Not Today and Not Tomorrow: Human Rights Violations in Iran

(this was written on Sunay 6-21 but not posted to this blog until later)

Not Today and Not Tomorrow: Human Rights Violations in Iran
by Sahar

Tonight I sat in a cool and unseasonably still San Francisco night with my fellow Iranians in silent vigil for those lives lost to senseless acts of violence. We sat in silence with hope that maybe such a quiet night saturated by our tears, our hopes and our dreams would reach like a thunderous cloud the hearts of our brothers and sisters who have been risking their lives every day and every night for this thing we call freedom. I am concerned, deeply worried about what the days and weeks ahead will hold. As I read the various bits and pieces of information that find their way to my computer screen and radio, I am horrified by the picture of injustice that meets me in this place, so far and yet so close. This is no longer a matter of domestic unrest, what we have been bearing witness to are human rights violations that cannot be tolerated.

We cannot tolerate such gross acts of violence.

I write these words with fear. Fear. For more than fifty years countries such as Britain and the United States have involved themselves in covert operations to take advantage of this oil rich and geo-strategically important country. When in 1953 the democratically elected Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadegh nationalized the oil industry to help redirect some of Iran’s wealth back to the people, a British and U.S. administered coup, coined “Operation Ajax” by the CIA, was successfully carried out and oil interests secured. This is the seed of Iranian distrust for such foreign governments. This distrust took even deeper root over subsequent years as continued interventions into Iranian affairs led the country into mass social unrest and dissatisfaction and the eventual rise of the Islamic Republic.

I am trembling because as I write these words, I can hear my cousin saying good bye to his mother and father as they part ways and these words that haunt me are as full as the heart in my throat, swollen and suffocating. Every good bye is quite possibly their last.

I have seen a woman and her father shot down in broad daylight. I have seen a blind man led into the streets to listen to the tumult surrounding him; even he will lend his own voice to the movement. I have seen old women and young boys on the sidelines beaten with the sticks of spineless men. I have heard the whisper of an old woman who reports the number of young men and women she has seen dragged into a mosque; they go in, she says softly, but no one comes out. I cannot drown out the screams that I hear emerging from those walls. This violent response to a peaceful movement that simply asks for the right to voice dissent, organize, and demand justice. This violent response to a movement that has asked only for reform and not overthrow. This violent response to a movement that has embraced the very police and military sent to hunt them down.

These human rights violations must be vociferously denounced by all nations and yet my screams are trapped in my throat. Two years ago Seymour Hersh reported that Congress had agreed to a request from President Bush to fund an escalation of covert operations against Iran. I should not have to fear that my appeals for assistance to the United States and the world at large will give license to opportunists -opportunists who will take advantage of the current crisis to push forth agendas that will only serve to further their own interests at my people’s expense— but I do. I should not have to fear that my calls for U.N. monitoring of the situation on the ground will lead to loss of national sovereignty— but I do. I should not have to fear that my demands for peace and security will lead to further and harsher violence by authorities there who will hear my thunderous cries from across the seas as proof that my aunt and uncle are spies— but I do— because this is the mess we’ve made.

I am heartened by the spontaneous solidarities that have emerged over the last week by the generous, skilled and committed friends who have lent their time and energy to ensuring that Iranian voices can be heard all over the world. I have seen posts on Facebook offering signal scrambling directions to protestors attempting to escape the grip of their attackers. I have seen a mass movement from below of fellow Americans demanding that corporate media covers this story responsibly. I have witnessed the creative genius of a generation, here and there, fighting back with the technologies we have developed to get the message right when corporate media fails. I have seen cross-national solidarities, bypassing nation-states, and forming despite borders.

I have heard the beat of foreign hearts meeting for the first time in a place without walls. I have witnessed friendships forming between freedom-fighters, here and there, who will never meet. I have seen a world rising to the occasion and this brings hope to a trembling heart.

We should demand that the world pay attention and that international organizations denounce ongoing violations in Iran. We should demand that our countries do this responsibly and without further harming the Iranian people. Not today and not tomorrow.