Rebecca Harrelson
9/29/10
3:07
Hossein Derkhshan was sentenced Tuesday after being convicted of several offences, including spreading propaganda against the ruling establishments and insulting Islamic thoughts and religious figures. The former wife of the Iranian-Canadian blogger who was sentenced to more than nineteen years in prison for his provocative writings says she’s stunned by the ruling.
The ex-wife Marrijan Alemi, was told to be happy with the sentence, because at least Daraohshan was not sentenced to death. “What I think is they put the word out of the death sentence so that when the sentence of nineteen years came out, they would be happy,” Alemi said. If that theory is true it completely unacceptable and unjustifiable. The Foreign Affairs Minister Lawrence Cannon believes that no one should be punished anywhere for simply exercising one’s inherent right to freedom of expression.
Hossein was also convicted of promoting counterrevolutionary groups and working with “enemy states,” because he visited Israel five years ago. Derakhshan has long been a staunch advocate of free expression in Iran and published his political views, and emerged as an unlikely supporter of the Iranian regime and President Mahmoud.
Derakhshan was born in Iran, but moved to attend a university and later became a Canadian citizen. Of course Iran does not recognize dual citizenship's.
Derakhshan has long been an advocate of free expression in Iran, and published his political views, and emerged as an unlikely supporter or the Iranian regime and President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. So when the Iranian government invited him to Iran in 2008, he accepted. “He got an invitation from one of the organizations of the Ahmandinjad government to go back and work for them,” said Alemi.
I’m not exactly sure how Hossein was legally arrested, and charged. It seems a little ridiculous that words can cause so much of an uproar. I’m hoping the Canadian government steps in and either reduces his sentence or bails him out of this mess completely. What are your thoughts? Do you think words should have this much effect?
http://toronto.ctv.ca/servlet/an/local/CTVNews/20100928/Derakhshan-Iran-sentence-100929/20100929/?hub=TorontoNewHome
2 comments:
Literary persecution is a restriction on freedom of expression with the purpose of ensuring national security and social stability. It is often practiced by autoritarian states. It is common in China as well. The famous case is Liu Xiaobo's imprisonment for treason by some pro-democracy publications.
It remains a big political and legal issue around the world about where the line separating protecting national security and freedom of expression should be drawn. I do not have the answer yet, but I argue that literary insult on a government should not be punished by law unless it has a wrong factual basis.
Well in agreement that it's ridiculous that people do have the freedom of speech but this is in many cases the facts of many countries such a Tibet. In Tibet itself many people are persecuted and sent to jail for simply opposing Chinese rule in their own country. From a sociological perspective human rights are a strange anomaly in many countries because of how laws and regulations are not separated between religion, lifestyle and state.
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