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Please support Saeed - Web Dev facing death sentence in Iran
My friend Saeed disappeared 2 years ago while he visited Iran. He is now facing false charges with deadly consequences. The court and government responsible for making this decision are actively hostile towards the internet. I know our HN community values freedom and technology, and if you can share the links below with your friends, or do anything to support Saeed.
"While working as developer in Canada, Saeed designed a program that would allow his clients to upload pictures, and as is a common courtesy in programming, included his name and info in the file.
This program, Saeed’s wife – Dr. Fatimeh Eftekhari – explains, was used in an adult content website WITHOUT Saeed’s knowledge or approval. “The only recognizable name in the program was Saeed’s,” she continued, “which led to his arrest” and to the accusations claiming that Saeed was responsible for the development and administration of the website." from http://united4iran.org/2010/10/the-case-of-saeed-malekpour-web-developer-jailed-since-2008/
Please send letters of support for Saeed: http://org2.democracyinaction.org/o/6160/p/dia/action/public/?action_KEY=4449
Thank-you
- bobds 16y agoThis is the first I hear about this story, words escape me really. I can't imagine where Saeed finds the strength to keep going after two years of torture. Can we do something more meaningful/effective than sending e-letters?
- jrockway 16y agoCan we do something more meaningful/effective than sending e-letters? Overthrow the government?
- points 16y agoI'm not sure that has worked out so well in the past. Invading places to bring them a particular definition of freedom is a bad idea. Definitely if the citizens themselves want to take action, then it's up to them to do so. When you live somewhere, you play by the rules of that country... and if it's a country that doesn't have good rules, you can emigrate.
- davepage 16y agoTo where? If you think the crappy states lets anyone in, do some research.
- points 16y agoWell he was already in Canada... He was arrested while "visiting Iran".
- tomjen3 16y ago>When you live somewhere, you play by the rules of that country >We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. Notice that it doesn't say all Americans are created equal or free, but all people. Iran has no right to trample on inalienable rights.
- points 16y agoDid you just try to assert that the United States Declaration of independence should apply to all of humanity? Mind. Blown.
- tomjen3 16y agoYes, or at least the principles on which it was based. And I am not an America, so this is not a nationalism issue.
- points 16y ago"Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." is such a wooly useless statement though. You could argue that based on the above, the US shouldn't have a minimum age limit for alcohol since it clearly infringes on teenagers (heck even college kids) pursuit of happiness. I'm not arguing that it's correct that they have strict laws about pornography, nor would I argue that it's incorrect that the US has strict laws on alcohol. It's up to each country where to set its own laws.
- arethuza 16y agoI'm not sure that worked terribly well the last time the US/UK did that: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Iran#Mohammad-Reza_Shah http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Iran#Mohammad-Reza_S...
- gaius 16y agoYeah, you have to nip this sort of thing in the bud before it takes root in your country.
- tomjen3 16y agoShort of overthrowing the government, you could try to get Amnesty to add him to their letter writing campaign, they have a pretty decent track record of saving people and they already have more people writing letters now than you could ever get on HN.
- bobds 16y agoThat's not a bad idea. I was hoping that xer0x, being a friend of Saeed, could point us in the right direction. Perhaps his family could use some donations to hire lawyers, experts or whatever else is needed.
- united4iran 16y agoUnfortunately, they aren't allowing him access to independent legal representation. What Saeed needs right now, big time, is access to the technology that will allow him to prove his case and disprove the IRI's baseless charges.
- jrockway 16y agoI don't think there's much that letter writing is going to solve. It seems he's an Iranian citizen from Iran that is subject to Iran's criminal justice system. Yeah, Iran has a poor human rights record, but writing an email is not going to fix that problem.
- pyre 16y agoI could be mistaking the tone of your post, but it seems rather defeatist. Sure email, might not do a lot, but acceptance of the situation usually doesn't engender the fast-track to change.
- michael_dorfman 16y agoOn the other hand, taking an easy but useless action doesn't engender the fast-track to change, either-- it only gives a sense of complacency and self-satisfaction.
- ericb 16y agoAre you certain? Psych studies have shown people behave differently if they know they are being watched. I thought Amnesty International got most of their results by letter writing, shaming, and raising awareness. http://www.rxpgnews.com/behaviouralscience/How_people_behave_differently_when_they_are_being__4575_4575.shtml http://www.rxpgnews.com/behaviouralscience/How_people_behave...
- lukevdp 16y agoStories like this blow my mind and make me very thankful to live in a free country. I don't care what anybody says about being ethnocentric and relativistic morals and "it's their country, their rules". This country has absurd rules and it's just wrong. Letters aren't going to do anything, in countries like Iran they arrest their own citizens for speaking out, I can't see non citizens having any effect at all.
