Best Of: Iran: Building a movement for rights in exile

While Strength&Solidarity is on a break we’re taking the chance to re-up some favourite episodes.

Last April, in Episode 51, I talked with Negin Shiraghaei, founder of Azadi Network, about her work to build a network for Iranians in the diaspora – as a common space for advancing human rights and democracy at home. She talked about the complexity of the task, and the value of embracing lessons from failure.

Here's the orginal show notes:

In the quarter century since Iran’s Islamic revolution, thousands of Iranians have left their home to live in exile. Although they all have a country in common, that diaspora is hugely diverse – coming from different generations and with a wide range of origin stories, political allegiances and views about the change they would like to see in Iran. When in 2022 a young woman in Iran was beaten and killed by the morality police for wearing her hijab incorrectly, anger across the exile community suggested favorable  conditions for a diaspora movement for rights in Iran to emerge. But what form should such a movement take? The founder and co-director of Azadi Network, Negin Shiraghaei, reflects on the choices she and other organizers faced as they took up that challenge.

And in the Coda, Turkish eco-activist Burcu Meltem Arik shares a poem by Nazim Hikmet reminding us of what nature can teach us about resilience. Music Credit: Ben Sığmazam by Özge Arslan, 2023

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