August 5th- Support imprisoned Iranian student activists and bloggers

Arash Kamangir is asking all bloggers to join in a movement, generated by a group of Iranian bloggers, to publicize the plight of jailed student activists in the land of Ahmadinejad and the oppressed.

August 5th 2007 is the 101-st anniversary of the Iranian constitutional revolution. BUT Iranian people still struggle for democracy and student activists are still sent to jails. Several student activists spend this year’s anniversary in jails. They include Mohammad Hashemi, Ali Nikoones bati, Ali Vefghi, Bahareh Hedayat, Mehdi Arabshahi, Hanif Yazdani, Abodllah Momeni, Bahram Fayyazi, Habib Hajiheydari, Morteza Eslahchi, Mojtaba Bayat,, Arash Khandel, Ashkan Ghiasvand, Ahmad Ghassaban, Majid Tavakoli, Ehsan Mansouri, and Amir Yaghoub-ali.

In support and memory of our fellow activists, who some of them are bloggres as well, a group of Iranian bloggres will change their blog title on August the 5th to "August the 5th: The day of support for jailed Iranian students". We invite you, even as a non-Iranian blogger, to participate in this cause. You can join by sending us e mail to 14.mordad@gmail.com or write the name of your weblog in the comment box below, so it will be added to the list of the supporting weblogs.

According to Human Rights Watch (HRW), the students have been subjected to torture and abuse, to force them to confess to trumped up charges. There are even accounts of sexual torture, though I have no way of confirming that.

Some of the jailed activists claim they were targeted for their participation in student protests, earlier this year, against Ahmadinejad. Others, like 19 year old Amir Yaghoub Ali,

was a student supporter of the One Million Signatures Campaign, which aims to eliminate discriminatory laws against women. Activists in Iran told Human Rights Watch that authorities are particularly vindictive toward male supporters of campaigns for women’s rights.

A witness to the peaceful women’s protest of March 8, 2006 in Tehran’s Daneshjoo Park [where Amir was collecting signatures] told Human Rights Watch that when security and police forces attacked the gathering with batons in order to disperse the crowds, they severely beat the men who were present.

We are so blessed to be living in countries that allow us to say whatever we please, criticize whomever, without the fear of governmental retribution!!

Others blogging about this:

Bloodthirsty Liberal
Blazing Cat Fur
Terry Glavin
Arabisto