Iran Election

Sentenced to 90 lashes and a year in prison.

That’s was the verdict Marzieh Vafamehr received. Her crime? Acting in a film about an actress whose work is banned by Iranian authorities. No prizes for spotting the irony there.

Public whippings should outrage and anger us. Yet compared to a year in jail, these 90 lashings will most likely be the humane aspect of the sentence.

Continue reading "Cruelty just a part of everyday life in today’s Iran" »

People are dying on the streets of Iran, which isn’t surprising. Iran seems to have ended up as both a theocracy and a military dictatorship, and neither forms of government are known for their permissiveness to public disorder.
So why are rioters still bothering? Even if you dislodge the latter, you won’t get rid of the former.  And lets keep in mind that Mir-Hossein Mousavi’s reformist colleague and friend Mohammad Khatami had two terms as president and the mullahs- the real power in Iran- let him reform but very and little.

Khatami even found that while he held the highest elected office in the land, governmental agents were still murdering other reformists. And even after he found out about it, he couldn’t stop it. So I ask again, why bother? And why now? I think the answer is maturation and technology, but also pride.

Continue reading "The bruised pride driving the Iranian protesters" »

UPDATE June 25: The Twitter user quoted at length in this column reappeared after three days of silence, saying he was stiff, sore and bruised, and now outside Tehran, but still alive.

It seems to me that many people are still trying to find out as much as they can about the situation in the Islamic Republic, even though a week-and-a-half has gone by since the election.

Journalists tend to treat stories like, literally, ‘nine-day wonders’, because few, anywhere, about anything, stay on the front page for much longer.

Yet at least on Twitter, as I write, among the top ten trending topics are ‘Iran elections’, ‘Iran’, ‘Tehran’, ‘Mousavi’, and ‘Neda’. Neda, by the way, was the name of the young woman shot dead by paramilitary forces at the weekend.

If you haven’t seen the footage or the still picture of her lifeless, bleeding face already, it’s probably because you can’t face it. I sympathise; yet Neda’s may yet become the face of events as they unfold in Iran. Whether it’s a revolution or a counter-revolution, and whether or not it succeeds, it will make martyrs, and martyrs are central to Iranian culture.

Continue reading "The death of Neda: Iran’s potent history of martyrdom" »

Updated: The strange thing about big historical events, the really big stories, is that they creep up on you in increments.

They bubble away in your head as you flash a glance at the news or take a longer than usual look at the international headlines.

Like little pop-up icons in our collective consciousness, bits and pieces of news on an issue begin to coalesce and we begin to take notice.

Then it reaches its crescendo and everything changes: the wall goes down, Suharto is gone, Milosevic is ousted and Obama is elected.

Continue reading "Where’s my vote Iran?" »

I just got off the phone to an Iranian who lives here in Australia, more than 12,000kms from Tehran.

He wouldn’t speak publicly about the protests and clashes between supporters of Mir Hussein Mousavi and authorities.

Here’s why (more below the fold) - and remember, he’s more than 12,000km away from where this is all happening:

“We don’t want to be pulled aside in the airport by security. They’ll say, ‘what’s this, you’ve written this article…

Continue reading "‘I don’t want to be pulled aside in Tehran airport’" »

Follow this person on twitter right now: http://twitter.com/Change_for_Iran

He or she is an unknown Iranian student who is giving a live first-hand account via twitter of the repression that is unfolding at the University of Tehran. Despite the attempts by the Iranian regime to disable facebook and twitter this student has sent 34 tweets so far in the past five hours.

“I’m dizzy but ok. some people are getting shelter in the nearby unfinished bank building. police arresting a middle aged man.” - two hours ago.

“my eyes are burning hard to keep them open #iranelection” - two hours ago

Continue reading "My eyes are burning: gassed Iranian student’s twitter feed" »