5 ms·

Apple Bans the Quran in China

56 points by ajdude 5y ago

uniqueid 5y ago
That would be outrageous if it were true, which it almost certainly is not. Think it over: the Qur'an is sacred to 1/4 of the world, banning any holy book is PR suicide, and the Qur'an is legal in the PRC. The developer of this Qur'an app probably tweeted this tweet in good faith, but that just makes it misinformation instead of disinformation.
- webmobdev 5y ago
  I can understand your disbelief. But what do you have to back your assertions (that this is "not true" & "misinformation") that we should believe your claims over that of the developer (who has also posted a screenshot of the email he got from Apple)?
  - uniqueid 5y ago
    what do you have to back your assertions After reading @fredros's comment here, I no longer feel confident that my statement that the "Qur'an is legal in the PRC" is much of an argument. The other assertions I made were that 'the Qur'an is sacred to 1/4 of the world' and that 'banning any holy book is PR suicide'. I can't muster enthusiasm to defend those. They seem clear-cut to me. As I read the original tweet, it sounded like Apple had banned the Qur'an (ie: its contents) from the its store in China. But that is the dev's conjecture. I'm sure Apple banned his/her particular Qur'an app, but there currently are too few details to know why.
    - yorwba 5y ago
      > Apple banned his/her particular Qur'an app, but there currently are too few details to know why He appears to not be a Chinese citizen. Foreigners are banned from engaging in a whole lot of religion-adjacent activities in China, including publishing religious texts. http://www.gov.cn/gongbao/content/2000/content_60501.htm http://www.gov.cn/gongbao/content/2000/content_60501.htm Article 17, item 6.
      - uniqueid 5y ago
        Thanks. That relates to the same point I conceded, but it's still interesting. Unfortunately I seem to have turned conjecture from someone's tweet into a large thread which was the opposite of what I wanted. We have some developer's speculation and now we're all debating and theorizing about it (which why social media is a $%#* pile of rubbish). Perhaps next week Apple Developer Relations will get back to this dev with more specifics. Perhaps next week we'll find same is happening to other people's Qur'an apps. But at the moment all thousands of us people discussing this tweet on social media are just bumbling around in the dark.
- fredros 5y ago
  Selling the Bible online was already prohibited: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/05/world/asia/china-bans-bible-sales.html https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/05/world/asia/china-bans-bib...
  - uniqueid 5y ago
    Thanks! I did not know that. In light of that, the third point in my comment isn't valid.
- aaron695 5y ago
  The mainstream media seems to be mostly ignoring the attacks on electronic Bibles and Christians this year. Which is so clichéd it's sad. A court in southeast China has handed down jail terms to four Christians arrested last year on charges of illegally selling electronic devices that play Bible verses. http://www.ucanews.com/amp/china-jails-christians-for-selling-bible-players/93577 http://www.ucanews.com/amp/china-jails-christians-for-sellin...
wcerfgba 5y ago
On a related note, the Uyghur Tribunal has started again. Main website at https://uyghurtribunal.com/ https://uyghurtribunal.com/ , and a live-stream for September 12th at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tFkr3pC1BmI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tFkr3pC1BmI .
- dfadsadsf 5y ago
  China does not really have peaceful options in dealing with Uyghur problem and collapse of US efforts in Afghanistan highlight that you can’t just let situation fester without actions. Every successful counter terrorism operation was implemented with extreme (from modern west perspective) brutality (from Chechnya to Philippine) and all half measures generally fail. There is good chance that in 20-30 years Europe will have to adopt similar methods as extremist population increase among 2nd and 3rd gen immigrants.
  - ManuelKiessling 5y ago
    What makes you claim that extremist population will increase among 2nd and 3rd gen immigrants?
    - ksaj 5y ago
      Good catch. This sounds a lot like race baiting. Canada is a country of immigrants (to some fairly large degree, anyway), and we are well into 2nd and 3rd generations of immigrants without seeing this problem. When we do have more extremist issues, it rarely is from this part of the population. A lot of times when peaceful protests get out of hand in Canada, it is because of infiltration from groups like the "Black Bloc," which despite the name, are primarily white and often white supremists. They tend to provoke rival groups like BLM, with a special intent on smearing them, which is seen often enough in the US as well. We have had, and probably still have some specific incidents associated with known foreign terrorist organizations, but they specifically involve the "old guard" who were not born and raised here.
    - disneygibson 5y ago
      That’s what happened in Western Europe.
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christmm 5y ago
Germany bans Mein Kampf which is comparable in content to the Quran
tsjq 5y ago
funny thing is Taliban is now friends with China . I guess their core ideology is merely money, and not religion as they claim to be.
- disneygibson 5y ago
  No, that’s just a Western-centric misunderstanding of geopolitics. China promises to not interfere in local politics, unlike the US and their crusade to remake the entire world in their own image. Ergo in a world of less-than-ideal choices, the one that isn’t trying to destroy your society’s values is a better option. The enemy of my enemy is my friend, and all that.
- ksaj 5y ago
  If Taliban doesn't spend as much energy curbing Afghanistan's opium and meth production as they do women's rights and so many other human rights issues, then it's another way of demonstrating their clinging onto religious conviction is a sham, and it's all really about total control of the population and inevitably, money.
  - tsjq 5y ago
    That's an important point indeed. However, right now Taliban needs boatloads of money esp thru channels that cannot be frozen by Western powers. Surely they would amp up the drugs production. Wouldn't be surprised if China gives a tacit support by helping them with logistics to move stuff more efficiently to western markets.
  - vimacs2 5y ago
    Considering the Taliban were from their inception an alliance of wealthy landlords and mullahs funded by the US to deal with the socialist and secular revolution underway in Afghanistan during the late 70's, it's no surprise. One of the most impressive PR moves the US succeeded at in the cold war was convincing the world that the Mujahadeen were freedom fighters and not thugs for rich local assholes.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
zepto 5y ago
Title is misleading. If Apple was interested in banning the Quran, they wouldn’t have just done it in China. The CCP forced apple to remove the Quran from the Chinese App Store.
- uniqueid 5y ago
  "Apple Banned my Quran app in China" at least would be factual.
gentleman11 5y ago
I guess they’ll get to test out their new neural hash scanning tech with the Quran as soon as their delayed rollout is done. Early 2022 maybe?

