From Egypt to Iran: How Social Media is Significant (Eltahawy, Siavashi, Fartashphoto)

Over the last 48 hours, I have encountered three articles --- courtesy of Twitter --- that bring out the significance of social media over the last 18 months. Dave Siavashi of Iran News Now revisits the story of Iran since June 2009 to conclude, "The Twitter Revolution is a revolution in the way information is shared and consumed....It has the power to make people take action. And in this way, it is already changing the world."

Fartashphoto asserts passionately, "We believe Twitter is Internet’s Soul which is more awake and dynamic than anytime helping peaceful people all around the world . That’s why dictators hate Twitter."

And Mona Eltahawy writes for The Washington Post, "Facebook, YouTube and Twitter are the New Tools of Protest in the Arab World":

Iran: A Protest in Washington (Shahryar)

Khaled Said is not the first Egyptian whom police allegedly beat to death. But his death has sparked a virtual revolution that is affecting Egypt's tightly controlled society.

Said, a 28-year-old Egyptian businessman, was brutally beaten, his family and activists say, by two plainclothes police officers on June 6. An Interior Ministry autopsy claimed that Said suffocated after swallowing a bag of drugs he tried to hide from police. But a photograph of a shattered body that his family confirmed was his started circulating online. Teeth missing, lip torn, jaw broken and blood pouring from his head: It was difficult to square such trauma with suffocation. His family said he was targeted after he posted a video online allegedly showing police sharing profits of a drug bust.

If social media in the Arab world were merely outlets for venting or "stress relief" -- as detractors claim -- then Said's fate would have ended with some angry comments on Facebook and a tweet or two railing at the Egyptian regime.

Instead, thanks to social media's increasing popularity and ability to connect activists with ordinary people, Egyptians are protesting police brutality in unprecedented numbers. On July 27, the two police officers connected to his death stood trial on charges of illegal arrest and excessive use of force. If convicted, they face three to 15 years' imprisonment.

While social media didn't invent courage -- activists have long protested the tactics of President Hosni Mubarak, a U.S. ally who has maintained a state of emergency in Egypt since assuming office in 1981 -- the Internet has in recent months connected Egyptians and amplified their voices as never before. There's an anti-torture Web site with a hotline to report incidents. The independent advocacy group El Nadim Centre for Rehabilitation of Victims of Violence publishes an online diary that has documented 200 allegations of abuse since February. On another site Egyptians post pictures of abusive police officers.

Read rest of article....

The Latest from Iran (7 August): The President's Man in Trouble?

2005 GMT: The Battle Within (Diaspora Edition). William Yong and Robert Worth, writing in The New York Times, have a colourful account of last week's ill-fated conference in Tehran of Iranians from overseas.

The piece is entertaining --- check out the passage on Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's speech with the phrase, "That breast has gone away with the bogeyman" --- but it misses part of the political significance. Yong and Worth see the problems with the conference as "an ambivalence that had been part of Iranian political culture ever since the Islamic Revolution in 1979: an evangelizing impulse coupled with a deep distrust of those who ventured outside the fold".

Perhaps, but the immediate significance of the event is as a stick being used both by "hardliners" (Keyhan) and "conservatives" (members of Parliament) to whack the President and --- back to the theme for today --- his chief aide, Esfandiar Rahim-Mashai.

1955 GMT: The Hunger Strike. One of the 17 political prisoners on hunger strike, photojournalist Babak Bordbar, has been released.

1945 GMT: Political Prisoner Watch. Sources have told Radio Farda that labour activist Mansur Osanloo, detained since June 2007, has been given an additional prison sentence.

Osanloo was tried last week in Revolutionary Court in Karaj without the presence of his lawyers.

NEW Iran: A Protest in Washington (Shahryar)
UPDATED Iran-US Special: The 4-Step Collapse of Obama’s “Engagement” Into Confusion
The Latest from Iran (6 August): The Campaign Against Ahmadinejad’s Aide

1745 GMT: The Human Rights Lawyer. The wife of Mohammad Mostafaei (see video at 1430 GMT), detained on 23 July when Iranian forces tried to arrest her husband, has been released from prison.

1730 GMT: Tough Talk Today. I have to say: Iranian state media is digging pretty deep to pull out military figures to chest-thump against the US.

