Dalia Haj-Omar
Sudan and France
There is much to be admired and learned from Iran’s courageous youth and middle class who are asking the very legitimate question “Where Is My Vote?” However, I see few words or actions from the Sudanese people, political parties, or Sudan’s independent civil society in support of Iranians who have risked and continue to risk their lives for the truth under oppressive conditions and through the most peaceful and symbolic people-led demonstrations the Middle East has ever experienced.
The Iranian regime started to use violence against demonstrators and …

Azar Majedi
Iran
What led to the mass protests? How did the situation change so dramatically over a week? What do people want? What will be the outcome? These are the questions discussed repeatedly on TV channels and in the press. All the different commentators make one common assumption: “The people in Iran do not want a revolution.”
They claim that the people want. . . some minor changes in the political system, a bit more freedom. They argue that people are protesting against Ahmadinezhad and the rigged election and not against the …

Parvaneh Vahidmanesh
Iran and the USA
You may not have heard of me, but your daughter knows me well. For eight years, I studied with Boshra at the Refah school in Tehran. The Refah School is where Ayatollah Khomeini resided during the Islamic Revolution. On its roof, leaders from the Shah’s regime were executed. Sound familiar?
Boshra and I played volleyball together. I remember how she always arrived at school in a white Toyota with three escorts. And I remember how favorably the teachers treated her.
But I am not writing here to share …

Patrica T. Morris
USA
I have watched with great interest as the women of Iran assert themselves in their country’s post-election demonstrations. The mainstream media here in the U.S. focus on how President Obama, former President Bush, Facebook, and Twitter have sparked the conflict, and not the many years that Iranian women have spent chipping away at the attitudes, laws, and  religious restrictions that limit their rights.
The real story is that the Iranian women’s movement has been quietly, and sometimes not so quietly, building momentum for years and was prepared for a …