IRAN: A distress signal via Facebook

Amid the notifications prodding me to become a vampire or a zombie and one-line shout-outs from friends around the world, the plea for help on the social networking website Facebook stood out starkly.

The message, written in all capitals to underscore its urgency, came from Pooya Dayanim, an Iranian American living in the Los Angeles area:

TURKISH AUTHORITIES HAVE ARRESTED AMIR-FARSHAD EBRAHIMI, A PROMINENT GERMAN-BASED IRANIAN JOURNALIST ON CHARGES THAT HE COLLABORATED WITH THE FBI IN THE FLIGHT OF A PROMINENT IRANIAN OFFICIAL LAST YEAR. TURKISH AUTHORITIES HAVE ADVISED MR. EBRAHIMI THAT IN ORDER TO AVOID ANOTHER SIMILAR INCIDENT THEY ARE DEPORTING HIM IN THE NEXT FEW HOURS BACK TO IRAN WHERE HE WILL SURELY BE TORTURED AND EXECUTED.

Held for nearly 18 hours at Istanbul's Ataturk airport, Iranian blogger and dissident Ebrahimi was ultimately allowed to leave Turkey for Germany, as I describe in today's story.

But it took a lot of work to make sure he wasn't sent to Iran, Dayanim said in a conversation afterward.

Dayanim said he went into action after he recieved a distressed call from Ebrahimi, who was terrified that he was about to be deported back to Iran, as demanded by Iranian officials.

"Once I heard, I sent out e-mails, telephone calls, Facebook, whatever it took," he said.

President of the Iranian Jewish Public Affairs Committee, Dayanim is a political activist who has been helping dissidents inside and outside Iran for a decade. He e-mailed contacts at the State Deptartment, the National Security Council and the office of Vice President Dick Cheney.

He put Ebrahimi on a conference call with Henri Wooster, the Farsi-speaking head of the State Department's Iran Affairs desk "so he could hear for himself how Ebrahimi sounded."

At 3:30 a.m. Friday morning, Dayanim said the State Department dispatched an official from the American consulate in Istanbul to the airport. "That's when things changed for Ebrahimi, once the State Department official came," he said. 

Dayanim says he sent me the Facebook message late Thursday night because "without the media involved, the speed at which things happen is very slow."

— Borzou Daragahi in Damascus

Photo: Amir Farshad Ebrahimi. Credit: Ebrahimi's blog 

Comments

[H. Brown]

These dissidents.

Didn't we learn a lesson from the Iraqi dissidents. Most of them turn out to be charlatans trying to exploit the situation.

I wonder if this guy proclaims to have adegree in chemical engineering too.

[Robin W.]

So One can conclude the backing for Amir Farshad Ebrahimi as an FBI-agent comes the State Deptartment, the National Security Council and the office of Vice President Dick Cheney. So he must more than just an FBI agent. So of course the Turkish government doesn't want trouble by allowing an American spy in its soil.

[Mohanad]

The current Turkish government has a lot to catch up with. They have been trying for years to mend their relations with Tehran as if ties to both Iran and the U.S. could be reconciled. The same could be said about Qatar, Iran's "friend" in the Middle East, who also happen to host the largest American base in the region. Political Amphibians!