We received the following update from the International Emergency Campaign to Free Iran’s Political Prisoners NOW!
Campaign Update July 3, 2021

Ariel Dorfman: We should not let the prisoners down

Publish Emergency Appeal in NY Review of Books
You are needed to help raise $15,000 by July 16

July 5, 2021 | revcom.us

 

A brutal campaign of arrests, torture and executions is taking place in Iran. The lives and dignity of hundreds of political prisoners are in imminent, mortal danger. This emergency has only intensified with the election of Ebrahim Raisi.

We must rally to their defense and raise $15,000 by July 16 to publish a full-page color ad of our Emergency Appeal—The Lives of Iran’s Political Prisoners Hang in the Balance—We Must ACT Now—on the back cover of the August edition of the prestigious New York Review of Books (NYRB) and advertise our campaign in their online editions.

The NYRB reaches a crucial audience of writers, artists, intellectuals and caring, thinking people. Its paid circulation is over 130,000, its online audience is over 1,350,000 unique visitors a month, and it has a history of championing the rights of dissidents.

Publishing the Emergency Appeal prominently in the NYRB would boldly put this under-reported emergency into the public square, give heart to the prisoners, their loved ones, and many other Iranians, and exert pressure on Iran’s Islamic Republic to free them.

Renowned author, playwright and human rights activist Ariel Dorfman powerfully captures the Emergency Appeal’s importance and impact:

If I have signed on to the Emergency Campaign to Free Political Prisoners in Iran, it is because I know that this initiative will effectively call attention to the situation of men and women in that country who, if enough pressure is brought to bear on its leaders, could tomorrow be liberated from terrible conditions and extraordinary injustice. And even if those leaders do not listen, I am convinced—from personal experience—that the prisoners themselves are given strength to survive and persevere, they are listening. They know others, faraway, care what happens to them, and we should not let them down.

Publishing the Emergency Appeal in the pages of the NYRB will declare to the world “We Will NOT Let Them Down!” and inspire many more to join us.