
Saeed Malekpour, programmer and political prisoner in Iran - omosanzalettere
https://github.com/saeedmalekpour
======
meritt
There's a blog/campaign to raise awareness about Saeed and efforts to free
him:
[http://peoplewithoutnation.wordpress.com/](http://peoplewithoutnation.wordpress.com/)
\-- He's an Iranian who became a Canadian permanent resident in 2004; Returned
home in 2008 to visit his father and was arrested and imprisoned since. He
open-sourced some photo uploading software which a number of adult sites
utilize; Iran arrested him on charges of designing/moderating porn sites.

------
Oculus
I'm not a big follower of Middle Eastern politics, but my understanding is
there's attempts by Iran's current government to put it's darker, more
aggressive past behind it. A "friendly Iran" is a hard pill to swallow when we
hear stories like this. I feel worst for the people of Iran who I doubt
support the extremist nature of their government, but have to suffer the
global consequences.

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kentf
I just saw this and felt compelled to start something. Let's raise money for
Saeed, for flights, lawyers, visas, awareness... whatever he / his family
needs!

[https://www.tilt.com/campaigns/free-saeed-malekpour-
fund](https://www.tilt.com/campaigns/free-saeed-malekpour-fund)

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anigbrowl
I read this last night and found it heart-rending but also incomprehensible ;
for it to gain traction, I suggest that the summary is rewritten to explain
(and refute) the claims against him much more clearly.

Essentially he's accused of distributing porn, which is a big no-no in a
strict theocracy like Iran. his supporters argue that he built a photo-sharing
tool which was used by others to swap porn.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saeed_Malekpour](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saeed_Malekpour)

------
ludamad
So apparently if you use open source by people from oppressive regimes you
should delete their names, or they might go to prison forever

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firstOrder
This reminds me of Javed Iqbal, an American satellite dish repairman who was
thrown in jail for allowing Americans access (Hezbollah and supposedly Iran
backed) Al-Manar television.

Actually the article from NPR, a station often described as liberal, doesn't
seem all that incredulous over it happening when the shoe's on the other foot.
Headline: "N.Y. Man Charged with Aiding Hezbollah TV Channel". First sentence:
"This past week, the Department of Justice charged a New York City man for
aiding a terrorist organization.". Geez, to the average American it starts
making it sound like he did something wrong and kind of deserves to be in
jail. I guess Iranians feel the same way with their guy.

~~~
gus_massa
I guess it's a common name, because there are 9 "Javed Iqbal" in Wikipedia.
The relevant article is
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashcroft_v._Iqbal](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashcroft_v._Iqbal)

~~~
judk
That article is about his abuse in by FBI and in prison, not his alleged
crimes.

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nateparrott
Not to suggest any sort of conspiracy, but why is it that this link has (as of
4:21 EDT) 103 points, 43 comments, and was posted one hour ago, and yet is
ranked 33rd on the HN homepage — meanwhile, the #1 ranked link, also from an
hour ago, has only 20 points? And an 11-hour-old 13-point link is #13? Does it
have to do with the poster's karma or recently-joined status, or the linked
site? I'm genuinely curious what goes into this ranking.

~~~
dang
Most political stories get down-weighted, and religious flamewars doubly so.

~~~
nateparrott
Is it automatic? A function of highly-downvoted comments?

~~~
dang
No, but it's getting there.

------
dang
Url changed from
[https://twitter.com/stephenfry/status/518460637916446720](https://twitter.com/stephenfry/status/518460637916446720).

------
imaginenore
I blame Islam. How insecure do you have to be about your violent beliefs that
you have to kidnap and torture somebody who you think participated in
insulting your beliefs.

The charges against him are insane, just like the religion itself.

~~~
Alupis
There is no place on HN for bigotry. There is nothing wrong with Islam itself.
You confuse radicals, which are present in every major religion, even
Christianity.

~~~
imaginenore
How is pointing out the religious violence bigotry?

Read his story. He got kidnapped, tortured, and charged with a laundry list of
offenses against the religion.

~~~
mathieuh
Because you're calling a religion subscribed to by almost a quarter of the
people on this planet, and by inference those subscribers, "insane".

~~~
serf
Not agreeing with parent, but 'religion subscribed to' and 'insane' go hand in
hand for me.

I have never encountered a religion that didn't require a lack of focused
logic and a certain suspension of disbelief in order to be a follower.

Half of (some random religious group) followers say something like "Well, it's
all symbolism, the stories are not meant to be taken factually but rather
metaphorically", and the other half say "Well, it's a historical document and
entirely true.".

I'm may be a bigot and jaded with bias, but if I learn that you put a lot of
faith into a deity based hocus-pocus religion i'll likely end up putting less
faith in your personal reasoning skills as a human.

~~~
mathieuh
I'm a dirty commie atheist, I just feel like the energy put into hating
religion by people like Dawkins would be much better spent elsewhere.

I've met plenty of at least nominally religious people whom I've been happy to
associate with, and whom are the some of the smartest people I've met. I've
also met plenty of the Dawkins-type anti-theists whose company I've evacuated
post haste.

------
mortenlarsen
Closed minded people fear the free thinking. That is the only reason I can
come up with.

~~~
BariumBlue
Most likely he was just used as a scapegoat. Someone wanted somebody else
behind bars, either so they could say that some issue was being dealt with or
that the issue has been dealt with, and some other person was used to fill
that role.

