Iran: Democratic Movement on Rise?

Fire of Liberty

Earlier this week I directed you to an article in Vanity Fair by Christopher Hitchens which revealed the dangerous nature of the regime in Iran and how the people are itching to spread freedom and democracy throughout the ancient Persia. Well today I want to give you a heads up on Akbar Ganji, a journalist and dissident, who has been on a hunger strike some 27 plus days in Iran's notorious Evin prison of Tehran. Just look at what a July 6, 2005 editorial in The New York Sun had to say about this true Iranian democrat:

Mr. Ganji is ostensibly in jail for telling the truth about Iran's sham election last month. On medical release and warned to keep a low profile, Mr. Ganji gave an interview to the online political magazine, Iran Emrooz, in which he urged Iranians to boycott the polls. In the interview, he proposed that the powerful supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, stand for office. And it has become clear that Mr. Ganji is willing to die for his right to express those opinions.

He was originally jailed in 1999 for publishing a book, "The Red Eminence" that exposed the role of his country's leaders in a string of murders of prominent liberal intellectuals. While in prison, he has written two manifestos on how ordinary Iranians can oust their rulers and build a true republic through civil disobedience directed against the authoritarian clerics that have infantilized a great and proud nation by professing to rule over the souls of its people. He is also an organizer of the movement to overturn the Islamic Republic's flawed constitution that vests so much unchecked power in the hands of an unelected guardian council and the supreme leader.

So when Mr. Ganji publishes a letter addressed to "free peoples everywhere," savvy persons take note. Mr. Ganji has earned the honor of being listened to. He writes that he has lost more than 40 pounds and that his jailors keep him largely in solitary confinement and deny him time to walk outdoors. "Today my broken face is the true face of the system in the Islamic Republic of Iran," Mr. Ganji writes. "I am now the symbol of justice. The justice that, if viewed correctly, puts on display the full extent of the oppression of the rulers of the Islamic Republic."

I just hope that the people of Iran who want a more democratic government will get the much needed moral, political and economic support from the US and find a way to establish a democratic foothold or even a regime change thus removing the mullah's hob-nailed boots off their backs.