NOROUZ (Persian New Year)

The Year Past & the Year to Come...

On the occasion of Norouz, we at World With Iran would like to wish all those in Iran who are repressed and are fighting for their freedom, and those across the world who support them; a very Happy Persian New Year - "Norouz Piruz, Norouz Mobarak!" ! نوروز پیروز ~ نوروز مبارک

To say that you are not alone & we as well as others around the world are with you, supporting you in you fight for liberty and justice.


One cannot but help reflect upon this past year, so full of hope for change, so full of sadness for those who have been killed, raped, beaten and imprisoned.

This coming year is going to be decisive in the struggle for those inside Iran who are seeking liberty & the respect of their Human Rights, and our support from outside Iran is vital to continue giving them the strength to go on with this battle in defense of these universal values.

Here are two sets of Videos to reflect upon. The first set are from Norouz this year (the night of the 20th March 2010). 
The first shows a spontaneous crowd of people who had gathered at the tomb of the great Persian poet, Hafez. At the moment of the New Year, the crowd cries out the name of the opposition leader "Mir Hossein" Mousavi:

The following two videos were filmed on the rooftops of Tehran where the people were protesting against the regime officials by shouting out "Allah-o Akbar" ("God is great"), at the very moment that Ahmadinejad & Khamenei were giving their official Norouz message on Iranian TV:

The last set of videos date from June 2009, the month of the fraudulent elections in Iran after Ahmadinejad had been 'officially' declared the winner. Here we hear the cries from the roofs at night and a woman improvises a poem as she films the scenes. There are subtitles in English.

The first one dates from the night of the 21st June 2009, the second day of the brutal crackdown by the Iranian regime. She speaks of the diversity of the protestors, and of the need to never forget them, their voices & what they have endured:

Finally, this video is a remixed version of another improvised poem by the same woman & dates from the night of Friday the 19th June 2009 - asking "where is this country" where such atrocities take place:

Oxfordgirl vs Ahmadinejad: the Twitter user taking on the Iranian regime

A woman tweeting from an English village is helping to moblise opposition protests across Iran
Matthew weaver guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 10 February 2010

Twitter updates have become an alternative to the Iranian government's official version of events during the unrest. Photograph: AFP/Getty Images

As the resident of a quiet village in Oxfordshire with a plummy accent to match, she makes an unlikely revolutionary. But she has become a key player in the unrest that is shaking Iran and is such an irritant to President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad that she has been subjected to a propaganda campaign by the regime's henchmen.

Known only by her Twitter name, Oxfordgirl has emerged as a crucial link between the protesters and the outside world. "Before they started blocking mobile phones I was almost co-ordinating people's individual movements – 'Go to such and such street,' or 'Don't go there, the Basij [militia] are waiting,' " she said. "It was very strange to be sitting in Oxford and co-ordinating things like that."

Tomorrow the opposition is planning another demonstration under the cloak of an official rally to mark the 31st anniversary of the revolution. Oxfordgirl, who guards her identity for fear of reprisals against her family in Iran, said: "It's going to be a big day for the Persian psyche. It won't topple the regime but it's part of the process of showing the resistance won't go away.

"It's significant because of the symbolism of the revolution. A lot of people will attend the official rally and see lots of protesters coming out against the regime."

Over the last seven months Oxfordgirl has built a reputation as one of the most reliable sources of information on the turmoil. Since the disputed election last June she has posted more than 12,000 updates on Twitter, and has become convinced that the social networking site is helping to bring down the regime. 

"People who haven't been involved in Iran don't understand how Twitter can work – they think it's about chatting about pop stars. But if it hadn't been for Twitter a lot of people wouldn't have got involved [in the unrest] and they wouldn't know what's going on.

"On a practical level it has saved lots of lives by warning people not to go down certain roads."

A former journalist in Tehran, she has used her contacts to spread word of the unrest. With heavy restrictions on foreign media, Twitter updates from Oxfordgirl and a handful of others counter-balance the official version of events.

"In the early days I was posting news of riots in other cities, at a time when the international media was saying it was only in Tehran," she said. "Several days later the BBC confirmed there had been riots elsewhere. This made what I was tweeting more trustworthy."

In the run-up to tomorrow's protest she has been using her 10,000 Twitter followers to disseminate ways of avoiding the anticipated crackdown. "The regime is getting better at shutting down the internet and my contacts are nervous about what might happen," she said. "But Iranians are clever at getting around things."

Oxfordgirl's effectiveness appears to have rattled the regime. She is convinced that the Iranian government has tried to use Twitter itself to undermine her.

"One day a whole load of new people arrived on Twitter. It was quite clear that some ministry got them to join at the same time and follow each other. They started putting out rumours about me. When Persiankiwi [another prominent Twitter user] went silent, they said it was me who had turned him in. Then they started saying I was Maryam Rajavi [an exiled opposition leader regarded as a terrorist in Iran]."

She is acutely aware of the dangers of being discovered. "I live in a small village so anyone who is out of place stands out immediately. There have been a couple of moments when I've seen people outside, and my heart started going faster. Your imagination runs wild. I don't want my cousins disappeared in the middle of the night."

Despite the risks she is determined to carry on. "I'm doing this because I love Iran and I want to it to be free," she said. "I don't want people to be frightened of what they say."

Credits: The Guardian: Oxfordgirl vs Ahmadinejad: the Twitter user taking on the Iranian regime


Also, watch this interview with Mehdi Saharkhiz an exiled Iranian blogger:

Mehdi Saharkhiz Interviewed by Ivan Watson of CNN: Exiled Iranian spreads word