JOHN COSTELLO / Staff Photographer A haunting role: Aghdashloo stars in the film that indicts the Islamic Republic’s treatment of women.

Shohreh Aghdashloo says she was born to play the storyteller in "The Stoning of Soraya M."

Shohreh Aghdashloo's face will haunt you long after you walk out of the Iranian-born actress' stunning new film, The Stoning of Soraya M.

Based on French-Iranian journalist Freidoune Sahebjam's 1994 best-seller and directed by Cyrus Nowrasteh, Stoning is the disturbing true story of a young woman stoned to death in a rural village in Iran after being falsely accused of adultery.

A devastating indictment of the Islamic Republic's treatment of women, the film's first scenes establish an emotional intensity that never lets down.

Aghdashloo, who plays Soraya's bereft aunt Zahra, kneels down beside a stream, gathering what look like human bones. Framed by an unruly wave of thick black hair, her face is wild. Twisted with anguish. Mad with grief.

After lovingly washing what we later discover are Soraya's bones, Zahra piles them up in a small burial mound. (Because of her alleged sin, Soraya was denied burial and left to be eaten by wild dogs.)

Aghdashloo's powerhouse on-screen presence belies her petite 5-foot-5 stature. Dressed in an elegant and simple black dress, the actress, 57, best known for her Oscar-nominated role in 2003's House of Sand and Fog and her controversial turn as a terrorist mother in 24, played the gracious host in her small suite in the Sofitel in Center City.

The actress said her next film, Mona's Dream, tackles Iran's persecution of Baha'is. It's the true story of a 16-year-old Baha'i girl hanged in 1983.

She said that like Stoning, "it's not a political movie, it's a humanitarian movie."

Events in Iran, where unprecedented numbers have protested the reelection of hard-line president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, have eerily shadowed the film's message and imagery.

Critics have remarked on the parallels between Soraya's bloody face and that of Neda Agha-Soltan, the 26-year-old woman shot during a demonstration five days before Stoning opened on Friday.

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Daniela recently wrote a guest post about the ‘official’ Baha’i guidance regarding the protest movement in Iran: Don’t Speak Out for Them. There she quoted the UK NSA’s guidance to Baha’is to keep mum about the developments in Iran.

I already linked to a similar message from the NSA of the USA. To summarize:

“the believers should be guided lovingly and firmly to distance themselves from either public or private commentary”.

And there are similar letters from all NSA’s around the world. Which means that this is a coordinated effort from the UHJ/ITC but for some reason it was deemed more prudent for the individual NSA’s to write similar letters rather than just one from Haifa.

In any case, it seems that Baha’is are ignoring such directives.

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While Ayatollah Khomeini was in exile in Najaf in 1970, he said:

This slogan of the separation of religion and politics and the demand that Islamic scholars not intervene in social and political affairs has been formulated and propagated by the imperialists; it is only the irreligious who repeat them. Were religion and politics separate in the time of the Prophet? Did there exist on one side a group of clerics, and opposite it, a group of politicians and leaders? (As cited by Nader Hashemi)

The answer to the Ayatollah is, Yes: in the time of the Prophet there were several groups of political leaders: in Medina, in Mecca, and in the neighbouring kingdoms and city-states. Muhammad knew them, corresponded with them, and treated them with respect, and did not seek to overthrow them. Perhaps there was no group of clerics as we now know them, but there was an Islamic religious leadership, comprising Muhammad himself, `Ali, and the various believers designated as prayer leaders and as teachers of the recitation of the Quran. There were also Jewish and Christian religious leaders, whose authority Muhammad did not seek to undermine.

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What follows was posted to a UK-based mailing list called “Iran Press Watch: the Baha’i Community”.

I’ve been following it closely, as it contains precious information on the persecution of Iranian Baha’is. In the beginning, I had mixed feelings about it. I suspected it of being a Baha’i propaganda tool disguised as an independent media watch, which disturbed me.

I would see nothing wrong in Baha’is openly protesting against the treatment we get in Iran. Then why not state it clearly?

But in recent weeks, my prejudices started to melt away, as Iran Press Watch’s posts started to warm up to the opposition’s protest.

I even kind of hoped for a new official attitude against the regime. I dreamt of seeing Baha’u'llah’s fiery words to the Shiite clerics launched as rockets against the bearded and turbaned oppressors.

...a crackdown on those who side with those we ask to side with us when we’re the ones being beaten up or dragged to prison.

Would we, in the end, take our right place “in the forefront of all progressive movements”?

Alas, here comes the clarion call. Announcing a crackdown on those who side with those we ask to side with us when we’re the ones being beaten up or dragged to prison.

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To: The Respected President of the Guinness Book of World Records

Dear Sir,

We would like to nominate Iran for consideration as the world record holder with respect to the nineteen (19) accomplishments below:

1. Iran is the first country in the world to label over 400,000 followers of the same religions as spies.
2. Iran is the first country in the world where spies are freely and openly going about their lives and the government is not apprehensive about them.  However, once in a while, a few of these spies are arrested in order to keep the government militia from boredom; then the spies are interrogated for a few months so that interrogators may gain experience.  Sometimes, spies are tortured for the practice of the torturers.  Ultimately, a few face firing squads for testing of the guns.
3. Iran is the first country in which spies are born as spies.  There is no need for the courts to prove the allegations against them since they are innately convicts from birth.  They have no rights; therefore, there is no need to consider their civil rights when bringing charges against them.
4. Iran is the first country where if spies recant their faith and convert to Islam, they are no longer spies, but are considered saved.

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Dear friends,

our sites were under serious attacks that left us unable to publish entries on our sites, and later took the entire sites down for as much as an entire week.

We apologize for the very few updates that we were able to generate during May and June. This is due to the fact that our sites were under serious attacks that left us unable to publish entries on our sites, and later took the entire sites down for as much as an entire week. We have been very busy trying to get our sites back up and did not realize that it would take this long, however the process is now thankfully complete.

We want to assure you that we are working hard still, we did not disappear, and soon you will see our efforts again as we focus on videos and comics in the near future.

Thank you all for your patience and support. Hackers may be able to slow us down, but they will not be able to stop us from our activities. Our efforts for Baha’i rights will remain consistent.

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While no one knows what the end game is for the massive protests that have roiled Iran this past week, everyone is noticing the parallels with the Islamic Revolution of 1979.

The irony is not lost on those in power in the current regime. If anything it heightens the stress they feel. For 30 years they have convinced themselves that threats would only come from the ‘evil’ external forces of Britain, USA and the like. They can not believe that their own people are against them.

Of course they are trying to paint the demonstrators as agents of foreign powers, manipulated into protesting. But this only serves to intensify the rage of the Iranian people on the street.

The only thing I have is a gut feeling that things will get worse – much worse – before improving.

A red line has been crossed and the game has changed. While Mousavi is an old guard and wants to maintain the existing power structures and work within them, the movement has morphed beyond this.

There are now open cries of ‘Death to Khamanei’… something absolutely unheard of before. What is more, as the legitimacy and supremacy of the Supreme Leader is being assailed by loud and boisterous protesters on the street, a much more insidious threat is approaching from Qom.

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Eighty dancers suspended from the Poughkeepsie Railroad Bridge. Check out the wild and ambitious upcoming work of Baha'i choreographer Aly Rose. http://www.human-architecture.org/WhatisOne.php

The project can also be found on Facebook.

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