Human Rights

Hands on

Meet political campaigner Benjamin Lewis. On Saturday, the 23-year-old Sheffield university graduate will be taking part in the launch conference of Hands Off the People of Iran (Hopi) in London. Hopi is being set up in response the fact that there is currently no anti-war organization in the UK that stands opposed to the policies of the US government and the Islamic Republic. In an age where the naming of teddy bears causes a national outcry, a sober, secular peace organization has its place. And Hopi's list of supporters is impressive>>>

محمد مختاری در امریکا

" چشم مون روشن" را شنیده بودم اما"گوشمون روشن" را اولین بار بود می شنیدم. محمد مختاری اَنسوی خط تلفن بود، حال و احوالی کردیم و بعد ازیاد اَوری خاطراتی دور ، در باره ی سفرش به امریکا و اروپا گپ زدیم. چند باری دیده بودمش ، در دفتر کانون نویسندگان در خیابان مشتاق، در انتشارات توس و خانه ی یکی از رفقای سازمانی. با سازمان جدا شده از سازمان فدائیان اکثریت که به "۱۶اَذری "ها شناخته می شدیم در زمینه های فرهنگی همکاری ای جانبی داشت.>>>

A teddy bear named Mohammad

Islamists have become good at their own kind of PR. Every once in a while they find something to raise hell over and threaten the world. The charade over Cartoons of Mohammad is still lingering on in the Media, now they have started another bizarre show of offended feelings and indignant masses over a teddy bear called Mohammad in a Sudan’s class room of 7-8 year old kids. The timing of this teddy bear show puzzles me greatly. Is the concurrent teddy bear saga and Annapolis conference merely a coincidence or does the timing tell us something?>>>

Targeting Iran

No, those are just excuses. I’m talking about the strategic reason which is as I just described it. In order to perpetuate US hegemony over the world and domination and control, any state that says no to Washington is singled out. And a state that is particularly rich in oil and natural gas has even more of an attraction to the United States.>>>

What has happened to us?

Early Saturday morning, poured myself a cup of coffee lazily threw myself on the sofa and turned the TV on, Aljazeera’s news. One suicide bomb after the other had torn people into pieces in Pakistan, Iraq and Afghanistan. When the news got to Afghanistan, I felt sick to my stomach. This bomb had taken its victims among children. 6 kids were blown up. The faces of their mothers and fathers came in front of my eyes, crying, pulling their hairs, kneeling on the ground, their faces covered with tears, blood and mud. This is not any thing out of the ordinary any more. It is part of every day life in Afghanistan and Iraq. And exactly this is the problem. We have got used to it.>>>

بگذار زبانها بگویند

در 22 نوامبر 1988 پس از شنیدن خبر قتل داریوش و پروانه فروهر شعر زیر را نوشتم:

ای دشنه
كاش بر آن دست
شوریده بودی!...

چرا شاعر دشنه را مورد خطاب قرار داده است؟ چرا قاتل را نه؟ و از آن مهمتر چرا مقتولین را نه؟ 

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Let all tongues speak

[PERSIAN TEXT] On November 22, 1998 after hearing of the murder of two Iranian dissidents Dariush and Parvaneh Foroohar, who were stabbed to death by the secret police at their home in Tehran, I wrote this poem:

O dagger
I wish you had rebelled
Against that hand!...

Why does the poet address the dagger? Why not the murderer? And more importantly, why not the murdered?

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The butterfly that perished with the candle

Every year, since that sad day when I went to my parents’ house and they told me the horrific news, when the twenty third of November comes along, I cannot but think of one couple—Dariush and Parvaneh Foroohar. When some time later I met their son and daughter, Arash and Parastoo, I saw the amazing resemblance. On this day I always think about them as well, that forever they will have to live with the thought of that awful autumn evening, when they lost their beloved parents.>>>

At least his whores are melancholy

At least, his whores are melancholy. Ours are beaten, underpaid, overworked, anguished, and subjected to all forms of torture on a daily basis. Ours passed the melancholy state long ago. I’m referring to a book by the Colombian novelist, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, entitled “Memories of My Melancholy Whores.” It was banned in Iran, after selling out, because the censors discovered that the title was sanitized. The word “whores” was replaced with “sweethearts.” The prostitute in the book is a fourteen year old girl who is the object of a ninety year old mans lust, and then love. Iranians will not be offended by either the title or the 76 year age difference. We know of far worse. We have known far younger whores being the object of madness, for the lack of a better term, not just lust and love.>>>

Let us back into the universe

As Iranian human rights activists we are fighting to restore to our nation those rights that are universal and inalienable. These rights are founded on the incontrovertible truth that all human beings are born free and equal. The constitution of the Islamic Republic is incompatible with this omnipresent reality. It is riddled with inconsistencies and discrimination. It stands contrary to all those hard won liberties secured by human beings throughout the ages. Human rights are not a product of the West. Neither are they the inheritance of one race or culture. They are the upshot of the accumulated experience and collective enlightenment of mankind as a whole.>>>

شکنجه‌های رایج

تمامی رژیم‌های سرکوبگر استفاده‌ی گسترده از شکنجه را به عنوان اصلی‌ترین و کارسازترین ابزار برای دست‌یابی به اطلاعات به منظور دستگیری، سرکوب، فروپاشی و نابودی نیروهای سازمان‌های مترقی و مبارز و مخالف خود می‌شناسند. آن‌چه که رژیم جمهوری اسلامی را از دیگر رژیم‌های سرکوبگر دنیا متمایز می‌کند، تداوم شکنجه، آزار و اذیت و اقدام‌های خودسرانه و غیرانسانی بعد از دوران بازجو یی و در دوران تحمل کیفر و حتا بعد از آزادی از زندان است. دامنه‌ی اقدام‌های سرکوبگرانه تا آن‌جاست که خانواده و کودکان زندانیان را نیز در بر می‌گیرد. در نظام جمهوری اسلامی شکنجه در سه مرحله و به سه منظور انجام می‌گیرد>>>

Touch the Sky

Blindfoled, hands shackled behind me, I stumble on the ripped hem of my chador. They laugh.

I am dragged by the armpits. My knees bang against each step of the gallows. The crowd cheers, "Death to the prostitute, death to the adulterer."

I've committed no crime. I'm still a virgin.

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No excuse

Canadian government has recently initiated a motion to censure Iranian government over its human rights record in United Nations after its successful work in same direction during last few years since the death of Iranian-Canadian photojournalist Ms. Zahra Kazemi in year 2003. More that 28 years after establishment of Islamic Republic in Iran, human rights continue to be number one victim of this theocratic government which still remains in revolutionary state to justify the unlawful punishments and human rights abuses even against those who never saw the revolution in their lifetime and did not have any role in it>>>

Be reasonable

Mr. President, as you well know, there are over 6.5 million Baha'i's in the world; more than Jews and Zorasterians combined. There is no one country that has a great majority of its population consisting of Baha'is. We reside in every country in every continent of this globe. In over 90% of non Islamic countries, the Bahai faith is recognized as a religion and the Baha'is of said countries enjoy the freedoms offered to all its citizen equally. Additionally, the United Nations recognizes the Baha'i' faith as a major religion>>>