IT HAPPENS IN IRAN

Hasan is a guy who doesn't fit in in Iran. Not because he's Kurdish, but because he read almost everything western literature has to offer, although he definetly knows it's illegal. He wants to leave the country, of course, as all young Iranian people who also posess a piece of brain do. Hasan used to be a computer science teacher at the small university in his town and used to love working with students. He was so full of hope and energy when i met him. Used to work on a cowshed he and his family had started. He had just finished his Master's degree and he was so thrilled about the little calves he had to take care of. And he was as enthusiastic about the job at the university he was to start in the autumn. That was almost two years ago.

He recently resigned. Disappointement combined, he says, with the feeling of not belonging and the desire to stay in the house with all his books and study to get a PhD to a famous US University.(a US University that would not really find him eligible as a student becasue , obviously, he comes from Iran)

A few days ago he told me we were having our last chat on yahoo messenger and that he'd do something, but i won't hear about it. Of course I thought the worst. Did my best to convince him he had a lot to fight for. He really has. He's a brilliant guy. The kind of person that you know would really make a difference if he only had been given the opportunity. I have no idea if I did convince him or not. He hasn't been back online ever since. And he was really depressed. I'm afraid that he was serious and that I have no way of stopping him. I imagine how it might be to feel so lost. He can't stand talking to his own people. Most of them would betray him, of course. He almost got arrested once. I think I wrote about it before. A student asked him during a course about the Iranian president's studies. He rebelled and said Ahmadinejad's diploma's probably false. The next day the secret service people told him to keep his mouth shut or else.

One of his friends got arrested. The kid is 18 and he spoke on a few occasions in front of his fellow students about the Kurdish aspirations and the idea of a federal Iran. They took the kid to the Intelligence service office in Kermanshah and questioned him. The kid had been in Iraq recently. They already knew who he had met, of course. No PKK, nobody. But still they questioned him. They let him go only to arrest him again while he was on the bus going home. The kid was in jail for three months. This is what Hasan wrote to me a few weeks ago. Have to write this on my blog, cause which newspaper in Romania would publish this. So, they arrested the 18 year old kid.

„He was aware that they do any kind of torture just to find out what kind of relation he has with Pajak Group or PKK. And he new they would apply the most efficient of them: raping. A friend had told him about what the Revolutionary Guards used to do in 1980. The Shia believe that when a virgin dies, even unfaithful, the person goes directly to heaven. So, in order to prevent the teens they wanted to execute from going to heaven, the Guards raped them first. Stupid, but so cruel. Reminds you of the Middle Ages, doesn't it?

The first day of the arrest they tortured the poor kid. They undressed him completely and they blindfolded him. He spent 6 hours like thins on the first day. He went through the same torture the next two days, only they kept him like that longer. The kid had nothing to do with the PKK. He was just interested in Kurdish Culture and language and he went to the Iraqi Kurdistan region because he could find more there than in his own hometown.

They didn't rape him, he says. Some slams in the face and small injuries. That was all. They advised him not to ever try to contact other Kurds outside his city and try to concentrate on his study.”

And of course they used the family menace. The kid, whose name I'd rather not give, was a student. He got out of jail after his family paid some 50 000 dollars bail. A friend of his is still in jail.

„ Majid, a zealous student , a perfect atheist was the one who told him about a federal government instead of a decomposing Iran. Majid was originally from north of Iran a firm believer that Kurds are Achilles' Heel of Iran and in the case they want their independence, Iran will decompose to some small countries like Qatar or Kuwait. Majid was strongly motivated to Unite all the parties in Iran and convince them to prevent bloodshed, like it happened in Iraq. They had to recognize Kurds as a Nation not just a large tribe in order to do that. 16 Azar, December 6, is the anniversary of Student's day in Iran. An great opportunity for them to state their beliefs. They needes permission from "Daftar Tahkim" party, the opposition and the legacy of Khatami's era. They met some important figures there but they laughed at him, because every party in Iran tries to prevent the appearance of Kurds in the capital. He convinced one of them that he has 3000 Kurdish students supporting him and that they will attend the anniversary and if they don't let them organize the meeting.

