Iran Green Revolution – one year on

Remember Neda

It is a year since President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's bitterly disputed re-election sparked the Iran's Green Revolution, and the Green movement is down but not out.

Sporadic demonstrations in Tehran and other Iranian cities have been reported over the weekend, but a massive security presence prevented any larger gatherings to mark the first anniversary of the stolen election.

Last year, people came on to the streets in their millions in a spontaneous outburst of anger.

Since then, the opposition have been steadily battered into submission, beaten up when they demonstrate on the streets, arrested, tortured and abused in prison, and even executed.

Faced with such a brutal repression, the Green movement is a long way down – but not out.

In its new report From Protest to Prison – Iran One Year After the Election, Amnesty International reviews a year of arrest and detention of those who have spoken out against the government and its abuses. The report marks the launch of a one-year campaign calling for the release of prisoners of conscience held since the disputed 2009 election and ensuing repression. 

Hundreds of people remain detained for their part in the June 2009 protests or for expressing dissenting views. The imprisonment of ordinary citizens has become an every day phenomenon in an expanding ‘revolving door system’ of arbitrary arrest and detention. Those with only tentative links to banned groups as well as family members of former prisoners have been subjected to arbitrary arrest in the past year.

Lawyers, academics, former political prisoners and members of Iran’s ethnic and religious minorities have also been caught up in an expanding wave of repression that has led to widespread incidents of torture and other ill-treatment along with politically motivated execution of prisoners. 

Don’t  forget them.

Take action. To call all on the Iranian government to release prisoners of conscience detained since the 2009 election, click here.

Watch the American film For Neda on YouTube.