Updated Friday, 5 March 2010

See more ways to help at this great activist site: http://iran.elple.net/

Today the court upheld a death sentence for a 20 year old charged as an enemy against God. He can now be executed at any moment. His crime: throwing a stone and shouting “Down with the dictator.” The stone did not target anyone or do any damage. It was, admittedly, thrown and the words, admittedly spoken. (See the article at RFE) Aaron Rhodes of the International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran states, “It’s an attempt to intimidate other students, other young people like him, who just want to exercise their basic human rights and their political rights,” Rhodes says. ” Any number of others could be similarly accused, convicted, and face being hung.” Mohammad Amin Valian was an active member of his University’s Islamic student association. He campaigned for Mir Hossein Mousavi and was targeted by his university’s Basiji-run newspaper according to the Green Voice of Freedom. What can we do to stop this execution? Here is what the Green Voice of Freedom is advocating:

1) Temporarily change your profile pictures on social networking websites such as facebook and twitter, in order to raise awareness about Mohammad Valian’s death sentence. 2) If you have a weblog, website or other means for spreading the news about Mohammad Amin’s ordeal, we would like to urge you to help in spreading the news about this ridiculous court ruling in the shortest time possible. Remember, the life of a fellow human being is at stake. 3) We would also like to ask any person, organisation or figure that has access to Ayatollah Makarem Shirazi in any way, to inform him of the death sentence and how his statements are being misused by judicial authorities and to cause him to intervene in the matter, in order to prevent further disgrace and shame to the clerical rule in Iran. This is his website: http://www.makaremshirazi.org/ 4) Further, if you are in any way able to contact any official or representative in the Islamic Republic or the Iranian Judicial system, we would like to ask you to do your best in echoing the concerns and voices of the Valian family who can at any moment lose their loved one to a corrupt and dysfunctional judiciary system. This link allows us to write to Iranian embassies and diplomatic missions around the world, and to plead the case of Mohammad Amin Alavian: http://www.servisis.co.uk/greenwave/greenmail.html