Software developer and free speech activist Bassel Khartabil executed in Syria | Hacker News Reader

Software developer and free speech activist Bassel Khartabil executed in Syria

bbc.com

173 pointscarlosrg36 comments

Here's what looks to be his main project, which was digitally recreating parts of the ancient city of Palmyra. Parts of the ruins were being destroyed by ISIL in 2015-2016 (from what I can tell?), but it sounds like that's stopped?

http://www.newpalmyra.org/

Otherwise, can anyone find more of his digital ghost? I looked for a GH but didn't find one.

The site itself is on GH[1], but I don't see commits from him, at least, not obviously. His death is terribly tragic, always grim to see nation-states killing their best and brightest.

1: https://github.com/newpalmyra

AFAIK (friend of a friend) most of that work was offline, some of it recovered from hard drives etc after his detainment, and restarted on GitHub from that. His account used for some other projects was https://github.com/bassel

Neat, but there's no activity from that account.

Hmm, not sure why they aren't showing from the account timeline thing, but some visible from https://github.com/search?q=author%3Abassel&type=Commits&utf... ... probably more under email addresses not associated with the account or off-GitHub.

> But he was moved from the prison to an unknown destination in October 2015, and supporters had until now held out hope he might be alive.

There should be a website for those activists and people executed for unjust reasons as a memorial so that people can remember and pay their respects, this should not be forgotten.

As well RIP Bassel.

As opposed to those people who are executed for just reasons? Who decides?

Its better to not execute people for reasons unknown, if you can't even decide if the person was justly or unjustly executed, that is probably enough information.

Moreover, I don't personally agree with capital punishment.

I would add to this, people who are justifiably executed (at least "justifiably" in the era they existed) but for whom later evidence emerges which exonerates them

Very sad. I first read about Khartabil in 2015 (the year he probably died, we now know), because of his work to digitally preserve Syrian historical sites:

http://www.bostonmagazine.com/arts-entertainment/blog/2015/1...

This makes me so sad and angry at the same time. It shows clearly how fucked up humans can be.

The latest round of reckless 'interventions' in the middle east from Iraq to Libya to now Syria have left hundreds of thousands dead, destroyed entire countries and societies with them, and left millions of lives in disarray.

Perhaps for those who care about humanity the time to be angry and sad at other human beings has long past and it's time to get angry at people closer to home orchestrating these violent aggressive self serving actions for nearly 2 decades now.

This is wholly offtopic in a thread about Bassel Khartabil , who has never been "orchestrating these violent aggressive self serving actions"

This is what happens when you base actions against others on beliefs (of harm, of heresy, of treason, etc.) instead of on evidence (of harm, or of secular ethical violations)

"secular" violations are always based on a shared moral code, no different than religions

> "secular" violations are always based on a shared moral code, no different than religions

The difference is whether citizens acknowledge the fact that morals are man made or not. All morals are man made, just like religions.

Using a "divine" authority to deny others the right to contest morals is what separate religion from secularism.

I don't know about that. On the news, from time to time I see groups of secular people who are trying really hard to deny others the right to contest the secular group's morals...

http://www.ushistory.org/declaration/document/

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, "

Sam Harris has made a fairly strong argument that ethics are determinable by science

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Moral_Landscape

Oh my god. That's terrible. This shocked me more than I can really say. Definitely like...that could be me. It's actually really frightening when you look at the kinds of software that some regimes consider subversive. You don't actually have to be an activist in some parts of the world to get in trouble for writing software.

This guy could have been any of us. It hit me in the stomach due to that, as well.

Maybe they killed him for some other reason, but what, exactly , did he do that ticked the authorities off? The article doesn't say.

Recreating the ancient city of Palmyra doesn't seem like something that would engender anger...?

65k+ people have been disappeared in Syria, and it's common to not know why, one article about that which also mentions Bassel's wife https://www.theguardian.com/global-development-professionals...

In part, it's a racket https://www.amnesty.org.uk/press-releases/syria-government-u...

For perspective, that's roughly 1/3 of 1% of Syria's population. I can't imagine what life would be like in the western world if 1 out of every 300 people I knew went missing.

They are destroying culture on purpose. It's false idols or something, and he is recreating them. Any action against any Islam idea is dangerous

This was not at the hands of ISIS, but the 'official' Syrian government. Equally scummy, but not generally a group with any interest in destroying historical landmarks for religious reasons.

I understand this. In a place with a lot of Muslims he will not get much love by trying to undo damage done by Muslim extremist.

edit: Not government, just a lot of people with some authority disregarded his life and let him die. In the time of slavery, not everyone hated salves, nobody cared enough if one of them was falsely accused and executed. And this happens a lot, in Muslim countries, mob will decide to stone women, one cop will decide to throw a gay man from the roof, and nobody care enough to lift a finger about it. Not much people will care about a guy who tried to preserve Syrian culture

Ignorant hatemongering is not welcome on HN.

I ment it's considered dicatorship, and it is nonsense that any official country would even talk to Assad. I do not believe he is secular dictator, and he is supporting what everyone calls 'terrorists' and they have no value in human life. Maybe I am ignorant, sorry

Half of world leaders is "Trump like", hate and fear, and they got their supporters. Putin have his true supporters, Assad have, Ukrainian president have a lot of supporters and he said a lot of lies. But for some reason untill Trump won you never understand how much of such people exists. And I am not remotely anti Trump or anti Assad, just consider how much fringe radical groups support Trump, and judging from that I assume people like that are empowered in Syria and Ukraine, maybe I am ignorant, I am judging from the far

What's up with the scare quotes around "official?" Is there another Syrian state we're not aware of?

I probably meant to type 'legitimate' there. Elected or not, the west prefers that Assad not be in power.

"Legitimate" is whatever the west wants?

He was arrested circa 2012. At that time the regime was arresting every computer engineer, especially if involved with international organisations (such as creative commons). Some of them were harshly interrogated, tortured. Some of them coerced into working for the regime. It was "the revolution of the internet" so the regime made sure nobody could use the internet against him. As of the fate of Bassel (and the others) it is really arbitrary. It depended on who arrested you (military, air force, police,..) and luck within the maze of the chaotic administrations of the different armed forces of the regime

Activists need a labour distribution- a spokesman and a brain, seperated by a TOR Layer.

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