Malaysian Government Asks Interpol To Arrest An American Comedian Over Her Airline Crash Joke
from the insulting-the-airline-is-a-bootable-offense,-Mr.-Simpson dept
The government of Malaysia isn’t too concerned about free speech. It may be a tourist destination, but it’s still subservient to a ruling class that likely can thank inbreeding for its current place at the top of the heap.
Because it’s still ruled by people who’ve never been elected to their positions, those with the proper bloodlines have instituted laws to ensure they or the nation they preside over won’t be criticized too heavily by citizens.
The government obviously believes shutting people up shouldn’t just apply to citizens, though. The operative term is “lese magiste.” Insulting rulers is considered a criminal offense, if not actually a form of treason. And this law applies even if the insult arrives from oblique angles from anywhere else in the world.
It’s a fucked up bundle of laws. And that has allowed the Malaysian government to pursue considerably dubious censorship efforts, like going after Spotify because a user-generated playlist enjoyed by Malaysian citizens supposedly “insulted the queen.”
This brings us to the current insanity being perpetrated by the Malaysian government — one that views criticism of anything Malaysian-related as potential treason. The Bermuda Triangle of our time was the crash of Malaysian Airlines flight 370. The plane simply disappeared, despite passengers and employees presumably carrying smartphones capable of generating location data (if nothing else), if not actually putting them in touch with loved ones as it became evident the plane was doomed.
This mysterious crash (and even more mysterious disappearance) dates back nearly a decade. The plane crash occurred March 8, 2014. Somehow, the Malaysian government feels it’s too soon to start joking about a Malaysian airlines plane crash. Inexplicably, the government has issued an Interpol notice asking all Interpol members (which includes the United States) to pick up an American comedian for telling jokes she’s been telling for years about the MH370 crash. The BBC was the first to report on this incredibly disturbing development.
Jocelyn Chia, a US national who grew up in Singapore, is being investigated under Malaysian laws on incitement and offensive online content, police say.
Her joke, posted online last week, prompted an official protest from Malaysia and an apology from Singapore.
[…]
On Tuesday Malaysian national police chief Acryl Sani Abdullah Sani said an application would be filed with Interpol on Wednesday to get Ms Chia’s “full identity” and “latest location“.
While Interpol may be integral to capturing criminals engaging in international crimes, its involvement in this is unnecessary for several reasons.
First off, Ms. Chia’s “full identity” isn’t a secret. She’s an American comedian who relies on being known by her name to book appearances and ensure fans of her work know where they can watch her perform. She has made no effort to obscure her identity because there’s no reason she would need to.
As for her “latest location,” fuck Malaysia. It’s none of its business.
Finally, if the government of Malaysia is so offended by this joke, maybe it should have taken action years ago when Chia first started telling it. It’s been part of her set for years. The bit — written by the Singapore resident — says Singapore is a first world country while Malaysia is still a “developing” country because (as the joke goes) Malaysia’s planes can’t actually fly.
Tasteless. Sure, maybe a little. Too soon? Eye of the beholder. A criminal offense under Malaysian law? Yeah, probably, but only because Malaysian laws seek to protect someone who was born into their position.
The condemnation of Chia’s “statements” is exceedingly ridiculous. Government officials claim this years-old joke is “horrendous.” But just because these officials aren’t laughing doesn’t mean it should be an offense for which Chia can be extradited and tried by a Malaysian criminal court.
Malaysian taxpayers should be outraged. And they probably are. But what can they do? There’s a queen sitting on top of the part of the government that’s actually elected. The bootlicker hierarchy is a mess. Public servants serve the queen, rather than the public. The public is expected to respect both levels of government, even when the elected level engages in performative outrage on behalf of someone who likely never would have heard about this supposed insult if they weren’t being catered to by a bunch of vacuous subservients.
It caused an uproar on social media, followed by condemnations by top Malaysian officials including the foreign minister.
“I am appalled by her horrendous statements,” Singapore’s foreign minister Vivian Balakrishnan tweeted last week.
