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Iranian Physics Student From UT Gets 10 Years In Jail For Spying
scibri writes "Omid Kokabee, a laser physics graduate student from the University of Texas who has been imprisoned in Tehran for the past 15 months, was sentenced to 10 years in jail on Sunday for allegedly conspiring with foreign countries against Iran. Kokabee was arrested in February 2011 while on a trip home, and charged with 'communicating with a hostile government' (i.e. Israel) and 'illegal earnings.' He has consistently denied the charges, and refused to speak at his trial, where no evidence against him was presented. Several international science groups, including the American Physical Society, have spoken up in his defense, and an online petition has been set up in support."
Sadly, this is a very common theme with the Iranian Government. Usually this is to get the person on board with them. They get out when they are on-board, and often family members are jailed to be sure that they stay on-board.
As long as crap is in power, crap like this happens. How many brilliant people did Stalin and Hitler kill? So many that we have no way of knowing.
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
Oh shit. A fucking online petition. Those Iranian guys a really wishing that they hadn't fucked with that grad student.
The great evils in history generally, and the Holocaust in particular, were not executed by fanatics or sociopaths, but by ordinary people who accepted the premises of their state and therefore participated with the view that their actions were normal.
He has consistently denied the charges, and refused to speak at his trial, where no evidence against him was presented.
You're guilty because we say so.
What do I know, I'm just an idiot, right?
Laser physicist. Not a lot of use in making nuclear weapons. If they'd arrested an actual nuclear physicist, I'd consider it plausible they have a secret lab where enslaved scientists are forced to work on weapons research. But I imagine the TSA is already watching for any American nuclear physicists who might wish to go to Iran and is ready to have them turned back at the airport.
and refused to speak at his trial
From the Nature article
Judge Abolghasem Salavati of Branch 15 of Tehran's Revolution Court — who is famous for his harsh sentences — tried 10 to 15 people in the same trial, under the collective charge of collaborating with Israel’s intelligence agency, Mossad.
Hardly "his" trial now, wasn't it? From the sound of it, it was just 10-15 students they all accused of the same thing with some of them (like Sina Zahiri) confessing in order to reduce their sentences. Of course, Zahiri's accusation is contact with Mojahedin-e Khalgh Organization (completely unrelated to the Mossad). So now that Zahiri has confessed, Iran has "evidence" that they can now use to justify counter attacks or assassinations or arrests or whatever.
I'm sure in Kokabee's case, he'd have a lighter sentence if he just said that Israel is doing all the stuff of which they accuse him. Because then Iran has evidence to start some international shit (by the way, I am by no means claiming Israel has no such operations inside Iran).
My work here is dung.
If they next imprison a biologist specializing in cold blooded, carnivorous sea fauna, we know what's going on!
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
We have a LONG way to go before the West descends into such a farce.
Not as long as Cannabis is illegal. If the US can maintain the illusion that Cannabis(which is less harmful than most OTC drugs) is so dangerous that we have to lock people in cages for multiple decades just for growing it, what can't they do?
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
90% of the inmates at Gitmo were innocent as well, and they didn't even get a show trial.
No, they got free board and lodging in a tropical paradise instead of scrounging for food in a war-torn desert.
... nevermind, I'm too late.
"The Greens lynched a hacker in Chicago. Last month, but I think the body's still hanging from the old Water Tower."
Iran is desperate to plug that hole, but frankly they're heavily outmatched and being sanctioned and sabotaged every step of the way.
If you're imposing strict social codes with ridiculously harsh laws while trying to compete with super powers, you're going to have a bad time.
It's true the USSR and US played a big part in turning Iran into the screw up it is today but at some point the people have gotta turn it around if they don't want to end up completely like North Korea. Smart people don't want to live in places where smart people are bothered and executed. Smart people also can't be told where to live -- they're smart and they figure out ways around that.
My work here is dung.
That simple. Iranians (well, except the MEK) aren't dedicated enough for a protracted violent struggle, so their government will remain as it is.
The Viet Minh and later Viet Cong were willing to die, by the hundreds of thousands, to take power in their country. The Taliban have demonstrated the same will to fight over decades.
Either be willing to fight as a revolutionary or get the fuck out before Serious People eat you. The Mullonazis are Serious People. If you aren't willing to slaughter them, you don't really oppose them.
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
It's difficult to glean from the articles, but it seems Kokabee is not an American citizen, but an Iranian citizen who was attending an American graduate school. The act of going to an American school was the first risky move, both to his own safety but that of his family. The Iranian government knew he was attending an American school and simply waited for the appropriate time to use him as a pawn. Did he really think he was going to be able to associate himself with America and not end up being used for propaganda purposes by the Iranian government? He's a young kid so maybe he didn't think about it, but his parents should have.
I do sympathize that he felt he had to risk everything in order to get a good education in the field of his choice, but he put himself in a very risky position.
There are a lot of very narcissistic people on Slashdot and any discussion that isn't about America they seem to need to find a way to redirect it to the US as soon as they can. I can never be a discussion about civil rights in another nation, they have to try and steer the debate right back around to America so they can do more whining and make more things about themselves.
It is extremely annoying, and precisely as expected for this site.
See decades ago when the US was seen as the mega super bastion of freedom, truth, shining knight of armor and whatnot, I told my friend, the US is simply a country like others
I don't know how old you are, but no one I know (in the UK) has thought of the US in those terms since 1945.
I suppose members of the old Soviet Bloc had a romanticised view of the US until the 1990s though.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it