Iran: Amnesty International Nowruz (Persian New Year) Action - SEND CARDS TODAY!

March 2016

     Nowruz "new day/daylight" is the traditional Iranian festival of spring which starts at the exact moment of the vernal equinox, commencing the start of Spring and Iranian New Year. For the last several years, Amnesty International in US (AI-USA) has taken Nowruz Action to bring comfort and show solidarity and support to prisoners of conscience (POC) in Iran and their families. Unfortunately, many of Iranian POC will not be able to celebrate this holiday with their families / friends. Therefore, it is especially important to remind POC during Nowruz that they are not forgotten. 

     AI-USA has selected seven (7) POC cases to honor the tradition of the Haft Seen where (7) items representing Spring Time and whose first letter is the Persian Seen (equivalent to the English S) are set on Haft Seen Table. The seven POC for this year include: Seven leaders of Iran’s Baha’i community; physicist Omid Kokabee; human rights defender Narges Mohammadi; journalist Hossein Ronaghi Maleki; artist Atena Farghadani; student and women’s rights activist Bahareh Hedayat, and human rights attorney Abdolfattah Soltani. 

     Please take the Nowruz Action from the AI-USA web site and send Nowruz cards to 7 POC and their families:
http://www.amnestyusa.org/pdfs/Nowruz_action_2016.pdf

     It is important that the Iranian authorities notice the international support for all POC in Iran and that the world is watching them.
     FYI, Amnesty International Group 22 (Pasadena/Caltech) and activists from AI-Belgium and AI-Austria are planning a vigil on behalf of Narges Mohammadi on her birthday, April 21, 2016. The twitter hashtag for the action is ‪#‎UnitedforNarges‬  

Thank you for taking Nowruz Action on behalf of 7 POC in Iran.
Happy Nowruz,
Azam Niroomand-Rad,
Coordinator, AI-USA Group 139, Madison, WI

*Note: Here is a folder with some Nowruz Celebration images that could be used for YOUR card.