Posts

February 8, 2011

Report on the Human Rights Council

The Democracy Coalition Project recently issued a report reviewing the effectiveness of the Human Rights Council. They noted that despite concern about the human rights situation in Iran, no country mandate was established to review the situation there.
February 5, 2011

Feb — House of Cinema Protests Ruling Against Panahi

Iran's House of Cinema files formal complaint against the 20 year ban on producing new films handed down to director Jafar Panahi.A source for the Hollywood publication Variety states:
“Twenty years is a lifetime for a filmmaker. It’s like prison.“The Iranian cinema guild wrote a letter to the Minister of Justice saying that to tell a filmmaker he can’t do his job is like killing him. We’re awaiting the results. Panahi has asked all his friends not to contact him or to talk about him to any festivals … because he doesn’t want to create any problems for anyone else.”
January 28, 2011

Jasmine and Fire

As Tunisia struggles to develop a civil society that can fill the hole left by the dictatorial regime, Egyptians have taken to the streets. MideastYouth.com is following the story from Egypt here. The blogger states:
In brief, Tunisia has made people, not only in Egypt but all across the region, to believe that the ousting of any totalitarian regime is within reach, if people actually march into the streets, not only on the internet. Signs of releasing anger has spread all across Egypt by tearing Mubarak’s pictures in several areas.
Events in Egypt can be followed live on Al Jazeera and Crowdvoice is also keeping track of events. Continue reading...
January 16, 2011

Who is Speaking Out About Human Rights Abuses in Iran?

Writing in the Huffington Post, Hadi Ghaemi and Aaron Rhodes of the International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran write about the politicization of human rights and the equivocation of the international community when dealing with abuses of those rights. They discuss the conflation of those who advocate for more attention to the human rights situation in Iran with those who advocate for military action, arguing that the two are very different. The West, they argue, and many other countries as well, are squandering an opportunity to hold the government of Iran accountable for abuses. They write, "But with Iran, human rights are not bargained away, they are given away, since the international community gets nothing in return for its silence except scorn."
January 14, 2011

The Great Persian Firewall

Via Cyrus Farivar, we learn that The Tor Project is reporting that the "Great Persian Firewall" is preventing people in Iran from connecting to circumvention tools such as Tor. The Tor Project reports:
Over the past 48 hours it seems the Great Persian Firewall is updating to attempt to block a number of circumvention tools, including Tor. Iranians and their diaspora have been reporting to us that Tor, Hot Spot Shield, UltraSurf, and Freegate are all experiencing connectivity problems from inside Iran to the outside world.
Read more on their site.
January 6, 2011

Tragic suicide

Hamid Dabashi comments on the suicide of Alireza Pahlavi, son of the last Shah of Iran and the second of his children to take his own life, in a post on CNN.
Like other young Iranians, the late Alireza Pahlavi and before him his late younger sister, Leila Pahlavi, who also committed suicide in London in 2001, must have wanted to be a source of good for their homeland. There is no reason to doubt that possibility no matter what our politics might be. But historical circumstances and the ending of monarchy in Iran did not allow that to happen, and in exile the former queen and her four children have not been able to find a viable way of having a positive impact in their homeland.