Iran and the quest for freedom

Two weeks ago everyone would have affirmed that in Iran everything is going to be after the election, as it was before. But now – not a week after the election was held – Iran and the rest of the world is different. The strongest and greatest protest in Iran since 30 years. People are crazy about news from Iran, crazy about change in Iran and hoping for the people in Iran to gain the freedom everyone deserves. Especially western authorities try to not provide the conservatives in Iran with useful comments about the political situation, President Obama for example only stated: “There are people who want to see greater openness, greater debate, greater democracy.” German chancellor Angela Merkel and Minister for Foreign Affairs Frank Walter Steinmeier expressed deep concerns about the situation for journalists, since foreign reporters, technicians etc. are under house detention. But what is with the worlds citizenry? Where are the huge demonstrations for solidarity with Iran?

This Friday the true, the religious leader and commander in chief  – Ayatollah Ali Khamenei – gave in his Friday prayer in Tehran university a statement to the nation. He said: “”There is 11 million votes difference,” and concluded: “How can one rig 11 million votes?” (BBC) In his prayer he demonstrated his support for “reelected” President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and made clear that differences concerning the election result should be disputed in legal ways. The speech was a indirect address to Mussawi and his followers: (i) to accept the defeat since Ahmadinejad has the support of the highest political and religious figure, (ii) to stop the protesters by showing this openly and (iii) starting to get back to normality. But do people really want to get back to normality, and was is normality in Iran? – better, what was normality in Iran before the silent green protes0t started? We don’t know, we can just say what our media tells us, what we can get to know from friends who have family in Iran and again, the media…

The situation seems to be non-observable from Europe, the States, Latin America, Asia, Oceania or Africa! What our news stations tell is confusing, they rely on sources which are not really reliable – journalists give statements from inside their hotel rooms or news offices, but no reporting from the streets, from people or interest groups. It seems more like a I-ll-guess-what-happens-outside news coverage.  One possibility to get informed is using twitter and other online sources – blogs, youtube and private web sites. Some of the articles, videos or reports show us that people in Iran need international solidarity. We see young women being beaten on the street by police officers, young men being shot by other citizens or military, we see blood. And the next day – people are on the streets again, silently protesting.

The international civil society should show solidarity with people in Iran, not with authorities!

Against the war in Irak millions of people around the world sticked up for peace. Now we all should stick up for freedom, we should gather in the cities around the world and demonstrate our solidarity.

Solidarity with people in Iran!

Solidarity with the quest for freedom!

Solidarity with all Iranians in their fight for freedom!

Solidarity with green Iran!