The day before "16 azar " the plan was that he'd talk about the federal governing of Iran and 15 students would cover him when delivering the speech. But none of the 15 students shew up. He spoke anyway. Of course the Guards were among the public. The night after the speech some intelligence service agents and took them to "Evin", the high security jail in Iran.

It was clear that they wouldn't execute them because now everybody knew abut them from the weblogs and Websites. Some famous lawyers defended them. Majid is still in jail. He believes that in not a very distant future the regime in Tehran will be wiped out either by the people or the US.„

The Kurdish kid still has to appear in court. Nobody know when. He could be executed for trying to speak freely about his beliefs. The 18 year old had nightmares every night, Hasan says. He even has nightmares when daydreaming.

STATE SECRET IN ROMANIA, PUBLIC KNOWLEDGE IN IRAQ

I remember a press conference at the Romanian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. It was 2006, a year after the three Romanian journalists were kidnapped in Iraq. There was a huge scandal about the money paid by the government for freeing the journalists. I asked how much. The foreign affairs minister at the time, Mihai Razvan Ungureanu, refused to answer my question. He said no comment. We are supposed to know exactly what happened in 2005 with the three people kidnapped in Iraq only in 2055. Cause it's a state secret and a state secrete can only be made public after 50 years. That's why the Romanian Envoy in Iraq at the time didn't come to court to testify in the trial of Muhammad Munaf, the driver and one of the alleged accomplices of the kidnappers. He claims he was kidnapped too. The guy is and Iraqi-American citizen but he has been trialed in Iraq and sentenced to be hanged in october 2006 in a mock trial. A few lawyers from the Brennan Center for Justice in New York took his case pro bono and asked the American Courts for a fair trial. On February 19 this year the Iraqi Casation Court reversed the sentence for Munaf. The reason - no enough proof. Well, the Iraqis didn't think about the Romanian state secrets when they issued the decision. So they wrote a few things about what happened in 2007. One of the American lawyers, Jonathan Hafetz, sent me the translation on the decision. Surprise! The Romanians negotiated and paid the ransom. No comment!

YESTERDAY, GAZA THE LESS HORRID FOOTAGE

It seems like the Palestinians are guilty of hiding behind civilians and children and everybody should believe that THIS is an excuse to kill 50 people in one day and not to care about who those people are. I'm just thinking that maybe, just maybe, if they keep killing them, Gaza will turn into a huge grave at some point. And the UN will condemn it and then we will live happily ever after, right?

STORIES MY EDITORS CHOOSE NOT TO RUN

It's horrific what you can find on Google news lately if you type in Gaza. I did it this morning. Well ya, I cheated cause I saw the footage yesterday too. And, man! It made me feel like turning on happy music and close my eyes and imagine I am on another planet. Five children killed on a football field on an Israeli attack. A six moth old child killed yesterday in another Israeli attack.

Boy wounded in a „militant missile attack” on Sderot. And one headline I liked „ Child victims of Gaza war lie close, but apart”. A story about the Israeli child and a Palestinian child both wounded in the attacks recovering in the same Israeli hospital near Tel Aviv.

The images are pretty shocking, and yet most of the people I showed them to answered carelessly „So what? It happens everyday.” The editor I'm working with decided not to run the footage of the baby killed in Gaza. I insisted. He kept saying no. Well, the footage is shocking but it doesn't show the child ripped apart, does it? „'Cause that's what people want to see.” Like people care to see what bull shit Hillary Clinton has to say in the electoral campaign or the way Barack Obama is dressed in a muslim outfit and why his name is Hussein (oh, yeah, he is REALLY guilty of that). But we still have to write and feed the viewers that shit.

