Esha Momeni Vigil at CSUN

NBC Nightly News (web) on the vigil

Esha is still in Iran and still facing charges.  Her parents put up the deed to their home so that she could be released on bail.

To help:

• Write a letter asking the Iranian government to drop all charges and allow Esha to return to California to complete her degree.  Based on the recommendations of the Observatory for Human Rights Defenders, consider the following text:
  

Please guarantee in all circumstances the physical and psychological integrity of Ms. Esha Momeni, and immediately drop all charges and unconditionally release Ms. Momeni. Her arrest was in connection with her peaceful activities in support of equal rights for women in Iran and in the context of her graduate research.   Please allow Ms. Momeni to return to the US without conditions to complete her academic work.

Send to:

Leader of the Islamic Republic, His Excellency Ayatollah Sayed Ali Khamenei, The Office of the Supreme Leader, Shoahada Street, Qom, Islamic Republic of Iran, Faxes: + 98.21.649.5880 / 21.774.2228, Email: info@leader.ir / istiftaa@wilayah.org / webmaster@wilayah.org

• Sign the online petition asking for her release
• Read the words of her friends and follow the latest news about her case at For Esha.
• Keep up with the Mass Comm graduate students working to free their classmate.

At the Vigil: Esha “One of Our Own”

The Daily News‘ story and video about the vigil:  “Esha is an ambassador for peace.”

Daily Sundial:  “Iranian women ‘have a voice‘ and the stereotype of ‘Middle Eastern passiveness’ is not true.”

KPCC’s online version.

Here is a citizen media report by Vic Corona about organizing the vigil: “Thanks to people like her, change happens in the world.”

The photos below are now individually captioned at Flickr in a lame attempt to amuse bored grad students.

While we are happy she has been released from prison, Esha is still in Iran and still facing charges. Her parents put up the deed to their home so that she could be released on bail.

To help:

• Write a letter asking the Iranian government to drop all charges and allow Esha to return to California to complete her degree.  Based on the recommendations of the Observatory for Human Rights Defenders, consider the following text:
  

Please guarantee in all circumstances the physical and psychological integrity of Ms. Esha Momeni, and immediately drop all charges and unconditionally release Ms. Momeni. Her arrest was in connection with her peaceful activities in support of equal rights for women in Iran and in the context of her graduate research.   Please allow Ms. Momeni to return to the US without conditions to complete her academic work.

Send to:

Leader of the Islamic Republic, His Excellency Ayatollah Sayed Ali Khamenei, The Office of the Supreme Leader, Shoahada Street, Qom, Islamic Republic of Iran, Faxes: + 98.21.649.5880 / 21.774.2228, Email: info@leader.ir / istiftaa@wilayah.org / webmaster@wilayah.org

• Sign the online petition asking for her release
• Read the words of her friends and follow the latest news about her case at For Esha.
• Keep up with the Mass Comm graduate students working to free their classmate.

Free Esha Momeni Vigil/Rally

My students did an incredible job hosting this afternoon’s vigil/rally for their classmate, Esha Momeni, who has been released from prison in Iran.   We celebrated her release and we are now hoping she will be allowed to return to the US soon to be with her fellow students and continue her studies.

Update:  Check out the LA Daily News’ photo gallery of the event.

Update2: My colleague David Blumenkrantz has a great photo and the fitting quote he read at the vigil up.

Fox 11 had a story featuring our amazing graduate students.

I don’t yet have anyone else’s statement from the event tonight — hopefully I’ll be able to get these soon.   Here is mine:

I am very proud of all of my graduate students who have worked so hard to let the world know about Esha Momeni’s situation and who stand here tonight asking that Esha be allowed to return to Cal State Northridge to finish her degree with her classmates.

I am especially proud of Esha – for the courage she has shown in order to share with us a seemingly simple message:

Iranian women are more complex and a lot tougher than the images we so often see of them.

We are not here tonight to offer Esha or any other Iranian woman our pity – but we offer our understanding and our solidarity and to share our hope that Esha be allowed to rejoin us soon to continue her academic work.

While we are happy she has been released from prison, Esha is still in Iran and still facing charges. Her parents put up the deed to their home so that she could be released on bail.

To help:

• Write a letter asking the Iranian government to drop all charges and allow Esha to return to California to complete her degree.  Based on the recommendations of the Observatory for Human Rights Defenders, consider the following text:
  

Please guarantee in all circumstances the physical and psychological integrity of Ms. Esha Momeni, and immediately drop all charges and unconditionally release Ms. Momeni. Her arrest was in connection with her peaceful activities in support of equal rights for women in Iran and in the context of her graduate research.   Please allow Ms. Momeni to return to the US without conditions to complete her academic work.

