I stand with imprisoned Iranianian students

Kamangir the Archer translated a Persian-language blog which asks all bloggers to announce their solidarity with the imprisoned Iranian students on January 30th. I proudly stand with these students and everyone worldwide imprisoned unjustly.

When I was about the same age as many of these students, I was imprisoned, unjustly, in a foreign prison for a brief period. I was stuffed in a small cell in the basement of a cinderblock prison with a concrete floor in solitary confinement. My bed was a newspaper, my toilet was a milk carton that I emptied every other day. I got one cold shower every week. For breakfast we got warm brown water they called coffee and a roll, lunch was watery soup and bread and for supper, we were fed noodles with warm ketchup – they called it spaghetti. If we weren’t on our feet when the guards came through in the morning, we got a beating. In fact, there were more ways to get a beating than there were ways to avoid a beating.

The only thing that kept me going was knowing my government would get me out – which they did eventually. I can’t imagine the psychological pressure these students endure knowing that their government is the entity that has imprisoned them. That their release depends on the whims of a sociopath.

This blog stands with prisoners of conscience in Venezuela, Cuba, Iran, China, North Korea and wherever else governments persecute their people. 365 days every year.

Category: Bloggers, Foreign Policy