Save Sakineh!

Yes, save Sakineh. But let’s take advantage of this great mobilization and the media attention given to this symbolic case to ensure that civil society’s impact on world leaders doesn’t immediately fall off.

We must save all who suffer from torture; the boy-soldiers; the children of Gaza, cruelly murdered in their schools; those who die of hunger each day; the men, women and children who live in extreme poverty, without hope and neglected.

Let’s save Sakineh, but through constant use of citizen power and open and determined resistance let us help ensure that violations of human rights such as those committed in the prisons of Iraq, Afghanistan or Guantanamo are not repeated, so that not only this death penalty but all of the world’s death penalties may become a thing of the past, never to recur again. Let us be the global outcry that prevents the Iranian government from committing this abominable practice; an outcry that will continue so that many other women may obtain the emancipation they so desire.

We must take advantage of these cases that get so much media attention, even with the knowledge that they sometimes reflect hidden agendas, and commence a great transition from force to the word, from a culture of imposition and violence to a culture of understanding and conciliation.

We must change the world. With this permanent will to “intervene democratically”, we must achieve fewer investments in weapons and a lot more solidarity. So that the nations understand that the time of discretionary powers and the use of aberrant and inhumane procedures of coercion and influence have come to an end. This is the time for Humanity as a whole, and not the few who for centuries have held power, to take into their hands the reins of their common destiny.