Iran Feature: The Week in Civil Society --- Sanctions, Awards for Political Prisoners, and the Supreme Leader on Facebook (Arseh Sevom)

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Some people in Iran are feeling the effects of shortages of medicine and high prices, while an artist challenges passersby at the United Nations to confront the growing problem.

Nasrin Sotoudeh and Jafar Panahi receive the prestigious Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought in absentia, sending messages for justice and freedom, as imprisoned human rights activists call for others to spread the call for dignity. Mohammad Maleki, the former Chancellor Tehran University, is summoned to serve a six-year prison term. Journalists call for an end to the intimidation of political prisoners' family members by interrogators.

The Supreme Leader gets a Facebook page, as Parliament debates election reform and reduced powers for the President and Human Rights Watch issues a report on the more than 40,000 Iranians seeking asylum abroad while a photographer shows us that life in Iran goes on.<

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Iran Feature: The Week in Civil Society --- From Repression 1999 to Repression 2012 (Arseh Sevom)

The 18 Tir Protests, 199918 Tir Anniversary

Sunday was the anniversary of the 1999 crackdown on demonstrations of Iranian students, described on page 10 of our report "Attack on Civil Society".

Many consider the 1999 demonstrations as a turning point that paved the way for later developments within non-violent movements in Iran. The events of that time also led directly to the strategies used to control later protests:

A strengthened and more professional Basij militia, under the control of the IRGC and acting on their behalf, answered the rise of the student movement with a renewed mission to protect the nation against the perceived domestic threat posed by liberalizing influences.

The opposition site Kalemeh offers an illustrated review of “18 Tir” events.

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