Sunday, May 23, 2010

*** HECTOR ALEEM'S MAY 19 HEARING ***

*** MAY 19 HEARING ***

Folks,

Yesterday, another one of Hector Aleem’s hearings took place. Because Facebook is temporarily banned in Pakistan, Mehwish Aleem, Hector’s daughter, e-mailed me and asked that I distribute this message to all members:

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“The [prosecuting] Lawyer of Sunni Tehreek has still not arrived from Umrah, that’s why his junior lawyer came for the hearing. Daddy was also there, we saw him but we were not able to talk to him because we were in burqas (for security purpose). The junior lawyer started with the sentence:
"I can't tolerate to see this blasphemer standing in front of me; I really want to kill him with my own hands" Judge was there but he didn't say anything to stop him from using that kind of language.

“Our lawyer and Sunni Tehreek's junior lawyer debated (I don’t know the legal word of debate in court language) for one hour and their lawyer was continuously saying that Hector Aleem should be punished or else we will do our own justice. Daddy and lawyer were saying that the real culprit has been caught and legally I should be free from this case but the lawyer of Sunni Tehreek was not trying to listen anything. He gathered many other lawyers from the lawyers bar and they were all in favor of Sunni Tehreek and they chanted slogans against daddy and Christianity. As the lawyer of Sunni Tehreek isn't here so judge gave another date of hearing i.e 27 May 2010.

“After that we went to the lawyer's chamber, there lots of media or maybe people from some news agencies were waiting for the lawyer. So he hid us in his chamber after 3 hours we left his chamber when everybody was gone. In fact
YESTERDAY WAS A HORRIBLE DAY.

“Tell people to pray for us and write to our government and other officials to have mercy on us and free my father.

“This was the situation of yesterday. but one important thing Facebook is banned in Pakistan for unknown days due to the 20th May… as we can’t visit Facebook for some days so you have to post this mail there and tell everybody that we can’t visit for few days. And i will inform you about [the May 27 hearing] too.”

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*** DONATION STATUS ***

To date our generous donors have raised approximately 115,000 Rupees (approx $1,350 USD). Below is a scan of the lawyer’s receipt for 90,000 Rupees.

http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=42391694&l=dd42d8dc64&id=81009551

Last week, I sent the Aleems the remaining amount (sent by members through PayPal donations), and a receipt will be posted soon.

We are still $1,150 short, so any donation would be wonderful. We have had donations as small as $5. Anything helps!

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*** WHAT YOU CAN DO ***

- Please donate for Hector's legal fund (and to purchase clothes, hygienic supplies, etc for him and his family):
http://tinyurl.com/hectoraleem

E-mail admin Mohammed Shouman if you want to mail a check instead.

- Sign the petition to release Hector Aleem from imprisonment and ensure his safety:
http://www.petitiononline.com/HAleem/

- Contact Pakistani officials:
http://www.facebook.com/topic.php?uid=298776303670&topic=13844

- Contact human rights groups:
http://www.facebook.com/topic.php?uid=298776303670&topic=14048

- Write to Hector and let him know he is not alone:
http://www.facebook.com/topic.php?uid=298776303670&topic=14049

- Visit his family’s blog, which was set up to raise awareness on his case:
http://www.hectoraleem.blogspot.com/

- Invite all your friends to join this group and to sign the petition.

- Keep checking back on this group for updates.

- Keep everyone you know informed about Aleem’s imprisonment.


On behalf of the Aleems, thanks to everyone for your prayers, your thoughts, and your continued support and attention. The amount of encouraging messages and donations has been overwhelming.