Kamangir (Archer)

There are moments of pure joy in the blogosphere. There are times you wish you could touch the hands of people you have had the privilege to know through blogging but have never met in person. When these moments come, you are proud of being a citizen of the blogosphere.

A while back, Bluehost, the company which hosts kamangir.net, announced a partner program. In short, they allowed customers to find new customers and be paid $65 for each sign-up. So I posted an announcement on Persian Kamangir and invited fellow bloggers to take advantage of this opportunity. I offered to pay them back what Bluehost was going to pay me, as a mean to encourage Persian bloggers to move into their personal domains (we also worked out the legalities and let Bluehost administration know about the arrangement).

Soon, four Persian bloggers used the opportunity and set up their blogs in their new domains. That was a few months ago. I promised them that I’ll contact them as soon as I get the check from Bluehost.

Finally, the first check came in a few days ago. It was a $130-check, so I contacted the first two subscribers and asked them for their bank information. Their response is what I would like to call a “pure moment”.

Since a short while ago, we have been involved in collecting $60,000 for releasing a mother from prison. The convicted murderer of her 74-year-old husband, the 32-year-old Akram Mahdavi, is on the death row because she does not have the financial privilege to pay off the requested ransom. She killed her husband after a second arranged marriage was forced upon her by her family. Women’s rights’ activists describe her case as a very typical example of arranged marriages of teenagers to old men (her first husband was forty years older than her). Akram has a 17-year-old daughter from her first marriage (more information in Persian).

If you have not guessed yet how the case of a woman on the death row could have anything to do with “discount” a hosting company offers to its customers, well, that’s what I call the “Iranian Connection”.

Both people whom I contacted for the pay-back asked me to deposit the amount to the fund established for releasing Akram. Is that not something you can be proud of?

If you are willing to help us collect the ransom, please use this button and donate on Paypal. For more information, please send me an email at arash@kamangir.net.