How those of us outside Iran can help

There are plenty of letters and petitions to sign these days. In this post, I list three of my favourite ones and I explain why I like them.

----------

summary in Farsi:

 خلاصه به فارسی‌

در این چند وقته نامه‌های بسیاری نوشته شده‌اند که
ما میتوانیم امضا کنیم. در اینجا من لینک سه تا از آنها که به نظرم خیلی‌
خوب هستند را آورده ام:

۱- نامه به کمیسر حقوق بشر سازمان ملل: //www.strike۴iran.com

۲- نامه به بخست وزیر کانادا که با کمی‌ تغییر جزی می توانید آنرا به سران کشورهای اروپایی بفرستید: //solidaritywithiran.com/?p=25

۳- درخواست آزاد کردن ابطحی که سعی در جمع کردن صد هزار امضا دارد (تا
بحال ظرف فقط چندین ساعت بیش از ۴ هزار امضا جمع شده):
//www.freeabtahi.com

----------

This blog is about ways I think we, who live outside Iran, can help the Iranian people in their struggle for freedom, human rights, and democracy. By no means I wish to imply that by signing a letter here and a petition there all the problems will be solved and I certainly hope that all of us can be active on several fronts and do as much as we could a variety of ways. As far as letters and petitions go, I like these three:

• On top of the list is this letter (//strike4iran.com/) to Ms. Navanethem Pillay, The United Nation High Commissioner on Human Rights. This is a very well written text as it summerizes the situation very well and makes a couple of concrete requests from the commissioner. Overall, this is the best letter I've seen these days. Here's an excerpt:

"We request that you refer the case of the systematic and widespread violation of the basic rights of the Iranian people to the Security Council, for the Council to approve the case as one of “crimes against humanity” and forward it to the International Criminal Court (ICC)."

There's reasonable hope that this letter will actually accomplish something tangible. A.N.* plans to attend the UN General Assembly meeting in September. It's important that we ask the UN not to receive him as the elected president of Iran.

link: //strike4iran.com/

NOTE: the deadline for signing this letter is extended till September 5th 2009 (the webpage still cites the old deadline of August 31st)

• The second letter (//solidaritywithiran.com/?p=25) is a bit older (dates back to Jun 20) and is addressed to the Prime Minister of Canada. It makes four requests from the Canadian government which are all still valid (you can of course modify or amend the demand list as you wish). As it turns out, the Canadian prime minister has already acted and talked rather well about the situation and might not need further emails in his mailbox! However, you can easily modify the letter and address it to the head of state in your country of residence. In my humble opinion, it would be especially helpful if European leaders came a bit stronger since Europe is a major trading partner of Iran. If you have time, you could even update the letter by mentioning the recent show trials and forced confessions to the letter text.

link: //solidaritywithiran.com/?p=25

• Finally, I like this one (//www.freeabtahi.com/) (in Farsi) demanding the release of Mohamad Abtahi. Before I explain why I think it's a good idea to sign this letter, let me answer two questions that might cross your mind.

Several thousand people have been arrested, many of them have died in prison and the rest are under severe physical and psycologial torture. So, you might ask, why should we only demand the release of this particular guy. Second, you may notice that the letter is addressed to Shahroudi, the Iranian head of judiciary, who himself is among the murderous bunch. So you might, quite naturally, wonder about the efficacy of addressing a murderer.

Both concerns are quite valid and I share them. My only answer to the first one is to ask if you see other letters demanding the release of other prisoners, sign those ones too! I know I do. You could even start your own letter demanding the release of other prisoners. As for the second concern, I think even though the letter is addressed to Shahroudi, its real audience are the prisoners and their families. Shahroudi will almost certainly ignore the letter.

Abtahi is quite popular and also has the 'cute' factor. Reaching the 100,000 goal seems quite reasonable. The petition just went up and it already has over 4,000 signatures. Collecting that many signatures will send a strong message of support to the victims and their families and will also show the Iranian regime that the world is watching.

link: //www.freeabtahi.com/

* A.N. is short for Ahmadi-Nejad. The word 'An', excuse my French, also means, poopoo in Farsi ;)