Today it's the "commander of the anti-aircraft post of the Khatamolanbia Headquarters", Brigadier General Ahmad Miqani: "If Americans attempt to launch an attack against the sacred establishment of the Islamic Republic, they will encounter our firm and decisive defense and we will not let them off....Over the past decade the US has militarily attacked Iraq and Afghanistan and killed hundreds of thousands of people but in the end it suffered defeat."

Press TV frames this as, "If Attacked, Iran Will Annihilate US".

1725 GMT: Wacky Mahmoud. Yes, I've seen the Reuters summary of the President's speech for National Press Day, "Iran's Ahmadinejad doubts Sept 11 attack toll" and yes, I've seen the additional claim, "Ahmadinejad also repeated his denial of the Holocaust".

(Press TV headlines, "Ahmadinejad: 9/11 Scenario Dubious", but does not mention any reference to the Holocaust.)

But, no, I haven't featured it because I'm not sure what political relevance it has.

Far more significant for me is Agence France Presse picking up the story of the internal conflict over Esfandiar Rahim-Mashai: "Ahmadinejad aide 'in new row with Iran conservatives'".

1440 GMT: The Hunger Strike. Students at Tehran's Amir Kabir University have started a hunger strike in sympathy with the 17 detainees fasting in Evin Prison.

In a letter to the head of Iran's judiciary, Sadegh Larijani, doctors have warned about the condition of the 17 political prisoners.

1435 GMT: Film Corner. Accordion, directed by Jafar Panahi, will open the Venice Film Festival this year.

Panahi was detained for almost three months this spring by the Iranian authorities.

1430 GMT: The Human Rights Lawyer. Mohammad Mostafaei, now free from immigration detention in Turkey, has given an interview explaining why he had to leave Iran after the arrest of his wife and brother-in-law. In careful English, he gives the defence of his position, "I am crazy about human rights."

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hH7Q_aIVYC8[/youtube]

1425 GMT: The Rahim-Mashai Controversy. President Ahmadinejad has publicly defended his Chief of Staff, Esfandiar Rahim-Mashai, against heated criticism of Rahim-Mashai's remarks on Iran and Islam (see 0615 and 0855 GMT).

1420 GMT: More on Green Media. RASA, one of two opposition television channels soon to start broadcasting (see 0640 GMT), has posted its mission statement in Rah-e-Sabz.

1415 GMT: The Supreme Leader's Brother Intervenes. Hadi Khamenei has declared that his fellow reformists must use social media to increase awareness.

1410 GMT: Rafsanjani Watch. Former President Hashemi Rafsanjani is travelling to Mashaad tomorrow to speak with clerics.

1210 GMT: The Cyber-Campaign. In a profile in Newsweek, Austin Heap --- the creator of Haystack to help Iranians get around restrictions and surveillance on the Internet --- explains how he became involved:

The 25-year-old computer programmer was home in his San Francisco apartment, spending his evening the same way he spent much of his free time: playing videogames. “I was sitting at my computer, as I usually do, playing Warcraft,” recalls Heap. “My boyfriend asked if I was following what was going on in Iran, and I said no. I was busy killing dragons.”

Later that night, Heap logged on to his Twitter account. He read about the growing number of Iranians claiming that their votes had been stolen in the presidential election, and he saw people complaining that the government was censoring their cries of fraud and election rigging. For Heap—who says, “I am for human rights, the Internet, and I check out from there”—something clicked. At that moment, he decided to become involved in a battle more than 7,000 miles away in a country he admits he knew next to nothing about. “I remember literally saying, ‘OK, game on.’?”

1205 GMT: Execution Watch. Our German Bureau reports that the Zonta Club of businesswomen has issued a declaration calling for a halt to the execution of Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani, sentenced to death by stoning for adultery.

1150 GMT: Reformist Watch. Najafgholi Habibi has explained the silence of the reformists: "When no one listens, it is better to be quiet." Habibi said he would not comment on the rift amongst hardliners, as this could be misinterpreted as enmity.

0955 GMT: Economy Watch. Member of Parliament Majid Nasirpour has asserted that the Ministry of Trade did not pay farmers for their harvest, and this could cause unrest in western Azerbaijan. He added that there is no cement for construction, as it has been exported.

0940 GMT: Parliament v. President. Speaker of Parliament Ali Larijani has published a law on water wells operating without official permits, after President Ahmadinjead refused to implement it.

