Iranian pastor to possibly be executed in Iran over apostasy charge....

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Mr Khan said:

binary solo said:

RageBot said:
lol, protest against a country led by a men who wishes to see the west destroyed, and openly states the hollocaust is a lie?

Seems productive.

Believe it or not Iran does care about it's international reputation. When governments the UN and the international press have been openly critical of the way they persecute Baha'is they have toned down the persecution and reduced the anti-Baha'i propoaganda.

I think there is a very good chance that enough international outrage would cause the Iranian govt to commute the guy's death sentence. He'd probably still be imprisoned for life, or at until a moderate regime comes into power and releases all political and religious prisoners (don't hold your breath) which might still be life for this guy.

So actually it IS productive for people to loudly protest against both this guy's death sentence and the persecution of the Baha'is. First thing to do is write or e-mail your local congressman/senator/MP. Also write letters to the editor of the local news paper. If you live in a country with an Iranian embassy write to the Iranian Ambassador. Iran is a signatory to the international convention on Human Rights, every well publicised human rights violation is embarassing to them and it does cause them to act and moderate their behaviour (temporarily at least)

The University Students Association here is holding a debate on human rights in Iran and the Ambassador is coming to take part.

So please DO something.

So they're more receptive about this sort of thing than North Korea, then?

Definitely. In fact Iran is quite sensitive to accusations of human rights abuses because they want the world to think they have good human rights. Iran sees itself as a leading and infuential nation in Middle East regional politics, or at least they want to be. While for the most part they dislike and distrust the wes they can completely dismiss western criticism because there are middle eastern countries who really want to get on with the west. Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Jordan particularly. So Iran can't afford to piss those guys off and hope to remain as a regional power. And now with Libya coming under the west's wing, and probably Egypt democratising and remaining friendly with the west (recall Egypt actually has a peace treaty with Israel) Iran's position is even more at risk if they isolate and reject the west too much.

So Iran is definitely much more open to being influenced by criticism of their human rights abuses than North Korea. North Korea only really cares about what China says, and even then they don't care that much.