Send to:

Leader of the Islamic Republic, His Excellency Ayatollah Sayed Ali Khamenei, The Office of the Supreme Leader, Shoahada Street, Qom, Islamic Republic of Iran, Faxes: + 98.21.649.5880 / 21.774.2228, Email: info@leader.ir / istiftaa@wilayah.org / webmaster@wilayah.org

• Sign the online petition asking for her release
• Read the words of her friends and follow the latest news about her case at For Esha.
• Keep up with the Mass Comm graduate students working to free their classmate.

Esha Momeni released from Iranian prison — Vigil/Rally Still On

Kara, Vanessa and Seth filming

The vigil/rally to celebrate Esha’s release and call for her safe return to CSUN to complete her degree will take place Wed. Nov. 12 , at 4:30 p.m., Oviatt Library, Cal State Northridge. CSUN Mass Communication graduate students Kara Lawton, Anasa Sinegal and John Daquioag who organized the event, talk about their classmate.

Esha is still in Iran and still facing charges.  Her parents put up the deed to their home so that she could be released on bail.

To help:

• Write a letter asking the Iranian government to drop all charges and allow Esha to return to California to complete her degree.  Based on the recommendations of the Observatory for Human Rights Defenders, consider the following text:
  

Please guarantee in all circumstances the physical and psychological integrity of Ms. Esha Momeni, and immediately drop all charges and unconditionally release Ms. Momeni. Her arrest was in connection with her peaceful activities in support of equal rights for women in Iran and in the context of her graduate research.   Please allow Ms. Momeni to return to the US without conditions to complete her academic work.

Send to:

Leader of the Islamic Republic, His Excellency Ayatollah Sayed Ali Khamenei, The Office of the Supreme Leader, Shoahada Street, Qom, Islamic Republic of Iran, Faxes: + 98.21.649.5880 / 21.774.2228, Email: info@leader.ir / istiftaa@wilayah.org / webmaster@wilayah.org

• Sign the online petition asking for her release
• Read the words of her friends and follow the latest news about her case at For Esha.
• Keep up with the Mass Comm graduate students working to free their classmate.

This is for Esha

Our Mass Communications graduate students are taking a self-taught crash course in organizing as they feverishly work to host a candlelight vigil/rally Wednesday (Nov. 12) for their fellow classmate, Esha Momeni, still imprisoned in Iran for working on her master’s thesis about Iranian women.

It’s Saul Alinsky meets social networking as they combine traditional grass-roots techniques (tabling, handing out fliers, etc.)  with new media distribution and production capabilities (MySpace, YouTube, etc.)

They’ve spent nearly every hour this past week raising awareness on our campus as well as at UCLA, Cal State LA, Santa Monica College, Pierce College, Cal State Fullerton, Cal State Long Beach, and others. Even the quietest students have jumped into this effort, finding a voice they may not have known they have.

Local merchants have donated copying (40,000 fliers!) and offered reduced rates for printing the Free Esha posters (500) now dotting our campus and nearby businesses (some students are riding around with the posters in their car windows).   Faculty have contributed cash, expertise and moral support; some have squeezed their middle-aged selves into the highly sought after “Please Free Esha” T-shirts, which were also donated by a local business owner.  2,000 Please Free Esha stickers will soon flood the campus.

However dark these last three weeks have been, as our student and friend remains jailed in Tehran, they have not been weeks without meaning.   Our students have come together in ways they never have before, taking on new responsibilities and combining their creative and analytical skills in ways none of us would ever have imagined would be necessary.  And we have all come to appreciate the depth of the obstacles to understanding between two very different cultures that Esha so much wanted us all to overcome.

Things you can do to help:

• Please come to the vigil, 4:30 p.m. Wednesday Nov. 12 at the steps of Oviatt Library,  CSUN.  (University press release.)  See the Please Free Esha MySpace page for the latest info on the vigil.  Print your own vigil flier.
  
• Sign the online petition asking for her release
• Read the words of her friends and get news translated from Farsi at For Esha.
• Write a letter asking the Iranian government to free Esha.  Based on Amnesty International’s recommendations, consider the following text:
  

I am concerned with the arrest of Esha Momeni, and urge you to treat her humanely in detention, and protect her from torture or other ill-treatment.  Please provide her with immediate and regular access to her family, her lawyer and any medical treatment she may require.  Her arrest was in connection with her peaceful activities in support of equal rights for women in Iran and in the context of her graduate research.

Send to:

Leader of the Islamic Republic, His Excellency Ayatollah Sayed Ali Khamenei, The Office of the Supreme Leader, Shoahada Street, Qom, Islamic Republic of Iran, Faxes: + 98.21.649.5880 / 21.774.2228, Email: info@leader.ir / istiftaa@wilayah.org / webmaster@wilayah.org

Select news media coverage:

NBC Nightly News

CNN

CBS2

Daily News

LAT

Fox 11

AP

Chronicle of Higher Education

Inside Higher Ed