NADER DAVOODI
Nader Davoodi, an Iranian photographer who lives in Tehran, describes himself as “a very close friend to” the campaign of Mostafa Moin, the reformist presidential candidate in Iran. Davoodi said today: “In an ‘adsphere’ [where] most of the presidential candidates in Iran introduce themselves as a very helpful technocrat and sell themselves as a democrat, I think Dr. [Mostafa] Moin is the only candidate that is close to a liberal movement in Iran. However I think that he is not all the things that the young generation in Iran is looking for. We demand more and more reforms and freedom — a big change in the political power structure.”
More Information
KAVEH EHSANI
Kaveh Ehsani is a research scholar at the University of Illinois-Chicago. He is on the editorial boards of Middle East Report and Goft-o-gu (Dialogue) journal in Iran. He is the author of a number of articles about Iran including “High Stakes for Iran” (Middle East Report, Summer 2003) and, with Chris Toensing, “Neo-Conservatives, Hardline Clerics and the Bomb” (Middle East Report, Winter 2004).
More Information
ROSS POURZAL
Pourzal is a Washington-based political analyst who is on the board of the Alliance of Progressive Iranians.
More Information
NORMAN SOLOMON
Solomon is executive director of the Institute for Public Accuracy and author of the new book War Made Easy: How Presidents and Pundits Keep Spinning Us to Death. He is currently in Tehran, where he has been interviewing a wide range of Iranian people. Solomon wrote in an article this week: “Iran’s most repressive clerics and the USA’s most militaristic neocons share a common interest: They’re very eager to see the failure of Iranian activism for democracy and human rights. … [T]he hardliners in both countries need each other. Theirs is a perverse, mutual dependency that dares not speak its name. … The Moin [presidential] campaign drew 10,000 people to a rally at a Tehran stadium Tuesday night. A number of speakers emphasized that the campaign is aiming to lay groundwork for a movement — and this election is just the beginning. … The Tehran Times reported Wednesday [that] the outspoken Moin ‘referred to the upcoming establishment of a Democracy and Human Rights Front in Iran to defend the rights of all Iran’s religious and ethnic groups, the youth, academicians, women, and political opposition groups whose rights are often neglected.’ … In a country where political imprisonment and torture continue, such public statements are emblematic of a courageous movement struggling to emerge from the shadows of the Islamic Republic. Progress for that movement is a nightmare for theocrats and neocons who share deep commitments to violence and fear.”
More Information
More Information
For more information, contact at the Institute for Public Accuracy:
Sam Husseini, (202) 347-0020, (202) 421-6858; or David Zupan, (541) 484-9167
