NEAR Newsletter August 2007
Welcome to the NEAR Newsletter. In this edition you will find our most recent Action Alerts and also an ‘Academic Freedom in the Media’ section, listing news by country (August 2007). Any comments and suggestions about the content and layout of the newsletter will be gratefully received at roisin.joyce@nearinternational.org.
NEAR Action Alerts *Taken from the NEAR website
Saudi Arabia: Saudi Arabia, Sri Lankan Teenager Faces Execution
Rizana Nafeek, a nineteen year old Sri Lankan worker trafficked into Saudi Arabia, was sentenced to death for the alleged murder of an infant in her care. Education International and NEAR support the global call to stop her execution. BACKGROUND INFORMATION: Nafeek was sent to work overseas in 2005 through an employment agency that obtained a passport falsely stating she was born in 1982 rather than 1988, according to the Times.
Iran: US-Iranian Academic Released on Bail
Haleh Esfandiari, a US-Iranian academic, has been released from the Iranian prison in which she was jailed for more than a hundred days on suspicion of promoting a ‘velvet revolution’. She works for the Woodrow Wilson Centre in Washington and her family paid £160,000 on bail.
** Please continue to send us any relevant cases involving threats to academic freedom and education rights, for potential alerts.
The Network for Education and Academic Rights (NEAR) is a membership-based, non-governmental organisation which facilitates international collaboration between organisations active in issues of academic freedom and educational rights, and committed to promoting an understanding of, and respect for, the values enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
For more information about NEAR, please visit our website at www.nearinternational.org
For further information please contact:-
Roisin Joyce
Deputy Director
roisin.joyce@nearinternational.org