Free Ali Farahbakhsh, Prisoner of Conscience

He continues to remain imprisoned after five months. Let's not forget about him. Here's my previous post and article about him: http://nazykaviani.blogspot.com/2007/04/for-ali-farahbakhsh.html Photo from Hanif Mazrooee Blog: http://hanif.ir/

Free Ali Farahbakhsh

For Ali Farahbakhsh

I wrote this last Friday, but with the move and all, couldn't get it posted. http://www.iranian.com/Kaviani/2007/April/Farahbakhsh/index.html Over the past few months, I have come to know a name I had never heard before, Ali Farahbakhsh. While everyone was hoping to see him finally freed, this young Iranian journalist, who had been detained at Evin prison for the past several months, was recently tried and sentenced to three years in prison, based on ambiguous and unfounded charges. His research and journalism domain is economics and finance. He isn’t even a social or a political journalist. He was imprisoned for several months, forced to “confess” to having ties to outside agencies keen on overthrowing the Iranian government. He refused to confess to something he didn’t do, hence he was handed a sentence of three years’ jail term this week. Three years. For what? My heart cries with the injustice he has had to face. I am angry that I can’t do anything to help him, to get him out, to return him to his mother, wife and one-year-old toddler, to his home where he can think, and to his keyboard where he can pour out his thoughts and soul. All my life, I have had itchy fingers. I like to write. Some days, it is a good way to classify my thoughts. Some days it feels like a massive release of emotions and feelings which are creating havoc in my mind. Some other days it becomes such an urgent need, such an explosion of energy and thought in me that unless I sit down and pour it out, it won’t stop and will drive me crazy with anxiety. Writing is my way of expression. As a result, I have immense respect for anyone who writes. I read books, articles, blogs, and even notes others write, all the time learning, all the time connecting to the producer of those thoughts and words on a very personal level. I have no illusions, however. I am not an author, nor a journalist. I lack the training, and more importantly, the requisite courage that goes with those professions. This makes me respect journalists, especially Iranian journalists, even more. Walking the tightrope of censorship and social taboos, they are the brave soldiers of cultural and social change in a very dangerous environment, risking prosecution, imprisonment, and torture. Whenever one of them is arrested in Iran, my heart and soul aches with horrible pain and worry. What would a writer do in jail? What would he or she do with those itchy fingers? How would those explosions of ideas, thought, and feelings fare in prison? My eyes fill with tears thinking that a decent, thoughtful, educated individual is put in a cell with criminals or worse yet, in a small cell, suffering solitary confinement. What is Ali Farahbakhsh doing right now? Lying on his narrow bed in his cell? Counting the days he has been in that cell? Going crazy with the thought of the days and years he will have to stay there? Does he have cellmates? Who are they? Do they talk? What about? He’s probably thinking that he should have written political articles, because that way he would have been a better-known figure and there might have been a bigger outcry for his release! Writing columns on economic affairs has probably not brought him enough fame! In actuality, I don’t think he is thinking about these questions much. He is probably worried about the safety and livelihood of his family in his absence. Today I tip my hat to all the unsung heroes of this dreadful and dangerous profession that journalism in Iran is. Today my itchy fingers salute Ali Farahbakhsh in Evin. I hope that as he sits around thinking about the nightmare that his life has become, he is hit with a warm wave of sympathy and respect that is sent to him from all these thousands of miles away. I hope this wave of affection and respect reaches him and makes this day, this minute, and this instant, a little more tolerable for him. I hope that even for a few minutes, he finds calm and peace in the knowledge that though we can’t get him out, we won’t forget him.

And They Are Free.....

Two women, exhausted, probably threatened, bullied, and insulted, kept in solitary confinement for close to three weeks, have been released to go home tonight. I am happy to see them released. I forget for these next few hours, that they should never have been arrested and detained in the first place. I am happy to see them with their families. I am happy to imagine them taking a bath and putting clean clothes on. I am happy to imagine them eating their Sabzi Polo Mahi tonight. I am happy to imagine them hugging their loved ones. For now I forget the humiliation and the unfair treatment they had to endure for speaking their minds, these wonderful, educated, and brave women. I am happy they are home. I am happy they are free.

Insomniac Wakes Up

With the time change, stress, and the big load of volunteer work I have accepted, on top of the ongoing stuff, I can't sleep at nights. I fall asleep at about 3:00 a.m., and turn off both alarms at 5:30 and 6:00 a.m., waking up late and more stressed out! I forget things like my cell phone and important papers, and my life gets more complicated. I am running really late for everything today. I will have to run to places now for the rest of the day, and every hour has been scheduled until 9:00 p.m. Yikes! On the up side, staying up till 2:30 last night, I learned that bail has been set for the last two women in prison. It is an astronomical bail, but I am hopeful that they will be home for Nowrooz. My heart is lighter and happier this morning. Maybe I can finally get some sleep tonight. This weekend looks even crazier than my work week! I wished I hadn't worn these high heels to work today.

I Cry

Dar paye an hameh khoon keh bar in khak chekid Nangeman bad in Jan! Sharmeman bad in Nan! Ma neshastim o tamasha kardim. After all those blood dripping on this soil Disgraced be this soul, shameful this bread! We just sat and watched those crimes. (From Without You On a Moonlit Night, Fereidoon Moshiri Poems, Translated by Mehdi Afshar, Namak Publishers, Tehran, 2006.) Those two women are still in solitary confinement. My heart is in solitary confinement. My conscience is strangling my heart which wants to leap toward Nowrooz with joy. I go through the motions. I pretend it is business as usual in my household. My tulips from last year just blossomed today. The wheat has stopped sprouting due to neglect. The silver is polished. I cry.

Wishing.....

Do I want to jump over the fire? Do I want to impatiently check up on the sprouting wheat in the plate? Do I want to color those eggs? Do I want to clean the house and put out my decorative plates and vases full of tulips and fresias? Do I want to go buy that one item of new clothing I have religiously purchased for myself in March since I have been on my own at 18? My heart feels heavy and imprisoned. I wished they would let the last two go for Nowrooz, so that I could do all that. I wished.... http://www.iranian.com/Kaviani/2007/March/Women/index.html