Iran puts you in prison for a political cartoon, then keeps you there longer after a handshake

"Amnesty International reports that Atena Farghadani, 29, who was jailed after she depicted Iranian government officials as monkeys and goats in a satirical cartoon, may face a longer sentence amid claims over the handshake.

Charges of an “illegitimate sexual relationship short of adultery” have been brought against Farghadani and her lawyer Mohammad Moghimi amid allegations he visited her in jail and shook her hand - which is illegal in Iran."

(via)





(Uncredited photo from the link.)

"The gay people pushed to change their gender" in Iran

"My father came to visit me in Tehran with two relatives. They'd had a meeting to decide what to do about me... They told me: 'You need to either have your gender changed or we will kill you and will not let you live in this family.'" (via)

An eye for an eye

Literally.

"There was no Twitter Revolution inside Iran."

So says Golnaz Esfandiari in Foreign Policy (via). More:

[T]he 'Twitter Revolution' was an irresistible meme during the post-election protests, a story that wrote itself. . . . Western journalists who couldn't reach -- or didn't bother reaching? -- people on the ground in Iran simply scrolled through the English-language tweets posted with tag #iranelection. Through it all, no one seemed to wonder why people trying to coordinate protests in Iran would be writing in any language other than Farsi. . . .

[A]n honest accounting of Twitter's role in Iran would also note its pernicious complicity in allowing rumors to spread. . . .

It's not that Twitter publicists of the Iranian protests haven't played a role in the events of the past year. They have. It's just not been the outsized role it's often been made out to be. And ultimately, that's been a terrible injustice to the Iranians who have made real, not remote or virtual, sacrifices in pursuit of justice.

The whole article is worth reading, especially for its vivid account of how Twitter "can serve the purposes of Iran's regime as easily as it can aid the country's activists."

"Despicable details from Iran"

The New Republic highlights the bolded paragraph below, from a Wall St. Journal report on Iran:

On Saturday, amid the most violent clashes between security forces and protesters, [19-year-old Kaveh] Alipour was shot in the head as he stood at an intersection in downtown Tehran. He was returning from acting class and a week shy of becoming a groom, his family said....

Upon learning of his son's death, the elder Mr. Alipour was told the family had to pay an equivalent of $3,000 as a "bullet fee"—a fee for the bullet used by security forces—before taking the body back, relatives said.

Mr. Alipour told officials that his entire possessions wouldn't amount to $3,000, arguing they should waive the fee because he is a veteran of the Iran-Iraq war. According to relatives, morgue officials finally agreed, but demanded that the family do no funeral or burial in Tehran.