Photo: a still shot of Nasrin Sotoudeh from Jafar Panahi’s film ‘Taxi’ Panahi was sentenced to six years in prison (later changed to house arrest, and included a twenty year ban on film making) in Iran for making a film about the unrest that followed the disputed re-election of the president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Sotoudeh is a human rights lawyer imprisoned in Iran.
“At no time have governments been moralists. They never imprisoned people and executed them for having done something. they imprisoned and executed them to keep them from doing something.” Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
The Silenced Are Loud Everywhere the silenced call out at great cost about the emperor's new clothes, for the price of a beating, rape, imprisonment, financial ruin or death they invest openly in criticising empty platitudes, plastic ideals, the lies of ego, the lust for power, the rabid desire for authority over the tides and times of history's march without a care for anyone or anything in this world, everywhere the silenced are loud for humanity. Copyright 2022 ©Paul Vincent Cannon All Rights Reserved ®
parallax 
Years ago my husband was assigned to Tehran and just before the S hit the fan it was called off and we stayed in the US.
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lucky break I’d say
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Yes. One of those “somebody up there’s watching” times
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Yes
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Oh yes
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So many of them, brutalised, hidden.
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So many. God bless them. 🙏
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Yes, we need them
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Jafar Panahi is one of my fav filmmakers, it’s sad how the govt. put a ban! The poem is heartfelt and exposes the brutality and hegemony of dictatorial regimes. Thanks for sharing.
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Thank you so much Tanya, your comment is very much appreciated. I struggle with governments everywhere who only care for power and self-interest and where they cafe little for critical thinking and creativity. There are so many of them in prisons now, just awful.
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True it’s really awful, but I salute the courage of such artists, filmmakers and writers who risk their lives for art!
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Yes indeed, they are true heroes
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We in the US are so rabid about our Constitutional right to free speech that we tend to forget that other people in the world don’t have that right, far from it.
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Too true, although our courts protect a form of freedom of speech – it is not explicit in our constitution at all, but when you look at China, Vietnam, El Salvador, Uganda, it is non-existent, and that horrifies me.
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I couldn’t agree more.
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👍
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That quotation is a gotcha. Yes! The images are so loud they ring in my head constantly.
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Yes, the sheer frustration knowing that there are so many of them.
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And we can do so little!
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Yes, grrr
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True! Ugly reality.
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Sadly there are many of them.
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Yes
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An extremely powerful poem Paul, that openly depicts the evil ways of dictators and their regimes .. ☮🤗🌏
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It seems that we are never rid of these cretins, thank you so much for that Ivor.
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Keep being loud.
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Thank you so much for that 🙂 (In other news, I’m buying a bull-horn)
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such a painful unspeakable reality well penned Paul. excuse me while I go throw up. 😡
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Yes, it really is vile, if only these power mongers could see that their broken ways affect so many.
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I totally agree! 💖🌈
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Reblogged this on NEW BLOG HERE >> https:/BOOKS.ESLARN-NET.DE.
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Very kind, thank you Michael
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Thank God that they are loud we need these voices now as always – their courage challenges me as does your poem
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We certainly need some loud action now, thank you.
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