Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani is a 43 year old Iranian woman who was sentenced to death by stoning for alleged adultery.

Her son Sajad and her daughter Farideh started an international campaign that has been already successful enough to prevent the verdict from being carried out. The campaign has been extensively reported on the English newspaper The Guardian, we suggest you to read the available articles to know more about it.

Iran, aware negative publicity that such a display of cruelty brings, put an halt on the execution. However, the review of the verdict is not likely to put Sakineh free, and the death sentence may still be carried out by hanging - the most common execution method in the country.

Sakineh still needs your help. Please sign a petition, or join the cause on facebook to keep the pressure on Iranian authorities and free Sakineh.

 In just half an hour or so it will be Nowruz around here, which marks the start of the Iranian new year (1389) - and spring!
Above there’s a persian poem celebrating this - please bear with us if we don’t add the translation, which would hardly do justice to the original.
So, happy Nowruz, and spring, to everybody.

Nowruz (from Farsi, literally "new day") is a non-religious festivity that’s celebrated on the first day of spring in countries like Iran, Turkey, Afghanistan and Tajikistan since some 15,000 years ago.
Amongst other things, celebration includes walking on hot coals.

This festivity is particularly important for Iranians, but many of them won’t be able to celebrate it because their loved ones are languishing in prison.

Amnesty International has launched an action to send greetings to Nowruz greetings to seven detainees - the number has been picked according to another ancient tradition related to the celebration.
Some of the detainees are human rights activists but others are scholars, journalists and one graphic designer. You can help these deserving people by letting them know they are not forgotten on a day so important for them. Just design them a nice postcard.

You can find the guidelines on how to send your greetings on Amnesty’s USA site. Please follow them correctly.

Photo by Bertil Vildet