56 points by ajdude 5y ago

That would be outrageous if it were true, which it almost certainly is not. Think it over: the Qur'an is sacred to 1/4 of the world, banning any holy book is PR suicide, and the Qur'an is legal in the PRC. The developer of this Qur'an app probably tweeted this tweet in good faith, but that just makes it misinformation instead of disinformation.

webmobdev 5y ago
I can understand your disbelief. But what do you have to back your assertions (that this is "not true" & "misinformation") that we should believe your claims over that of the developer (who has also posted a screenshot of the email he got from Apple)?
- uniqueid 5y ago
  what do you have to back your assertions After reading @fredros's comment here, I no longer feel confident that my statement that the "Qur'an is legal in the PRC" is much of an argument. The other assertions I made were that 'the Qur'an is sacred to 1/4 of the world' and that 'banning any holy book is PR suicide'. I can't muster enthusiasm to defend those. They seem clear-cut to me. As I read the original tweet, it sounded like Apple had banned the Qur'an (ie: its contents) from the its store in China. But that is the dev's conjecture. I'm sure Apple banned his/her particular Qur'an app, but there currently are too few details to know why.
  - yorwba 5y ago
    > Apple banned his/her particular Qur'an app, but there currently are too few details to know why He appears to not be a Chinese citizen. Foreigners are banned from engaging in a whole lot of religion-adjacent activities in China, including publishing religious texts. http://www.gov.cn/gongbao/content/2000/content_60501.htm http://www.gov.cn/gongbao/content/2000/content_60501.htm Article 17, item 6.
    - uniqueid 5y ago
      Thanks. That relates to the same point I conceded, but it's still interesting. Unfortunately I seem to have turned conjecture from someone's tweet into a large thread which was the opposite of what I wanted. We have some developer's speculation and now we're all debating and theorizing about it (which why social media is a $%#* pile of rubbish). Perhaps next week Apple Developer Relations will get back to this dev with more specifics. Perhaps next week we'll find same is happening to other people's Qur'an apps. But at the moment all thousands of us people discussing this tweet on social media are just bumbling around in the dark.
fredros 5y ago
Selling the Bible online was already prohibited: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/05/world/asia/china-bans-bible-sales.html https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/05/world/asia/china-bans-bib...
- uniqueid 5y ago
  Thanks! I did not know that. In light of that, the third point in my comment isn't valid.
aaron695 5y ago
The mainstream media seems to be mostly ignoring the attacks on electronic Bibles and Christians this year. Which is so clichéd it's sad. A court in southeast China has handed down jail terms to four Christians arrested last year on charges of illegally selling electronic devices that play Bible verses. http://www.ucanews.com/amp/china-jails-christians-for-selling-bible-players/93577 http://www.ucanews.com/amp/china-jails-christians-for-sellin...

