: She came all the way from Switzerland to join the three-day hunger strike a block away from the United Nations [see video]. “They’re my people and it is my cause,” says Monel, a 60-year old nurse who did jail-time under the Shah and then clashed with the Islamic regime. A few years after the revolution, Monel fled the country after being beaten in a rally to protest the new regime’s imposition of conservative clothing that forced women to don chadors. “The fundamentalism became too repressive,” she says. “They stole our revolution from us,” chimes in Essie Mohaddessi, 47, who landed from Sacramento last evening and hasn’t eaten since the morning. The real estate developer left Tehran at 19 after becoming a nuisance for demanding the right to free speech 12 next › last » 
