Executions in Iran

Ehsan Fattahian was executed last Wednesday! And I could do nothing to save him but scream inside....

Now Nemat Safavi from the city of Ardebil, Mehdi P. from Tabriz, and Mohsen Gh. from Shiraz are sentenced to death in different courts in Iran, based on accusations of homosexual acts.

I received this email just now:

"They were under the age of 18 at the time of arrest and have been kept in prison since then. In Nemat's case, he was jailed for five years so that he would reach the legal age (according to Islamic law) at which death sentences can be carried out.

Human rights activists working on Nemat's behalf have determined that the authorities in Ardebil are claiming Nemat does not even exist. Having observed many similar cases before, IRQR considers this statement to be reason for even greater worry.

Mehdi and Mohsen are awaiting their execution despite the fact that they have both pleaded innocent and have denied the allegations. There is not one single witness in either of the cases, and even the judge himself has no evidence whatsoever to prove that the plaintiffs are guilty. (According to Islamic law, the accused person would accept his guilt four times, or there would be four male adults testifying on the crime committed, before a court can legally rule on someone's guilt.)

Nevertheless, the judge has ruled that Mehdi and Mohsen be sentenced to death by the powers vested in him by Islamic punishment rules, which allow a judge to issue a verdict based on his own personal knowledge, even when no physical evidence or witnesses were available.

IRQR is requesting the Iranian government to do the followings:

.Stop the executions immediately

.Give unrestricted access of Human Rights committees and organizations to these cases

.Allow these plaintiffs to be tried in legal courts of law following the international standards, which clearly indicate that no one should be executed for the crimes they have committed when they were children (below age 18 in Iran).

IRQR is asking all individuals, organizations and human rights activists to take action and help us to stop these unlawful and barbaric executions."

Urgent! Urgent! Save Ehsan Fattahian's Life!

Urgent!! Ehsan Fattahian will be executed tomorrow November 11 in Central Prison in Sanandaj!
His crime is only crying for freedom! Will execution silence people who strive for breathing?
Read Ehsan's letter below:

"I never feared death. Even now, as I feel its odd and honest presence next to me, I still want to smell its aroma and rediscover it; Death, who has been the most ancient companion of this land. I don’t want to talk about death; I want to question the reasons behind it. Today, when punishment is the answer for those who seek freedom and justice, how can one fear his fate? Those of “us” who have been sentenced to death by “them” are only guilty of seeking an opening to a better and fair world. Are “they” also aware of their deeds?" Read more...

War, Change and Hope

The 29th Annual Women and Theatre Program (WTP) Conference took place in Teatro Pregones in Bronx, New York in August 7th, 2009.
The theme of this year’s conference was the Balancing Act of Innovation: War, Change, and Hope.

What do we really mean when we talk about “Hope” when we know that hope is another side of “Despair”? In difficult times, “Hope” has always been a necessity for us to strive for life to survive as human species. This year’s conference strongly held up the solid pillar of solidarity to motivate us, the WTP members, for insightful challenges and decisive changes in the time of war.
The conference began at 8: AM, containing of seven panels and roundtables. The first panel: Staging woman and War: Problems and Possibilities, organized by Lindsay Cummings (Cornell University) and Maria Beach (Oklahoma State University) was the most popular panel with sixteen diverse participants included a wide range of scholars, directors, dramaturges, playwrights and performers. This roundtable was structured to discuss some of practical, aesthetics and ethical questions we face when we stage women’s involvement in war and any systematic violence related to war. The subgroups were divided into four groups and four themes: Activism; Adaptation; Women, War, and Culture; And Arts and Violence. The discussion began with questions Lindsay posed to participants to engage the group for a determining and productive conversation, as some of the participants brought handouts, summarizing their projects to the audience.

Groups are as follows:

Activism: Norma Bowles, Maria Beach, Domnica Radelscu, Lindsay Cummings

Adaptation: Jane Barnette, Sydney O’Donnell, Katherine Sogolow, Lisa Parkins

Women, War, and Culture: Eleanor Owiki, Yasmine Rana, Ezzat Goushegir, Kate Roark

Art and Violence: Joan Lipkin, Jenny Connell, Sherry Engle, Shelley Salamensky


Some of the questions addressed the panelists were:
* How does the increasing of militarization of everyday life impacts us as artists?
* How do we approach the staging of violence against women without replicating that violence?
* What counts as a “War Play” and how does gender impact acts of categorization?

