Release Mohammad Ali Salmani Nodoushan

Mohammad Ali Salmani Nodoushan is an Iranian applied linguist. I have read a number of his papers and have great respect for his work. I have been in contact with him on a number of occasions in relation to the International Journal of Language Studies (IJLS). He was very quick to offer me the opportunity to join the Editorial board in 2010, and has sent me a number of papers for review. However, it would appear that Mohammad has been re-arrested. His personal facebook page (http://www.facebook.com/nodushan) and the facebook page for IJLS (http://www.facebook.com/ijls.ed) have both been de-activated, even though the co-editor for IJLS attempted to re-activate it. Mohammed was released from Iranian jail a few months ago after facing the death penalty. The Iranian authorities accuse him of converting to Christianity which they consider is worthy of the death penalty. Although it is almost impossible to confirm this information, the following message was sent earlier this week:

Hi. 
I am contacting you on behalf of your friend. 
Please DO NOT reply to this mail. I will delete this address as soon as this email is sent. 
Your friend in C*U*S*T*O*D*Y again since 14:00 hours local time June 13, 2012. 
Charges: 
1.        Conversion 
2.        Persistence on New Faith 
3.        Propaganda against G*O*V*E*R*N*M*E*N*T by placing a footnote on page 1 of the article at: http://www.ijls.net/volumes/volume6issue1/montazeran1.pdf 
4.        Including some J*E*W*S and I*S*R*A*E*L*I*s on I*J*L*S editorial board (i.e., this has resulted in his being charged for E* S* P*I *O *N *A *G *E for that G*O*V*E*R*N*M*E*N*T) 
Items 1 to 4 all automatically entail a D*E*A*T*H sentence. 
Please make sure you go public with this info since our cyber activities are CTRLed here, so we cannot do anything. Things must be done outside of here.   
Please remember that my name must be kept S*E*C*R*E*T.  Please: 
1.        Contact S*A*R, U*N* Human R*I*G*H*T*S W*A*T*C*H, and other related organizations and N*G*Os. 
2.        Open a new P*E*T*I*T*I*O*N on G*O*P*E*T*I*T*I*O*N dot C*O*M 
3.        Go public with all the past info and documents on F*A*C*E*B*O*O*K and other M*E*D*I*A 
4.        Whatever else you think will help. 
Thank you very much. 


When Mohammad was arrested previously there was a campaign to raise his case in international media and with the concerned charities and NGOs, such as Scholars At Risk and Amnesty International. As you can see, there is a call to do the same this time in order to save the life of a fellow academic whose only crime is to profess to a belief that the governing political regime consider hostile. 

Please help in any way you can. There is an online petition that you can sign here:
Release Mohammad Ali Salmani Nodoushan Petition | GoPetition
If you know any other way, please share with the IJLS co-editor Professor Randall Gess.
(Another unusual post for this blog.)