Roxana Saberi: Needed: A loud, persistent cry against Iran's abuses

By ROXANA SABERI, Washington Post
 May 13, 2010

Shortly after Iran announced that it had executed five Kurdish political activists on Sunday, I received an e-mail from a human-rights campaigner in Tehran who knew one of them, asking me to spread the word about the hangings. "We are truly helpless," she wrote, "and we feel lost."

 
Iran labeled the five "terrorists," but human-rights advocates have said the prisoners denied the charges against them, were subjected to torture and were convicted in unfair trials. One of the five, Farzad Kamangar, was sentenced to death after a trial that his lawyer said lasted seven minutes. Another, Shirin Alam-houli, wrote in several letters from jail that she had made false confessions on camera after being tortured.
 
If the international community fails to condemn such atrocities, Iran's regime will continue to trample on individuals, many of whom have been detained simply for peacefully standing up for universal human rights. It is common for Tehran's prisoners -- including journalists, bloggers, women's rights campaigners, student activists and adherents of the minority Baha'i faith -- to be held in prolonged solitary confinement without access to an attorney as they try to defend themselves against fabricated charges such as espionage and "propaganda against Islam" or the regime.
 
When I was incarcerated in Iran's Evin prison last year on a trumped-up charge of espionage, I was fortunate that my case received a great deal of international attention. I was not aware of the extent of this attention until the day my interrogator allowed me to lift my blindfold to see a pile of news articles on a desk in front of me. I realized he was trying to scare me into thinking that this outcry was bad for me. But suddenly I no longer felt so alone. I believe the pressure from this international support eventually persuaded Iranian authorities to free me one year ago this week.