0855 GMT: Rahim-Mashai Review. Back to our lead story today (see 0615 GMT)....

Parleman News rounds up the criticism of the President's Chief of Staff, Esfandiar Rahim-Mashai, begins with Ayatollah Ahmad Khatami's Friday Prayer. Perhaps more significant are quotes from two of those planning to curb Ahmadinejad. Ahmad Tavakoli says Rahim-Mashai's comments are the delusions of an insane man and "a treason to Iran", leading to national division, and he has warned the Parliament will react. Ali Motahari says the Chief of Staff's remarks are a serious deviation from the Revolution.

0715 GMT: Ahmadinejad's Letter to America. An EA source confirms from a "reliable" source that President Ahmadinejad has sent another letter to President Obama. We are seeking further information.

0655 GMT: We've posted a feature by Josh Shahryar on Thursday's protest in Washington DC.

0645 GMT: Talking Tough Today. Pro-Ahmadinejad member of Parliament Mehdi Kuchakzadeh has declared that house arrest of "uproar" leaders is the best way to stop social tensions.

0640 GMT: Green Media. Pedestrian takes a look at two forthcoming channels for the Green Movement: RASA, which he sees as "more religiously oriented and closer to the reformist political parties in Iran", and Iran Neda, with "a more artistic/academic and secular orientation".

0635 GMT: Political Prisoner Watch. Mehdi Karroubi has joined other opposition figures in asking 17 political prisoners to end their hunger strike.

Speaking with the families of imprisoned journalists, Karroubi criticised the authorities' treatment of detainees and expressed concern over the regime's attitude towards the media and reporters.

0615 GMT: A curious Friday, as attention shifted to the President's Chief of Staff, brother-in-law, and good friend Esfandiar Rahim-Mashai. He was criticised not only by opposition figures but by key conservatives in Parliament and, most prominently, by the Friday Prayer leader of Tehran, Ayatollah Ahmad Khatami.

This is not the first time that Rahim-Mashai, who has stirred up discord with his comment that Iran and not Islam is the source of emulation for others, has been at the centre of controversy. Last August, in a temporary victory over Ahmadinejad, Rahim-Mashai was forced out as 1st Vice President, only to re-enter the President's office as Chief of Staff.

Still, the timing of this current campaign against Ahmadinejad's right-hand man is notable. It comes after months of growing discontent amongst conservatives with the President, and it complements the rising tide against Ayatollah Jannati, the head of the Guardian Council. Will either of these buttresses of the regime be washed away, exposing even more important figures?

UPDATED Iran-US Special: The 4-Step Collapse of Obama's "Engagement" Into Confusion

UPDATE 7 August: Stephen Walt jumps in with this analysis....

Right now, Washington simply assumes that Iran won't negotiate unless it is coerced into doing so by outside pressure. At the same time, Tehran has made it clear that it wants to negotiate but refuses to do so under pressure. The predictable result is the current stalemate. You'd think the U.S. government could come up with something creative to try to overcome this impasse, instead of just hoping for a miracle.

UPDATE 0940 GMT: An interesting clue that, amidst the confusion, the discussion of US-Iran talks is very much alive. Alaeddin Boroujerdi, the head of the Iranian Parliament's National Security and Foreign Policy Commission, has said that dialogue with Washington requires the permission of the Supreme Leader.

Iran-US Special: Obama Extends His Hand “Engagement, Not Conflict”

This time yesterday I was confidently declaring that President Obama had renewed his approach for engagement with Iran. David Ignatius of The Washington Post was putting out the message, from a specially-arranged briefing of selected journalists: "President Obama put the issue of negotiating with Iran firmly back on the table Wednesday in an unusual White House session with journalists. His message was that even as U.N. sanctions squeeze Tehran, he is leaving open a 'pathway' for a peaceful settlement of the nuclear issue."

Ignatius' narrative fit a pattern which, while interrupted by the breakdown in nuclear discussions last October between Washington, Tehran, and other countries, was far from obsolete. Noting the recent US escalation in Afghanistan and Iran's role in any attempt at a resolution, I assessed, "While the nuclear issue was the first one to be addressed --- given its symbolic position, it had to be resolved before other matters could be tackled --- engagement with Tehran would also pay dividends for US policy in the Middle East, including Iraq, and Afghanistan as well as removing a troublesome issue in relations with Russia and China."

