Last month I attended the Forum on the Human Rights Situation in Iran, hosted by the Women’s Freedom Forum.  Since then, I have an increased awareness of the human rights situation in Iran.  During the Forum, US-based Iranian activists showed several clandestine video recordings of activists being tortured and hung and Hon. David Kilgour, a former Canadian parliamentarian and current human rights advocate, spoke on an upcoming UN resolution Canada had co-sponsored.

This story in the New York Times talks about the arrest of activist Nobel Peace Prize laureate Shirin Ebadi.  Iranian  authorities also

“shut down her Center for Defenders of Human Rights, a coalition of human rights groups and other political activists whose members were planning to celebrate the 60th anniversary of United Nations Declaration on Human Rights.”

This comes amidst a growing number of crackdowns in Iran on activists and bloggers.  What is the next step for the international community?  I think this is an especially troubling question given the Bush Administration’s thinly-veiled designs on invading Iran next.  It reminds me of the invasion of Afghanistan in the early stages of the “War on Terror,” after years of unheeded activism by feminists decrying the Taliban regime.  I think the Afghanistan case proves that motivation definitely defines outcome.