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.

Now or never in Iran - support Avaaz' s exit poll of Iranian voters

As millions of Iranians are taking to the streets in outrage at evidence that Thursday’s election was rigged, the international civic organization Avaaz is asking people to support a rigorous exit poll to urgently establish the truth about the vote:

Avaaz is urgently organising a rigorous “exit poll” of Iranian voters and a media effort to publicise it, working with an international polling firm to do a telephone survey of Iranian citizens to ask how they voted. We urgently need 10,000 Avaaz members to pitch in a small amount each to raise $119,000 in the next 24 hours and give Iranians a powerful new way to be heard -- follow this link to view video from the streets of Tehran and support this exit poll to find out the truth.

Public polling in Iran is heavily restricted, and no-one else is mobilizing fast enough to fund an international exit poll. It's urgent that we pitch in. A telephone poll won't be 100% accurate, but the difference between opposition and government claims is massive -- a rigorous poll can show which claim is remotely near the truth.

Unlike Western organizations, Avaaz's global network has a strong membership in Iran and across the Middle East. Backed by a respected polling firm, our effort will be harder to dismiss by Iranian conservatives. We'll send the poll results to the media and help our members in Iran to rapidly and virally spread the news despite the regime's blackout.

This election matters to us all. Iran is a major regional power, and the international community is seeking diplomatic engagement that holds a key to peace in the Middle East. But hawks and extremists on all sides want war instead: a conservative coup in Iran could destroy all our hopes.

The conservative Guardian Council, headed by a key Ahmadinejad ally, is reviewing the vote over the next 9 days -- our poll can be ready before they give their verdict, to counter any further rigging and the violent purge that could follow.

In the next 72 hours, the Iranian people will try once again to be heard. Let’s help make sure their voices are not silenced -- follow this link to see their courage and donate now to help fund the exit poll