RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://issuesinsights.com/2020/05/09/choice-for-iranian-prisoners-die-silently-or-die-in-the-open/

‘Reza, did you hear how many people got Corona in Evin?”

A chill ran up my spine as I read this message from an Iranian friend on the popular Telegram app. The reference to Evin Prison took me back to one and half years ago when I was imprisoned there for my political activities.

Evin, in northern Tehran, is one of the most notorious prisons in Iran, and it houses many of the country’s political prisoners. From what I knew about its awful conditions, it was very easy for me to imagine how the corona outbreak would amplify the preexisting human catastrophe.

Iran is one of the countries most severely affected by corona. Government aid to the people has been close to zero. And prisoners, especially political prisoners, are defenseless.

I, was 29 years old and an activist with the main Iranian opposition movement, the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (MEK) in the summer of 2018, when the Ministry of Intelligence had me and a close friend arrested for installing a banner depicting Mrs. Maryam Rajavi, president-elect of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (which includes the MEK as its main constituent organization) on a major bridge in Tehran. After our arrest, we were immediately taken to solitary confinement in Ward 209 of Evin Prison.

I spent months in a 6-meter solitary confinement cell with a dirty carpet, no sanitation, and a constantly dripping tap that sounded to me like the ticking of a clock. It seemed to count down the seconds until the next time I would be taken for a long interrogation, at which point I never knew what fate awaited me.

Interrogations could come at any time, day or night, as could intrusive checks by prison guards. Throughout my detention, I never once had access to the open air of the yard. All this multiplied my sense of limitation, especially in the solitary confinement.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/carlieporterfield/2020/05/08/heres-what-the-75th-anniversary-of-ve-day-looks-like-during-coronavirus/#38e2527f5d43

Friday marked the 75th anniversary of Nazi Germany’s surrender to the Allied forces and the end of World War II in Europe, but the coronavirus pandemic cast a shadow over memorials as the virus rendered large-scale celebrations too dangerous—especially for the war’s surviving veterans, now mostly in their 90s.

On Friday in Britain, Prince Charles led the country in a moment of silence, and military jets were flown over the U.K.’s four capital cities—and while residents are largely still housebound under the nationwide stay-at-home order, many families held tea parties, 40s-style, to mark the date.

In Paris, President Emmanuel Macron laid a wreath at the Arc de Triomphe at a sparse memorial service—the nearby Avenue des Champs-Élysées, usually bustling with shoppers and tourists, was nearly empty.

German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier, Chancellor Angela Merkel and other government leaders kept their distance as they laid wreaths at Berlin’s Neue Wache, Germany’s memorial to victims of war.

President Donald Trump was joined by eight World War II veterans for a wreath-laying ceremony in Washington, D.C., but observed social distancing measures—with the youngest veteran in attendance clocking in at age 96, the group is particularly at risk for coronavirus complications.

https://apnews.com/a86aa84df7a2ae97adcc91cb52975f11

YAKUTSK, Russia (AP) — On the 75th anniversary of the allied victory in the World War II, The Associated Press spoke to veterans in ex-Soviet countries and discovered that lessons they learned during the war are helping them cope with a new major challenge — the coronavirus pandemic. As they recalled the horrors of the war, they also talked about how strength and tenacity were key to survival both then and now. Here is some of their testimony.

For Russian World War II veteran Valentina Efremova, the coronavirus pandemic is like going through the war all over again.

After the war, the 96-year-old said, “our lives were improving, year after year. And suddenly there’s this pandemic, which is like another war … this time, a biological one.”

But Efremova knows better than to panic and believes the outbreak — just like the Nazis back in the 1940s — will be defeated in the end. “Giving in to panic is like surrendering to the enemy,” she said.