At the Heart of a Human Rights dilemma

The summer of 1999 was to be one of the most memorable in my life. I Was traveling to to my native country of Iran with my mother for the first time. I was to see family members who were mearly faces in a photo album come, come to life. Arriving at the airport I will never forget the culture shock that I felt; I was stepping into another world. When I met all of my family I was overjoyed to no longer be an oceans length apart from the people who meant the most to me in life. Soon the mood changed.

Driving along the streets of Tehran young kids pressed their faces up against car windows trying to sell flowers for mere pennies so they could eke by. This hurt me, but was something to be expected entering a third world country. I was also

puzzled to see women draped in black cloth from head to toe in scorhing 100 degree weather. I soon discovered that this action was not voluntary rather a necessity for women to survive in Iran.

That same summer college students were beaten, lashed, then tossed from the balconies of their dorm rooms for peacefully protesting harsh government policies. After the protests were crushed I could feel the glass from the shattered dorm windows penetrate my feet as I walked through the busy streets of Tehran. It made me feel empty that that these students felt the only way to improve their lives was to end them. They were sacrificing their lives to preserve their livelihoods and dying for basic human rights that had eluded them for so long.

I learned that summer that having an opinion and having an opinion heard are two different things. Were one of my family members to publicly unleash their true emotions they would be tortured and killed. Forced to lead an unhealthy lifestyle against their will. All of my young cousins were venting their frustrations to me almost making me feel like a journalist who is

reporting on their lives. Words such as ” What does it feel like to live in paradise” were tough to bear.

During my time in Iran I saw a country whose people had so much pride in who they were, but were so upset by what they were percieved to be. People were always shying away from the ultra conservative islamic identity that is associated with the country and were striving to be identified as a country moving towards a more secular democratic life. Iran is in the middle of a political battle raging between the unelected oppressive government and its citizens. Issues such as free speech, social freedom, womens rights, and freedom of religion have been debated for years.