The March 18 Movement – Bloggers should not be killed
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZJOXst8KQ0o[/youtube]
Today is the first anniversary of Iranian blogger Omid Reza’s death. For those of you who don’t know who Omid is, this is an excerpt from the entry we created on Wikipedia:
Omid Reza Mir Sayafi (also Omidreza Mirsayafi), a 29-year old Iranian blogger and journalist died in Evin Prison in Tehran on March 18, 2009. In December, he was sentenced to two and half years in prison for allegedly insulting religious leaders, and engaging in propaganda against the Islamic Republic of Iran. Mir Sayafi was still awaiting an additional trial for insulting Islam. Some human rights groups that his death follows a pattern of Iranian authorities “denying urgent health care to prisoners of conscience, resulting in their death.”
Mir Sayafi’s blog is no longer accessible. But with some searching one can find an archive containing the blog posts that led to his imprisonment. Mir-Sayafi’s main area of expertise was traditional Persian music. He also wrote poetry and penned articles for Persian-language electronic art journals. He was apparently well known in Iranian intelligentsia circles.
Several citizen media groups have announced March 18 as “the day of solidarity with persecuted bloggers”. The March 18 Movement was created in his memory.
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this is a great project but unfortunately you are over looking Iraqi bloggers , Iraqi bloggers are victims for working unrecognized by any one other than there weak efforts ,we had no technology no real participation on bloggers societies no training ,and worse we are not even getting the support when we face threats
other than mideastyouth no sit or organization is standing beside me after i received death threats because of my bloggs ,other bloggers who face death threats ,arrested for supporting liberal parties and freedom of speech inside Iraq are never mentioned ,in the last iraqi elections one of the iraqi facebook activist received death threats ,several bloggers had to sleep outside there houses to cover the elections so no one come and kidnap them ,with bad Internet service ,some people walks for miles to upload a video ,but no one mention this ,all media covering were on certain areas and certian ethnic groups
we are standing alone and being not only abuse by those who threat us but by human rights advocates over the world ,we are denied asylum on grounds of our threats ,no one like to listen to our version of Iraq cause it effect the illusion of the new iraq ,many European human rights so called fighters turn there backs to me after years of receiving help from me inside Iraq on there human rights projects just because my true informations doesn’t look good on there reports
fortunately we had few faithful friends and places like Mideast youth who still stand by us ,but we need true concern on our situations and help to stand for our right to speak
Sorry Diann,
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