Wednesday, October 05, 2005

This is a democracy?

The Iraqi Parliament has made terrorism a capital offense, and has made similarly punishable the act of assisting or concealing a terrorist. Harsh, but not too bad a reaction to the nation's present state, I suppose.

But how's this for the definition of terrorism?: any criminal act against people, institutions or property that "aims to hurt security, stability and national unity and introduce terror, fear or horror among the people and cause chaos" or any "activity threatening to spark sectarian differences or civil war." Furthermore, a terrorist is defined as including anyone who provokes or enables a terrorist to do such things.

So flag-burners, strikers, demonstrators--are they now subject to the death penalty in our new democracy? What about the person who holds the flag pole, hoists a supportive sign in an anti-government demonstration or shouts encouragement to the demonstrators?

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