Jafar Panahi: Inspiration from Iran
Image via Wikipedia There is a time to unblock Facebook. Tomorrow is one of them. History and a most admirable defense of democratic ideals has happened as Iranian Filmmaker Jafar Panahi delivered his defense last week in an Iranian court. He cross posted his words on his Facebook page and now these words have been reprinted in the New York Times and other locations. He divides his speech into two parts "what they say" and "what I say." This will definitely be assigned reading for a blog post in my eighth grade class early next week, aptly, the week of Thanksgiving. He was arrested earlier this year while 30% through filming something that a local paper called "an anti-state film" and was held for three months of detention without trial in Evin prison in Tehran. He held a hunger strike and was released on $200,000 bond in May of this year. Perhaps if we want students to understand freedom and the price that is paid where freedom of speech does no...