Yesterday, June 12 was the first anniversary of the Iranian elections and the start of the protests about its legitimacy. I feel tired as I write this. But a year ago yesterday the people of Iran stood up against their despotic regime and the world was silent, and yesterday once again most of the world was silent and I don’t want to make this about Israel because it’s not.
It’s about consistency. When a country, a leader says we support the rights of all people to live in relative freedom we need to be consistent, if we’re not then we do not only ourselves a disservice, but also those struggling to be free and to have the right to speak openly.
A recent report from Amnesty International states:
"Iran's latest presidential election on June 12, 2009, took place against a backdrop of discrimination, worsening repression of dissent and violent unrest.”
They continue to document serious human rights violations, including detention of human rights defenders and other prisoners of conscience, unfair trials, torture and mistreatment in detention, deaths in custody and the application of the death penalty.
“Iran has one of the highest number of recorded executions of any country in the world.... Furthermore, Iran executes more people than any other country in the world except for China. Iran is also the only country in the world that continues to execute juvenile offenders…Iran is now witnessing sweeping restrictions on the use of communications technology, including telecommunications, satellite broadcasts and internet access, a ban on peaceful demonstrations, armed attacks on students in university premises, as well as the arbitrary arrest of political activists, students, journalists, and human rights defenders."
Never mind, the rest of the world, where was the United States a year ago when protests began in Tehran? It was the twitter revolution we couldn’t get away from it and yet by and large we were silent. Me included I think we all share in the blame. The world missed an opportunity on that day, while there is no guarantee that anyone thing could have stopped the savage rulers of the Persian Empire Khamenei and Ahmadinejad from solidifying their power and silencing the opposition, we’ll never know because we were silent.
Yesterday I prayed for the people of Iran who are unable to speak their minds openly as I’m doing now. I prayed for them and prayed for myself. I prayed for forgiveness and for my indifferent heart.
Let us not forget all those who today are not free. Yibaneh Ha-Mikdash
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