سر مقاله time چهارشنبه و مطلب من

By Babak Zamanian

I know what it is like to be locked up by the regime we have in Iran. In December 2006 I helped organise a protest against President Ahmadinejad when he visited Tehran’s Amir Kabir University. Hundreds of students chanted “Death to dictatorship” and “Dictator go home” and held his posters upside down.
Four months later I was arrested and sent to the infamous Section 209 of Evin prison. I was held in solitary confinement for 40 days while agents from the Ministry of Intelligence tried to force me to confess on television that I was working for American interests. I was held in a windowless cell, interrogated every other day, beaten, locked up for 48 hours in a room with flashing lights and sirens. I went on hunger strike, lost 35 pounds and still have nightmares, but I did not give them the lie they wanted.
I was released from Evin, but not from their clutches. I was tried and sentenced to a year’s imprisonment. That was reduced to a fine, but I was banned from leaving the country and subject to constant harrassment and questioning. I lived in fear. Then came the presidential election and subsequent crackdown.
My name appeared on a list of 70 dissidents that the Intelligence ministry wanted to arrest. I went into hiding, staying with synmpathisers and regularly moving to different houses. I don’t dare to use my mobile lest they trace me. My only contact with my friends and the outside world, and my only access to news, is through the internet. When that is down it feels like I am marooned on a remote island.
This is not the first time I’ve been forced to go into hiding. What is different now is that it is no longer just about me. The crisis has spread throughout the country. The most reactionary elements with the most dangerous messianic schemes are planning to take over the country. They want to do away with the last vestiges of Republic and people participation and start an Islamic state where only the representatives of God on earth, which they consider to be themselves, make the decisions.
In the present conditions what is happening to me or what will happen to me is of little importance. Here Neda Salehi is gunned down standing next to her father by the Baseej and the police call the likes of Neda, thugs and hoodlums. There is blood all over the streets and the selected president mockingly says ‘no one has been killed by law enforcement forces’. People here gather to claim their votes and the state officials refer to them as dirt and debris.

Here the voiceless are gunned down with machine guns. Here they have hired their thugs to be present at every corner and beat people with brutality never seen before. The Supreme Leader audaciously threatens he will kill people and the government nods approvingly. Here people protest by chanting Allah-o-Akbar and Death to the Dictator from their roof tops and they try to drown the people's voice by shooting more bullets into the air. Here bullets and truncheons have the final say and savage beasts enforce the law.

Two days ago I slipped out briefly onto the the streets and it was terrifying - riot police and security men everywhere. There was an atmosphere of terror.

But what do they do in the West about it? Some of the politicians behave as if nothing special has happened. One says the nuclear negotiation is the priority and another one politely asks the coup masters to deal better with the people. And some apologists and lobbyists like CASMII and Baroness Afshar pretend to speak on behalf of the people of Iran and ask the Western governments not to get involved in the condemnation of killings, calling it 'interference'.
It pains me that I cannot be standing next to my brothers and sisters in the streets these days. While I have been in hiding, I am told my house has been ransacked three times already by the intelligence agents, but after all these years I know too well what the next move by these evil monsters will be. I am no longer prepared to be the captive in the hands of those who are so remote from humanity.

Every day I hear of friends being taken away. They vanish without trace. I have no knowledge of what they are going through, for they have cut off the phones in the prisons.
I fear a huge bloodbath is on the way and the world better react now, as soon as possible, before it is too late. Experience has shown us that if you appease these demons they will become more impertinent but if you stand up to them firm, they will draw back like cowards.

The West must show a reaction to the human rights abuses that are taking place here; otherwise the people of Iran will lose all faith in the claims by the West for respecting human rights.
Ahmadinejad does not represent the people of Iran, if you need prove look at the millions who took to the streets last week. Tehran was joined by a sea of people from the East to the West.

Ahmadinejad and Khamenei are not representatives of the Iranian people, they are the murderers. Do not let them enter your countries.
Ahmadinejad will turn Iran into a messianic state. Take action before this catastrophe happens, which will have dangerous ramifications for the rest of the citizens of the free world.

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