Many stories of the fate of Iran’s young protestors, journalists, and academics have become front page news as allegations of rape and torture on those arrested this summer comes to the front page of papers worldwide. The infamous Evin Prison is where many of those arrested political prisoners have been detained this summer, but what is known by many in Iran and ignored by many outside of the country is that rape and torture of political prisoners did not being this summer, but has been going on over the last thirty years.
Marina Nemat, a victim of Evin Prison who was lucky enough not to be executed during her time there wrote her account in prison in Evin, in her book called The Prisoner of Tehran. In her time there she was arrested for having negative views of the Revolution of 1979 and was put in prison for many years. Her perspective is an interesting one, as one of her interrogators, who was a political prisoner himself under the Shah became her husband in the end. While she was forced to marry him, there was some respect between the couple and the views he held as a prisoner himself. In the end Marina was released from prison and while all these years she has refrained from telling her story, in her book she reveals for the first time her life as a political prisoner. Marina now lives in Canada.
Another account of how foreign journalists were treated in Evin Prison was discussed when a Canadian Journalism of Iranian descent and birth, Zahra Kazemi was beaten to death in Iran in 2003. Acknowledgement of the story and actions by the previous Canadian Government was virtually absent until her son, Stephan Kazemi pushed for public protests and for help from the Canadian Government. Accounts of her ordeal in Evin Prison were that she was beaten to death and raped as well in order to defile her reputation and soul. Her body was then not returned to Canadian authorities amidst much protest. Currently Canadian Newsweek journalist Maziar Bahari is being held with other political prisoners in Iran. He is one of those accused in Iran’s political court for inciting protests in the country.
The Baha’I of Iran, who’s governing council was arrested late last year for false charges echos the past arrest of the Baha’I council in the past, all who were executed after their arrest. Government persecution of this religious minority often is recycled over history via Apostate laws, accusations of anti-state activities and associations with foreign elements, and continuous monitoring of community and community leaders leading to unpublicized tragedies in many forms. One clear example of this repeat of history was the open discrimination in the early 80’s after the Iranian Revolution. In 1980-81 the arrest and the execution of the leaders of the Baha’i religious and community leaders took place. The council, named the National Spiritual Assembly, were collected and imprisoned and eventually murdered by the government. This trend continued against members of the community and any other “political” dissidents in Iran since that time. Since then, little coverage of this issue has taken place in Western and Eastern media.
All these accounts of the terrors of Evin Prison will likely lead to its destruction by the people of Iran. An argument may be made to have the prison destroyed as a means of mercy for those who will certainly be tortured and raped until death for crimes such as speaking their mind and simply being of a different political or religious ideology. To ignore Evin Prison or to be only shocked by recent activities that have been going on there for thirty years when a modern event occurs is to legitimize the history of brutal torture that has been taking place there. By all rights, it should have been destroyed years ago..now that journalists and citizens of foreign nations and peaceful Iranians are there being murdered, international focus should be finally set on and legitimately encouraged against Iran’s dictators. Evin Prison should fall as did the Bastille in France’s Revolution.
The Canadian government over the last few years have been very sensible for the most part as argued by Fareed. The issue in Canada however is not the success of the Federal Government in Ottawa, but the lack of success of many regional governments and increased responsibilities of municipal governments over the last few years. Housing and the financial systems supporting many transactions have boomed in many Canadian cities, but like in many other places in the world it came from investments losing their popularity in mutual funds, and like in many markets being placed into real estate. While Canadian cities have currently stable housing prices in comparison to the US; where housing began the current decline, loss of employment, even in Canada and highly inflated prices and accompanying taxes have made cities like Toronto, Vancouver and Calgary into municipalities where affordable living no longer exists. With large populations living in the centre of Canadian cities, it has become unaffordable for many who cannot afford starter homes or have had to move to another municipality due to increased taxes during boom times, and even more taxes being promised by cities in this bust time. While Canada has great fundamentals, some provinces and cities have often mismanaged their communities or have yet to feel the effect of a Canadian recession.
TVO.org out of Ontario, Canada presented a show this week concentrating on
There are a few realities that have hit the world this past year and this past month, to which most of the world has been affected by to some degree. Luckily enough, the issues which affect most Americans have made the greatest impact in the last few weeks of the election campaign, and the decisions people will make when casting their vote will be based on how they wish to change the past, and how they wish to see themselves in the future. Both candidates have accomplished something remarkable. The last two election campaigns offered many a lack of choice in a candidate who they felt would really push the country in a proper direction.
With soldiers dying in Iraq, and allied soldiers giving their lives in support of freedom and lives in their own countries as well as the US, Afghanistan and Iraq need to be taken as a whole and the support should be given by the US to help fix problems abroad.
With a world depending on the US economy to operate, those nations in Latin America and Europe need a strong United States that will work and support their nations as those nations wish to work and support the US itself. While there is much criticism coming out of socialist governments in Latin America, the majority of nations who have spent the last few years in cooperation with the US and achieving great stability and peace within their own borders should be supported by the US and credit given to their development.
CNN made a great acquisition taking on policy expert Fareed Zakaria and giving him his own show,
While new economic giants such as China and India had their perspectives shown on F.Z. GPS, it is curious to see what the last eight years have brought to countries in the Americas, and why certain policies such as immigration has been largely ignored in the recent election campaign. The focus of the Bush administration in early 2001 was immigration and the relationship between the US and the rest of the Americas regarding free trade and the FTAA. Mostly in 2008, the issue of immigration has remained a regional one in the US, concentrating around states on the US-Mexico border which take immigration to heart, but has not become a major election issue. Trade, mostly an issue with China for the US has been brought up in many border states along the US-Canada border. Talks of renegotiating NAFTA to bring jobs back to Americans was rampant, despite the issue having a lot to do with the US relationship north and south as opposed to its ties eastwards. While Mexico has ever increasing numbers going to the US illegally and a severe drug war which has taken more lives in 2008 than US lives in Iraq and Afghanistan combined, the debate on immigration was mostly nullified last year when Bush tried to pass one of his final bills opening up an immigration policy that might rationalize the current status quo on the border. After 7 years of the War on Terror, the original policy issues from 2001 were addressed, but with such complex problems and the lack of support for anything Bush ties his name to, the issue of immigration in the US will not change at all for years to come. In reality,
Venezuela also has stood out from many of its neighbours. While Brazil has benefited a lot from its oil reserves,
With Olympic fever
Latin America and the Caribbean also have received large communities from China as well, albeit more historically than recently in large numbers. In
