Nazanin Afshin-Jam is what is known in the New Millennium as a triple threat. Drop dead gorgeous, artistically talented as a singer and is also a super brainiac with a mission.Exiled in Canada from her native Persia - Nazanin is using her 2003 Miss Canada bona fides to take on the intolerant time traveling mullahs and their regime that have strangled her homeland almost to death.
I was born in a country where I am not allowed to sing or perform.I was born in a country where I am not allowed to wear what I want. I was born in a country where I would be killed for my religious beliefs.
I was born in a country where I would be tortured for advocating democracy.I was born in a country where, as a woman, my life is considered worth half of a mans.
I was born in Iran.
The year I was born, a revolution took place in my birth place. The country changed names from Iran to the "Islamic Republic of Iran". Women were immediately forced to veil themselves. Since that time there have been gross violations of human rights. While it is one of the richest countries in the world, millions are below the poverty line and children are forced to work instead of going to school.
Iran is the only country in the world that officially continues to execute children. This must end immediately. I have started a campaign to help end executions of minors. Now I need your help.
Under its repressive clerical regime, Iran regularly sentences women to death by stoning for crimes such as adultery, executes children and has a president who claims it has no gays. Arbitrary decisions occur regularly.
Last week for example, a female student who alleged that a senior male lecturer had sexually harassed her was arrested for 'publicising a crime' when she and fellow students protested against the incident.
The dismal state of Iran's human rights - which includes the regime's hostility towards ethnic minorities such as the Ahwazi Arabs of Khuzestan province and religious minorities such as the Bahai - makes it obvious that international attention is needed.
Britain's Foreign & Commonwealth Office agrees. Its Office Annual Human Rights Report of 2007 was particularly damning of Iran's record in this regard, stating that "Against a global decreasing trend in the use of the death penalty, the total number of executions in Iran is increasing year on year.
Iran remains second only to China (whose population is over 15 times the size of Iran's) in terms of total number of executions", concluding that "Iran is in clear breach of its international obligations under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) and the Convention on the Rights of the Child."
