One

Talking about withering a leaf is not enough/ Oh! They turn the forest into a desert/ They hide the blood-stained hands in front of people’s eyes/ No animal has the right to do this to another animal/ What these cowards do with human lives. – Fereydoun Moshiri

As you heard, the trees on Vali Asr street were cut down by the municipality, from the roots – not all of them, of course. At that time, people were so demanding for the officials to be accountable through Facebook that you would think liking and posting statuses could not only cure cancer patients, but also take Mohammad Bagher back to the golden age before the elections and his presidential candidacy. In our friendly and brotherly country of Turkey – for now, at least – despite the presence of people in the streets and their 8-hour “sit-in” in front of Ataturk’s symbol, the Erdogan brothers are still standing behind the scenes with their axes, ready to chop and destroy like Apaches. Of course, it’s not easy to fool the people; after all, we all remember very well what happens in this country with a living fabric that breathes and has eyes and ears. Surely, a mindset that proudly teaches the physical elimination of humans cannot digest protesting against

Two

“Since in these eight years, the political atmosphere in the country has become more and more open, many people in Iran have seen the continuation of this trend alongside the closure of prisons and the release of hundreds of political prisoners who do not have any foreign ties, and the lack of support for terrorist activities in the world, and Iran’s popularity in the international community, and the transparency of two consecutive elections, as well as an economic growth of over 22%, inflation of -8%, and an employment rate of 5.7 million people per year, and the indebtedness of all Western and Eastern countries to the Islamic Republic, and of course the 12-rial dollar, it is better for them to leave the country as soon as possible for an unknown destination. The reason for this is that the Iranian people are not used to being too happy and they become restless.”

Three

For a teenager who was mistakenly – not intentionally – put in solitary confinement for 5 days in America and was forgotten by everyone, and was getting sick from thirst and hunger, 4 million dollars, equivalent to 14,000,000,000 tomans, was considered as compensation. I was thinking, God forbid, if one day it was decided to give such compensations to Iranian prisoners for days of mistreatment, torture, humiliation, and hunger strikes, would its budget be several times the embezzlement of 3,000,000,000,000 tomans?