Word: draconian
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...released within days. But on Sept. 22, Raja Petra Kamaruddin, the founder of influential online news site Malaysia Today, was directed by the Home Minister to spend two years in a detention center for inciting racial hatred. Because Raja Petra's case came under the auspices of Malaysia's draconian Internal Security Act (ISA), a colonial-era relic used by the British to try to clamp down on insurgents without due process, the jail sentence was handed down without trial. International condemnation was swift, with a U.S. State Department spokesperson saying: "The detention of opposition leaders under the ISA would...
...only point of contention in the talks. Tsvangirai wants a unity government to be a transitional administration that would leave office after 30 months, when a new constitution would be adopted. Mugabe wants the unity government to last five years, and refuses to countenance reforms to such draconian laws as the Public Order and Security Act, which makes it an offence to "cause disaffection among Police Force or Defence Force," to "publish or communicate false statements prejudicial to the State" and to "undermine the authority of or insult the President...
...successful Olympics or question that, in the long run, the awarding of the Games to Beijing will prove to be a milestone in China's re-engagement with the world. But there is also little doubt that the immediate impact has been a worrying increase in the authorities' already draconian treatment of dissenting voices such as human-rights activists and restive ethnic minorities like Tibetans and Uighurs. Keeping a lid on protest has proven difficult - the bright Olympics spotlight draws all manner of dissidents. Whatever the Chinese authorities and the International Olympic Committee might say about separating politics and sport...
...romantic interest in Ray. There's trouble with the Indians over Lila and her illegitimate baby and, of course, over the fact that she is breaking the law. And Ray's sons, both nice kids, are restive and in need of closer supervision. In the end, rough, but not draconian, justice is meted out to Ray, but a thin ray of hope also gleams through the lowering upstate skies...
...That Britain's approach is less draconian - the BPI, for its part, supports the French approach - reflects the difficult market for the country's ISPs. Internet providers' margins are disappearing, and competition is fierce. ISPs' need to keep customers sweet is "why we have this compromise solution," Mulligan says...