Facebook's Censorship in Germany

by Stefan Frank • April 29, 2018 at 5:00 am

Marlene Weise was banned from Facebook for 30 days, for posting a set of two pictures: One showed the Iranian women's national volleyball team from the 1970s, wearing t-shirts and shorts; the other, the current Iranian team, wearing hijabs and clothes that cover arms and legs.
"Does a law- and contract-abiding user have to acquiesce to companies like Facebook or Twitter deleting his content or banning him for it? The ruling is an important stage victory for the freedom of speech." — Joachim Nikolaus Steinhöfel, attorney and anti-censorship activist.

Joachim Steinhöfel (right) is a lawyer, journalist and anti-censorship activist. He runs a website where he documents cases in which Facebook deleted content or banned users. (Steinhöfel image source: Hilmaarr/Wikimedia Commons)

A court in Berlin has issued a temporary restraining order against Facebook. Under the threat of a fine of 250,000 euros (roughly $300,000 USD) or a jail term, Facebook was obliged to restore a user's comment that it had deleted. Moreover, the ruling prohibited the company from banning the user because of this comment.

This is the first time a German court has dealt with the consequences of Germany's internet censorship law, which came into effect on October 1, 2017. The law stipulates that social media companies have to delete or block "apparent" criminal offenses, such as libel, slander, defamation or incitement, within 24 hours of receipt of a user complaint.

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Has Pope Francis Read the Quran?

by A. Z. Mohamed • April 29, 2018 at 4:30 am

Pope Francis fails to differentiate between violence motivated by religious faith and violence committed by followers of all religions, but motivated by reasons having nothing to do with religion.
Among the main duties of the leader of the worldwide Catholic Church is to protect the Church's followers, be empathic and understanding of their needs, and not deceive them into a condition of subjugation.

Pope Francis attends the Stations of the Cross at the Colosseum on March 30, 2018 in Rome, Italy. (Photo by Franco Origlia/Getty Images)

In his prayer during the Good Friday, Via Crucis ("Way of the Cross"), at the Colosseum in Rome, Pope Francis said that for many reasons, Christians ought to express shame for choosing power and money over God, and for the actions of those who are leaving future generations "a world shattered by divisions and wars, a world devoured by selfishness."

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Lessons of the Afgantsy for the Syrians

by Amir Taheri • April 29, 2018 at 4:00 am

Ahmad Shah Massoud demonstrated his genius for analysis by insisting that a war never ends by one side declaring victory but by one side admitting defeat.
The Soviet experience in Afghanistan is not the sole example of winning a war in military terms but losing it politically.
The French in 1962 in Algeria and the Americans in Vietnam in 1974 -- in both cases, the loser lost because it pursued an impossible political agenda: trying to impose minority rule on an unwilling majority.

Pictured: A Soviet military unit in 1989, prior to their withdrawal from Afghanistan. (Image source: RIA Novosti/A. Solomonov/Wikimedia Commons)

"With the defeat of terrorist forces, the situation in (...) is stabilized, the legitimate government is in control of the country."

Sounds familiar? No surprise.

For this is the mantra that Russian propagandists keep repeating with reference to Syria: Assad has won!

The above statement, however, was made in 1983 about Afghanistan, three years after the Red Army had invaded to prevent the fall of the "legitimate government" dominated by local Communists.

Since, contrary to the adage, history doesn't repeat itself, one should not conclude that Syria today is what Afghanistan was decades ago.

Afghanistan is almost three times larger than Syria and much more difficult terrain for military operations. At the time of the Soviet invasion, Afghanistan had the same size of population as Syria today, with the difference that anti-Communist forces could draw on a vast demographic reservoir in Pashtun-majority parts of Pakistan.

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