Going into a foreign embassy is not gonna do you any good. "The Free World" spies on, and jails its own people, and it will not risk another Mohammad cartoongate helping you. So don't even think about requesting asylum at an embassy.
Sell all you own and head to the nearest border/coastal town. Pay off smugglers or fishermen and get the fuck out.
He's probably going to get worse treatment than average from the other inmates.
You know, people did live before banks..
The only reason you think that he doesn't care about going to jail is the fact that he's prioritizing his livelihood. You're conveniently missing the lines where he calls it a mob action. He clearly doesn't agree with the sentence.
And when I compare a couple of years in prison to my whole life the answer is clear for me. Escaping the country brings the bonus that he will never be able to see his own country again. As an expat who is away from home for the last 4 years I can easily say that it sucks. Being away from home doesn't make you free.
However, I don't agree with your second part. 4 years in prison isn't just 4 years in prison. It is 4 years in a situation that is widely out of your control, and opens you up to a host of threats that you didn't consider during your 'outside' life. Sure, you can be hit by a car and killed during normal pedestrian action, but it's quite hard to be the victim of prison violence when you're a normal citizen.
Imprisonment is terrible, don't sell it short. It is a completely different world than every day life, including that of an expat, and it very well may stay with him for the rest of life in the form of a crippling physical or mental injury or even death.
He runs a SaaS, not a hot-dog stand. The power of the internet is internationalism and non-locale.
it seems like it depends on their your "home" is. I've been living in US for more than decade. Never looked back :)
But regarding the OP's question, he was not asking about how to keep his freedom, he was asking about how to save his business, which I believe as you do many here have failed to see.
Now, one has to ask themselves...how likely would it be for the OP to actually save his business by running away? The likelihood of him not having everything confiscated by the government and simply shut down upon his disappearance is rather low. As it sits right now he could loose it if he doesn't "give" it to another person to care for it.
Also, he most likely feels an obligation to his clients to maintain the service.
Taking the time to train a trusted friend or family member would most likely be his only real option in this case.
Good luck to OP!
O.
If I had to choose between prison and becoming a refugee the answer should be obvious. All over the world, people flee similar situations everyday.
Sell your stuff, get currency, use your international connections. It's going to be the hardest thing you've ever done, but liberty is the most important. Who knows what will happen in prison and for how long they will detain you.
Also, depending on how technically competent your government is, you need to get all your services offshore now: Wuala for storage (like dropbox - based in Switzerland); Runbox for email (based in Norway); servers in somewhere like Europe or other nearby friendly countries that provide sufficient bandwidth... Burner phone, TOR, careful about your online presence, etc. In the meantime, move locally and rent a place cash under the table where address won't be registered. Basically, become invisible to your government.
Then you want to move your business domicile and bank accounts elsewhere if feasible so your local government can't confiscate your business once you do leave. Read into the 5-flag theory: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perpetual_traveler
You're entrepreneurial, intellectually curious, freedom-loving - rotting away in prison would be a waste of great talent and not to mention a human rights violation. Starting a startup is hard enough as it is, it's important. But not as important as liberty. If you plan correctly, you can have both. Obviously, I (or likely none of us on here) cant fully empathize with your situation - best of luck!!
Edit: Are you in Singapore? I know Singapore is socially strict, but I thought it was secular. If you're in Malaysia, it's a different story. Moving your domicile and bank accounts to Singapore might make a lot of sense if you're in Malaysia.
If it's not a very long sentence, OP is better off trying that after he's done with it. Maybe ask for asylum, but afterwards.
I myself, received threats because my FaceBook said I was an 'atheist' and I was engaged with social media movement against religious oppression.
Singapore is big on social harmony. There are laws against offending other cultures and anything considered pornography is illegal. But I think he's in trouble in Malaysia.
Yet the Malaysian constitution includes "every citizen has the right to freedom of speech and expression".
[1] http://www.insidehighered.com/views/2013/06/13/essay-critici...
It is a very sad state of affairs if pranks by intelligent kids are used against them not because of the actual prank but as a scapegoat so that others don't do this and it is also sad that intelligent people don't understand the consequences of their action and pranks are not worth 8 years in prison.
Hopefully OP will have enough information himself to make an educated decision as to whether skipping the country is the right decision.
You need to cross the border into a friendlier country and claim asylum. Pay a smuggler, go by horse (seriously), do what you need to do to get across (bribes). Go and start a better life for yourself, I know so many who did and never looked back. You can visit your family in a 3rd country.
What could go wrong?
That being said, the ability of a foreign embassy to get you out may be limited. As we've seen in other cases lately, asylum can be granted, but only once you arrive. Laws are tricky things, and no country is going to use its diplomatic office as a backdoor for fugitives to flee the country as its an abuse of the privileges given. Once you're on another countries' soil however, "de facto" takes precedence.
What a foreign embassy can do however, is give you real, factual advice. For that reason alone, I'd suggest visiting one. They can advice you on what your legal options are and what opportunities are available to you.
It is important that you receive information that is accurate and actionable. We here at HN can offer suggestions, but you need the advice of professionals and experts. Speak to an embassy official and get the facts.
It will be very hard living as an undocumented person, but I have seen it done. I'm Somali.
Do you ever visit Hargeisa?
1) I don't recommend escape as before. I was fearing you might be in an Arab country. Malaysia has what vaguely resembles a law, at least.
2) On the other hand, you are ethnic Chinese. I'd tell the lawyer to bring up the issue of your safety in prison.
Man, my heart is seriously aching for you, specially after reading your story. Be safe.
It isn't likely that he'll garner political support either: the religious right is itself opposed to pornography and like hopes such laws would exist in the US -- social conservatives are fighting hard to defend the idea that laws that prohibit actions that cause no harm are still legitimate, some segments on the left may be prone to political correctness or partisanship (as "their" guy is in power now).
Sometimes I think the cause of liberalism (broadly defined -- I don't mean celebrating Clinton over champaign, I mean a belief in individual liberty) has (by now) been hopelessly lost. It looks like the fight is between two varieties of anti-liberal communitarian thought: one merely favours a more diverse and equal society, the other is more traditional; they seem, however, to agree social conventions can trump individual rights (they just disagree what those conventions should be) and that achieving near absolutely security (even against already improbable events) is a more important goal (even if still unreachable) than maintaining most basic civil liberties.