All very logical. Yet, within 24 hours, Obama's initiative has become a tangle of conflicting reports and political counter-attacks, taking us not towards engagement but towards the challenges I identified at the end of yesterday's analysis: "The conflict inside the Administration has taken its toll...The pressure from the US Congress [and opponents outside the Congress] — as well as the war chatter — will not evaporate."

Four Steps to Collapse:

1. THE CONFUSED MESSAGE

If, as Ignatius claims, the President was re-presenting the strategy of negotiating with Iran, others in the room failed to hear this. Marc Ambinder of The Atlantic opens his account: "The session, as envisioned by his aides, was designed to convince his audience that Obama's policy of engagement joined with sanctions is having the desired effect of isolating Iran from the international community even as the country's pursuit of a bomb has not abated."

So pressure, pressure, and only pressure, as Ambinder features Administration optimism that Russia is now on Washington's side. There is not a single word in his report about negotiations.

Robert Kagan recounts, "[Obama] did make clear that the door was, of course, open to the Iranians to change their minds, that sanctions did not preclude diplomacy and engagement, and that if the Iranians ever decide they wanted to 'behave responsibly' by complying with the demands of the international community, then the United States was prepared to welcome them." This, however, is only an annex to the Pressure message: "The 'news' out of this briefing was that the administration wanted everyone to know how tough it was being on Iran."

Peter David of The Economist has perhaps the fullest account of the discussion. Like Ambinder and Kagan, he notes the Administration line that sanctions are pinching Tehran. His presentation on negotiations is not that Obama advocated them but that he pointed to the possibility:

it was important to set out for the Iranians a clear set of steps that America would accept as proof that the regime was not pursuing a bomb: they needed "a pathway". With hard work, America and Iran could thaw a 30-year period of antagonism—provided Iran began to act responsibly.

Mr Obama said that the United States had received no direct contacts from Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad or its supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, though high-level officials in Iran had investigated the possibility of re-engaging with the P5-plus-one (the permanent members of
the Security Council plus Germany). America would be willing to talk bilaterally to Iran "in the context" of a P5 process that was moving forward. There should meanwhile be a "separate track" on which America could co-operate with Iran on other issues, such as Afghanistan and drugs, for example.

2. THE ANTI-ENGAGEMENT COUNTER-ATTACK

Ambinder and David have not been amongst those beating the drum for confrontation with Tehran and, while Kagan has been a staunch advocate of an aggressive US foreign policy, including the 2003 Iraq war, he has been supportive of Obama's approach on sanctions.

For another journalist at the meeting, however, the agenda was how to stoke the fire of a showdown with Iran. Jeffrey Goldberg of The Atlantic omitted any reference to negotiations, whether Obama advocated them or merely saw the possibility of discussions. Instead, he fit the confusion of journalists' accounts into this pre-determined conclusion:

I am skeptical, though, about the possibilities of a diplomatic breakthrough, for two reasons, one structural, and one related to the state of Iran's opposition: The structural reason is simple; one of the pillars of Islamic Republic theology is anti-Americanism, and it would take an ideological earthquake to upend that pillar. And then there's the problem of the Green Movement. If the Iranian opposition were vibrant and strong, the regime might have good reason to be sensitive to the economic impact of the new sanctions package. But the opposition is weak and divided. The regime has shown itself to be fully capable of suppressing dissent through terror. So I'm not sure how much pressure the regime feels to negotiate with the West.

This is more than enough ammunition for those wanting to shoot down engagement. Max Boot soon wrote for Commentary: "What’s scary is that the illusions about 'outreach' in the upper reaches of this administration have still not been dispelled, despite a year and a half of experience (to say nothing of the previous 30 years of experience), which would suggest that the mullahs aren’t misunderstood moderates who are committed to “peaceful co-existence.”

3. THE FACTIONS INSIDE THE ADMINISTRATION

So what exactly did happen in the Obama briefing to scramble his message? Different journalists, from their own positions or just human nature, will hear --- and even try to produce --- different messages. Kagan, without naming Ignatius, writes:

Some of the journalists present, upon hearing the president's last point about the door still being open to Iran, decided that he was signaling a brand-new diplomatic initiative. They started peppering Obama with questions to ferret out exactly what 'new' diplomatic actions he was talking about.