“We treasure our ties with family and friends in Malaysia, and are sorry for the offence and hurt caused to all Malaysians.”
Whatever. Get over it. It’s a joke. It’s not a great joke and it errs on the side of tastelessness, but it is obviously a joke.
Hopefully, Interpol participants will send this request straight to the shredder. Interpol is not the comedy police. And it’s not an extraterritorial collection of stooges obliged to respond every time some queen or their yes men feel ways about stuff. Chia should have nothing to fear from this stupidity. But she stands to gain everything from the Malaysian government’s insistence in making her a household name.
Filed Under: free speech, interpol, jocelyn chia, joke, malaysia, mh370, plane crash
Comments on “Malaysian Government Asks Interpol To Arrest An American Comedian Over Her Airline Crash Joke”
transnational repression, interpol edition
wtf?!? Trying to censor people outside their borders by attempting to punish people where their laws don’t apply
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Damn them for trying to compete with the US government!
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Back in 96 when I heavily criticize zed the CDA there wre plans if Republican won the 1996 elections to prosecutor those who opposed the CDA
I was prepared to evade arrest if that happened
I bought one of the first street legal nascar spec corvettes that police could never catch if it had ever come to that
With it’s 200 plus top speed I would have given cops around here a run for their money as police interceptor crown viva are speed limited by Ford to 140 miles an hour so I would have been too fast for them if I had ever tried to arrest me for speaking out against the CDA
That Vette which I still have tofaydoes 206 mph top speed that no cop could ever catch
Re: Re: Re: not a problem
You can surely outrun any particular cop. The problem description may change if the cop has radio. When he alerts the cops in the next county, you are likely to run into some serious traffic at the border.
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She could have used a VPN combined with Tor to render that post untrraceagke
Because I’m have made comments here that have likly attracted the attention of the Feds to use both Tor and vpn.combined to make my posts untraceable
Anything else means they lose all credibility with Western democracies. Rounding her up over this would likely be a bridge too far even for Western fascists.
Interpol Powers
My understanding is that Interpol agents do not have arrest powers.
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That is true
It’s up to the country one is in
Since what she did is protected speech here in the USA the government can and probably will tell Malaysia to take a long walk off a short pier
Can I ask Interpol to arrest the Malaysian Government ?
this just in: The Malaysian Queen and government demonstrate their lack of qualification to rule by dint of being unable to take a joke.
Note to self: never tour Malaysia.
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Could have told you that before all this. The state of human rights within Western democracies isn’t great. Outside of Western democracies, that “isn’t great” rapidly becomes “doesn’t exist.”
Anyone else old enough to remember the Challenger explosion?
In the first week we had jokes floating around “What does NASA stand for? Need Another Seven Astronauts.” And “What color were Christa McCaulafs eyes? blue. One blew this way and one blew that.”
Tasteless? Sure. But they helped the healing of the nation as well.
I’d never have heard of this current joke if the joke of a government hadn’t called attention to it.
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The way I heard it was “What does NASA stand for? Need Another Seven Astronauts.”.
Singapore isn’t exactly a bastion of freedom either. If I were Ms. Chia, I’d book it to the US, UK or EU as soon as possible on the off-chance that Singapore decides to placate their larger neighbor.
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Which one?
Because the only “big neighbour” they’ll placate is Southeast Asia’s overlord, Xi Jinping.
Re: Re: You mean
Winnie the Poo
Re: singapore
Ms. Chia is originally from Singapore but lives in the US. So no need for her to book it.
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If I were Ms. Chia, I’d definitely have an exit plan just in case.
Singapore’s already apologized for her stupid joke, as a matter of diplomacy.
There’s also the possibility of her being charged with disrupting the public peace, or some other law that’s in the Singapore Penal Code…
Disclaimer: It has not happened yet, but Singapore’s leaders are very, very censorious.
What the hell? It’s painfully obvious that no one in Malasia has ever read Noriyuki “Pat” Morita’s biography. Therein he recounts how he was a stand-up comedian in Hawaii, and found himself in front of an audience of US veterans on the occasion of the 25th anniversary of, you guessed it, Dec 7, 1941.
