1) Nope. I wasn't allowed bail previously, so I was kept in prison for 1 week. I know how it works there. No internet, and phone is very expensive and limited to 10 minutes a week and for only 5 preset numbers.
2) Definitely considered that, and it doesn't even have to be 20 years for me to consider that. 2 years is long enough for me.
What's the period? If it's 2-5 years, please proceed with jail. Know that there will be deer consequences for attempting something that illegal. Your case is even harder as you got public coverage, so I guess your face is well known to the public/officers.
i'm sure it isn't a Norwegian style jail. Sexual blogger insulting Islam in the largest muslim country - my bet would be that he isn't looking into quality time in jail.
On the other side - political asylum seems like exactly the thing applicable in such case, at least US one.
I have a decent lawyer. It isn't hard to keep alive; heck, I've been running it pretty half-assed for the past almost 2 years. Still, I cannot abandon it totally.
Also, I don't think it makes enough revenue to warrant hiring anyone to take care of it, I think. I'd make a loss. And since familiarising with the current code base etc. may require a lot of effort, way more effort than anyone would care to dedicate, unless they're paid a lot to get familiar with it.
I really want to keep the startup, because it's my main source of income that pays my rent, food, entertainment, transportation, etc. It's also my first startup -- it has great sentimental value.
What is your (honest) estimate of the code quality / time to familiarize?
What about those bugs, are they things that you could conceivably still do before you go to jail? Would it be acceptable if they were there as long as you were gone? (after all, they are there right now).
You're in Singapore?
How do you intend to deal with the financial side of this? (I take it there is a small business to be run as well to keep the lights on).
I can see a few options:
- blindly trust some random stranger (probably a bad idea!)
- give the company in trust to your lawyer while you are
away to run on your behalf
- get a friend up to speed in the time remaining and turn
the site over to them before you go.
Keeping the lights on is basically what you're asking for but the bit that I'm missing still in your plan is that you are right now probably promoting your site as well, which is one of the reasons it is working. Mothballing it with the marketing stopped will only work if the period without active work on the site is not too long, it may take more effort to keep it at the level where it is right now if the time is longer.
You'd have to expect that no matter what by the time you get out of jail (how long do you expect to go away for?) the business will have shrunk or will have died.
Good to see you at least have a decent lawyer, that may be an important part of the solution.
Yeah I wondered if that was connected. God damn, what the Malaysian Chinese have to put up with. Every single organization in the nation, public and private, is completely run by Chinese managers, with a few bumiputra cronies as figureheads and a workforce packed with other laid-back Malays. Nothing in that country (and it's a lovely country, one of my favorite to visit) would ever get done without the Chinese. Yet many Malaysians' burning envy of Singapore seems to find its only outlet in abusing their own Chinese, either directly, through the rhetoric of politicians like Mahathir, or through the entrenched quota system. It's been over a decade since I was in the region, but I'll always have sympathy for the Chinese in Malaysia.
Not that Singapore is any shining beacon of freedom. I can certainly imagine the "Happy Ramadan" stunt drawing a stiff fine there. I doubt, though, that any minority in Singapore would need to speak "truth" to power in this way.
If it's your main source of income, it must be making some money. Can you use that to pay someone to take care of it while you're away?
There's got to be some kind of middle ground between 'taking a loss' and 'main source of income'. Even if it's not as much as someone would make in a different job, I bet some people would be willing to help you out for a small stipend.
Could the loss you take from hiring someone to take care of it be a loss your business could handle for the duration of your incarceration? If the choice is loss and still kicking, or complete company failure, the loss might be preferable.
jacquesm is a real stand-up guy by the way. It doesn't count for much, but I'd recommend considering his offer.
I'll also offer to assist (preferably with one or two other people sharing the workload), but details would help a lot. An attorney should be able to ensure that your rights to the business are protected in the meantime.
the religion you have offended has great sentimental values to the people who follow that religion. yet you ask people to save your startup because it has great sentimental values to you. what a pity.
It says in #1 that I was afraid he might be in the Mideast. Arabs would hang him with impunity to make an example of him. Malaysia can't: it would be perceived as racially motivated, as he is ethnic Chinese, and Malaysia is already under scrutiny for its race relations.
It's also worth adding that being from a relatively stable, democratic and secular country like Malaysia would make it much harder for him to claim asylum in other countries on the grounds of "religious persecution".
Malaysia also has numerous treaties and strong ties with the United States (including security cooperation). Given the Snowden situation, it is quite possible that US would simply refuse to grant asylum (by claiming the charges aren't political) for two purposes: 1) show "sensitivity" to the Islamist world (after implicitly supporting Morsi's outster) 2) to encourage other countries to turn over future whistle blowers despite plausibility of charges against them being political.
It isn't likely that he'll garner political support either: the religious right is itself opposed to pornography and like hopes such laws would exist in the US -- social conservatives are fighting hard to defend the idea that laws that prohibit actions that cause no harm are still legitimate, some segments on the left may be prone to political correctness or partisanship (as "their" guy is in power now).
Sometimes I think the cause of liberalism (broadly defined -- I don't mean celebrating Clinton over champaign, I mean a belief in individual liberty) has (by now) been hopelessly lost. It looks like the fight is between two varieties of anti-liberal communitarian thought: one merely favours a more diverse and equal society, the other is more traditional; they seem, however, to agree social conventions can trump individual rights (they just disagree what those conventions should be) and that achieving near absolutely security (even against already improbable events) is a more important goal (even if still unreachable) than maintaining most basic civil liberties.
Also depending on the country you're in, keep in mind that you might be marked as suspicious for visiting a foreign embassy. Perhaps send a friend or someone to do the advice getting and only go when you have solid advice from a professional diplomat or embassy staffer that recommends that you do so.
Even if it were easy as a pie, OP is worried about being convicted of a 'crime' which is not considered a crime in most of the developed world. So, he has a chance of being granted asylum.
Faking a passport, however, IS a very serious crime and it would be something ridiculously stupid to do.
Assuming you have the original, non-biometric passport, access to materials and suitable printers, plotters etc and a handful of other passports of the appropriate nationality people don't mind being "recycled", quite a while.
My story is actually well-documented in the local media, and, although there are segments of supporters, these count for nothing in a Muslim country. Thanks for the idea though.
you are going through a rough time right now since there is an awful possibility for you to lose your freedom and i really deeply feel sorry for you but stop generalising muslims / muslim countries. if your justice system is broken that's not because they are muslim but they try to bend the rules of qur'an.
A quote from JangoSteve that really resonates with me: "There are ways your users tell you your product is too cheap, without actually having to tell you. One good indicator is when you have a lot of people signing up, and then not using it, in which case your product is so underpriced that it attracts indifference."
Our product attracts a lot of indifference. This is good in the short-term (free money), but ultimately we don't get to provide the value we want to provide, garner feedback from their regular usage, and they also eventually cancel and not even switch to a competitor.
Unfortunately, it is possible that both the questions you posed are answered in the positive. We are grandfathering existing customers, so hopefully if we ever hit a brick wall with new customers, we can just rely on existing income from existing customers for the time being.
But we really want to take a bite at the enterprise/corporate segment, since we believe that what we have is even better than what our premium competitors offer. We have a couple of those now paying a lot of money but are succeeding in making profits, perhaps because their higher fees make them treat their business more seriously.