Ya, I guess it does happen everyday. I'm sure it happens everyday in other parts of the world too. Parts of the world we don't CARE about. Like THIS part of the world.

It makes me remember another story that actually seemed to me taken from a cheap horror sci-fi book. A story about Tigris river. It lately is a GRAVEYARD.
Every day local police haul bodies from the Tigris bearing signs of torture. Locals who live near the river constantly see floating bodies. The situation is even worse in Suwayrah, a southern area of the capital, where the government has built barriers with huge iron nets to trap plants and garbage dropped in the river but now THEY TRAP BODIES. Well I remember the answer I got from the editor. Laughter. „This is not a story! This is a stuck sewage problem in Iraq.” Well, yeah, people normally die in a war. But that doesn't mean that war is normal. When did it become so normal that we don't care to notice it?

Well, there was a story yesterday about war that made it to the headlines and made everybody run it and get the audience they crave. Stupid prince Harry „fighting” in Afghanistan. Yeah, like really fighting! Um, seen him dressed as a soldier, weapon in his hand walking around near a wall, actually touching the dust. Isn't that pretty! CNN had an hour long special report on the event. I loved the fact Adriana, the evening newscast editor chose not to run it. That woman has principles.

Well I guess Condi Rice is worried. And she told Ehud Olmert she is W.O.R.R.I.E.D. She's worried about children being killed. Let's just wait until the children grow up and turn like maybe 17. Then, ok, you can kill them. That's the age when they suddenly become „militants”. (BTW, pictures belong to Reuters).

THE WORLD STARTED TO SMELL BLOOD

I told you nothing was going to happen today. Well ya, it was spectacular. Some 300 000 people carrying the Lebanese flag and as many pictures of late Hariri in the Martyrs Square. All done at about 1 pm.
Then the funeral. Nasrallah made one of his lately rare public apearances. It seems he wasn't afraid he'd be assassinated. He had nothing to fear with all the army in the area.
Well, yeah, nothing was to happen today. It was after all a funeral, lots of people were there, even the Iranian Foreign Minister - he had to come, he's the guy with the money, right? Nasrallah declared open war to Israel. Yeah, so? Israel brought more troups to the Lebanese border. "Tension in the Middle East, Lebanon devided". The world started to smell blood. And it IS going to be blood. But not Nasrallah's , who's actually selling cheap rose perfume, his own brand, and pictures of himself. Some stupid young infatuated militant is gonna bow himself up, or launch some cheap missile into Israel and then it all starts again.

THE SITUATION SUCKS

My Lebanon is boiling again. Tomorrow will be a very difficult day. Not that other days were not difficult. I always laugh when my friends complain about "THE SITUATION" in their country. Beirut seemed nice to me, quite peaceful acually. I used to be European chick who just fell in love with the glittering lights of the city seen from the plane. But then I was off the plane and on my way to the hotel on the highway and I saw the armed soldiers and went through the filters, and the cab driver turned on the light inside the car every five minutes. This is THE SITUATION everybody mentions in Lebanon. It means living with the feeling that you might, just might, pass by a car bomb meant to kill some "naughty politician" or "naughty journalist".
Yeah, tomorrow's gonna be difficult. They -I'm saying "they" cause nobody knows who did it, and as I already understood by now, nobody will try to find out and tell the world - killed one of the Hezbollah leaders in Syria. Imad Mughniyeh's death in Damascus, a car bomb assassination of course, brought the spark back in Southern Lebanon. cause the gunb powder was always there. Israel was the first to blame, of course. ''We call on the leadership of the Islamic Resistance to respond totheir treacherous operation with a painful blow to the Zionist entity, The Israeli hand has reached one of the pillars of the resistance and it shouldget a strong response and this is not hard for the mujahideen", one shiite cleric told the Hezbollah militants on Al Manar TV. Syria called the assasination a terrorist act. They avoided saying anything about Israel. The US are happy. Happiest about it. It turns out the guy was the most wanted terrorist, deadliest they say, after Ossama Bin Laden.
Mughniyehwas suspected of the 1983 bombing of the US Embassy in Beirut. 63 people died there. He also was suspected in the truck bombing that year of the U.S. Marine barracks in Beirut, an attack that killed 241 people and preceded the U.S. military withdrawal from Lebanon. He escaped american intelligence by changing his appearance.
Tomorrow they will burry the guy.
Tomorrow they expect thousands of people to come to the shrine of Rafik Hariri, the prime minister who was assassinated in 2005. They still count the days since the assassination - of course, they investigated it, but, of course again, didn't find his killers. What's gonna happen? Well, it might just be a day like any other day. Lots of tension, people not going out for fear of THE SITUATION, but in fact nothing really happening.

