You are hearing my voice from Iran!

Please don’t be silent in front of these violence, suppression and crimes

Bahareh Hedayat, Dec 5, 2009

Ladies and gentlemen,

My name is Bahareh Hedayat, from Student Union, “Office to foster unity” in Iran. I so much wanted to be here with you but in a country where communication with “the foreigners” or even sending an email to them may have grave consequences, my leaving Iran at this time could have been interpreted as spying or such similar things.
My dear friends, friends who live in free countries! You are hearing my voice from Iran. A country where its president cannot stop lying when he’s being interviewed by the press. He is even brazen enough to call Iran “the freest country in the world”. He claims to be a “global manager”; in spite of the political despotism and economic meltdown we’re witnessing in the country.
I am Iranian, from a country with three thousand years of civilization. In the past one hundred years we’ve been striving for freedom and democracy in Iran. Iran has witnessed two revolutions but has not achieved what it’s been striving for. In my country, student movements have always played a significant role in realizing the country’s historical goals. That is, freedom and justice. Due to the reason that political factions and NGOs do not enjoy political independent and/or free governing principles, or are under great pressure, the role the student movements may play is life-changing.
My dear European student friends, especially those coming from western European countries! You have only heard the words dictatorship, despotism or suppression. But we in Iran feel it with our body and soul every day. Here people are put into jail for the simplest act of reporting what they have seen. We have seen the films of student protesting in France, Italy, Greece, and just recently in Germany. But we believe that if just one tenth of what had been going on there would be deployed here, grave consequences like long-term solitary confinements, torture, heavy sentences, and banishment from education can follow for us here. We have seen many examples of this. In 2002 a university faculty was sentenced to death for criticizing religious superstitions. The students, with their widespread and peaceful protests on the campus, could force the government to suspend the verdict. In that protest, we broke no glasses; set no cars on fire; and, blocked no roads – we just cancelled a day of our classes. We just organized a number of protests on the campus. However, a short while after this, the organizers of these calm and peaceful protests were arrested and sentenced to 5 years in prison.
Last year, when a female student was harassed by a university administrator, the people who broke the news of this act suffered expulsion instead!
Entering a college in Iran comes about after participating in a highly competitive and arduous entrance examination. It is some years that the females have been more successful that the males in this exam and have actually comprised 60% of the admitted population. But the government is attempting to create obstacles for the education of the females and to therefore filter their presence in this arena. This has in fact resulted in demolished the dreams of many females who wish to study their favored degrees at the university.
What the students are asking for are in fact what all Iranians are asking for. We are asking for freedom of speech and academic freedom. We want independent teachers to teach at the universities. We want everybody to express his or her ideas freely – and not be prosecuted or punished after expressing them. We want the economic and political dealing of the Iranian government to be monitored so that people would understand how much of the natural resources and the economy of the country are being sacrificed for by Mr. Ahmadinejad’s tension-creating policies and nuclear ambitions. We want the people’s private spaces to be respected. We want the systematic elimination of the intellectuals and dissidents to stop. We want the gender discrimination to stop at the university and the society. We want the elections not to be used only for preserving the international respect of the rulers. We want the candidates to be nominated and safely elected. We want the health of elections to be guaranteed.
My dear friends! We had elections in June 2009. Something akin to a coup happened after this elections, masterminded by the government and its forces. Member of the Green Movement, their numbers in millions, participated in a silent demonstrations to protest the results of the elections. But the armed forces and the militia personnel set fire on the people. They forced those they have detained to confess against themselves. In the Kahrizak prison, several people, some being students, lost their lives under the regime’s severe physical abuses. We believe that, the torture and physical abuse that occurred in Kahrizak must also be addressed by the international society, similar to what they did after the U.S. atrocities were discovered in Gitmo and Abu Ghoreib prisons. Since what happened in Kahrizak was nothing less than what happened in Gitmo and Abu Ghoreib.
Now tell me: Are you following the news of the student movement in Iran? Do you know how much your support could be helpful in stopping Mr. Ahmadinejad’s coup government in his aggressive suppressions? Please do not think that “Iranian students” are those who burn other country’s flags in front of their embassies, and call names to those country’s leaders. These people are connected to a military organization. They enjoy the financial and propaganda support of the government and/or that military organization. We hold them responsible for suppressing the student protesters.
What you may think of a student protest and the police engaging with it in your own country is totally dissimilar to what we witness here. Here, organizing a protest means being beaten; being arrested; being disrespected; being tortured for confessing to false things; being in solitary confinement; being expelled from the university. It means never leaving the country, and being called the helper of the enemy which can bring you a sentence of 3 or 4 or 5 years …
In my country, the government sensors news resources. Even it will publish fake ones if it finds it beneficial to itself. The government is filtering the Humanities based on a religious discipline … Here “freedom” only exists for those who are the friends of the government. Here is an Islamic Republic. This is the governing principle.
My dear friend! Won’t expanding democracy and the urge to live in a world with less violence push you to support the Iranian student movement? Turing a blind eye to the suppression of the Iranian student movement is, in a way, supporting the Iranian coup regime’s actions. This is indeed unbelievable for an Iranian who admires the western country’s respect for human rights and democracy. Is human rights important to you? Do you wish to reduce violence? Do you wish the torch of freedom to continue burning in another part of this big world? If yes, please don’t be silent in front of these violence, suppression and crimes …
I wish you a productive meeting.
Bahareh Hedayat.
Dec 7, 2009

Tags: International, Iranian, movement, solidarity, student