PENamericancenter — May 03, 2010 — With Maziar Bahari and Jason Jones.

In June 2009, Canadian-Iranian journalist, playwright, and documentary filmmaker Maziar Bahari was among hundreds of people arrested following the disputed Iranian presidential elections. He was held for 118 days in Tehrans notorious Evin Prison. PEN and the Committee to Protect Journalists led an international campaign for his release, and are now working with him to draw attention to the many writers and journalists currently imprisoned in Iran. Shortly before he was arrested, Bahari filmed an interview with The Daily Shows Jason Jones, who had traveled to Iran to do a series of satiricaland poignantpre-election reports about the Iranian people, entitled Access to Evil. While in prison, one of the things Bahari was questioned about was the interview with Jones, whom his interrogators labeled a spy. We are thrilled to present this remarkable reunion conversation with Maziar Bahari and Jason Jones, about this tumultuous year in the Islamic Republic of Iran.

Free Iran:  Fantastic Music!  Creative way to expose the regime’s brutality.  Please do the same in NYC & DC subways.

Iran’s Green opposition movement promises to once again come out and fight against tyranny on 22 Bahman.

This great documentary starts from the presidential debates before the election and covers all of the major protests and events in the past 7 months.  Click Here to see all 3 parts. See More.

President Obama speaks about Iran and condemns how the government has used violence and tyranny to suppress and kill its own people in order to silence their voices of discontent.

People have cornered these security forces. People ask them ‘why do you do this to your people?’ and the riot guards ask for forgiveness, ‘Bebakhshid’ they can be heard to say.  ‘You are Yazid’s – the Khalif against whom the Ashura uprising took place -forces’, the woman shouts at them. One of the protesters then reassures them that they will not be beaten up, all they have to do is say Khameneii is a bastard. The woman can then be heard saying ‘All you can do is kill your people is it?’ and again they plead saying ‘Please We are not killers’.  The sooner they join the people, the sooner they will redeem themselves with the people of Iran.

IND:  This is the video of the pictures we posted yesterday.  It’s a must see.  We came across it thanks to a reader (AH).  This video shows the events leading up to the guards begging for forgiveness.

Jon Leyne, BBC’s Tehran correspondent, sits down for an interview with Karroubi.

By Saman Arbabi and Kambiz Hosseini See More.

Mohsen Namjoo, who was once named Iran’s Bob Dylan by New York Times, sends a message to all those who support the Green Movement.  Aside from being a singer-songwriter, Namjoo is also an actor, author, and brilliant Setar player.

Extremely moving message from Heshmatollah Tabarzadi to the Supreme Leader Khamenei, the security forces, the clergy, and the people of Iran.

IND:  For the past three decades, successive Republican and Democratic administrations alike tried to moderate Iran’s foreign policies either by threatening Iran with military strikes and economic sanctions or engaging Tehran with offers of trade and diplomatic cooperation – all to no avail.  They failed because focusing on Iran’s foreign policies addresses the symptoms of the problem and not the problem itself which is Iran’s domestic policy.  As such, articles like this  are quite helpful because they point to the right direction by focusing on Iran’s domestic policies.

The Obama administration shouldn’t give up on embattled Iranian democrats. Here’s how America can help the Green Revolution succeed.

Western diplomats can draw on experience learned in Kiev to help the “green movement” in Tehran…Diplomacy helped transform the next election into a matter of international, not just domestic, concern. This should be a key goal in Iran.

…European Commission President José Manuel Barroso could meanwhile rally governments represented in Brussels to support a meaningful diplomatic initiative, which includes a discussion of election legitimacy. As Iran’s largest trading partner, with some $35 billion in trade last year, the European Union has considerable economic influence over Tehran. European leaders can also seek the involvement of countries like Jordan, Turkey, and the Gulf states in a dialogue with Tehran.

There is one political obstacle in all of this: Conventional wisdom holds that discussing Iranian governance would only complicate ongoing nuclear-related negotiations. But history shows the opposite can be true. Some of the West’s greatest strides in arms control with the former Soviet Union, for example, came in the 1980s, when the West was pushing the country hardest on human rights issues. Go to Foreign Policy.

Mousavi sits down with Kaleme Newspaper for a second interview.

Worldwide support for Iranian students on the 70th anniversary of the International Students’ Day. “Ma Bi Shomarim….”

A 5-part doctumentary about Neda Agha-Soltan. See More.