Iran set to execute Web developer

Amnesty International called for Iran to stop plans to execute web developer Saeed Malekpour, after the programmer's sister said the country had upheld his death sentence after judicial review. She said the execution could take place at any time. The 35-year-old Canadian resident was arrested in 2008 when visiting family in Iran, as authorities there said a photo-uploading program he had designed had been used for uploading pornography to the web.

Following solitary confinement of more than a year, Malekpour was sentenced to death in October 2010, after he confessed to his alleged crimes on state television. He later retracted the confession, saying he had been tortured.

According to Amnesty, other people awaiting execution on internet-related charges include blogger Vahid Asghari and website administrator Ahmad Reza Hashempour. Bloggers Hossein Derakhshan and Hossein Ronaghi are serving sentences of 19.5 and 15 years respectively for their online activities, and many others have been arrested recently.

For more on this story, read Activists decry Iran web developer death sentence on ZDNet UK.