The C.R.I.M.E. Report

ISSUE #53 CONTENTS:


SPOTLIGHT CASES:

8,500 Letters and Counting: Pressure Builds on Nokia

jailing people nokiaOver 8,500 people from around the world have sent letters to Nokia protesting the company’s technology partnership with the Iranian regime. As reported in The CRIME Report last April, Nokia recently provided the Iranian regime with a "monitoring center" that enables security forces to tap cell phones, scramble text-messages, and interrupt calls. Nokia's new surveillance system is being deployed on a massive scale, with hundreds arrested thanks to Nokia's technology.
If you haven’t already, please take a minute to send Nokia a letter. You can also promote the campaign with promotional graphics on your blog or website (download here: 1, 2, 3). The goal is to get Nokia to end its collaboration with the Iranian regime and help protect peaceful protestors. Your voice can make the difference!

4th Annual Essay Contest Winners Announced

The HAMSA initiative of the American Islamic Congress is proud to announce the winners of the fourth annual “Dream Deferred Essay Contest on Civil Rights in the Middle East.” In an unprecedented show of enthusiasm, over 2,500 people from 20 different countries entered the contest this year. With $10,000 in cash and 50 book prizes at stake, young thinkers were challenged to assess the impact of civil rights restrictions and imagine how they might contribute to grassroots reform efforts.

Read about 19-year-old Fatima Al-Abdulaziz as she slips into the driver’s seat in Saudi Arabia, part of an underground movement challenging the ban on a woman’s right to drive. Follow a revealing exchange between a young Iranian and her grandmother in a Tokyo shopping mall. And see how a Lebanese student connects his classroom struggle against a corrupt teacher to the larger civil rights reform movement.

Winning essays offer a dynamic mix of shocking personal stories of repression, inspiring vignettes of small breakthroughs, specific plans for advocacy campaigns, and persuasive calls to action in the face of apathy. Writers come from all over the Middle East as well as across the US, with a record number of Iranians among the winners. Though the essays were all composed before the recent outbreak of street protest in Iran, the spirit of determination in the face of repression underlies all of the essays.



New Farsi Comic Book on Martin Luther King, Nonviolent Action

Two years ago, HAMSA brought Martin Luther King’s stunning story of nonviolent activism to the Middle East by translating a long-lost 1958 comic book on the Montgomery Bus Boycott into Arabic. Now, in the wake of ongoing street protests in Iran, a new Farsi edition of the comic book has just been released in digital format. The project was rushed to completion by a team of translators and designers after rallies suddenly broke out in Iran a few weeks ago.

Called "The Montgomery Story," the comic book was published in 1958 and helped inspire the American civil rights movement in the early 1960s. The full-color comic chronicles the Montgomery Bus Boycott, a campaign to end segregation on buses in Alabama. It concludes with a section on "how the Montgomery Method works," outlining essential techniques of nonviolence. With timely lessons for today’s protest in Iran, the Farsi-booklet illustrates how a small group of activists challenged basic civil rights abuses despite facing police harassment, terror attacks, and a repressive government.

“The goal of the new translation is to inspire Iranian activists to adopt effective nonviolent strategies” says HAMSA’s Civil Rights Outreach Director Nasser Wedaddy “We also hope to remind international readers that their solidarity and support are vital to the success of activists in Iran. The Bus Boycott would have failed without attention and support from people outside Montgomery.” The comic book is featured on HAMSA’s website (in English, Arabic) here in Farsi, and can be browsed online here.



Bono, Bon Jovi, Baez and Madonna Stand with Iranian Protestors

At a recent sold-out concert in Milan, swaths of green light flooded U2’s stage and excerpts of Farsi poetry flashed across huge projection screens. Bono led the band into a rendition of “Sunday Bloody Sunday” in an unprecedented show of solidarity with Iranian protestors. The Irish rockers’ symbolic act has been echoed by several other global music superstars, who are using viral music videos to encourage Iranians risking their lives in the streets and to inspire people around the world to speak out.

Jon Bon Jovi, for instance, recently collaborated with Iranian musician Andy Madadian to record a Farsi version of the classic “Stand By Me”. In another moving gesture, Joan Baez recorded a version of “We Shall Overcome,” - the anthem of the American civil rights movement - with some lyrics translated to Farsi. Madonna has included videos of Iranian protestors in her concerts as well. Online videos of the performances have generated hundreds of thousands of views, showing the eagerness of people across the world to express their sympathies and support.

The artists’ goal isn’t to make lucrative singles, but for their music to inspire a global solidarity movement. “It’s intended to be downloaded and shared…to [show that] all people of the world stand together” said Don Was, producer of ‘Stand by Me’. The videos of all the performances are available online and have been spreading virally. As the text reads in English and Farsi at the end of Bon Jovi’s new video: “We are One.

QUIZ: Why can't Wajeha Huwaider cross the border?
ANSWER: No Mahram – no male chaperone. Under Saudi law, women cannot leave the country unless accompanied by a male relative, even to drive along the causeway that leads to the neighboring Bahrain. Wajeha Huwaider, a leading women's rights activists in Saudi Arabia, has publicly challenges the guardianship laws, which apply to women of all ages (a seven-year-old grandson can be his 70-year-old grandmother’s chaperone). In the past few weeks, Huwaider has made several attempts to cross the border into Bahrain by herself. Each time border guards have stopped her. She is now calling all Saudi women to join her protest.

BECOME A PARTNER IN CRIME:
Here is a list of four quick ways you contribute to the Middle East civil rights movement: