July 25th, 2009 was a  'Global Day of Action in Unity with the People of Iran.' In that spirit, Pantea's Roses was built to show solidarity of artists and writers with the people of Iran.

Countless horror stories have arisen out of Iran these past few weeks, each one worse than the last.  This action was finally prompted by the confession of an ex-Basiji in the Guardian, who under orders 'married' virgins so that they could be executed. Since then, the posting of a young Iranian woman's rape, the knowledge that 36 officers of the Iranian army were arrested for supporting protesters of the Iranian regime, and reports of other increasing brutality make our voices even more important.  This escalating terror - hidden from our view - needs to be acknowledged.

Pantea's Roses intends to be a simple show of solidarity, of shared humanity, with the mothers, fathers and children, the artists, academics and working people of Iran.  Considering the importance the internet has been to the Iranian people's communication with the outside world,  a net action take place is particularly appropriate.

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Pantea, 'Commander of the Immortal Guards' - Achaemenids Dynasty, was an important and sensitive military commander of Cyrus the Great, and the wife of General Aryasb the Achaemenid's Arteshbod; the red rose is the national flower of Iran.

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To add your voice to this action,  select the 'create account' link to the right hand side of the screen, You'll then be able to create a page.  When creating a page, use your full name in the title page. In the text box, you may upload images, or past text into the box.  A warning, .doc files carry unneccessary coding, please convert your files to rtf or plain text format before pasting.  If you have any problems, simply email your work to roses@panteasroses.com and I'll post it.

Thank you and regards,
Deb King

The site will be heavily mediated to avoid spam.