[Read the text in Persian Here]

[Read the text in French Here]

Hundreds of newspapers have been shut down in Iran; international reporters have been banned; hundreds of Iranian journalists are in prison; internet has almost been shut down; the sophisticated filtering system has blocked the contact of the Iranian people with the world; the police is massacring people in the streets in broad daylight and then blames the violence on the people themselves; the government is giving out lies after lies; all the minority ethnic and religious groups are suffering from the official oppression; prisoners have been tortured, raped, murdered; the Basij militia shoots unarmed civilians in the streets; students have been expelled from the universities because of protesting against tyranny…

While you, people of the world, are celebrating the New Year by embracing your loved ones with joy, while you dance to the Christmas tunes, the young people in Iran are dancing to the macabre music of the bullets and embrace batons and teargas. While you are hugging each other and wishing a happy new year, mothers in Iran are forbidden to shed tears for their children who were brutally murdered by the police trucks running them over. The people of Iran are alone, they are broken, they are tired, but determined to go on.

Do you think this has nothing to do with you? Do you think that you only need to worry about your domestic affairs? Do you think that saying a few words of condemnation will redeem you from your global responsibility towards human rights? Is this the global citizenship you preach?

This is the most dangerous State in the world. Hesitate in acting and you will see how this government, rooted in lies, will destroy your own children. What do you expect? Do you think that a totalitarian regime that does not show mercy to its own children will have pity on your people? Do you think that this beast will stay calm and watch you? Wrong! Hesitate and see.

The people of Iran have spoken with their torn throat and through the last sparkle of life in Neda’s eyes; they have written their vows with their own blood on the pavements in the streets: They want to be global citizens, they resent terrorism, tyranny, lies, wars, nuclear weapons… and they have died the most brutal deaths for speaking out. Why are you watching silently? Do you think you are safe? Do you think that this cancer will be contained inside the borders or Iran? Do you think that the rotten claw of this grim reaper will not reach you? Wrong. Hesitate and see.

It is time to act. There are people drowning in Iran. Do not believe the lies of the Iranian government. This government that denies all these brutalities is the same that denies the Holocaust, that claims that there are no homosexuals in Iran, that Neda Agha Soltan was killed by CIA, MI6 and BBC, and there is freedom of press in Iran.

How to act? We do not want any violence. This government is falling. Just do not support the government. Do not recognise the current government of Iran. Do not negotiate with them – How can any negotiation with someone who tells nothing but lies and is willing to break any promise, be fruitful? Do not be deceived by their lies. Expel the Iranian ambassadors and diplomats. You will lose nothing and will gain everything by supporting the future of Iran. Hesitate, and you will be run over by the evil machines of this rotten government. Hesitate, and you will be weeping over the graves of your own children.

It is time to act. Hesitate, and when you regret your hesitation, it will be too late.

Arash Hejazi, 30 December 2009

Dear Mr. President Obama,
My name is Neda Agha Soltan. I was killed by a Basiji in a street of Tehran while watching a post-election protest. Perhaps you remember me. Millions of people watched me die in less than 40 seconds. Perhaps you remember my open eyes when I took my last breath. But I will live for ever in the memory of freedom loving people of the world. I have become the guardian angle of my sisters and brothers who are fighting for a free Iran; I have become their voice and that is why I am writing to you.
Just imagine one of your daughters dying in the same way as I did! How would you feel if not only the killer went unpunished, but got rewarded for what they did? What would you tell millions of Iranian young people who are feeling that the beacon of freedom has betrayed them by shaking hands with the killers of their sisters and brothers? What would you tell your daughters if they asked why you are rewarding the killers of Neda?
I am the voice of the people of Iran . I am calling upon you to support the democratic movement of people in Iran . I am not asking you to make war. I am not even asking you to help our struggle for freedom. I am just asking you not to support the government that has terrorized its own nation for 30 years. I am just asking you to stand on the side of humanity instead of oppression, torture, rape, and killing.
With regards
Neda Agha-Soltan

As Arash Hejazi sat in an Oxford coffee bar, members of Iran’s Basij militia in Tehran were demanding his extradition outside the British Embassy.

The previous day the Iranian regime had sent an Oxford college a letter of protest over a scholarship given to honour Neda Soltan, the student killed during a huge demonstration against electoral fraud in Tehran in June. The letter also suggested that Dr Hejazi was responsible for her murder.

Read more

The Queen’s College venerates the memory of Neda Agha Soltan; the Iranian Government blames it on Arash Hejazi!

How Neda Challenged Ahmadinejad and Censorship in her Death

How the video of Neda Agha Soltan’s death marks a defining moment in the history of media. Has it changed the concept of Freedom to Publish in the digital age?

The Lion Lounge Press is currently accepting submissions of the above description for their 2010 publications, and I would like to extend an invitation to you to pass on our details to your Creative Writing students.

In August of this year, Lion Lounge Press published the first issue of its literary journal, The Lounge Companion, in which we managed to include both previously unpublished authors from various creative writing courses around the world, as well as established and critically acclaimed writers.

