Non Governmental Organizations (NGOs) are merely a new concept in Iran. As you may know, after the 1977 revolution, our government change to an Islamic Republic one which acts like an Totalitarian regime. It controls all the media, own all the TV and Radio stations. Controls all the Internet providers and dictates to the newspapers what to write and what not to write. It also has a history of the political parties crackdown after the revolution and in one sentence: it tries to control every aspect of life in Iran.

In this atmosphere, NGOs started to evolve. NGOs were the only place in which people could gather and do something. By "something" I have in mind a broad range of activities, from holding computer workshops, talking about human rights abuses up to documenting torture inside the country.

So it is understandable that government started to react. At first it started his own "NGO"s which are better to be called a gNGO; Governmental NonGovernmental Orgs. One good example of these fake NGOs are the Organization For Defending Victims of Violence; ODVV. (Their site is www.odvv.org/statements/statements.asp but I did not make this one clickable so they will not know that I've wrote about them. It is VERY risky. The site is english and I linked the statements part.) With all of their luxury magazines, seminars, buildings and money, they have never told anything about the brutal violence which is happening in Iran. They only condemn Lebanon, Israel, Russian School attacks and even on the case of Saddam

As a nongovernmental organization which was originally established to help the victims of Iraq’s enforced war against Iran, the ODVV welcomes the sentence, and as the rest of the Iranian nation, calls for Saddam to be tried for the crimes that he committed against Iran.

It closes its eyes on a CAPITAL PUNISHMENT and claims to talk on behalf of the "rest of the Iranian nation". This gNGO always participates in international meetings and saya "We are an NGO and we are watch dogging violence in Iran and we ensure you that everything is GOOD" :)

So at first the government tried to start many fake NGOs (i.e. gNGOs) and put pressure on the real ones not to participate at International events and not to publish anything or start any website. They did not success so they changed their attitude by shutting down NGOs, arresting activists and sentencing them to long prisons and threaten others not to participate any event.

NGOs were our hopes for some years and we try to continue our activities in them. The government is also make more and more pressure on us and this is very dangerous. NGOs are kind of moderators. They make you go slower and more "internal" (accepting the situation, rules and even pressures to be able to continue). When they crack down the NGOs, younger people do not have any place to actively pursue what they want so they might commit violence, they might act radically, they might... . In the NGOs we were not politicals, we were not trying to access political power. After the crack down, people do not have any place to participation in their society as a CIVILIAN; this can lead them in the wrong direction.

Wow... What a brave person he is.



Let me start for the beginning. In Iran there is a semi-secret-police group called HERASAT. Literally it means "guarding/protection" and its logical function should be protecting (guarding) the entrances of the organizations, universities, offices and ... (kind of doorkeeper).

This "HERASAT" - in the recent decade - has morphed from a doorkeeper to a secret police. They are scary, "big" people who can order the head of the university to throw out a student, they can introduce you to the secret police and the intelligence services, they can ask anybody to go to their office to be asked questions, they can arrest "bad hijab" people and they even can investigate and regulate professors interviews and travels!

As you can imagine, this people are becoming more and more powerful and "important". Nowadays they have their own office in all the universities and many many compaies. They check you in the Airport in Theaters and practically everywhere.

Oh.. Let me return back to the story! These people also have an office in our university and in the previous week protests against all the problem our government is making for us, they confronted students a lot and even attacked to the students and broke the windows and ...



In the photo you can see that a student had attached a Sign to this HERASATs office. It reads "HERASATs office is closed by students because of committing VIOLENCE". Great Idea. Nowadays I am at Kabul (doing a website design training for human rights groups). I am sure these students need help and support; I wish I was in Tehran.

Two days ago I wrote about the arrest of one of my close friends; Maziyar Samiei. He was released the same day but "he is not allowed to -literally- enter the university anymore". This new rule, applies to two other friends of mine. They do not have the right of entering from universities door anymore because they participated in an demonstration against hardliners.

When we were chatting about this in an party last night, someone asked me "Do you know that Kian Tajbakhsh was detained some days ago?". I did not.

Kian Tajbakhsh (his website in English) was my Urban Sociology professor. He returned back from USA around 2 years ago and started teaching us "Urban Sociology" at the university of Allame. He has studied in Columbia University and worked at New School. I remember that during the class somebody asked him about the reasons for coming back to Iran. He said: "I returned back to show others that we can work here. We can promote the situation".

I think he succeed. I learnt that we have to continue. I don't know why the authorities have detained him. Maybe they are afraid of "colorful revolutions" ?! If this is the case, shame on them. Because colorful revolution is a tool in the hands of Democrats against Dictators. Do these people believe that they are dictators? A colorful revolution uses peoples power against a minority ruling elite. Do they afraid of peoples power? Shame on them if this is the case.

More:
BBC: Another US scholar 'held in Iran'
OSI: OSI Statement on the Detention of Dr. Kian Tajbakhsh


FreeKian Petition.

Our government is brutally attacking Bad-Hijab women. There are special forces all over the city and they arrest girls and women who do not hide all of their hairs or do not conduct in an "islamic manner". REMEBER: THESE ARE NORMAL PEOPLE WHO WHERE WALKING PEACEFULLY IN THE STREET 5 MINS AGO.



