"To All Iranians Who Voted for Ahmadinejad"

niacINsight reports:

11:47 am: A reader, Hooman, passed on this letter, which he translated:

To All Iranians Who Voted for Ahmadinejad

I don’t know how many of you who read my blog voted for Ahmadinejad. I know three of you who did. Do you know why I have never asked? Because elections mean just this — you vote for Ahmadinejad, I vote for Mousavi, and someone even votes for Googoosh [a famous Iranian singer].

So, we all are worthy of respect. Last week, a large number of our countrymen developed some doubts about the results of the election. Simply doubts. They took to the streets and asked that the election be re-done. Today, they are being killed. As long as it was only their protest, you had no responsibility for the situation. You had cast your own vote. But today, it is your right too that is being squandered. Through these killings, your precious vote is being questioned as well. Today, it is your turn to ask for new elections. You know that with a margin of 10 million votes, you will always end up victorious. So let the doubts be put to rest. Let us not allow anyone to die.

I have not stopped shedding tears today. It is not important to me who the dead that I see before me are — whether or not they think like me. I only know that they are my countrymen. My countrymen and yours. A countryman is very dear. Believe me. I swear that if Mousavi had won, and you were in the streets today, and someone was forcing blood from your nose, I would have taken to the street. I swear to my loved ones that I would have come.

I don’t vote so that blood may fall from anyone’s nose. I respect the development of my nation. The sound of your cries of pain in our mother-tongue would destroy something deep inside me, such that the wounds would never heal. If you read my blog, go. In these thirty years, this is the first time that such doubts have been raised. And these doubts destroy your rights too.

I feel that today it is no longer important who you or I voted for. We didn’t vote for these events. We didn’t vote for killings. If a new election can calm our nation — avoid the loss of the forty lives we are losing every day — keep our votes alive — then why not? I refuse to believe that 24 million of my countrymen have no problem with the killing of the rest of the country. I know that you too are crying. You too cannot even open your eyes. You too did not vote for death. Please come. I am afraid.

link: niacINsight