There's an even more important factor here, however, one that Kagan points to --- but does not fully appreciate, at least in his column --- in his next sentences:

After the president left, they continued probing the senior officials. This put the officials in an awkward position: They didn't want to say flat out that the administration was not pursuing a new diplomatic initiative because this might suggest that the administration was not interested in diplomacy at all. But they made perfectly clear -- in a half-dozen artful formulations -- that, no, there was no new diplomatic initiative in the offing.

As one bemused senior official later remarked to me, if the point of the briefing had been diplomacy, then the administration would have brought its top negotiators to the meeting, instead of all the people in charge of putting the squeeze on Iran.

Kagan's point is incomplete. The Obama Administration has been split, perhaps since it came into office, between a faction who want genuine discussions with Iran and one that only thinks of discussions as the set-up, once there is an Iranian "rejection", for tougher economic and diplomatic measures.

So those who are on the "positive" side for discussions give their perspective to Ignatius --- thus the important reference to the US involvement as Afghanistan (which is not any other account of Obama's remarks) as a factor, if not a necessity, for conversations with Iran --- and those on the "negative" side become the "bemused senior official" in Kagan's article.

Joe Klein of Time, who was also present, captures the confusion: "This was a pretty strange meeting. The President's comments were on the record; his team's comments were on background, meaning that the individuals speaking could only be identified as 'senior Administration officials'."

And that's not all. For the spinning of the story was also going on beyond Obama's briefing. As I noted yesterday in the anlaysis, one or more unnamed officials sought out George Jahn of the Associated Press, leaking two letters (or selected extracts from the letters) from Iran to the United Nations and the International Atomic Energy Agency. The intent --- supported by Jahn's presentation and failure to put quotes into context, let alone present the letters --- was to rule out any possibility of productive dialogue: "Letters by Tehran’s envoys to top international officials and shared with The Associated Press suggest major progress is unlikely, with Tehran combative and unlikely to offer any concessions."

Such manoeuvres  in turn prop up critics of engagement like Ed Morrissey as they put out the gospel: "Time is running out on stopping the mullahs from their doomsday pursuit, and open hands to the regime have hardly been effective over the last several years, including the last eighteen months.  Either we need to get serious about other options or concede that we’re not serious at all."

4. CAN OBAMA RESCUE HIS ENGAGEMENT?

There's even a black-comedy irony in this story. Flynt Leverett, one of the foremost advocates of a US engagement with Iran for a "grand bargain" on bilateral and regional matters, joins others in dismissing the possibility of productive discussions, not because the Administration is too "soft" (as Goldberg and Boot argue) but because of "the Administration’s maladroit handling of its diplomatic exchanges with Tehran, poor grasp of on-the-ground realities in Iran, and mixed messaging....The President feels he must call in Western journalists to signal Tehran is a sad commentary on the Obama Administration’s failure to develop a discreet and reliable channel through which to communicate with Iranian leaders."

I suspect Leverett, because of his entrenched dislike of US foreign policy, goes a bit far with his unsupported assertion of the "failure to develop a discreet and reliable channel". I'm more than a few miles away from Washington, so I can't prove that the channel is operating, but last year's history is instructive. Between July 2009, when the Administration seized on the possibility of a deal in which Iran's uranium would be enriched in a country such as Russia, and October, a channel was established between Washington and Tehran. It was not direct but rather through third parties, including the International Atomic Energy Agency, European parties, and Turkey. And it led to face-to-face talks between US and Iranian representatives at Geneva in the autumn.

Even though that effort at an agreement ran adrift, the channels were not set aside. Ankara and the European Union have been used in recent weeks to pass Washington's thoughts to Tehran (and vice versa). Obama left more than a clue in his briefing: "High-level officials in Iran had investigated the possibility of re-engaging with the P5-plus-one [US, UK, France, Germany, Russia, and China]." Time's Klein offers further support that the process of 2009 --- contact at working levels --- is being repeated, although he fails to recognise it is two-way:

The President confirmed that "high level" Iranians have reached out to the Obama Administration over the past months, hoping to get a dialogue restarted. The President emphasized that neither the Supreme Leader nor Mahmoud Ahmadinejad have attempted to contact us, and his aides later insisted that nothing concrete was in the works.

And in Tehran, once you get past President Ahmadinejad's more outlandish postures in recent weeks, he too has been putting out references to both indirect communication with the US and to direct talks in the near-future.

