Monday, July 16, 2007

Free Nat Tan!



My friend Nathaniel Tan, a Malaysian citizen, has been arrested in Kuala Lampur, apparently for posting satirical images on his blog. We went to college together and played guitar duets in our co-op on late nights while avoiding our theses, so his arrest is a lot more shocking and meaningful to me than the hundreds of other free speech lockdowns in other countries that I more or less callously ignore. He is a smart and thoughtful and peaceful guy, so while I don't know the exact details of what happened, I trust that he has only been the target of political oppression and has not actually done anything that would warrant his arrest. He was held incommunicado for a couple of days and is apparently now being "remanded" for four days - don't know what that means in Malaysia, but I think he's still in detention.

Anyway, not sure what it does to post it here. Harvard folks can call (617) 576-6565 and try to get the Crimson to publish something about it, and anyone can send an email to info@cpj.org
and try to get the Committee to Protect Journalists to put something up on their website.

No comments: