Letter to Signatories
May 2021
Dear Signatories to the Emergency Appeal,
Thank you for signing the Emergency Appeal. A special thanks to those who circulated it to others. I am writing you today about what has been accomplished to date, where we go from here, and to ask for your further participation.
You may have seen the gut wrenching article by Reza Khadan, husband of imprisoned attorney Nasrin Sotoudeh in Ms magazine (5/15 issue). The first and key word is “unbearable”which describes the dire situation for ALL Iran’s political prisoners.
You have joined with all those fighting for justice and a better world by your care and involvement to free Iran’s political prisoners (e.g. PEN, Ms. magazine,Amnesty International, Center for Human Rights in Iran, Burn the Cage, Free theBirds prisoner support movement in Europe and many more). By signing the Appeal, we are all calling attention to, and are standing in solidarity with, these political prisoners.
This campaign recognizes the actual urgent need to change the trajectory of the horror unfolding for these prisoners in Iran, and aims to accelerate changing it NOW. This campaign is unique in not letting the US government off the hook in its historic and current aggressions that exacerbate the suffering of the Iranian people.
In the 6 months since this campaign was launched, we have grown a real, albeit still embryonic, global movement. (see summary below). But what we have yet to accomplish cannot be underestimated. To impact the current deadly trajectory for Iran’s political prisoners requires a much bolder and societal presence as a movement.
May 2021
Dear Signatories to the Emergency Appeal,
Thank you for signing the Emergency Appeal. A special thanks to those who circulated it to others. I am writing you today about what has been accomplished to date, where we go from here, and to ask for your further participation.
You may have seen the gut wrenching article by Reza Khadan, husband of imprisoned attorney Nasrin Sotoudeh in Ms magazine (5/15 issue). The first and key word is “unbearable”which describes the dire situation for ALL Iran’s political prisoners.
You have joined with all those fighting for justice and a better world by your care and involvement to free Iran’s political prisoners (e.g. PEN, Ms. magazine,Amnesty International, Center for Human Rights in Iran, Burn the Cage, Free theBirds prisoner support movement in Europe and many more). By signing the Appeal, we are all calling attention to, and are standing in solidarity with, these political prisoners.
This campaign recognizes the actual urgent need to change the trajectory of the horror unfolding for these prisoners in Iran, and aims to accelerate changing it NOW. This campaign is unique in not letting the US government off the hook in its historic and current aggressions that exacerbate the suffering of the Iranian people.
In the 6 months since this campaign was launched, we have grown a real, albeit still embryonic, global movement. (see summary below). But what we have yet to accomplish cannot be underestimated. To impact the current deadly trajectory for Iran’s political prisoners requires a much bolder and societal presence as a movement.
To achieve this goal and overcome the obstacles, we need your active participation.
- We want to get the Appeal published, excerpted, or commented on in important journals and websites that reach a broad, progressive audience—such as The Nation, Ms, Journal of Higher Education, Mother Jones. A news story in The Guardian (UK) that has a broad international audience, especially in the U.S. would make a big difference. We are aiming at some point to have a paid ad with the Appeal in a high-profile journal like The New York Review of Books. But short of that, we might be able to have a letter published there that calls attention to and references the Appeal. Do any of you have contacts or ideas to make this happen and want to be part of a group dedicated to getting the Emergency Appeal projected in these kinds of ways? You can write us at the campaign email freeiranspoliticalprisonersnow@gmail.com.
Let’s work together to break the sound barrier with requisite urgency so that the anguished cries of Iran political prisoners reach millions of decent people in the “belly of the beast” that cannot be ignored and people ACT now.
Best regards,
Dolly Veale – co-initiator of campaign to free ALL Iran’s political prisoners NOW!
As we said in a recent Campaign update:
It was heartening and important that this week, Ariel Dorfman, the world renowned novelist (Death and the Maiden), playwright, essayist, academic, and human rights activist signed the Emergency Appeal. He joins nearly 1,800 people who’ve endorsed it (and an earlier Statement), including 1997 Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Jody Williams, author and feminist activist Gloria Steinem, social justice activists, artists, academics, faith leaders, medical professionals, many ordinary people and very importantly those directly involved in the Iranian prisoners’ cause, including 13 former political prisoners, and relatives and advocates for current political prisoners in Iran. A partial list of signers is posted at FreeIranPoliticalPrisonersNow.org.
As of May 16, there were 1637 signers from the US (nearly every state), 28 in Germany, 25 in Iran, 14 in Canada, 7 in the UK, , 2 in India, and 7 in Greece. Among these, there are broad categories of active and retired academics (23); activists such as anti-war and revolutionary communists (25), cultural sphere such as musicians, a museum curator and various artists (32), media personages (5), medical professionals (18), students (7) and those with moral authority such as clergy, Iran’s ex-political prisoners, family members of current political prisoners etc. (37). Among these are the two filmmakers of the film Nasrin (Jeff Kaufman and Marcia Ross).