Our Society will be a Free Society: Please sign the online petition before MARCH 19

In response to the brutal crackdown against journalists, writers, and bloggers in Iran, a coalition of leading press freedom and free expression groups, including International PEN, have launched a petition drive calling for the release of those imprisoned. More such professionals are now in prison in Iran than in any other country in the world—at least 60, 47 of them journalists.

The “Our Society Will Be a Free Society” campaign—a reference to a pledge made by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini on the eve of the 1979 Revolution—is gathering signatures for an online petition to be sent to Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on March 20, the Iranian New Year.

To sign the petition, visit the campaign Web site www.oursocietywillbeafreesociety.org or access the page on Facebook.

"I know my jailers in Iran were aware of the depth of international concern," said Newsweek correspondent Maziar Bahari, who was jailed for 118 days in Iran. "We need to raise a similar outcry on behalf of the more than 60 journalists, writers, and bloggers jailed there today. Adding your name to this petition will help us deliver the message that people around the world are watching."

"Imprisoning writers, journalists and bloggers is an affront to the Iranian people and their Constitution," said Marian Botsford Fraser, Chair of the Writers in Prison Committee of International PEN. "Signing this petition is a way of expressing solidarity with them, and with our imprisoned colleagues."

The Committee to Protect Journalists, American PEN, Reporters Sans Frontières, Index on Censorship, Canadian Journalists for Free Expression, the International Federation of Journalists, Article 19, the World Association of Newspapers and News Publishers, the International Publishers Association and others have joined forces because of “a sense of shared, urgent concern for the welfare of journalists, writers, and bloggers and a profound alarm over the situation for free expression in Iran.”

For more information about the campaign and to find links to upcoming events and relevant articles please visit www.oursocietywillbeafreesociety.org.

If you are on Facebook or Twitter, please get the message out and ask people to sign.....
 


To: His Excellency Ayatollah Sayed Ali Khamenei

We petition that…

We are writing to urge you to free all writers, journalists, and bloggers currently in prison for carrying out their professional activities in Iran.

At least 60 writers, journalists, and bloggers are behind bars today in violation of the protections guaranteeing freedom of expression in the Islamic Republic of Iran’s constitution and in international law. This list constitutes the largest number of such professionals jailed by any country at one time in over a decade.

In 1978, your predecessor, Ayatollah Khomeini, said, “Our future society will be a free society, and all the elements of oppression, cruelty, and force will be destroyed.”

We entreat you to uphold the pledges of Ayatollah Khomenei and the promises of the Iranian constitution by releasing all writers, journalists, and bloggers currently behind bars for covering the news and expressing their views in Iran.

Sincerely,

The Undersigned