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We tried velvet, match revolution... excuse me I can't read this... cartoon by Nik Ahang Kowsar

A few weeks ago I went to a lecture by the author of Torture and Democracy, Darius Rejali. (Link to 90-minute lecture on google video) I was one of a handful of people for what was a fascinating discussion. (I first became interested in Rejali’s work because of his discussion of taarof in his earlier book, not because I am somehow obsessed with torture.) He made several points including: a) torture does not work to elicit the truth often enough to be called even remotely effective and b) it is surprisingly difficult to get people to make false confessions. They will withstand quite a bit of pain before they will lie.

Anyone who has been following events in Iran knows that beating and torture has been a part of the incarceration of many political detainees. False confessions have been part and parcel of the Islamic regime since its inception. This time around, people in Iran have been sabotaging state television broadcasts through coordinated power outages. Nobel prize winner, Shirin Ebadi has called for people to turn off their televisions instead of watching the lies spread by Iranian state tv. Demonstrators have chanted in favor of those on trial, and no one, save the most gullible, believes that the confessions are even remotely based in fact. Friends have been sharing articles about and images from the trials, including this one: Read the rest of this entry »

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This has been a week of heartbreak. Families discovered that loved ones had been killed, beaten, and abused, and a plane on its way to Yerevan from Tehran crashed 16 minutes after take-off. For many the crash just seemed to pile heartache upon heartache. Anyone who has ever been depressed and experienced calamity knows that when people say, “It can’t get any worse,” it can.

It’s also been a week of rumors and confined hope as people buzz about a planned compromise, speculate on strange twists and turns, and hear that Rafsanjani just may be giving the sermon at Friday prayers with Mousavi and Karoubi in attendance. I’ve tried to summarize more than today’s postings on Facebook, but frankly I have not made a dent in the backlog.

“How quickly you’ve grown in these 25 days that your mother has been going door to door looking for you,” said the poem, posted on Norooznews. “Open your eyes, Sohrab! Your mother is devastated by your picture.”

The biggest story of the week is the heartbreaking one of Sohrab Aarabi, the nineteen year old who disappeared on June 15th, the day of the first mass demonstration after the election results.

Sohrab Aarabi

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We Americans love to tell ourselves myths about our independence and freedom, while keeping the horrors in our past out of focus and unexamined. My early childhood was one of great unrest in America: Vietnam, the civil rights movement, political assassinations. Yet even as I struggled with an America that was involved in a war that I did not understand (what child does?) or in policies that I despised, my grandparents and great uncles and great aunts were telling me stories of an America that I could not help but love. I remember my great aunt Rose and my grandmother telling me that Springfield, Illinois was “Gan Eden,” the Garden of Eden. (Yep. Springfield.) This year I wish my Iranian friends a future independence day with all the pain, adventure, mistakes, and work that come with it.

Abtahi Behind Bars

Over at Seven, Vahid Nikgoo has posted this illustration of Iran’s former vice president and chief blogger, Abtahi. Those of you who are Daily Show fans, will remember him from the Behind the Veil series from Iran done by Jason Jones.

An article by Thomas Erdbrink beautifully captures the transition from optimism to anger for so many in Iran: Read the rest of this entry »