Showing posts with label Solitary confinement. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Solitary confinement. Show all posts

Thursday, August 12, 2010

Iran: Am I Running Late? Maybe Not

Iran Democracy
Democracy in BurmaImage by break.things via Flickr
Iran's Uprising Continues -- From Prison Cells The Huffington Post News about Iran's Uprising is scarcely found on mainstream media these days...... few stories chronicle the constant struggle for democracy and human rights in Iran. This, however, does not mean that the struggle is dead. It is a daily struggle that continues ever vigorously. ..... there are so many incidents, and so many other major stories are waiting to be covered that updates about the continuing struggle for freedom are simply ignored ..... Majid Tavakoli is perhaps the most important student leader inside Iran right now..... many family members of prisoners have claimed that in the past two months, conditions are getting even worse. ..... as soon as news of the hunger strike found space in a few online social media networks, the Iranian government quickly cut-off phone services inside Evin's Ward 350 where the solitary confinement cells are located in an effort to prevent the news from further permeating through the blogosphere. ....... Kahrizak was an infamous detention center in Tehran where scores of detainees died from hunger, thirst, disease, and torture following the Iranian Uprising last year. ..... Staff were quoted as telling the prisoners that they had 'thrown the country into chaos' and now they were 'throwing the prison into chaos, too'. ..... opposition leader Mir Hussein Mousavi asked the prisoners to end their strike in a statement posted on his website ...... dozens of other stories that continue to come out of Iran. Surprisingly, finding them isn't hard. The time of millions wearing green in the streets seems to have passed. The government has resorted to absolute terror in an attempt to stifle the movement, but it lives through these brave men and others. What the Iranian people need is for free people to be their voice
I could not revive it in Burma. The uprising in Burma died in a matter of weeks, and when it died I felt like it might be another decade or so before we can revive the spirit there. Tibet is harder than Burma, more complex.

In Iran you see ambers right now. Are they dying ambers? Or are they ambers with which you can light the fire all over again?

Makes me so very angry with the dumbfucks in New York City who messed with me in June 2008. They took me away from the peace process in Nepal. They took me away from Iran. When the green revolution was in full swing would have been a great time to get involved. But I was too busy trying to pick up the pieces of my life at that point. I just didn't have the bandwidth.

It was such a waste. Such a grand loss.

The street show was impressive, but it was a politically immature revolution. All the shouting in a soccer stadium is enough energy to maybe make a cup of coffee. So much of the pain could have been avoided if the political homework had been done.

But I see hope. I think this work can be done. The spirit can be revived. But the work has to start in the diaspora. Asking the people to brave the streets again has to be the final step. And that part should not last more than a few weeks. Such has to be the political preparation beforehand.

Action 1: A tweet.
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