There are beatings all over the city. My heart beats mad writing this. I feel very angry and I am not able to do anything. Many many blogs are publishing these photos and the same but newspapers do not have the right to object.



I feel hopeless. At the morning I've got the news of the arrest of one of my close friends (Maziyar Samiei) was arrested because of his leftist ideas and now he is in prison; nobody know where. And now, these photos. Today I was thinking of leaving this country. Not for studing, not for work. Just for not being here.



I don't want this as my everyday life. I don't want to accept this regime but I am not a revolutionary. I don't know what to do! I know that I have to STAY. I have to do something. WE have to do something... but what? blogging? Writing open letters to the government who does this? I don't know.

Note: Taking this photo can lead to many problems. I have to thank the anonymous photographer who took it and shared it on the Internet.

Arash - a journalist - in his group blog (Hanooz) writes (original is in Persian):

Journalism in this land, is a strange habit! We are only making ourselves happy to feel that "we write". There are many habits; good and bad. And journalism is one of those many.

Our journalism is sick. It is dying and only makes dictatorships landscape more colorful ( Dictatorship points to us and says "Yes there are many voices, you can see various ideas here".

When a few simple employees of "National Security" (Mention! A few simple emloyees) can dictate us what to write and even HOW to write and how to ANALYZE, freedom of expression is a nonsense humor in this dictatorship land.

When writing about high prices is forbidden, when writing about teachers and workers issues is an unforgivable crime and when I have to write whatever those few simple employees tells me, why do we need this much journalist, newspapers, offices and ... ? We can spend our time with those govermental newspapers and we can believe that "there is freedom of expression"

I liked the post and I like the brave man who wrote these. As you may know in Iran all the newspapers are under censorship (and self-censorship) and any printed material should have an licence from government. If you want to publish a newspaper or a magazine or a book you have to ask for a licence and this licence can take years to be ready. So owners of newspapers or magazines can not risk their licence for criticizing.

Today I have got an email with these photos. I do not know the photographers name and even do not know if all of these photos belong to one person or not. But I think it is good to add these ones to my blog so you can have a better imagination on Tehran. Tehran is a BIG city (by BIG I mean 12 Miliion people) with many different scenes (I think as any other city).



This is Imam-Hossein metro station. We have 3 lines right now and they are working on the new ones. Metro is a great help in transportation in such a big city.



Modarres Freeway. A South-North one. I always use this one if I want to go to the north of the city; my university, the house of my stepfather,...



A junction :) simple!



A sculpture in a Park.



This is Hotel Evin. Do not forget that we have an Evin Prison too which is famous for holding(?) political prisoners. Some people call that one "hotel evin" too with a sense of humor.



Here is Parkway. A main freeway junction.



Wow... Tehran is a dry city so when it rains people are HAPPY! let alone the lovely SNOW! this is the view of Tehran in one of those few snowy days.



Talking about winter and snow, I decide to add this photo too to finish this album. I am sure this photo will make every Iranian feel great.

I have a friend called Maryam. She was working in our NGOs branch in Shiraz; after the police shutdowned our NGO, she is jobless too and it seems she used this "free" time to marry! :D Wish her a good life.



But why I am blogging about her marriage in this weblog? because I want to mention an addition in her Aghd ceremonies. Aghd is a religious word for "marriage" and in our traditions it consists sitting in front of a Mirror + Flowers + Some sweets + Rings + ... and here + 1 Million Signatures For Equal Rights booklets! You can see the booklets at the bottom right. These are the booklets used when people are collecting signatures to say "We need equal rights for men and women". I liked the IDEA, thank you Maryam.

Zeinab PeyghambarZaded is one of my friends and participated many times in my trainings.This morning she has to wake up at Evin Prison just because she believed that "Man = Woman = Human".

She was an active part of "1'000'000 signatures campaign". The are going to collect 1 million signatures from people against discriminatory laws. She was arrested 2 days ago because of being active in this campaign.

I have started this weblog to write about Iran, Iranian life, our culture and ... but nowadays I only write about miseries and bad things. Maybe nowadays everything is bad. I don't know. We will do whatever we can for her and for this brave campaign. Talking with people and collecting signature to change a law is the most civil activity I can imagine. She must not be in prison; specially the Evin.

(CBS/AP) Iran's foreign minister walked out of a dinner of diplomats where he was seated directly across from Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, on the pretext that the female violinist entertaining the gathering was dressed too revealingly.

And I think He (Our Foreign Minister) was the ONLY minister there who was checking violinist's dress and found out it was revealing. Other ministers probably where discussing about world affairs and how to promote their countries situations.

I wanted to download the "Persian Calendar" open source project from http://code.google.com/p/jalali-calendar/ today. When I clicked the "Download" link, it said Forbidden: You are accessing this page from a forbidden country.



It should be because of the embargo but from today on we do not have access to our open source projects on Google Code anymore. This happens while I am reading on boingboing.net that Shareholders ask Google to counteract foreign 'net censorship.

This page also popped up when I wanted to download the Google Earth, two days ago.

p.s. Thanks to TOR (The Onion Router from EFF guys) I downloaded it.