He started out with an apology, saying “Sorry for messing up your harbor”, and the crowed roared with laughter. He never lacked for work again.
Thin-skinned people. The world could do better than to propagate such.
On that topic
The theory I heard about 370 was this: There was an earlier incident (Australia?) where the oxygen tank for the pilots blew it’s valve top and shot out of the side of the plane like a rocket. (2000psi will do that). Presumably the same happened to Malay 370 – the tank in the radio/electronics compartment under the plane leaked – pure oxygen and electrical? Good source of fire, so presumably that’s why they got a fire alert and so turned off much of the equipment breakers.
Then the tank flew out the side of the plane, creating a de-pressurization problem. The flight crew puts on their masks and turn the plane around to head back to nearest land on the Malay peninsula. It’s only then they realize they have no oxygen, and within a few seconds the flight crew pass out.
The passengers get those drop-down masks which are good for about 15 minutes. Then they too pass out. The plane continues on autopilot across the Malay peninsula, and out into the Indian ocean. By then, everyone is dead from oxygen starvation. Eventually, it runs out of fuel, stalls, and crashes into the ocean.
Neither the Malays nor the Indonesian militaries are willing to admit their radar was so lacking they could not follow an airliner.
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One issue with that, depressurization requires an immediate descent to an altitude where people can breathe,t, and if the pilots initiated a turn, they could also have initiated the descent. They should have started the descent before the turn if the plane was depressurized.
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Or that their militaries were so fucking incompetent that they’d fuck up training exercises, if the rumors are to be believed…
'Our country is run by people who made toddler look mature so no mean words.'
The ultimate irony is that nothing insults those in charge more than the existence of lese magiste laws, laws that make clear that people who claim to be capable adults able to rule entire countries are so incredibly fragile that mean words are as dangerous to them as actual weapons.
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Well.
Considering the region is lousy with powerful men and wonen who are that “fragile”…
Thailand has lese majeste as well, Laos, Cambodia and the Phillipines unofficially are China’s puppets, and the rest already partially follow China to some degree…
Not to mention Xi Jinping, as well as a few South American countries (El Salvador comes to mind…)
Even in America there’s the GOP.
And they’ll defend those “laws” with their economic track record and “development”.
Many countrys have different laws on free speech. Us citizens cannot be arrested in america for breaking a law thats illegal in other countrys but legal in america
Some drugs are legal in america but illegal in the uk or the eu
The best option is not to support certain governments by travelling to those countrys as a tourist
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Just break in to the prosecutors office computer network and screw up all the files on the case so they cannot do their work
Just break into and trash their network over there and run them.uo a big repair bill
It will make them think twice about doing that again
If she were my wife I would do that for her to interfere with the case
I would love to see their faces when the prosecutors came in to find their office computer network had been broken into and trashed
It is in the vows of marriage to protect your spouse
That vow is before God and God comes before the law,as far as I am.concerned
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Can we NOT try to actually suggest crimes for once?
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There are also programs to securely wipe your hard disk so no evidence can ever be recovered
When I ran my online radio station it was station policy the wipe station equipment before travel so that border inspection of equipment would not get anything
There can be content on your devices you don’t know about that can get you in trouble.
Since the station was headquartered to n Australia we broe no lawe on Australia. There is no law in Australia that makes it a crime to do that
Since it was done on Australian soil only Australian laws applied, so don’t give me any of this sarbanes oxkwy stuff
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At least stick to stuff that could plausibly considered legal, not things like breaking and entering, theft, destruction of property AND cybercrime.
You’re real fucking annoying with this, and I’ve actually read compelling reaasons as to why rioting should not be considered a crime… (from NPR, no less)
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Nah. Just look at how many users dearly masturbate to the thought of Rupert Murdoch or Matthew Bennett or Hyman Rosen getting shot.
To be fair I’m one of them, too.
Lèse Majesté
Might want to fix the spelling of that key term, idiotic though its use is.
Also re the cell phones, when the plane crashed it was way out over the ocean, far from any cell tower. We have a pretty good idea of where it crashed since wreckage washed up in Madagascar and east Africa and we know how the ocean currents flow.
