18 Mar 2006 roozbeh   » (Master)

Freedom of speech: Akbar Ganji (disclaimer: don’t trust Wikipedia on Iranian matters, it’s only good for a rough general idea of the subject) has been released from jail today. While I don’t agree with the guy’s strategy by doing a hunger strike instead of “co-operating”, I’m so glad to see his happy face.

I really believe no one should spend time in jail for his writing, specially when there has been no private complainant. I am not saying this as some idealist or anarchist who believes in freedom or whatever, I’m saying this as someone (like many people in the free software community) who has been abused and insulted several times by idiots or the jealous because of his open work on free software or the wikipedia, and has suffered because of the insults and the abuses. So when I say people should be able to criticize, I also mean these abusers (oh, the line that separates these is so thin).

Let everyone who feels offended come to the court and explain why he feels so, and why should the offender be jailed or fined, instead of getting people arrested because of possible “threats to the national security” or “collaborating with the foreign agencies”. If a panel presentation or an article in a newspaper are threats to Iran’s security, the Iranian government should improve on making the country more resistant to such threats (which may come from people that cannot be imprisoned), instead of putting them in jail.

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