SELF-PORTRAIT DONE IN PRISON BY DELARA DARABI WITH THE SCALES OF JUSTICE IN HER EYE
PHOTO OF DELARA BELOW WITH HER POEM ON FREEDOM ON THREAD WITM MY COMMENTS
.com/main/2009/apr/delara-darabi
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I write tihs blog completely independent of SCE or anyone associated with them.
I have been compelled to leave this website because over the course of the critical four days before the scheduled execution on Monday of Delara Darabi, during which I participated in the Stop Child Execution campaign to save her life, Delara was treated disgracefully by the publisher. No materials submitted by SCE intended to reach the general audience were published, despite arduous efforts to get them published.The Iranian of the Day which finally appeared was submitted by someone close to the publisher at the very eleventh hour, while the SCE one was submitted several days before, along with her paintings and poetry which speak to the soul and can move people to action. They have done so in the international campaign against her execution. These materials were necessary. They were unpublished.Materials submitted by several other people were also rejected. A gifted young woman almost certainly innocent was practically a nonentity on this forum.
As early as Thursday a regular member of the blogging community sent in a visual about Delara for the top of the homepage which did not appear, and as late as early Saturday another member sent in an article wihch did not appear. On Saturday, out of desperation, I contacted members privately and asked them to prevail upon the publisher to publish the Delara submissions. Several did but to no avail. I contacted the publisher many times. It was at that time that I made the extreme decision to change my avatar to Delara’s and desperate tried to post about her on various threads. I want to stress that Delara’s Iranian of the Day was only posted when someone close to the publisher sent it in late Saturday, the eleventh hour. TOO LATE.
Anyone who tries to excuse these ‘decisions” is being flagrantly dishonest. They were unethical, dangerous and cruel. As I explained many times, when there is an international campaign, executions havee been stopped but almost always at the eleventh hour and only if the campaign reaches a critical mass. We needed those four days, This website is the largest Iranian online community in the world What if Delara had been hanged Monday as scheduled? We would all feel very differently knowing we could have perhaps made a difference..This CANNOT be rationalized away. What was particularly disturbing was that other human rights submissions for far less critical situations appeared at this time, along with the publisher’s strong statement of his mission and passionate commitment to human rights. This was contemptuous of our efforts.It was sickening.
In the past year, my work here has been featured erratically with no discernible pattern as to its importance or quality to such a point that I have not written one single article for fear it would not be published. Long submissions that took an extraordinary amount of time, even weeks, to write, have had to be blogs instead. The amount of effort I put into this website far exceeds the impact I am able to have. Unfortunately, I know that this situation is personal on the part of the publisher, despite my continuous best efforts toward reconciliation The situation would be ridiculous if it weren’t so sad. But any attempt to write off the contents of this blog as “something just personal” is disingenuous. The suppression of materials trying to halt a young woman’s hanging is indefensible under any circumstances, These recent events have brought home the futility of my remaining on this site.
Delara is owed an apology from the publisher for the disgraceful treatment she received. The members of the website community who were deprived of knowledge of her desperate plight who would have helped her are owed an apology. The people of Iran, who have been victims of a full frontal attack on human rights in the past weeks, are owed an apology. This is also the only thing that could possibly reassure me that this would be a safe and valuable place for me to devote my efforts to as it formerly was in days which I sorely miss.
I thank those of you who have supported me in my year and a half as a member of this community..
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Delara’s execution has been postponed for two months. All I ask, Jahanshah, all I beg, is that with my having left this website, that in the ongoing campaign to save her life, you grant Delara the compassion, decency and respect that she deserves.
