By Alireza Bahrami
TEHRAN: A new issue of the “Asre Rowshan” magazine has been published in Iran. In this magazine, there is a protest against the murder of a journalist years ago and the murder of a poet in the Israeli attack on Iran.
Part of the Asre Rowshan magazine is about the death of Parniya Abbasi, a young Iranian poet. This 24-year-old girl was killed in her sleep on the first night of the Israeli attack on Tehran, along with her 15-year-old brother and her parents.
Iranian poets, in cooperation with AJA (Asian Journalists Association) members, held a memorial service for her at the “House of Iranian Artists”.
Now, the magazine has published articles by her relatives and friends and messages from Lee Sang-ki and Ashraf Abul-Yazid, former AJA Presidents. There is also a message from the Greek President of the World Poets Association.
An article has also been published about Liliana Abreu, a Portuguese musician and social activist. She has been working to end the hunger of children in Gaza for several months. She sent her photos to Asre Rowshan, which have been published.
A section of the magazine is also about a poetry reading ceremony in Washington, DC. Sepideh Jodeyri (Iranian-American) and Samar Najia (Palestinian-American) spent several weeks writing a joint poem for the children of Gaza. They recited it at a ceremony in Washington.
They invited Alireza Bahrami, a poet living in Tehran and a member of AJA, to send a message for the ceremony. His message and their joint poem have been published in Asre Rowshan.
But several articles in this issue of Asre Rowshan are about Hossein Fatemi. He was a courageous journalist. When a nationalist prime minister named Mohammad Mossadegh was elected about 75 years ago, he introduced him as foreign minister. They nationalized Iran’s oil industry. The American and British governments engineered a coup in Iran. After the coup was successful, Fatemi was executed by a firing squad. He was 37 years old and had been a target for assassination twice in the months before his execution, but he survived them both.
Fatemi is a symbol of courageous and fearless journalism in Iran. In these articles, the authors have praised him and protested his execution … 71 years later.
