freedom of speech

‘Secularism is the Solution’: My articles about Raif Badawi

Posted on by Mark Aldrich

This is an up-to-date list of the articles and columns I have written concerning Raif Badawi. Each one was first published here, in The Gad About Town website; several were subsequently linked to and quoted in other media outlets, including the Raif Badawi Foundation’s website itself. (I am not an impartial reporter, so it was an honor to see my work there.)

The ongoing diplomatic silence regarding Raif Badawi is perplexing in the face of the global outcry. Last November, Yves Rossier, Switzerland’s Secretary of Foreign Affairs, told a Swiss newspaper, La Liberté, that Raif Badawi’s sentence has been suspended.
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Hossein Ronaghi Freed on Bail

Posted on by Mark Aldrich

Visibly weaker after a 38-day hunger strike, Iranian blogger Hossein Ronaghi was released on bail yesterday, May 4. According to the web site Journalism Is Not a Crime, the bail “300 million tomans (about $100,000) pending a review of his case.”

Since his return to prison in January, Iranian blogger Hossein Ronaghi’s health has deteriorated to the point that he was taken to outside clinics on at least two occasions, according to reports on Twitter, but he was not been admitted to a hospital because prosecutors (not doctors) have determined that his condition is not serious.

The blogger’s medical condition is serious: arrested in December 2009 and in and out of prisons since, one kidney has shut down and the other requires immediate attention.

(Below the fold is my post from March 30: “We are His Voice: Hossein Ronaghi.” I will post more as I learn it.)
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I Am His Voice: Hossein Ronaghi

Posted on by Mark Aldrich

In his second-to-last post on Twitter (below), Hossein Ronaghi wrote, “The response to opinions is not prison.” But he is in prison, Evin Prison in Tehran, Iran, and has spent the last six and a half years fighting for his freedom of expression, his freedom, and now even his life itself.
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