The Garab Chronicles

Hope XVI

Mohammad Asghari

Mehdi Karami

Mostafa Ghanian was 26

Neda Aghasoltan was 26

Hosein Tahmasebi was 25

Ashkan Sohrabi was 18

And hundreds more have been detained, beaten, or killed.

#neda #iran

Hope XV

Poor Khamenei.

First he goes out on a limb and throws his weight behind a total scumbag (who apparently smells), thus shattering his stately non-partisan image, then accusations start swirling that he helped orchestrate a military coup to aid his billionaire son's bid for political power against the clerical establishment where he draws his base of support.

Hundreds of thousands of Iranians who once deferred to him for spiritual guidance now take to the streets and rooftops nightly, chanting for his ouster. And all this after the guy that holds the reigns to all true political and military power in Iran showed his hand and ordered the violent suppression of peaceful demonstrations that were initially launched against his surrogate - a move that seems to have backfired and exposed a massive rift below the country's homogenized hard-line facade.

Now, the clerics don't like him, the reformers are increasingly calling him out for hypocrisy, there are more and more unconfirmed reports leaking of cracks within the military he counts on to secure his hold on power, and most important of all - ordinary Iranians just don't like him.

And despite his best efforts to muzzle them with batons, tear gas, torture, and murder, they just keep turning out to defy him, like they did today.

#neda #iran

Hope XIV

#neda #iranelection

Hope XIII

 

#neda #iranelection

Hope XII

#neda #iranelection

Hope XI

In 2007, Parvin Ardalan was sentenced to 3 years in prison for threatening national security, when she attempted to gather 1 million signatures in a petition for women's rights in Iran.

The state's official line is that it holds no political prisoners.

Women have been at the forefront of the current struggle against the Ahmadinejad regime, leading protests, and defying the armed Basiji militiamen who continue to wage a campaign of fear and brutality against anyone who defies the current government.

For more on Iran's human rights activists, and the current post-election fallout there, check out The Daily Beast.

#neda #iranelection

Hope X

The kids in Iran are still fighting, and it's getting alot harder for the government there to ignore them. They have endured torture, imprisonment and death, and yet, somehow, they find the courage to keep going. Like they did here on July the 3rd:

And now, they may have some help.

Since the government crackdown initiated by Ayatollah Khamenei in the wake of what's now widely believed to be a fraudulent election, news and information coming out of Iran has slowed to a trickle. Due in large part to a media blackout involving the expulsion of foreign journalists (and arrest of local ones), blocked internet and text messaging services, and the outright confiscation of mobile recording devices, Iran's opposition has had to work much harder to get any message out that contradicts the official state
line.

That is, until the recently announced launch of Haystack. If this new program manages to deliver what its developers promise, government censors will suddenly find their highly sophisticated, and incredibly expensive, filtering technology fit only for what it has always been good for: the trash heap.

#neda #iranelection

Hope IX

From Tehran24:

#neda #iranelection

Hope VIII

From a recent U2 concert:

#neda #iranelection

Hope VII

#neda #iranelection