Iran Feature: The Week in Civil Society --- Sanctions, Awards for Political Prisoners, and the Supreme Leader on Facebook (Arseh Sevom)
Friday, December 21, 2012 at 12:21
Some people in Iran are feeling the effects of shortages of medicine and high prices, while an artist challenges passersby at the United Nations to confront the growing problem.
Nasrin Sotoudeh and Jafar Panahi receive the prestigious Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought in absentia, sending messages for justice and freedom, as imprisoned human rights activists call for others to spread the call for dignity. Mohammad Maleki, the former Chancellor Tehran University, is summoned to serve a six-year prison term. Journalists call for an end to the intimidation of political prisoners' family members by interrogators.
The Supreme Leader gets a Facebook page, as Parliament debates election reform and reduced powers for the President and Human Rights Watch issues a report on the more than 40,000 Iranians seeking asylum abroad while a photographer shows us that life in Iran goes on.<