Free Iranian Blog Admin Ahmad Reza Hashempour, Sentenced To Death For "Blasphemous Websites"
- Target:
- Ahmed Shaheed, UN, UNHCHR, State Department, EU, Navi Pillay, Ban Ki-Moon, European Parliament
- Region:
- GLOBAL
- Website:
- legacy.iranian.com
Ahmad Reza Hashempour, a 40-year-old Ph.D., was arrested in 2007. A lower court had sentenced him to death, and in January 2012 the Supreme Court upheld Hashempour's death sentence on charges of "membership in anti-religion and blasphemous websites."
During his four-year detention, Ahmad Reza Hashemour spent a long time inside the Revolutionary Guards' solitary cells, where he was physically and psychologically tortured to make television confessions against himself. The Revolutionary Guards Gordab.com website, published an article in April 2009, referring to Ahmad Reza Hashempour as "a sixth suspect in the case of 'Mozelleen 3.'" This refers to a case fabricated against several bloggers by the Organized Crime Surveillance Center of the Revolutionary Guards, which has played an active role in tracking down and arresting outspoken netizens.
Many of the suspects in this case, who were arrested by the Revolutionary Guards and its Gordab.com website, were forced to make television confessions against themselves and to accept the charges leveled against them.
Several individuals implicated in this case released open letters several months after their arrests, speaking up about unbearable torture during their detention period. Another suspect in this case, Vahid Asghari, was also sentenced to death in January 2012, after four years in prison.
To sign the petition for Vahid Asghari, Please see:
http://www.gopetition.com/petitions/free-iranian-blogger-vahid-asghari-sentenced-to-death.html
Whereas Ahmad Reza Hashempour is clearly a prisoner of conscience who has undergone a horrific ordeal solely for the "crime" of exerccising his freedom of peaceful expression;
And whereas this ordeal has included: imprisonment since 2007, brutal torture at the hands of Islamic Republic interrogators, and now a death sentence-- all for the "crime" of blogging;
And whereas this is a case involving several bloggers (at least two of whom are now sentenced to death) in which the Islamic Republic of Iran itself is guilty of egregious violations of both international human rights covenants--to which Iran is a signatory state-- and the Iranian consitution;
Therefore we the undersigned call upon all levels of the international community to bring all possible pressure to bear upon the Islamic Republic to IMMEDIATELY and UNCONDITIONALLY rescind this gross miscarriage of justice, and to secure the freedom of Ahmad Reza Hashempour and all other imprisoned bloggers.
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The Free Iranian Blog Admin Ahmad Reza Hashempour, Sentenced To Death For "Blasphemous Websites" petition to Ahmed Shaheed, UN, UNHCHR, State Department, EU, Navi Pillay, Ban Ki-Moon, European Parliament was written by John S. Burke and is in the category Human Rights at GoPetition.