The discussion opened up a lively conversation among the panelists as well as the audience.


In the second panel entitled The Female Body in the Age of Trauma and Terror, Emily Klein focused on Eve Ensler and Kathryn Blume’s plays explaining the defense mechanism of the survivors of war, rape and violence and how they face their problems.

In the presentation of Women in Border/War Zone, Cecilia J Aragon presented a vivid picture of women in the Mexican Revolution, indicating the role of sensuality and sexuality in the work of Mexican playwrights specifically in Soldaderas. She delineated how women used their body as a political resistance and a source of creativity and power.

Barbara Ellen Logan’s presentation under the title of “Inside the Empire” discussed Empire as a rape fantasy in fairy tales such as Cupid and Psyche, Beauty and the Beast, as well as Migdalia Cruz’s play FUR. She explained how these myths allegorize the violence of colonizers, raping women as colonized with the expression of “love” and “marriage”.

At 1: PM Ashley Lucas the president of WTP introduced Guerrilla Girls the internationally known theatre company. The performance of New York based Guerrilla Girls on Tour was the highlights of this year’s conference. With energetic, humorous, original and critical performance of their show, Guerrilla Girls believe that being silent about violence against women is a form of violence. They use mask and physical theatre techniques to portray a wide spectrum of characters and serious subjects on women while keeping empty space with minimum technical elements to convey their social and political message in an engaging and interactive environment.


Guerrilla Girls on Tour performed excerpts from “If you can stand the Heat: the History of Women and Food” Portraying four dead women artists: Josephine Baker, Aphra Behn, Julia Child and Beatrix Potter. It was a poignant and lively performance with an enthusiastic interaction between the actors and the audience.

In the informational panel on Women, Theatre and War; Performance as activism, the participants focused on genocide and human rights issues as they indicated the theatre activists whose activism relates to theatre in the war zones such as Baghdad, or about Guantanamo prison as well as Women in Cambodia and Bosnia.
On the review of Jane Chambers play contest, Pricilla Page and Maya Roth gave a historical report on the Jane Chambers award, while they mentioned that the majority of this year’s play submissions were about war, activism and more lyrical in language and tone.
Sally Oswald and Dominique Morrisseau winners of 2008 Jane Chambers awards read excerpts of their plays; “Pony” a respond to George Buchner’s play Woyzeck, and “Retrospect for Life” a play about abortion.
Erin Kaplan The winner of Jane Chambers Student Competition in 2009 had a reading of her play “Collateral Bodies” a captivating piece about women who are victims of domestic violence, public stoning, bride burning, genital mutilation, women’s trafficking, rape and poverty from all over the world.

The two performances of this year were Dominica Redulesca’s play “Naturalized Woman: A quilting Surrealist Project” and Yasmina Beverly Rana’s play “Images of Women in War”.

Dominica Redulesca


Yasmina Beverly Rana

Lunch and dinner was served by Sunlight Restaurant in a beautiful backyard of the theatre with tall sunflowers as birds were singing from a cage in the next door neighbor’s house, while WTP business meeting was held.

Cecilia J Aragon, Ezzat(Myself) and Ashley Lucas the president of WTP
Pictures in this blog are by Joel Simpson

Claude Lévi-Strauss

"The world began without the human race and will certainly end without it."
Claude Lévi-Strauss

Claude Levi-Strauss died in October 30, 2009

Death to No One!

Iranian's new chant is: Death to No One!
"When on November 4, you see throngs of young Iranians chanting "Death to No one!" they are not just challenging the brutal theocracy that is distorting their history and abusing their youth, they are also raising a gentle accusatory finger at their own parental generation."

Soheila Ghadiri

Soheila Ghadiri a young poor girl from a village in Kurdistan Was executed in October 21, 2009
She grew up under the rain, on the pavements of lonely streets of Tehran, and was an unwanted guest of cold parks and was a piece of meat for hungry wolves!
She killed her 5 day-old baby girl because she did not want her daughter to have the same destiny as hers!
She was as lonely as Atefeh Sahaaleh when she was executed!
Read her last words to no one and to the world!

Red Leaves

Oneness of World- Hearts

The madness of this world
Cannot be conquered
By the sadness or the power
Of the world,
But only by the oneness
Of the world – hearts

By: Sri Chinmoy