Awareness

Some months ago I made a post about the American filmmaker Andrew Berends who was detained in Nigeria. Though I'm glad to report Andrew was released some time after, there's a few more prisoners of conscience whom we should not forget and leave to rot. Here's a small selection:


- Esha Momeni (28) / Iran

Iranian-American Women's rights advocate Esha Momeni was arrested October 15th. For her story check out the blog: http://for-esha.blogspot.com/ or her mention on the Amnesty site: http://www.amnesty.org/en/library/info/MDE13/155/2008/en


- Sayed Pervez Kambakhsh (24) / Afghanistan

A journalism student who got the death sentence at the age of 23 for distributing articles about human rights abuses as well as Quranic verses about women. A few days ago the sentences was overturned, he's now "only" sentenced to 20 years for questioning Islam. What is especially painful is that this happens in a country "liberated" by the West, where western soldiers still give their lives to fight Taliban and Al-Qaeda.

http://globalvoicesonline.org/2008/10/22/sayed-pervez-kambakhshs-sentence-commuted-to-20-years/

Et tu Karzai?


- Abdel Kareem Soliman (23) / Egypt

A law student and blogger who was jailed at the age of 22 for saying writing about his (former) university and the Egyptian president.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/6385849.stm

Did you notice how young these activists are? Makes me want to break something.