“When will our consciences grow so tender, that we act to prevent human misery rather than avenge it?”
Eleanor Roosevelt
Reflections of the former first Lady of the American Nation explain her courage. She was intent to believe the future of the world depend upon how its citizens and Leaders responded to that question. Would the world succumb to a bleak, selfish, reactive view of the near future or would it have the courage to stare it down and build a new world?
Would the US administration have the courage to defend original ideal of its Founding Fathers: “Democracy” by abiding within a lawful decision that would affect the future of the Iranian people and de-list the MEK, or would they cave into Mullahs’ lobbied pressure which would only benefit terrorism and violence and bloodshed?
Taking such decisions cannot be a joyous task for anyone, but as a woman activist and former political prisoner I am convinced that it is determining for millions.
On Friday August 26, thousands of my compatriots who live in America joined voices in a unique rally; to defend what they believe is just: de-listing of the MEK/PMOI (Mujahedin e Khalq).
For the millions in Iran however, harsh realities of a suppressive but unstable regime would not leave an opportunity to exercise freedom of thought let alone freedom of speech.
It is now 30 years that 83 million silenced voices are waiting to be heard in Iran.
I was arrested as a 2009 protest organiser and mother to MEK member in Camp Ashraf, and was immediately taken for interrogation. In the dungeon, there were crucial moments of decision making and choice that were to build my life. It may have been only seconds, but each second had a decision attained and was a brick of a long road that lead me to Freedom.
Decisions had to be made each passing second that made my conscience: that made me.
I had to choose between the “Just” and “Unjust,” “Selfishness” or “Sacrifice,” “Tolerance and Forgiveness” or “Reaction and Revenge” and the last and not the least ” The Mullahs” or “The People.”
For the US secretary of State, Mrs. Clinton, I believe these days are, as many have been before in her carrier as activist, unrelenting moments of crucial decision making.
As a woman, a mother and also one dissident activist from Iran, I have had millions of such moments, each being intolerably difficult to resolve and overcome. Each time the question was; Am I doing the right thing and if yes how much price do I have to pay for my decision?
For me up to now, the price has been to bear witness to my husbands hanging, to lose my belongings and everything I owed in this world, to see my younger children in the killing fields of the mullahs in Iran and my son under threat of yet another massacre by Iraqi forces at the behest of Tehran in Camp Ashraf.
The truth is, despite all this, my pick has always been to defy “,” Injustice,” “,” Suppression,” “State Violence,” “Inequality” and defend “Freedom and the chance for having freedom for others.”
I and my husband and my children have been named “Terrorists and Moharebeh” (Anti-God) by the Mullahs. We are those who are accused to be a” Sect” and “violent” by Mullahs Lobbies and pundits in Capitol Hill.
For the Mullahs, we pose an existential threat. With the Libyan people’s thrust for Freedom and the Syrian wave of protests, such fear would multiply is preluded to similar fate for the mullah. The recent pathetic show of outcries and rattle – tattle by Mullahs’ pundits is therefore, very much expected. This will overtake , but what is everlasting is the position each person, politician or activist, takes with regards to preventing bloodshed and saving values that would “SAVE human misery.”
Ms. Irene Khan in a recent International meeting said: “What makes me very angry; is people who are being held hostage to their fate and people who are suffering everyday. Camp Ashraf is a humanitarian time bomb waiting to explode; how often have we heard that said? Ever since the U.S. troops handed over the responsibility of the camp to the Iraqi authorities in 2009, the bomb has been ticking. The residents of Camp Ashraf have been living in daily risk of their lives. They have been harassed, denied medical care, tortured with loudspeakers day and night, physically attacked, injured and killed.”
She rightly said that history shows that impunity breeds more human rights abuse. When human rights violations are ignored, they happen over and over and over again.
When butchers are encouraged however, it is Human Rights being stoned and spat on.
Mrs Clinton must know that “impunity” for butchers in Iran will, as experienced in the past 30 years breed violence and death in a magnitude never encountered before.
I have my son in Camp Ashraf, but before that, all those in the Camp represent the silenced voices in Iran waiting to be heard.
Secretary of State Clinton can provide that opportunity and deprive the butchers of the delight of their massacre: de-list the PMOI Deprive the henchmen of their feast.
Deprive the henchmen of the blade that slits their victims
Mahin has first hand news of the real situation in Iran and what is going on with the real activists there. Read more stories by Mahin Saremi.