Opinion: Sad situation

Iranian blogger, Farideh Nicknazar, Iran Scan:

This article basically says that Ganji will stop cooperating with the doctors in Evin Prison… I think this is it, if they don‘t free him.

This is so sad, I have cried for the first time. Are we waiting until he dies, so people will rise up? will they even do that if he dies? I am so worried. I am so worried that nothing will happen even if he dies… what has happened to us? I don‘t know what else I can do… I have been calling politicians since yesterday, they listen and want to do something… but what can we do?

Why can‘t the student have sit-ins in front of Evin every day? Where are the thousands of students in Tehran? I sense the feeling of “giving up“... I am so depressed. I feel guilty… guilty because I live a comfortable life here while people like Ganji are suffering for their cause, guilty because I feel hypocrite when I expect so much from students there while I sit here and only call and type.

I sent an email expressing this to a friend and he wrote back:

“Just a short note on your disappointment with the current state of efforts in Iran: while we understand your frustration, one should also consider the conditions in Iran. Regarding the students and universities, for instance, an important factor is that it is now the period of the end-of-the-semester exams and some schools are already in the summer semester, which is always much more quiet. Many students leave Tehran for their home towns.

“On the other hand, the brutality of the police last Tuesday was enormous. Eye-witnesses also say that there was a huge campaign by the police to disrupt the connection between different groups of people who were trying to join the protest. The two sides of the street, for instance, were disconnected by a trail of closely parked buses. Mrs. Ganji reported that there were many people who could not join together, and the numbers were much higher than the few hundreds reported by the news agencies, most likely in the thousands.

“Apart from this, we should not succumb to despair, since that would be the natural end of our efforts…”