“Our Society Will Be a Free Society” campaign launches online petition

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.

“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.”

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 our page on Facebook.

"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, 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, and the International Publishers Association have joined forces for “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.

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