Writers petition Ayatollah Khamenei to pardon condemned Iranian poets

THE NEW YORK TIMES
By Rick Gladstone

On Sunday, the PEN American Center, an advocacy group that promotes free expression worldwide, sent a petition signed by 116 poets and writers to Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, beseeching him to grant pardons to the condemned poets, Fatemeh Ekhtesari, 31, and Mehdi Mousavi, 41. The sentences — 11 and a half years for Ms. Ekhtesari and nine years for Mr. Mousavi, plus 99 lashes for both — were conveyed to their lawyer, Amir Raeesian, on Oct. 10. [link]