Reports that Bassel Khartabil Has Been Executed in Syria | Hacker News Reader

Reports that Bassel Khartabil Has Been Executed in Syria

jimmywalesfoundation.org

62 pointsthiagooffm8 comments

TWo points. One, the campaign to raise awareness did very poorly. I had heard of Bassel's arrest around the time it first occurred; I had no idea there was a campaign to learn of his whereabouts or that he had disappeared. I would have been happy to support this campaign if I had been aware of its existence.

Two, moral appeals generally don't work. The western style of protest has become mere gesture: 'I would like for this to change, but will not interfere with the outcome in any way.' We are bombarded with moral appeals on a daily basis, and while signaling our agreement or support online can sometimes yield enough traffic for a commercial or voluntary activity, it has a pretty dismal record in bringing about political change.

> We are bombarded with moral appeals on a daily basis, and while signaling our agreement or support online can sometimes yield enough traffic for a commercial or voluntary activity, it has a pretty dismal record in bringing about political change.

Agreed. It seems as though no one who's relatively comfortable is willing to put any skin in the game (literally). We're sitting around with our thumbs up our collective arses wearing stickers of our preferred social justice brand while wondering why the world is hurtling more and more towards a dystopia-enthusiast's wet dream. It's too bad signalling our morals to everyone achieves jack shit.

I feel this should say 'murdered'.

It's only murdered when it's unlawful. This was death by government agents and lawful regardless of whether we agree with the law. This was an execution of someone that the government felt was in the way.

Can somebody clarify if he was executed by Syrian government?

My bet is that it wasn't or it would've been the first thing written.

The fact they don't explicitly say who did it, or who they think did it, or whom the "troubling news from Syria" say did it, makes me think they still want to somehow implicate the government - which makes this a despicable attempt to politicise this man's alleged death.

Al-Jazeera reports that the "widow says Bassel Khartabil (...) was killed by the Syrian government".

http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2017/08/bassel-khartabil-missi...

I can almost feel my blood boiling.

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