Though The Lion Lounge does not offer pecuniary compensation for shortlisted submissions, we realise that publication is in itself a form of remuneration, especially for those that are looking to make a name for themselves as writers, and we would also like to stress that in no way do we intend to seize hold of the writers’ copyright. In fact, contracts will be drafted with shortlisted authors in order to protect their interests.

The next issue of The Lounge Companion is scheduled for publication in March 2010, and we will continue to accept submissions for it until the 31st December 2009.

We also welcome submissions for our other 2010 publications, including travel writing and other genre fiction. Please have a look at www.thelionlounge.com for more details. The website also includes downloadable posters in pdf-format, that I would otherwise gladly email to you, should you so wish.

If you have any queries regarding the above-mentioned, please do not hesitate to ask.

All submissions are to be sent to submissions@thelionlounge.com.

There are no thematical restrictions. All themes, thoughts, and ideas are welcome.

Prose Criteria: a maximum of 3 short stories, of no more than 2,500 words each
Poetry Criteria: a maximum of 5 poems on no more than 5 pages in total
Submission Deadline: 31st December 2009

Email your submissions as MS Word document (.doc) attachments, and state ‘Prose,’ or ‘Poetry’ in the subject line respectively.
You’re more than welcome to submit both prose and poetry, though please submit them separately.

Kind regards,

Leon Turner

Founding Editor

Your Excellency,

President Obama,

First of all, I would like to seize this opportunity to congratulate you for your Noble Peace Prize. I really hope this prize can get your message through to the hearts and minds that are sealed with hatred and lust for power.

I am Arash Hejazi. You might have heard my name before, as I am the doctor who tried to save Neda Agha-Soltan, the young woman who was shot during the peaceful demonstration against the frauds in the Iranian elections, the same woman you have mentioned twice in your speeches in the last four months.

I am the one who left his country to bear witness to the absolute cruelty and injustice that ended up in the death of that innocent girl who was shot in the chest by an Iranian pro-government militiaman and bled to death under my eyes.

Mr. President,

I was there when Neda died. I made sure that the world saw the look in her eyes just before she died. I testified about the circumstances of her death, so that every tyrant in the world would know that there is always someone watching.

She died for a reason there; she died for a dream at a time when all dreams were shattered. She died to bring back dignity to a country that was becoming one of the most hated states in the world. She tried to show the world that Iran was not about nuclear activities, terrorism and fundamentalism, but about believing in dreams, courage, dignity, unconditional love, and paying any price necessary to get one step closer to freedom.  Her death introduced anew the purity of a three thousand year old nation to the world.

I have lost everything since I bore witness to this crime, I have lost my career, my decent life in Iran, my family security, my safety, my country, and now I am on my own in this large world, without money, without a job, and with a family to support.

But I don’t regret what I have done and I would have done it again if the clock turned back; although the world watched that innocent look in Neda’s eyes and did nothing. Millions of people shed tears, but no one did anything. As usual, everybody watched, they cursed the tyrant, they blessed the martyr, but no one took a step to support a nation that has been the homeland to the first declaration of human rights.

Nevertheless, I am not writing this letter because I want you to do something. No, the people of Iran will fight and gain their freedom without asking for the help of any authority in the world. What makes me compelled to write to you is that although we don’t need anyone’s support, we appreciate if the world does not try to distort the truth.

Neda did not die for a country, but for a dream called Iran. One of the major symbols of Iran in the hearts of the Iranians is the Persian Gulf, a beautiful gulf in the Middle East that in your speech, you have referred to as ‘The Gulf’.

Mr. President, the Persian Gulf has been called the Persian Gulf BC by Daryus the Great and Herodotus in the fifth century; by Claudius Ptolemaues in the second century BC and by Quintus Curticus Rufus in the first century AD, and its official name is still the ‘Persian Gulf’. The United Nations has issued two editorial directives in which the states have been asked to only use “Persian Gulf” as the official and standard geographical designation for the body of water.

The implication of Neda in your speech was heart-warming for the Iranian Nation; however, when you omit the word ‘Persian’ from the Persian Gulf, you are stepping on the dreams of Neda and a nation that have nothing left but their dignity and their dreams. I am sure that you have no intention of stripping a nation from what is rightfully theirs.

I have lost everything for a dream, and I believe that you Mr. President are one of the few politicians left in the world who still believe in dreams.

I salute you and I wish you the very best in the long journey ahead of you. I hope you too wish the best for a nation that is struggling towards its dream for freedom and prosperity amidst the blood of its loved ones.

Sincerely yours,

Arash Hejazi

In between the justifications that even you don’t believe in them, in between your meetings with your companions when you blame everybody, from the east to the western ends of the world, for inciting the Iranian people to uprising in objection to your policies, have you ever asked yourself why these people do not give up?

Mr. Ahmadinejad,

How many times have you claimed the death of Neda is ‘suspicious’? Have you ever asked yourself what had she done to deserve such a fate? Despite all the undeniable evidences and proofs published about Neda’s death, what evidence have you published to show that you are telling the truth? In the election debates you said that liars are cowards. But you lied even then. Liars are shameless, they don’t have a conscience. The liars shoot a young and innocent girl in the chest in the broad daylight and then blame fantastic conditions for her death.

