Jafar Panahi Before and After 3 Months in Prison

Film director Jafar Panahi was recently released from Evin Prison in Tehran. American and International film makers had petitioned for his release, and Panahi had recently gone on hunger strike.

Akbar Ganji Wins Friedman Prize for Advancing Liberty

Akbar Ganji, an Iranian writer and journalist who spent 6 years in a Tehran prison for advocating a secular democracy and exposing government involvement in the assassination of individuals who opposed Iran's theocratic regime, has been named the 2010 winner of the Cato Institute's Milton Friedman Prize for Advancing Liberty.

poem: dying is easy, living is hard

dying is easy, living is hard.
by julie jigsawnovich

you told me if you die
you will be a hero.
no, you'll be a number.
dying is easy, living is hard.

respect freedom martyrs.
honor them by living.
carry their demands.
living is easy. struggle is hard.

if you are free/d,
bear witness to struggles.
remember how hard
getting freedom was.

when we become complacent
the subtle crushing starts.
chains that are mental
make freedom hard.

[for b.]