Some context on the laws that would likely be used
So it’s likely that the laws that would be put to bear on the situation would be the Malaysian Sedition Acts, which are descended from the English Sedition Acts, except with the inclusion of a few additional clauses, such as “bring[ing] into hatred or contempt or to excite disaffection” against the royal rulers in the country (we have nine! I have no comment on the situation, other than to note that we just have 330 thousand square kilometers, which isn’t a lot of country), oh, and inciting “feelings of ill-will and hostility” between the different ethnic groups in within Malaysia.
In practice, what tends to happen is that the law is applied inconsistently — rich and powerful political figures can get away with flouting the law by talking back to royalty or inciting racist hatred, and only getting slaps on the wrists, while ordinary folks and foreigners get the whole book thrown at them for Facebook posts and investigative journalism.
Honestly this shit makes the Malaysian government look like absolute tools. Even Singaporeans were roasting the shit out of this comedian and pointing out how unfunny it was, especially since the situation hasn’t been resolved and no closure was found for any of the families, and the government’s handling of this and MH17. Now that the police are getting into the action we’re getting into situation where people start defending her for freeze peach when all you needed was… idk, mockery and opprobrium followed by obscurity. Now I’ll have to listen to right-wing shock jocks treat this woman like she’s a fucking hero instead of the Singapore aunty equivalent of a Karen.
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They could’ve simply just had their ambassador make a strongly-worded letter to the US embassy or something. Activating Interpol to chase someone because your remarks vaguely made the government look dumb is like Andrew Tate-levels of small dick energy, and absolutely played into Chia’s hands even while there was no indication she had her hands in this to start with.
Of course, the only reason why any of this is happening is because they know they can’t touch Chia all the way in the US. Going after Singapore for someone who hasn’t even been in the country for a while would be just as, if not even more petty. But of course they had to do it in the most John Smith way possible.
Dubai tries this crap with Interpol to
On behalf of myself I would to invite the Government of Malaysia, inbred goat herding peasants that they are, the royal family of Thailand, Xing Winnie the Poo and the ruling family of Dubia to bite me….
Where’s my red notice?
Not that mysterious
Not necessarily the point of the post, but …
The disappearance of MH370 is not that mysterious. The most likely explanation is that one of the pilots deliberately caused the plane to go down in the Indian Ocean.
And regarding cell phone data, cell phones are kinda useless in the middle of the Indian Ocean. Also, as to why the passengers didn’t call anyone, there is a decent chance that they weren’t fully aware about the diversion due to it happening at night.
-K Smith
end royalty
see title
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To be fair to Malaysia and its FIVE Royal families, some of them actually stand up to the crooks in what passes for Malaysia’s government.
The Sultanate of Johor has been known to straight up criticize and threaten the racist buffoons masquerading as politicians.
You might want to keep the guillotines packed a little longer.
And then there’s this petty old man known as Mahathir, who practically ensured that Malaysia’s majority political party remains in power by destroying all the checks and balances ment to keep ilk like him in check.
I see what you did there: ‘Chia’ – ‘Chi[n]a’
Reality check
I doubt the government actually expects anything. But they must display that they will pursue the matter to show that nobody is above the law.
It’s performative.
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This is Malaysia we’re talking about.
The ones above the law aren’t the FIVE ROYAL FAMILIES, but the politicians.
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Still: the idea here is a news story in every method of distribution that warns the population nobody is free from the reach of law.
The story here misses that point; it’s not about the law itself, but that it ‘can be applied anywhere’.
“…Malaysia is still a “developing” country because (as the joke goes) Malaysia’s planes can’t actually fly.”
The joke doesn’t even make sense given that MH370 was a Boeing 777-200ER and Boeing is famously an American company. If the queen of Malaysia had a functioning brain cell in her head THAT is what she would focus on NOT on an unfunny joke that doesn’t even make sense.
Well...
At least Malaysia’s lesé-majesté laws aren’t as bad as Thailand’s. Not that that’s a low bar to clear.