In Iran, a New Year Begins, Amid Old Patterns

We are glad to hear from Odi again. Thanks, Odi, for this important message:

On Thursday, March 13th at 5 p.m., families and friends gathered together outside the walls of Evin Prison in Iran, to celebrate the Persian New Year, the Nowruz. However, it was not a celebration, rather a medium through which to tell the people that they are not forgotten.

Evin Prison is particularly famous because of its political prisoners. It is a place of detention, torture and execution, where people are continuously beaten, and from where some never come out. Bodies of dead detainees are not even given back to their families; instead, they are displaced in the so-called “unknown places,” whose address is made known to the families only at a later moment when they can go there to grieve, but not give them a proper funeral. 

Despite the campaign promises of the new president, Hassan Rohani, since his election in 2013, human rights violations are worsening in Iran. Stirring hope and expectations, Rohani said he would give freedom to political prisoners, but in the 10 months since he came to power, more executions have taken place than during the entire presidency of his predecessor, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who was in charge from 2005 to 2013.  

It has not always been this way. Actually, there was a time when Iran was a leader in promoting and protecting human rights. Indeed, it was Cyrus the Great, the first Achaemenid Emperor, who set the world’s first Charter of Human Rights. His words, carved in stone more than 2500 years ago on the Cyrus the Great Cylinder, express his respect for humanity, promoting religious tolerance and freedom. 

Hopefully, this will not be the last testimony of such a great past.