Protests in Iran: fear for my relatives
A young woman lies on the ground and looks pleadingly into the camera. Her name is Neda, not even 30 years old - but her life is already over. A bullet has exploded in her ribcage, her face is bloodied. In a YouTube video, the whole world can watch their eyes turn cloudy and eventually die (//mashable.com/2009/06/21/neda/). It is not to say with certainty whether this film is real or readjusted? this applies to all images and news that these days can circumvent the Iranian censorship, the total news stop and reach the world public. But there are many indications that the young woman had to give up her life on Saturday during the protests against the alleged electoral fraud in Iran. Neda has become a symbolic figure of the demonstrators.
Far away in thought
How I feel when I see these pictures, what opinion I have about developments in the country, my friends and colleagues want to know. They ask me because I have relatives and friends in Iran because it was only two weeks ago that I was visiting there. To be honest, it's incredibly difficult to give an answer. The pictures I currently see on TV and on the Internet, the news I read, the video of the dying Neda? all of this is so shocking, so dramatic, so incredible that I hardly know what to say to it. Of course, I hold to the demonstrators. I'm mentally with them, can hardly concentrate on my work, because I wish that they will achieve something.
Stay home or demonstrate at home?
But at the same time I tremble around her. Wonder how many people are going to lose their lives right now because they are fighting for freedom and peace in the country. Tehran's police chief has now announced an even tougher crackdown on the protesters. I am afraid that there will be more attacks, that more people will go to jail and conditions in the country will worsen. And of course I'm worried about my relatives. Wonder if I should encourage you to join in, or rather, please stay home and not put yourself in danger. On Saturday I tried to talk to them, but the reception was bad, we barely understood each other. The mobile phone lines in Iran are disturbed again and again for days, the SMS service does not work anymore. The government wants to prevent people from communicating with each other, that information leaks out. In addition, the phones may be intercepted. After all, I hardly dared to ask a lot, we only spoke very briefly. I do not want to get anyone into trouble.
Drug addicted rioters
For us here in Germany, all this is so hard to imagine: People must not express their opinions freely, not demonstrate, the state media report any nonsense, which has nothing to do with the truth: In a report of the program "world mirror" was said Yesterday, the state-run Iranian television called the demonstrators drug addicts who were going to riot. The West would even support these "rioters", make mood for them. American President Barack Obama has sided with the criminals.
When I think about all this, I know what answer I can give to the question about my feelings about Iran, as cheesy as it may sound: we can be happy and grateful to live here in Germany. Our legal system - above all the Basic Law - has an invaluable value. On Saturday, many people in Hamburg also took to the streets because of developments in Iran to demonstrate. None of them feared being shot in the street. We are allowed to have an opinion and to express it. Our press is free. Every message about Iran makes it clear what many people there would do to have all these rights.
