Word - Freedom, please

Two dozen people held signs and shouted, “No foreign war,” and “Support a democratic regime change in Iran,” in Little Five Points on March 8. They were protesting terrorism and suppression of women by the governments in Iran and Iraq. The Iranian-American Community of Georgia organized the rally to call for new leadership in Iran and raise local awareness of the current repressive regime.

“Iran’s State Security Forces attacked female football fans ... after they held a defiant protest against the government decision to ban women from football stadiums. ... Within minutes, the security forces started to attack the teenage girls and young women. They were all forced into a bus and driven away.”

-- From a March 2 article posted on Iran Focus, a Middle East news service provider

“We will support freedom movements all around the world. We will work with groups that demand for people to be given the natural rights of men and women, and that right is to live in a free society.”

-- George W. Bush, as quoted in a Jan. 26 Reuters article, on helping Iranians secure a democratic government

“We want a democratic government in Iran. But we don’t want it by George Bush. We want to get it ourselves.”

-- Bahar Mirzai, a 15-year-old who came to protest in L5P after school