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Dubai: Iranian Blogger Omid Reza Mirsayafi Remembered

Categories: Middle East & North Africa, Iran, United Arab Emirates, Digital Activism, Freedom of Speech, Governance, Human Rights, Ideas

About 40 young people from all four corners of the world came together in a cafe in Dubai and remembered the first anniversary of the death of Iranian Omid Reza Mirsayafi [1], the first blogger to die in prison. The meeting also reflected on the March 18 Movement [2], OR318, via art.

Junkie, a team member of March 18 explained [3]the planning of this meeting saying:

I was thinking of organising a Tweetup (and arranging for a community-made art piece for the Movement on Thursday, 18 March.
The art piece would comprise of a large canvas where supporters of the movement can gather and express what freedom of speech means to them. They can use any conceivable medium – pictures, drawings, poetry, or even a plain ol’ simple “I want free speech. kthxbai” scrawled across the canvas to convey their messages.

Here are [4] some of these art creations.

Against censorship

or3181

or3182

For Freedom of Expression

or3183

Here is a video film showing the event in Dubai:

OR318 -March 18 Movement – Dubai Edition [5] from Areeba Hanif [6] on Vimeo [7].

March 18 Movement uses animations [8] to reach out to a large and young audience. Its second animation [9] already received 75,000 hits. It was featured on the global homepage of YouTube on the 12th of March.