As a member of twitter and a follower of Stephen Fry, I received the following in my updates earlier today.
"Desperate story of Akmal Shaikh, bipolar British man facing execution in China; we must help Reprieve save his life."
It is such a distressing case to be sure, and I feel moved by reading about this man's plight; don't know about you. I'm not really one for getting involved in things like this but it's so sad that this mentally ill man is being criminalised after being duped by others into carrying illegal substances simply because he does not have the mental capacity to understand what he and they were doing.
There is an organisation called Reprieve, who are working to save his life, but time is fast running out; read here about their fight, and how you can help by visiting the link at the bottom of this blog.
About Akmal Shaikh
A British national from London, Akmal is facing imminent execution in China for carrying drugs. Reprieve has strong evidence that he is seriously mentally ill, most likely suffering from bipolar disorder.
Akmal has a lifelong history of erratic and bizarre behaviour. People who knew Akmal have said 'he seemed crazy to me' and that 'he was severely mentally disturbed'. It appears that he was severely delusional at the time of his alleged offence, believing himself to be a world-famous pop star, and that drug smugglers took advantage of his confused state by promising him super-stardom in China.
Akmal's appeal has just been denied in the High Court; it is now with the Supreme People's Court, and he faces possible execution within days.
Copyright Reprieve Organisation © 2009 All Rights Reserved
On the following link, you will see a small video which Stephen Fry has made appealing for people to help. There are a number of ways in which you can do this, one of which I used this morning, is a letter already written which is copied into the body of an email and sent to David Miliband as an urgent appeal for him to save Akmal's life.
Please help if you can. Thank you.
http://static.reprieve.org.uk/stephenfryappeal.html
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Support this 100% but couldn't find the link to the email. Hope it's not too late..
ReplyDeleteHi Tim,
ReplyDeleteIf you go here: http://static.reprieve.org.uk/stephenfryappeal.html and go down to where it says 3 steps you can take. There is an email address for Mr Miliband and an email which you can copy.
If you still have trouble please resply to this with your email addy (I won't publish the reply containing it) but I can send you the details so you know which bits to copy and send.
Many thanks. I'm just about to reblog about 2nd hand radiation ... stand by.
Thanks SilverS. I was being my usual dopey self. I've now sent Mr Robertson the email and forwarded the info to my dad who I'm sure will also support the campaign.
ReplyDeleteBest.
That's great Tim, let's hope we can help this man.
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