I’ve received the following message via the SEARCH Foundation. Please forward widely.
Subject: Please act now to stop execution of Iranian teacher activist!
Dear colleagues,
Education International has received information that Kurdish teacher trade unionist Farzad Kamangar is once again considered at imminent risk of execution.
Please forward this message widely and take a moment to add your voice to Education International’s appeal to the Iranian authorities:
http://www.ei-ie.org/form/20080818_en.php
For additional information: http://www.ei-ie.org/en/urgentactionappeal/show.php?id=12&country=iran
EI will forward any new information as soon as it becomes available. Thank you in advance for your support.
In solidarity,
Nancy Knickerbocker
Senior Coordinator, Communications
EDUCATION INTERNATIONAL
Tel: + 32 2 224 0681
www.ei-ie.org
NB: Education International is the international education union federation to which the Australian Education Union, Independent Education Union and National Tertiary Education Union are affiliated.
while this is surely a terrible situation that I hadn’t previously been aware of, does anyone really think that a couple of Australians protesting this action will make a scintilla of difference?
Someone the other day asked me to join a facebook group against the merger of kraft and cadburys. Why on earth?
Although the internet is wonderfully liberating and allows people to join up and have a voice in teh things taht concern us, can we have a reality check please? Theocracies in the middle east are not amenable to internet petitions.
Getcha wilful, but for me it’s also about showing solidarity with the movement he was part of…and they really are people who can make a difference.
Wilful I’d normally agree with you but I remember an online petition back in 2001 that’s credited with overturning a decision to stone a woman to death for adultery in Nigeria. I have the book – Safiya Hussaini Tungar Tudu, she’d had a baby out of wedlock for who the father at first took responsibility for, but later denied (she had believed he would marry her).
Sure it seems like 1 person globally can’t make a difference, and I’m one who supports certain causes but wouldn’t go to a protest – however I’m grateful to those who do. Thing is if everyone thought that way it would be pretty grim so I’m going to do this, it’s a simple measure which is really just a barometer for support.
Well yeah, except that a paranoid and antidemocratic regime might think that if people from Australia are protesting it means they are doing the right thing.
You know the sort of thing: “See! See! We told you it was a western conspiracy – these protests prove we were right. Flog/kill/torture the opponents of the regime!”
What Wilful said – unfortunately it is a case of “You? And whose Army?”
I signed the petition, although I accept the chances of the Iranian government listening are very small. I did this for two reasons:
1) There have been some surprising cases where appalling regimes did listen to global appeals. Amnesty may fail a lot more times than they succeed, but if they win even sometimes its worth a go.
2) I believe that at some point the Iranian regime will fall or evolve. I think that if democratic activists in the left have been showing solidarity for the opposition, they might just be easier to deal with when they are no longer the opposition.
That which you do is more than would have been done if you had not done it.
wilful: an old Quaker notion of ‘bearing witness’ comes into play here. They may murder him but not outside of the compassionate gaze and hopes of others. Not to die in silence, and alone, with no-one to grieve your goodness and courage. It is worth it for that alone.
You might want to fix those links.
Phillip Adams on RN the other week referred to the day your name is last recorded or spoken as being like a later death. And online communities are social and real. I am sure this man on death row would take some comfort if he knew thousands around the world were supporting him and thinking of him – and taking a moment to record their concern. Whether it’s a fruitless endeavour or not. Thanks Paul Norton for bringing this to our attention.
Because we can.