- united4iran 16y agoI am so impressed by how far this story has traveled in such a short amount of time. I'm part of the org that worked with Saeed's wife to initiate this campaign. She is a brilliant woman. I wanted to quickly address letters. They DO work. We have, in the last few months, received emails from foreign ministers and their representatives promising that they will address it with Iran's officials as they visit the countries, that they will continue to pass ont he information, and even releasing statements of condemnation. With Iran, it will ALWAYS remain a PR game, and the end goal is to 1) highlight the cases and 2) get the world community to decry them. Name and shame, assign blame, embarrass Iran. That is their biggest fear, truly. Thanks to all! Mana United4Iran.org
- AlexMuir 16y agoHere's something we actually could do (not that any of us will do it. Beyond upvoting and a bit of commenting on freedom/politics, no one is going to lift a finger, me included). Find the name of someone who holds power on this decision (we'd need somebody to help us with this). Then Google bomb their name (in English/Arabic/Farsi) to the top of Google with a site about the case and leave an open end for them to decide - did they condemn a man to death, or show clemency and release him?
- rythie 16y agoWe could get some press attention for this, I think that would help.
- AlexMuir 16y agoWe certainly could, but will you? I won't.
- rythie 16y agoI already started working on that before I commented, see: http://twitter.com/#!/rythie/statuses/27630458707 http://twitter.com/#!/rythie/statuses/27630458707 and a response http://twitter.com/#!/zee/statuses/27630542231 http://twitter.com/#!/zee/statuses/27630542231
- techiferous 16y agoYou're assuming that said person frequents the Internet.
- benologist 16y agoAnd googles his name.
- AlexMuir 16y agoOr that members of his (no doubt large, and Western educated) family do. Or that the media cover it. But it's academic because I'm not doing it, and nor are you.
- adrianwaj 16y agoSomeone build a site about how great is Sharia, Iran and its Ayotollah. Then use the photo script that he wrote, and make it clear how his script was used. Then tweet it to @ahmadinejad and we'll all retweet it. edit: can turn it into an http://act.ly/ http://act.ly/ petition too, the site could just be image uploads of Acqua Dinner jackets
- gjvc 16y agogenius move. do it.
- adrianwaj 16y agoAnd/or a lower-right acqua dinner jacket overlay for twitter and facebook (http://forum.developers.facebook.net/viewtopic.php?id=56820 http://forum.developers.facebook.net/viewtopic.php?id=56820) profile icons would also work well, with some metrics on how many people have used it. Just like http://helpiranelection.com http://helpiranelection.com I am unable to track down Saeed's actual script.
- lukevdp 16y agoGreat idea in theory... Until you have to actually say how Sharia law is great, then you've got nothing to say
- InclinedPlane 16y agoThat's the ticket, kowtow to brutal dictatorships to win their favor. That always works.
- adrianwaj 16y agoHacking the dictatorship, buddy.
- Deestan 16y agoHave you tried contacting Amnesty International? This case sounds right up their alley, so they should at least be able to give helpful advice.
- united4iran 16y agoYes - we in fact work with Amnesty to do most of this. They don't do as much online advocacy as much as encouraging people to write actual letters -- bc of the short amount of time left before Saeed's trial, we decided to go the route of e-letters. Amnesty has an AMAZING track record though, recently spoke with one of their Iran team and she noted that since AI's advent, using these types of campaigns have seen 44,000 prisoners released.
- known 16y agoHave you tried http://www.fairtrials.net/need_help/ http://www.fairtrials.net/need_help/
- semuelf 16y agoCan we nominate him to Darwin award?
- rythie 16y ago> Trial scheduled for October 26, 2010
- ajx 16y agowelcome to iran
- sharpn 16y agoSorry to hear that. I've contacted Amnesty's International Secretariat to see if they can help.
- deleted 16y ago[deleted]
- united4iran 16y agoI noted this below as a comment, but really wanted all to see it in case it gets skipped o'er. Do letters work? Yes. U4I has, in the last few months, received emails from foreign ministers and their representatives promising that they will address it with Iran's officials as they visit the countries, that they will continue to pass on the information, and even releasing statements of condemnation. With Iran, it will ALWAYS remain a PR game, and the end goal is to 1) highlight the cases and 2) get the world community to decry them. Name and shame, assign blame, embarrass Iran. That is their biggest fear, truly. An example is below of how effective letter writing CAN be. -- "The Dutch minister of Foreign Affairs Verhagen has received a number of emails highlighting the case of the 7 Baha'i Leaders, generated through your website. I would like to inform you minister Verhagen has publicly expressed his concern about their fate: http://www.minbuza.nl/en/News/Newsflashes/2010/08/Netherlands_concerned http://www.minbuza.nl/en/News/Newsflashes/2010/08/Netherland... _about_fate_of_Iranian_Baha%E2%80%99i_leaders Best regards, Bart Rijs Spokersperson minister of Foreign Affairs The Hague The Netherlands --- So does it work? Yes. Slowly sometimes, but yes. Knowing you're being watched DOES indeed change your behavior. Just ask Roxana Saberi :) Thanks to all, this is quite the community!
- united4iran 16y agoThe link didn't paste correctly, here it is: http://bit.ly/cxv7Gl http://bit.ly/cxv7Gl
- gdee 16y agoAnybody from Spain knows of a better address to send letters to the new Spanish "Minister of External Affairs and Cooperation", Trinidad Jiménez, than informae@mae.es (which itself is rather well hidden on the ministry's website) ?
- united4iran 16y agoTry Beatriz Lorenzo, she's an official at Spain's Human Rights office: beatriz.lorenzo@maec.es
- freesaeednow 16y ago"Free Saeed" plastered all over Canadian government websites might get their attention, especially if followed by mailbombs.