Afghanistan

Mir Hussain Mahdavi
Mir Hussain Mahdavi was a crusading Afghan newspaper editor, whose democratic views prompted Islamic leaders in Kabul to put a bounty on his head. Mahdavi, his wife, and his two young daughters arrived in Canada in October 2003, after being granted emergency refugee status. After the Afghan Supreme Court decided to try him for defaming Islam and impose a death penalty, Mahdavi had been in hiding in Islamabad, Pakistan for several weeks until the United Nation's High Commissioner for Refugees fast-tracked his case.

Mahdavi, editor of the Kabul weekly Aftab (The Sun), and his assistant, Ali Reza Sistany, were arrested in June 2003 and charged with violating an Afghan press law prohibiting the publication of material considered defamatory to Islam. They were also charged under sharia law for offending Islam. Aftab, which was started in March 2002, was considered the most progressive newspaper in Afghanistan, employing an independent, objective approach to news reporting and blunt editorial opinions. Mahdavi plans to start publishing Aftab again on the Internet, which Afghans will be able to access. Mir was a writer-in-residence at George Brown College in 2005 and began writing for the Hamilton Spectator in 2007.

Saboor Siasang
Saboor Siasang is a poet and writer who worked on over 20 publications in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and also for the UN Development Program (UNDP) before coming as a refugee to Canada in 2001. He has contributed more than 500 articles to various newspapers, journals and publications. Since 1996, Siasang has served as editor-in0chief for Kateeba Magazine, a publication by the Pakistan Society for the Preservation of Afghan Cultural Heritage (SPACH). He was a long-time member of the Afghan Journalists’ Association (AJA. For seven years, following the former Soviet Union’s invasion of Afghanistan he was imprisoned in Kabul. He has published three collections of his poetry, short stories and non-fiction in Persian, and is a regular contributor to Zarnegaar, a Toronto-based bi-weekly Persian journal. He lives in Regina, Saskatchewan.