news / Update III

Jan. 16, 08

Besides summoning more Leftist and other student activists to the so-called “Disciplinary Committee”s which is still underway, there were two developments on Mon., Jan 14:

1- All the parents of the detained students got to visit them. This has obviously been granted by the regime under international pressure. However, the detainees have not yet gotten to visit with their lawyers.
2- The agents of Ministry of Intelligence raided the house of a student by the name of Mohammad Purabdollaahi and took him, along with 8 other students, with them. The names of the newly arrested students are as follows: 1- Mohammad Purabdollaahi; 2- Kaave Abbasiaan; 3- Anaahitaa Hoseyni; 4- Bitaa Samimizaade; 5- Amin Ghazaai; 6- Sorush Saabet; 7- Sorush Dashtestaani; 8- Bijan Sabbaagh; 9-Mortezaa Eslaahchi.
3- On Tue., Jan 15, another student, Masi Shirvaani was kidnapped in the street by Intelligence agents. The whereabouts of the newly arrested students is still unknown.

The push-and-pull game, that is, in this case, granting partial visitation rights and, at the same time, arresting and kidnapping more activists, is something we are quite used to by now! In every case the regime backs off one step under international pressure, only to take two steps forward in the direction of oppression in order to show off power and send out a message of “we are still in the saddle”. And this proves only one thing: the international community has to keep pushing this anti-human regime back relentlessly. So, please regard everu single letter of support for the students, or any other form of protest, as a spotlight turned on the ruling criminals in Iran. In the midst of the contented silence of the Western governments, it can be quite justifiably said that, firstly, “international community” seems to be, unfortunately, limited to us, the people only. For, just as an example among many, we only need to remember that a Canadian photo-journalist, Zahra Kazemi, was killed under torture in Iran, the coroner that had examined her body sought political asylum in Canada, he listed a whole scroll of different kinds of torture, including “brutal rape”, she had been subjected to, the Iranian regime was forced to admit that she was killed under interrogation by a “rouge agent” in the Ministry of Intelligence, and all the Canadian government did was politely asking the Iranian government to “hold an open trial” for the perpetrator “so that the Canadian Ambassador could attend the trial sessions”. The so-called “rouge agent” was never even put on trial, and that was the end of the case as far as the life of a Canadian citizen was concerned! Secondly, shedding light on the acts of criminals almost seems to be the only thing we can do from overseas to rein these criminals back. The efficiency of support letters should not, however, be underestimated. Writing protest letters is the single chief doctrine on the basis of which the whole Amnesty International has grown from a one-man initiative to the global Amnesty International of today.