Speech at the Sacred Heart University
Kianoosh Sanjari
March 7, 2008

It is so pleasant to criticize suppression and tyranny without fearing of imprisonment and silence in solitary confinement of the 209 notorious Evin cells.

This is the unfamiliar but sweat taste of Freedom, for which Iranian students are fighting for at right this very moment. The taste of freedom, for which they are tortured, lashed, beaten up blindfolded, stripped and threatened with sexual abuse.

The Iranian appointed President came to the US on September 2007. He came to the same land named by the mullahs as "The Great Satan".

Misusing the freedom provided for him in the States, he spoke in the Colombia University and claimed that American students could also come to Iran and engage in "Free discussions". Lying and deceit is so very easy for Ahmadinejad.

Amir Kabir University was the first Iranian university that challenged this claim. In a meeting arranged for Ahmadinejad, the students held his pictures upside down and burnt them in protest to his deceit.

Not long after that, in a coordinated plot against the student movement, their publications were banned and 3 activists, namely:
Majid Tavakoli, Ehsan Mansouri, and Ahmad Ghasaban, were arrested, and transferred to the notorious 209 section of one of Iran's infamous prisons, supervised by the Intelligence Ministry.

Their torture began immediately. They underwent horrendous torture. One of them was told in his interrogation that he had insulted the "president".

Columbia University president rightfully called this man a petty and cruel dictator. Ahmadinejad is no more than just a pitiful coward, who confronts critics with torture, and prisonment.

Torture and repression is not a sign of power for a tyranny, but it is the sign of weakness and decline from fear and distress. A show of power is when; the state has no fear from criticism and is able to display in conformity over its obligations to its people when asked, and not when it takes revenge!

Sacred Atrocity
Ebrahim Lotfollahi, was a student from the western Kurdish region of Iran. He was killed under the torture. A government agency buried him during the night, to get rid of the evidence of torture. Before Ibrahim's murder, a young female doctor was detained along with his fiancé by the so called Revolutionary Guards. She too died suspiciously while in detention. Her body too was quickly buried.

The agents claimed that they had detained her because she was associating with a man. But that "man" was no other, than her own fiancé.

I should now recall Ahmadinejad's speech in Columbia University, where he claimed that women have total freedom in Iran!!

Let us remember his comments on Iranian homosexuals:
"Human Rights watch recently reported 30 men have been arrested in a party in Esfahan. Iranian officials had announced that their crime is homosexuality.

The mullahs' Islamic laws could give a maximum death sentence for these men. A rough look at the horrific statistics concerning suppression by the Islamic regime in Iran, would show our concern over the plight for Freedom for the Iranian people.

Last year: 297 people were executed by the Iranian regime.

The Iranian regime is a record holder in executing minors under 18.

According to Amnesty Internationals report, 70 minors are now in the death row.

In the 60th session of the United Nation's general assembly, all member states were asked to stop executions. The Iranian regime instead came up with the inventory methods of punitive measures with regards to the prisoners.

Apart from stoning to death, which I think is familiar to all, most recent case was the amputations of the left limb and hands of a couple of prisoners, and one prisoner was ordered to be dropped down from a cliff.

Throwing down from rocks had been a punishment used thousands of years ago by the Ancient Syrian civilization. In this punishment they would put the victim in a bag and throw him or her down the cliff.

Reporters without boarders have named Iran to be the biggest prison for reporters in the Middle East.

There are so far 10 reporters in prison and hundreds of journalists banned from work. Newspaper journalists are continuously facing restrictions and harsh censorship and are constantly summoned to the courts.

The judiciary has seized tens of newspapers and weeklies. All news sites have been filtered to prevent any outlet of news. The State owned TV and radio is directly supervised by the so-called supreme leader.

Last year more than 2000 workers have been sacked and 80 workers arrested during various protests and demonstrations. One Union leader named Mansour Asanlou, is still in prison after bearing months of torture.

Last year was a difficult year for the students. 309 students were expelled and deprived from scholarship or imprisoned. Most had been charged with taking part in peaceful gatherings. The intelligence ministry had arrested at least 40 students only in December of last year. Their crime was organizing a peaceful gathering. Prison interrogators used insults, and physical and mental torture to break their personality and determination and force them to fake confessions against each other.

They would beat their victims day and night.

40 professors have been expelled by the direct order from the Education and Culture Ministry. Ahmadinejad had himself attended a meeting in the University to personally ask a paramilitary suppressive organ acting as students in the university called "Basij", to expel these "liberals" from the universities.

Religious and ethnic minorities are constantly facing repression. The regime has destroyed religious and sacred monuments of the darvish believers, and arrested tens of their faithful. 3 of the darvish faith leaders, known as the "Believers of Righteousness" or "Ahle Haq" (in Persian), have been sentenced to death in the Azerbaijan province.

Recently a member of the Bahai faith had announced in Iran, that elements calling themselves "The unknown soldiers of the Imam Zaman", had poured petrol over him and nearly set him on fire. On the 29th of January 2008, spokesman of the Judiciary had accepted that 50 Bahai believers had been arrested and imprisoned in Shiraz.

Have you ever been questioned about your religion when applying for the university?

In Iran, students are asked to identify their religion. If Bahai, they are not allowed to apply for the university. Last year tens of Bahais had been banned from study only because they did not hide their belief.

It is so painful and sad for the Iranian youth to witness their grand civilization to be tramped by a minority, that fakes religion to maintain power. It is a shame to see that the same civilization which had introduced the first Human Rights Charter of the globe, over 500 years before the birth of Christ, and honored at the entrance to the UN, to be overran by a bunch of deceitful warmongers who parade under the banner of prosperity, Freedom and peace.

It is regretful to see the same threat, which has brought death and destruction to Iran, now ventures with open hands in a nuclear program that is not for the Iranian national Interest but rather a menace to the free world.

Ahmadinejad has been appointed to his post by the supreme leader with the backing of the IRGC, which is the spinal cord to the regime's entirety and drafts most of the terrorist elements of the regime.

His ambitions for nuclear arsenal have not only heightened anxiety amongst Iranians at home and abroad, but also the true defenders of world peace.

I like to let you know, that his words and deeds are not on behalf of the majority of the Iranian people. Iranians are peace lovers and welcome a peaceful co–existence with their neighbors and other nations and are trying to strive for a Democratic and Free Iran.

And finally, I like to thank the university to have invited me to speak here. This is a decisive signal to the tyrants in Iran, to show that despite the harsh suppression at home, student protests and voices are heard in the Free world. I believe in solidarity, and know that students on this side of the world support their friends who are bravely facing the tyrants in Iran.

Ahmadinejad and his faction, claim that political prisoners and violation of human rights in Iran, is an internal affair and has nothing to do with other nations. They believe they can wall the boarders of Iran, and imprison the Iranian nation.

But they are mistaken, for soon, they shall find out that we all live in one body, and share mutual identity in "Freedom and democracy" and also share the pains arising the struggle to reach that ideal.

http://www.sacredheart.edu/pages/23048_students_organize_freedom_concert_for_iran_at_shu.cfm