Social Media Campaign May Have Worked for Political Prisoner

A social media campaign apparently worked to delay the execution of a prisoner in Iran: After nearly 230,000 mentions of his name on Twitter in 48 hours, Ramin Hossein-Panahi's execution, originally scheduled for Thursday, was delayed and he was moved from solitary confinement to the general prison population, his brother revealed. No official statement has been released as to the reason for the stay of execution. Hossein-Panahi, 22, was sentenced to death in January for "taking up arms against the state," and advocates including Amnesty International have been working to save him, insisting he's a political prisoner who has been tortured and that there is no evidence linking him to any crime that would merit the death penalty. AI is calling for his release. The BBC has more on the case. (More Iran stories.)