www.stopchildexecutions.com

Letter to Aytollah Shahrudi

//iranian.com/main/blog/sce-campaign/letter-ayatollah-shahrudi

Someone sked me to post this conversation that happened

today on the Delara Darabi Iranian of the Day thrread. It is long but definitely more than worth a read:

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by Azarin Sadegh on Fri May 08, 2009 11:10 PM PDT

I just read on SCE blog that Sina Paymard has passed away (just one week after Delara). He was the young man who skipped death by his music. As his last wish, he asked permission to play Ney. It is told that the family of victim was so impressed by his music that they changed their mind.Until today, Sina represented hope...but not anymore. I'm heartbroken and sad...It doesn't matter if they flee bars...they'll always carry those bars inside. Azarin ___________________________________

by rosie is roxy is roshan on Sat May 09, 2009 02:15 PM PDT

carefully. When someone represents hope, they represent hope. Hope is elusive, it's not something you can hold in your hands, it comes and it goes but it always comes back. That's why it's hope. If it were something easy to hold and grasp, it would be a concrete reality, a thing, not a human potential.It wouldn't be hope. Some time ago, I translated a Nicaraguan song called Thank You Life. It's a song of love of life and hope and it's also a personal love song. And in googling around while I was translating it, I found out that the songwriter, Violeta Parra, had actually committed suicide at 50 over a failed love affair. It changed nothing about the song for me, I felt very hopeful, I felt grateful for life, and I was in love. The knowledge of her suicide changed nothing. I never dreamed that the same thing could happen to me but it did. 

I was heartbroken and about her age and all I saw was bars like you say. And so it happened. And for quite some time that song meant nothing but hopelessness for me. But somehow after a long journey behind those bars, it means the same thing now it always had. In a different way, but the same thing.

The boy gave you a song. That's the hope. To play the flute with a noose around your neck, that's a song of the struggle of the human spirit. Now you go behind whatever bars you have to, we all have to at times, but my advice: take Sima's song with you. You may as well, because sooner or later it'll come back anyway. It always does, my dear. That's what makes it hope.   (I'm going to post a little blog for you and Sina and the others in a little while..)

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by David ET on Sat May 09, 2009 04:47 PM PDT

you both are right and both so elegantly express it. In fact it is the extremes in life of these children that makes their destinies so humane.

on one hand they are kids representing innocence and on the other they have committed or alleged to have committed the highest of all crimes : murder!

on one hand they are sentenced to the least hopeful sentence of all: death and on the other the same alleged criminals express the purest of humanity with their flutes paintings poems and writings

at core it shows how a society can create both extremes in youth .

they become murderes either by unintended action of their own in an instant or by being alleged. either way they become one and thereafter they carry that with them even when innocent and then they express their innocence in all that with their music and colors of hope.

sina died but did NOT give up until AFTER he was freed. He carried hope to that point and then his body and emotions and scars took over like a cancer but his stuggle and message at the core of its depression represented hope .
these children are victims of a black and white society that has denied them colors since birth. the same black and white colorless mentality that we witness right here.
it is up to us to me to rosies to azarins of the world to carry the most colorful of flags ang brightest of torches to break the darkness...

to show and defend the color of huminity in depth of the evil and darkness...

it is that hope that kept nazanin up till 6 am this morning working on the SCE report to be presented to the world in one month...

i wrote this for you

//iranian.com/main/blog/rosie-roxy-roshan...

Sad News

Now, that's horrible. That is a real drama. It break the heart to hear this kind of news. The poor child should never be hold in prison for so long.

May his soul rest in peace.

Dear Sina,

Rest in peace.

A blatent disregard for Human Rights.

In something like 1948 Iran signed up to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, an agreement which set out the basis of what we commonly regard as 'Human Rights', and there were a number of   additions over the years since to that basic agreement, all of which add up an International consensus of what constitutes the rights of human beings. Iran hasn't formally withdrawn it's agreement to my knowledge.

This young person's rights were blatantly neglected as a human being. I could go into massive detail here but unless you are particularly interested it will make lengthy reading, so I will just leave you a link for you to investigate for your self, if you are so inclined.

//iranhrdc.org/httpdocs/English/hrdocuments.htm

//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_rights

What I will say is that Sina had social, cultural rights such as the right to medical treatment, and no doubt there are others. If his condition had been treated before he committed the crime he was accused of, perhaps the crime would have been avoided altogether. If he had been provided with medical treatment whilst detained, he most probably would not have died. I cant imagine what must have been going through this young man's head.

Iran sadly is well known for its treatment of prisoners be they political activists, journalists, adult criminals or child offenders... guilty or not. I think it is counter productive to start separating out who deserves more acknowledgement or who is more entitled to his human rights. Criminals, whether proven guilty or not still have entitlement to their basic human rights.

 Javaneh

how dumb !

political prisoners are not created in vaccum and are not imprisoned tortured or killed for color of their hair but mostly because they are against dictatorship inequality and system of INJUSTICE.

The same system that sends a minor with mental disorder 3 times to the gallows to be executed.

One must be dumb or with agenda if does not realize that the fight is the same.

people are not born to be political prisoners but because they stood for their rights and rights of others.

how dumb not to support the causes of those who fight for justice or actually oppose them too UNLESS they become imprisoned ! ! !

Unfortunately...

... this is the type of thing that makes the real battle for freedom and human rights look like Mickey Mouse and discredits what a lot of genuinely concerned people with (at least) a grain of intelligence in their head are trying to accomplish.

The death of Sina Paymard hasn't got much to do with human rights. His imprisonment did!
Even if it did have something, you'd have to go to great lengths to prove it, all when real rights advocates are languishing in jail.

Again, this is a case where there was a crime committed, not one where the person was a prisonner of conscience.

You are all just upholding the cases from the "safheye havaades" and disregarding the real cases of blatant suppressions of freedom. This case ia noticeable because of the subject's mental illness, the fact that he was taken to the gallows twice and more than anything, the fact that his playing flute allegedly saved his life (which I'd really have to be gullible to believe personally, considering the "khoon-baha" paid for the subject's victim). THAT is why you all are following it.

This is also the type of thing that turns iranian.com into a "zane-rooz" type of publication more than anything serious -- which is a shame. Having such opportunity and misusing it for an x or y reason.

There -- I said what I think again. Let's see who's unhappy this time!

Sad news

This is devastating news. He was only 21. His lawyer said he had a heart attack. How can a 21 year old have a heart attack? What a short, sad, and anxious life this young man lived. I wish him eternal peace in heaven.

Dear SCE: Thanks for the information, but your article doesn't say that Sina died two months ago. Your report is written in a way that implies he died today.

I am speechless too!

How sad!

the crime of IRI to Iranians is endless!

Down with IRI  

The horror is endless

endless

Speechless..

I am not sure whether I'm heartbroken or just mad...It really doesn't matter if these kids manage to prove their innocence, or gather the forgiveness of victims and go free...No matter what they're going to stay behind those bars forever. Dead already...

It's so depressing. I'm speechless..