The Iranian courts have responded to a film detailing the repression of artists in Iran by ordering the flogging and imprisonment of an actress, Marzieh Vafamehr. Vafamehr will be given 90 lashes and imprisoned for a year for her role in “My Tehran for Sale,” a film that tells the story of a young actress in Tehran who cannot perform due to government repression.
The critically acclaimed work details her struggle to pursue her art in a secret life. While banned in Iran, it is being watched secretly by citizens.
She is the wife of film director and screenwriter Nasser Taghvai.
As shown in the trailer below, she is an incredible artist and an inspiring hero for both artists and civil libertarians. The utter cruelty of this sentence further highlights the grotesque, Sharia-based justice system in Iran. For those of us who take our freedoms for granted, one look at this woman will serve to remind you of how costly and precious those freedoms are — even in the twenty-first century.
Source: AU News
Thomas,
You should enjoy the same right in this life time…If not…the next….
Bdaman…..You are heard…
flog her until she bleeds
She and other women who act againstthe law should be flogged and I would gladly do the lashing if given the whip to yield
Take ten deep breaths and………………………………..No surprize. I’m really angry.
Historically, the Jews were forbidden to administer more than forty lashes as punishment. They chose thirty-nine to allow for error.
More than forty has the potencial to cripple or kill. It is always possible that this woman has been handed a death sentence.
Excuse me while I vomit.
Raf, I’m guessing the hikers were misinformed about the risk they were taking. They might have thought the government couldn’t be as oppressive as they had heard, or that its repression would be limited to its own citizens. They might have thought no one would mess with Uncle Sam’s nieces and nephews. They were wrong.
They probably weren’t in their right mind for hiking in even the Kurdish part of Iraq, but I don’t believe they were spies. What could three Americans accomplish by walking into a closed society?
Swarthmore, they may be free, but I never believed that anyone in their right mind would “hike” in Iraq or Iran!
AY,
Yeah but they could film it and get their own reality show …
“One of these centuries, women are going to take over the reins of power and it is not going to be pretty for those who have been engaging in the ongoing Worldwide War on Women.” (Otteray Scribe)
From your lips to ……
The men on this blog are safe … I give you my word.
Hey, that’s a perfectly reasonable reaction from those Iranians. Almost as reasonable as literally labeling a customer a bitch for complaining about a messed up order: http://lawblog.legalmatch.com/2011/10/05/starbucks-customer-b-word-cup/
Kudos all around!
The hikers were finally freed.
Sorry, ladies. The CIA is not going to do jack squat about this. They have their own agenda, and it is not this. Obama, Hillary Clinton and Eric Holder live in the bubble and only know what their briefings tell them. I doubt seriously that stuff like this horror story even makes a blip on the radar for those who assemble the daily briefing.
One of these centuries, women are going to take over the reins of power and it is not going to be pretty for those who have been engaging in the ongoing Worldwide War on Women.
Blouise, Good idea.
The imprisonment and flogging of Marzieh Vafamehr couldn’t take place without government enforcers in Iran, individuals willing to initiate physical force on others. The court judges there, along with legislators, government executives (President included) and and even Islamic clergy, do not get out in the villages, towns and countryside to put their own words – laws/directives/mandates/regulations/etc – into effect. No, they like their counterparts in the US and everywhere else have henchmen/enforcers to do the dirty work for them.
The fact that there is a large supply of individuals in Iran – and in the US and elsewhere – who are willing to be enforcers of the government is only because the much larger non-enforcer population has not realized its power to non-violently reduce the enforcer numbers.
Publish names and photos of all government enforcers who will not be persuaded by reasoned logic to get truly value producing jobs (or start their own businesses that produce value to others). Such publication will enable all those non-enforcers (and they truly far out number the enforcers) geographically near and far who do not approve of these enforcers’ behavior to cease all voluntary interaction (electronic too). No sales, no service, no camaraderie – no anything! And NO violence. Simply NO voluntary interaction of any kind. This is negative Social Preferencing, known also as shunning and ostracism down through the ages and very persuasive towards behavioral changes without violence and without government.
When there are far fewer government enforcers to do the bidding of the legislators, executives (President included), judges and bureaucrats AND their moneyed friends, there will be far less interference in the mutually voluntary interactions of everybody.
Don’t be tolerant of your neighbors, friends, family, associates and strangers who are enforcers, domestic (cops & agents of numerous federal, state and local agencies) and military – this last being the key to starting and stopping wars. Be part of the solution! Be discriminating, in the finest sense of the word. Associate only with those who produce value and withdraw association from those who prevent value from being exchanged, destroy value that exists and prevent more value from even coming into being. While “Tax/Regulation Protests are Not Enough: Relationship of Self-Responsibility and Social Order” was written for a target audience of North America, it applies anywhere and everywhere – http://selfsip.org/focus/protestsnotenough.html
And hell….we have our own type of repression….OWS…..and to think that Obama called that a form of class warfare…well….he is right….
Blouise,
You said useful and CIA in the same sentence…Of what benefit to them would it be….and heck….Cheney is out of office….but his protege lives on….
mespo,
They only have so many resources to use according to the Sharia Law…
They are so refreshingly ironic in their repression.
Could the CIA make itself useful and go get this woman?