wcerfgba 5y ago

On a related note, the Uyghur Tribunal has started again. Main website at https://uyghurtribunal.com/ https://uyghurtribunal.com/ , and a live-stream for September 12th at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tFkr3pC1BmI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tFkr3pC1BmI .

dfadsadsf 5y ago
China does not really have peaceful options in dealing with Uyghur problem and collapse of US efforts in Afghanistan highlight that you can’t just let situation fester without actions. Every successful counter terrorism operation was implemented with extreme (from modern west perspective) brutality (from Chechnya to Philippine) and all half measures generally fail. There is good chance that in 20-30 years Europe will have to adopt similar methods as extremist population increase among 2nd and 3rd gen immigrants.
- ManuelKiessling 5y ago
  What makes you claim that extremist population will increase among 2nd and 3rd gen immigrants?
  - ksaj 5y ago
    Good catch. This sounds a lot like race baiting. Canada is a country of immigrants (to some fairly large degree, anyway), and we are well into 2nd and 3rd generations of immigrants without seeing this problem. When we do have more extremist issues, it rarely is from this part of the population. A lot of times when peaceful protests get out of hand in Canada, it is because of infiltration from groups like the "Black Bloc," which despite the name, are primarily white and often white supremists. They tend to provoke rival groups like BLM, with a special intent on smearing them, which is seen often enough in the US as well. We have had, and probably still have some specific incidents associated with known foreign terrorist organizations, but they specifically involve the "old guard" who were not born and raised here.
  - disneygibson 5y ago
    That’s what happened in Western Europe.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

christmm 5y ago

Germany bans Mein Kampf which is comparable in content to the Quran

tsjq 5y ago

funny thing is Taliban is now friends with China . I guess their core ideology is merely money, and not religion as they claim to be.

disneygibson 5y ago
No, that’s just a Western-centric misunderstanding of geopolitics. China promises to not interfere in local politics, unlike the US and their crusade to remake the entire world in their own image. Ergo in a world of less-than-ideal choices, the one that isn’t trying to destroy your society’s values is a better option. The enemy of my enemy is my friend, and all that.
ksaj 5y ago
If Taliban doesn't spend as much energy curbing Afghanistan's opium and meth production as they do women's rights and so many other human rights issues, then it's another way of demonstrating their clinging onto religious conviction is a sham, and it's all really about total control of the population and inevitably, money.
- tsjq 5y ago
  That's an important point indeed. However, right now Taliban needs boatloads of money esp thru channels that cannot be frozen by Western powers. Surely they would amp up the drugs production. Wouldn't be surprised if China gives a tacit support by helping them with logistics to move stuff more efficiently to western markets.
- vimacs2 5y ago
  Considering the Taliban were from their inception an alliance of wealthy landlords and mullahs funded by the US to deal with the socialist and secular revolution underway in Afghanistan during the late 70's, it's no surprise. One of the most impressive PR moves the US succeeded at in the cold war was convincing the world that the Mujahadeen were freedom fighters and not thugs for rich local assholes.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

zepto 5y ago

Title is misleading. If Apple was interested in banning the Quran, they wouldn’t have just done it in China. The CCP forced apple to remove the Quran from the Chinese App Store.

uniqueid 5y ago
"Apple Banned my Quran app in China" at least would be factual.

gentleman11 5y ago

I guess they’ll get to test out their new neural hash scanning tech with the Quran as soon as their delayed rollout is done. Early 2022 maybe?