Omid Sheikhan's Trial Began Sat., Oct. 8, 2005

Via Daily Briefing on Iran: Iran Press News: Translation by Banafsheh Zand-Bonazzi.

"Blogger, Omid Sheikhan's trial began on Saturday, Oct. 8th in Tehran's public court, located in the Ershaad Judiciary complex. Defense attorney, Mohammad Sayfzadeh told ILNA: "Though my client was originally charged with blogging and internet related activities, the sentence is being passed on charges completely unrelated to those issues. During the hearing we handed in the defense bill that was pertinent to the filed documents and we announced that since my client has not exactly committed a crime, that he must be unconditionally released."

Please sign this petition to encourage the Iranian authorities to drop the charges against Omid, and this one to free Mojtaba Saminejad, who remains incarcerated.

Omid is an Iranian student who make the mistake of (gasp) writing in his blog. He is being unfairly imprisoned, because the Iranian regime fears free speech. If they do not total control over each person, they get very nervous. This will explain their attitude toward outsiders. If you cannot trust your own people, you are not going to trust anyone else. This is not a way to run foreign affairs.

For a while, Omid had disappeared without a trace. While it is good to know he is alive, we need to do more. Please sign the above petitions. He has committed no crime.

Also posted by Curt over at Committee to Protect Bloggers. This is a fabulous group of people who work (non-profit) to protect the rights we take so easily and too often for granted. If you know of anyone who is having trouble with censorship, blogging, etc., please let me know. I, or you, will contact the Committee. Your added help will be appreciated.

We cannot read EVERY news article! Do not worry that it may not help. If you think we must already know, this is a false assumption! The worst that could happen would be two e-mails instead of one! So what?! LOL. Thank you for all your help.

Cross posted: My Newz 'n Ideas and Love America First.
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