If you have not signed this petition, please do now.

Nazanin is a 19-year old Iranian girl who has spent the last year and a half in prison for accidently killing a man who was trying to rape her. She had been facing a death sentence, but that sentence was commuted and the case sent back to a lower court for further investigation. Now she is about to be retried, and could be in danger of her life again. At least she now has a few things going for her: her case has garnered international attention and some pressure from human rights organizations and the U.N. (Iran is a signatory to the U.N. Declaration on the Rights of the Child, yet allows capital punishment for boys as young as 15 and girls as young as 9 and frequently executes juveniles.) Perhaps if the world community keeps up the pressure, the court will be prevailed upon to set the poor girl free. I was going to say, "give her justice," but they've already given her plenty of injustice. Given the choice, I think I'd prefer a few years in a gulag to a trip through Iran's criminal justice system. Nobody pretends a gulag is fair.

Here and here
(bottom of page) are my previous posts on this story.

Here, more importantly, is the Save Nazanin Site, which contains information on the case, regular updates, and a petition link. (I am adding the petition link here.) I recommend reading some of the news articles here; comparing the trial report published in Etemaad to some of the other articles is edifying if you have no idea what being on trial in an Iranian court is like. I'd describe some of what I read but if I got started, I'd be here for a few hours and have several pages. The articles will serve; do read them.

And please, if you haven't signed the petition yet, do so promptly. And pray we may be able to save a life.

The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.
Edmund Burke, attr.

UPDATE 1/11/07 This from Wikipedia's page on the case today:
Nazanin's re-trial on January 10 resulted in unanimous decision by the four judges that the murder was not

Nazanin's re-trial on January 10 resulted in unanimous decision by the four judges that the murder was not intentional. The final result will be announced in few days. The court was the continuation of retrial in August of 2006. The session started with 2 hours delay. There were many observers in this court. Nazanin's two defense attorneys proceeded with their defense. After much discussions, the four judges unanimously determined that the lower court decision in January of 2006 was wrong and the murder was not intentional.

The defense attorneys are hopeful that the final decision on the fate of Nazanin will be announced in the next few days. The unanimous decision is great news and the defense attorneys are now hopeful that the previous death penalty verdict will be reversed and Nazanin could be freed.

I pray that the judges will make the just and merciful decision in this case. I will try to post further updates as I find them.