Web Developer Sentenced To Death In Iran

An anonymous reader points out the case of Saeed Malekpour, an Iranian-born permanent resident of Canada who worked as a web developer. In 2008, during a visit to Iran, Malekpour was arrested and detained by Iranian authorities on charges that he designed and moderated "adult content websites." In 2009, he was sentenced to death for "acting against the national security, insulting and desecrating the principles of Islam, and agitating the public mind." Malekpour wrote photo-uploading software, and in a letter he sent from prison, he said it was used by porn sites without his knowledge. This week an Iranian court reviewed the case and confirmed that the death sentence was an acceptable punishment. According to one Canadian publication, "Human rights monitors believe that Malekpour, one of a number of people held on Internet-related charges, is trapped by a convoluted justice system that is manipulated by rival factions in Iran."

Comments

In other words,

[Anonymous Coward]

You're in danger the second you step into Iran. Don't do business there, don't visit there.

Re:In other words,

[Racemaniac]

Since when do you have to enter the US to get arrested by it? look at the megaupload guys...

Re:In other words,

[purpledinoz]

What really irks me is that case of American hikers caught by the Iranians in Iraq. First of all, why do they have to go to Iraq to go hiking? They KNOW it's dangerous. By being caught, they gave Iran a bargaining chip. What the hell is wrong with these people?

Re:In other words,

[dna_(c)(tm)(r)]

Or live in the UK: Richard O'Dwyer

Re:In other words,

[Anonymous Coward]

What really irks me is how a random group of Americans can be discovered by Iranians wandering into Iraq, the media is told OH THEY'RE JUST HIKERS, and a single person finds the story credible.

Re:In other words,

[Anonymous Coward]

Tell that to the guys at gitmo, or to those who will be detained based on the "National Defense Authorization Act".

Re:In other words,

[Cederic]

No, in the US you only need to be born black in Detroit to be put to death.

Meanwhile hosting a website that links to other websites can earn you 20 years in jail when you've never even fucking visited the fucking country.

I haven't even mentioned the decade of torture and false imprisonment in a foreign country for the evil crime of "pissing off someone that works for the Americans". Or do you really believe that everyone in Guantanamo is guilty?

Trust me, from where I'm sat the US poses are far greater threat to my ongoing life and freedom than Iran does.

Re:In other words,

[TheRaven64]

Why? Most people in both countries can live quite happily without ever being involved with the legal system (I've not been to Iran, but I have a few friends from there, so admittedly I'm only speaking based on second-hand information). In both cases, you can be imprisoned for quite ludicrous things (e.g. owning a specific quantity of a certain kind of plant in the USA). In both places, the state reserves the right to kill its citizens.

Re:In other words,

[poity]

He's reacting to the equivalence fallacies.
This is what happens on Slashdot every single time:

1. Some other country trespasses egregiously on human rights (e.g. death penalty for software unwittingly used by porn sites)
2. First comment says "this is no different than the USA", gets modded +5
3. Someone responds to that post with "that's not a fair comparison since the US reacts differently for [crime in topic]"
4. Someone like you twists #3's words around to frame him as an apologist with low standards when in fact he was calling out the non-sequitur for having no logical connection.
5. Someone chimes in about how this is a cultural phenomenon and we should sympathize with abusive foreign governments (to which I can only laugh because it begs the silly question: why doesn't the world sympathize with the abusive US government for reasons of cultural understanding?)

Yes of course you SHOULD be vigilant in policing the abuses by the government, but when you can no longer separate bad from worse, you will have lost all hope of separating good from bad. If you want a country to get better, then you better know exactly where it stands in relation to others, those which are better than it and those which are worse than it. Only what that self-knowledge can you seek to improve. Defeatist like #2 have neither the insight nor the inclination to improve a country.

wow

[jmb1990]

...I've written some bad code in my time.. but not that bad.

We've had a similar case here in NL

[bytesex]

The question is: why oh why do all of these people go back to fscking Iran ?!

Re:We've had a similar case here in NL

[Anonymous Coward]

One day a guy was sleeping in the sun with his pants off, and the papa tapeworm and the baby tapeworm got out in the sun. It was a first for the baby, so it looked at everything with big eyes and started asking. Pa, pa, what is this big shiny blue dome? The sky, son, the sky. Pa, pa, what is this shiny yellow thing in the middle of the sky? The sun, son, the sun. Pa, pa, what is the beautiful green thing all around? A meadow, son, with flowers. Pa, pa, when there are so many beautiful things in the world, why do we live in this stinking hole? Motherland, son, motherland.

Re:Savages

[MichaelSmith]

I think it is bizarre that Iran apparently has people who track the authors of software used to host pornography and associates it with their residency status and availability for arrest in Iran.

Campaign to help

[Lemming Mark]

There's a campaign to help this man: https://peoplewithoutnation.wordpress.com/

Most recently, there's an appeal to write to the Prime Minister of Canada, who hasn't yet spoken out in support of Saeed:
https://peoplewithoutnation.wordpress.com/2012/01/19/take-action-write-a-letter-to-stephen-harper-canadas-prime-minister/

The death sentence could be carried out imminently.

Saeed Malekpour was in Iran to visit his gravely ill father. He was waiting for Canadian citizenship and the Iranian regime are aiming to make an example of him, having tortured him and denied him due process. I think the Canadian government does have a particular moral duty to stand up for him under the circumstances, although really all democratic governments ought to oppose this sort of thing.

The Iranian regime seems to have an interest in intimidating the population (and making an example out of cases that are highly-publicised internally, such as this one) since there's an election coming up in March, as well as the general interest in keeping the population scared.

Amnesty also have some information on the case:
http://www.amnesty.org/en/news/iran-must-halt-execution-web-programmer-2012-01-19

I'm just piecing together some information I've found here, I'm not connected to the case.

Re:Death penalty

[Anonymous Coward]

While religion can be destructive at times, it does do a lot of good. I'm an atheist, but stating that religion should not be allowed is a violation of human rights. Prosecuting every religion is the same as prosecuting just one, which is often what happens in countries like Iran. However, the death penalty definitely should be banned.