OPPRESSION: CONTINUED . . .

"A desire to resist oppression is implanted in the nature of man."
~ Tacitus.

Having mentioned the murder of Kurds in Iran by the mullahs yesterday, it's rather coincidental that the following was in my inbox today:

I am a twenty-seven year Kurdish woman who has been sentenced to death by the Iranian Judiciary authority for my political activities. After I was given death sentence last year I appealed and my case was reviewed by the Iranian High Court. The High Court sustained the lower court’s decision.

I am under constant torture and humiliation. I was put on an orchestrated trial without a legal representation and after a few minutes I was sentenced to death. I don’t have a lawyer to defend me. The Court only dedicated a few minutes to my case. The Court told me that I was an “Enemy of God,” and in a short period of time all enemies of God would be hanged. All the judges in my trial voted for my execution.

I asked the Judge if I could say good-bye to my mother. He told me “shut up.” The Judge rejected my appeal and refused to let me to see my mother. Since I cannot defend myself, I ask all advocates and activists of human/women’s rights to campaign on my behalf and support me. I need your help.

Zaynab Jalalian

Zaynab's crime? She's a Kurd.

You can see the document at the KNCNA website, under the homepage heading "Documents and letters".

I wanted to point out that last week PRI's The World program aired a segment on The Forbidden Letters in Turkey. Mahmut Alınak--I love this guy--was quoted. A TSK'er insisted that people who use The Forbidden Letters should be imprisoned. Of course, the TSK'er should logically include himself among the imprisoned, if we consider a defense that Diyarbakır's mayor, Osman Baydemir, used in a recent court case against him for using The Forbidden W:

[Murharrem] Erbey [of the Diyarbakır İHD] said his client [Osman Baydemir] asked everyone, “Do you log onto the justice ministry’s website?” The judge and the prosecutors said yes. Then he asked “What do you type when you go there?” The answer was something like “www dot gov dot TR. Then the mayor said, “Aren’t you breaking the law? Every time you type W three times and you go to the site hundreds of times a day. But when W is used in the Kurdish context it’s a crime.”

Touché, Heval Osman!

You can visit the site and read the transcript of the segment or listen to it via mp3.

Let me add that if the nationalists want to be consistent about The Forbidden Letters, some of the Alparen Ocakları types need to go around knocking The Forbidden W off the BMW's of the elites.