Mama

Mama and grandpa, a long time ago. They took the picture when I was still a baby

I used to call her mama. That's what she was to me. Mama. My memories of my grandmother seem blurry to me now. But I remember the feeling of her around the old house, cooking, washing and yelling at me to get down from the top of one of the quince tree near the gate, where I used to hang out when I was a blond blue eyed 5 year old brat.

I have never seen mama without a scarf. I only remember the few strands of hair making way from under her colored scarf which became greyer and greyer and greyer. She was small, former stunning brunette. I know that from the old pictures grandpa still has stashed in some corner in the old house I haven't stepped foot in for so long. 10 years fly fast when you want to keep moving in a huge dirty city. I used to play with those pictures when I was 4 or 5. Mama was beautiful when she was young and I wished she had been a lady from the colored books I had hidden under my bed. But mama wasn't a lady. Not that classic beauty of the 1930s you see in the old black and white movies. Her father, my great grandfather, was a very tough man. His two girls, mama and her little sister, only went to school until they finished the fourth grade. Then he needed them to take care of the garden and the animals. It was the 1930s in a small, very small town in eastern Romania, frozen in time. That town seems always frozen in time, although it changes. You can see the changes every time you get there, but you're still fooled, still get the feeling that everything had stopped moving, or that time somehow moves on a different pattern, a pattern yet undiscovered, stuck somewhere between the past, present and your feelings.

My mama married my grandpa. I don't remember much of their love story. My mind links her more to myself than to other people. I have this huge inclination of jealousy when it comes to my mama, a jealousy I've never felt regarding my mother. Mama was always mine. I had slept with her ever since I was a baby, I had heard her voice constantly in my ear, singing me to sleep, telling me stories to sleep, chasing away the two scary Muppets, Statler and Waldorf, that used to creep me out in my nightmares. Mama used to sit me on the porch in front of the house in summer the summer afternoon when grandpa wasn't retired yet and still went to work and she used to tell me stories. Very strange stories I haven't heard from anybody else. I don't know if she made them up on the spot, I don't think so. She told them to me again and again. I don't know who could have told her those stories, but they fascinated me. I remember one in particular, that always made me cry and made me wonder. The story of a common girl, an orphan girl who was hungry and went into a garden and ate some grapes. The garden belonged to a stone hearted prince who ordered his guards to cut the girl's hands for stealing. And they did. And she wandered without hands in the garden and she met Mother Mary one day. And she gave her her hands back, made her beautiful and she turned the prince's heart in to a kind one and when he saw that girl wandering in his gardens, he fell in love with her and they got married.

I never had the the classic grandmother, the grey-haired small lady with a warm smiling face knitting in a comfortable armchair near the fireplace. When I was a child I used to think that's where all children put their grandmothers and I used to be very sad that mine was not from that fairytale place. But I had mama. I didn't want to see her when she died. I was 17 and felt like a stranger to her. When my mother came back one morning and woke me up to tell me mama was gone I didn't even blink. I had to clean the house. I cleaned all 4 rooms. I had never cleaned the house before. I cried for the first time after a few months. I was doing some homework. And suddenly I missed her. I realized she wasn't around anymore. And I clicked. And it was painful.