their candidates swell up their numbers of Twitter followers and Facebook “likes”.

“They are doing online what they used to do offline,” according to Maria Elena Meneses, a media expert and professor at the Tecnologico de Monterrey who has studied elections and the Internet.

The campaign of ruling party presidential candidate Josefina Vasquez Mota drew much criticism after it  allegedly used an internet bot to create a trending topic during recent elections to select the presidential candidate for the  ruling Partido de Accion Nacional. News magazine Procesoreported that news sites that had measured the growth of the Vasquez Mota’s followers could determine how many of them were obtained through the bots.

Despite this criticism, Vasquez Mota seems to have one of the best online media teams. Her approach is similar to that used by US President Barak Obama in his 2008 presidential elections. The team’s use of various hashtags to trigger a trending topic, including the hashtag  #HoyganaJosefina, which means “today Josefina wins”, helped expand her followers list by 31,000 in only a few hours in late January during her party’s  internal election process (detractors say this is where the campaign used bots). The candidate’s Facebook page also has a lot of young followers.

Meneses says it is estimated that 15 million Internet users in Mexico are between the ages of 18 and 34.  The young vote will be the more difficult to harness in the next presidential elections in July: 34 million new voters who turned 18 between 2006 and this year will be voting this presidential election.

But the presidential campaigns have a wooden Internet presence.  Enrique Peña Nieto,  the presidential candidate for the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), whose party ruled Mexico for 70 years until 2000, uses YouTube, but, Meneses says, not in a way that would attract young voters.  “They only tape their campaign presentations.  There is no give and take with the audience, which is what young voters want,” she says.

Meneses says none of the three presidential candidates for the three major parties — the PAN, the PRI and the left of center Partido Revolucionario Democratico, (PRD) — are using social media effectively to reach and communicate with common citizens. “They could use those sites to respond to uncomfortable questions,” she insists.

Malaysia: Saudi writer arrested for blasphemy over Mohammed tweets

10 Feb 12 | Index Index, minipost

A Saudi journalist was arrested in Malaysia on Wednesday night after a request by Interpol on behalf of Saudi authorities. Hamza Kashgari tweeted a mock conversation between himself and the prophet Mohammed last week, and fled the kingdom after he received thousands of death threats. Kashgari was en route to New Zealand when he was arrested. Saudi Arabia is seeking his extradition in order to try him for blasphemy.

Twitter joke trial "a steamroller to crack a very small nut"

08 Feb 12 | Uncategorized

The “twitter joke trial” reached the appeal court today, with the lawyer for accountant Paul Chambers arguing that his conviction for sending a “menacing” tweet was “a steamroller to crack a very small nut”.

Chambers, 28, is appealing his conviction for sending a joke tweet in early 2010 claiming that he would blow Robin Hood airport “sky high” if his planned trip to Northern Ireland to visit his now-fiancee was affected by weather conditions.

Ben Emmerson QC, acting for Chambers, said that Chambers’s conviction did not make sense either as punishment or deterrent.

Emmerson told the court “A message intended as a joke, in a context where there is no public order threat where those who read it did not see it as a credible threat should not be an offence.”

Robert Smith QC, acting for the Crown Prosecution Service, said that the tweet had not been seen as a joke by airport staff.

He added that the message contained no clue of the circumstances leading to the “menacing” tweet, and that the airport and police could not have known it was a joke until Chambers had been arrested and questioned.

The CPS argued that despite the fact that Chambers was being punished for being foolish, it was nonetheless important that there should be a deterrent to the sending of potentially threatening messages.

The appeal was heard before a capacity audience at the Royal Courts of Justice, including Father Ted and Ladykillers writer Graham Linehan (who has written about the case for Index) and “Pub Landlord” comic Al Murray.

A judgment is expected before Easter.