Transnational Thursday is a thread for people to discuss international news, foreign policy or international relations history. Feel free as well to drop in with coverage of countries you’re interested in, talk about ongoing dynamics like the wars in Israel or Ukraine, or even just whatever you’re reading.
- 3
- 3
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
https://edition.cnn.com/2024/10/02/business/singapore-iswaran-sentencing-corruption-intl-hnk/index.html
Transport Minister in Singapore got sentenced 12 months for receiving gifts (about 300k of stupid shit like Taylor Swift tickets) without declaring. The corruption charge was dropped by the prosecution, so the peanut gallery anticipated a sentencing of about six weeks, given the reputation of the defense lawyer and the anticipation of an upcoming election making the prospect of having a minister prosecuted be embarrassing to the ruling party.
The long sentence, over what the prosecution asked for, therefore comes as a surprise. The Corrupt Practices Investigation Bureau in Singapore does not fuck around, but the prosecution did ask for what was concluded to be a reasonable ask for an easy victory. In this boring country where things rarely happen, this public scalping is rather exciting, even if its more of a 1guard shave than last of the mohicans.
More options
Context Copy link
https://www.sinardaily.my/article/221335/focus/national/police-bust-sodomy-ring-children-taught-to-commit-sodomy-in-charity-homes-what-you-need-to-know#google_vignette
Islamic faith schools funded by successors of a banned islamic cult is found to have sexually abused hundreds of young boys under its care. Penetrative sodomy is common, and the children were taught to sodomize each other. Most of the children are offspring of polygamous marriages arranged by the cult as rewards for members. The financial power of the cult is speculated to be due to links with the religious enforcement board.
The embarrassment to the Malaysian muslim establishments are multifaceted: The governing party has failed to use its available tools, particularly the JAKIM and JAIS Islamic enforcement authorities, to clamp down on extant religious school abuses and it was the police that raided the GISBH facilities.
The opposition cannot capitalize on this failing of the government, because they are an explicitly islamosupremacist party and islam, being perfect, cannot possibly have done anything wrong, so the political hay is being made of the fact that the (muslim) government is oppressing muslims rather than the abuse having happened in the first place.
The muslim community is angry and embarrassed that such perversions occurred, because it is the filthy kuffar who indulge in perversions, not the pious muslim. (muslim sex offense rate is... something not for this thread)
The only reason GISBH was actually brought to public attention is that it is a banned cult. There are other madrasas with horrific sexual abuses as well, but lack the cult management. There is a potential CW effortpost on Islamic cults in Southeast Asia and their corrosive effect on Islamic authorities, but this Transnational Thread is not the place for such a post.
More options
Context Copy link
In several of my posts over the last couple of years, I've alluded to a piece of legislation making its way through government in Ireland. The Criminal Justice (Incitement to Violence or Hatred and Hate Offences) Bill 2022 was an extremely sweeping and draconian piece of legislation which would make it a criminal offense to be in possession of a piece of media deemed to be offensive to a group defined by a protected characteristic, and would enable police officers to request search warrants for all of your electronic devices if they believed you were in possession of such a document. In theory, this meant that if your boomer uncle sent an edgy meme to the family group chat, everyone in the group chat could be guilty of a criminal offense, and would be forced to disclose the PINs and passwords for all of their electronic devices to the police. This bill was poised to turn Ireland into the UK, in which hundreds of people are jailed every year for sharing edgy memes or making tasteless jokes on Facebook. The bill passed in the Dáil (the lower house) in April of last year despite a mere 40% of the public being in favour and public criticism from no less than Elon Musk, but has stalled in the Seanad (upper house) since June of last year, well over a year ago.
What a delight the other day to find out that the bill has been officially shelved, although in an effort to save face our Minister of Justice promises that she'll still be pushing for hate crime legislation (so if a crime is determined to have been motivated by prejudice on the basis of protected characteristics, that will be considered an aggravating factor). I always wondered why the bill had stalled for so long in the Seanad: perhaps senators were unwilling to rubber-stamp it but also fearful of what might happen if they officially vetoed it. I suspect the recent shelving is part of the government's last-ditch effort to course-correct before the general election: after this year's earlier embarrassment of a referendum on International Women's Day which was rejected in a landslide, the Fine Gael-led government must now be acutely aware that this woke shit will not fly with the median voter (possibly not even with wealthy urban Irish voters either). Perhaps another possible sign of wokeness in retreat?
More options
Context Copy link