The problem is not that the channel for engagement does not exist; it is the interference that distorts and even scrambles it. The President and his advisors are putting out signals , not just to Tehran but to the US Congress, to their anti-engagement critics, to Israel, and to other countries. No surprise that those signals often clash, especially when the Obama Administration has the faction within that does not even believe in engagement.

Last November, I fretted, "The US President [may] be back in the cul-de-sac: pressed by some advisors and a lot of Congressmen to pursue sanctions which offer no remedy for — and no exit from — the political dilemma of his failed engagement."

This week, with those sanctions now reality, Obama tried to get out of the cul-de-sac with his high-profile briefing. Initially I thought he had a chance; 24 hours later, I am thinking that his effort --- at least in the context of domestic politics --- never made it around the corner.

War on Terror: How the US Avoided the Law and Hid Its Detainees (Apuzzo/Goldman)

Matt Apuzzo and Adam Goldman report for the Associated Press:

Four of the nation's most highly valued terrorist prisoners were secretly moved to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, in 2003, years earlier than has been disclosed, then whisked back into overseas prisons before the Supreme Court could give them access to lawyers, The Associated Press has learned.

The transfer allowed the U.S. to interrogate the detainees in CIA "black sites" for two more years without allowing them to speak with attorneys or human rights observers or challenge their detention in U.S. courts. Had they remained at the Guantanamo Bay prison for just three more months, they would have been afforded those rights.

"This was all just a shell game to hide detainees from the courts," said Jonathan Hafetz, a Seton Hall University law professor who has represented several detainees.

Removing them from Guantanamo Bay underscores how worried President George W. Bush's administration was that the Supreme Court might lift the veil of secrecy on the detention program. It also shows how insistent the Bush administration was that terrorists must be held outside the U.S. court system.

Years later, the program's legacy continues to complicate President Barack Obama's efforts to prosecute the terrorists behind the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

The arrival and speedy departure from Guantanamo were pieced together by the AP using flight records and interviews with current and former U.S. officials and others familiar with the CIA's detention program. All spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the program.

Top officials at the White House, Justice Department, Pentagon and CIA consulted on the prisoner transfer, which was so secretive that even many people close to the CIA detention program were kept in the dark.

Read rest of article....

Iran: A Protest in Washington (Shahryar)

It was quite rainy here on Thursday in Washington DC. But that did not stop two dozen supporters of human rights and democracy for Iran from gathering in Lafayette Park across from the White House. The protest was organized by Mission Free Iran and other groups working together to voice concern over the imminent hangings of several Iranian political prisoners and to note the hunger strike of at least 17 others in Evin prison.

I cannot remember how many protests in which I have now participated on the East and the West Coasts of the United States. The mood’s optimistic when more people show up, a tad pessimistic when less do. But what is worth noting is the resolve with which people come to these demonstrations. The rain and thunder yesterday was frightening. Yet, activists had brought their children.

Our placards were slow-bleeding as the raindrops pounded us and them. There were umbrellas for keeping activists dry, umbrellas held over signs bearing pictures of activists inside Iran who are suffering under the regime. One of the speakers choked up as she recalled how, when she was a political prisoner, she witnessed her friends being taken away to be hanged. And we could not  stop ourselves from cringing when she mentioned how the families of slain political prisoners had to pay money to the government to get back the bodies of their loved ones .

The most heart-warming part of the day was watching the faces of children who had come to join protesting moms and dads. As we chanted “Death to the Dictator” and “Political Prisoners Must Be Freed", they looked at us with smiles on their faces. These little Iranians and Americans are totally unaware of what perils lie ahead of adults in the world. They’re quietly marching ahead towards adulthood.

To be honest, I was bothered by the rain yesterday. But when I looked down upon the faces of these little angels, I felt a strange sensation. I felt a great weight pressing against my shoulders. The weight is that of responsibility. Not responsibility towards the prisoners – we are already bearing that weight.

It is the weight of responsibility that each and every one of us bears to pass a better world to the next generation. It is the responsibility of making sure we have done everything we can to make things easier one day. It is the responsibility of not allowing our mistakes to hurt the prospects of our children and grandchildren.

It is that weight that made yesterday’s protest a success. And it is that weight that will eventually rid Iran of this political establishment.

Further information on protests is available on Mission Free Iran’s website.