Mr. Ahmadinejad,

Since you have become the president, we have rarely heard a truth coming out of your mouth. The lust for power has burned your soul and conscience. Superstitions and populism have corrupted your ability to distinguish good from evil and its outcome for our people has been nothing but decay, destruction of the industries, ruining of our agriculture, demolition of our culture, devastation of our press and publishing industry, obliteration of sports, thousands of people becoming refugees, obliteration of the hopes of a three thousand years old nation and leaving a graveyard full of the graves our of innocent youth behind.

Have you asked yourself what do these people want?

Have you considered giving them what they want?

I will tell you what they want. Although I know you already know, and I know that you cannot grant their wishes, because if you put aside the mask of the tyrant you have chosen, there will be nothing left of you but a helpless man, even though being helpless is much better than being a tyrant.

1. People want to be free to choose their leaders. They want to choose anyone they want, regardless of gender, religion or race. Do people have this right in Iran?
2. People want the rule of the majority while respecting the rights of the minority. Have these rights been respected? Haven’t you levelled the gathering hall of the Dervishes who were even Shiite Muslims? Do the different ethnic groups with different religions, the Zorastrians, Christians, Jewes, Kurds, Lors, Turks, Beluchs, have the same rights as the rest of the people?
3. People want their individual rights to be respected. They don’t want a law that gives the rulers the power to command people what to wear and what to not, what to eat and drink and what to not, and what to say and what to not. Are these individual rights being respected in Iran?
4. People want justice. They want to be treated as equals before the law. Do you really believe that people are equal before the law? Have you treated the people arrested in the streets the same way that you treated the armed shooter of Saiid Hajjarian?
5. People want responsibility. They want to know how their national assets are being spent. They want to know why billions of dollars of their national capital is transferred to other countries.
6. People want leaders who would answer to them; not a President who would reply to a reporter asking whether you have stolen the elections: ‘I don’t understand you.’
7. People want freedom of expression. You have claimed several times that there is an absolute freedom of speech in Iran which means that you don’t know the meaning of freedom of expression. Freedom of expression means not to break the pens and necks of anyone who dares say something against your will; not to kill those who shout that they don’t want you. It means that the press shouldn’t be terrified to say something that would end in their shut-down and the unemployment of hundreds of people. It means that there should be no book censorship; people should be free to choose their vocations. It means that there is no one who is not authorised to be published or broadcasted. It means that besides succumbing to your will, imprisonments or exile, there should be another option available to the journalists. There should be no books banned. There should be freedom of information exchange and no internet filtering. Someone who doesn’t want you should be as secure as someone who wants you. Do you still claim that there is freedom of speech in Iran?
8. People want freedom of joy. Have you ever been joyful in your life? I can’t believe that you might know the meaning of joy, as I have already seen you joyful expressions: In your feasts, you have called the Iranian experts ‘goats’ and your people ‘dust’; you have shouted cries of joys over the collective graves of those opposing you peacefully. People want joy, and joy does not follow any rules, there is no law for how to be joyful. There number of the ways that people find joy equals the number of people. Some find joy in dancing; the others might find it in their religious ceremonies.
9. People want freedom to choose. Do you know what it means? It means to accept that there isn’t a unique way towards happiness and redemption. It means to accept that the number of paths towards redemption equals the number of people seeking happiness.
10. People want freedom of identity. Do you know the meaning of it? It means to accept that not everyone has to behave according to the standards defined by you.
11. People want the right to assembly. These assemblies are not necessarily in harmony with your interests. But you cannot prevent the assembly, no matter how small, of a group of people.
12. People don’t want to be hated by other countries; they want to help in bringing prosperity and happiness to this small planet, shoulder to shoulder with all the people in the world.

Mr. Ahmadinejad, I’m afraid that because of ignoring the requests of your people, you have turned into one of the most hated figures in the history, among your own people. Even Hitler and Mussolini and Genghiz Khan were not hated as much among their own people. But it is not too late. You can always redeem yourself from being embarrassed in the court of History.

I ask you, as a writer and as an intellectual, to read this letter once more in your solitude and then decide where in History you want to stand, beside your people or against them. When you make your decision, do not forget that the rulers will always pass and there will be nothing left of them but a good or bad name. But the people are eternal and these people will get these twelve requests, with or without you.

Don’t let your destiny be like the Iranian prince, Esfandiar, who was invincible and his only weak point was his eyes, and because of ignoring the reality with those eyes, he was slain.

Arash Hejazi

Currently held in Evin Prison in Tehran, Caspian Makan is reported to have told his family that if he signs a “confession” saying that the People’s Mojahedeen Organization of Iran (PMOI), a political body banned in Iran since 1981, killed her, then he may be released.

Amnesty International said it fears he may be forced to sign such a “confession” under torture or other ill-treatment, given the pattern of human rights violations in Iran following the election. The organization said that he may be a prisoner of conscience, held for peacefully exercising his right to freedom of expression.
(read the rest)

The problem is that he cannot confess to anything, as he was not present when Neda got shot!