Unfortunately For Governments Like That Of Iran,

Once We Know Of Atrocities We Cannot Remain Silent, And Knowledge Inevitably Leads To An Urge To Protect The Innocent.

Do Not, Under Any Circumstances, Belittle A Work Of Fiction By Trying To Turn It Into A Carbon Copy Of Real Life; What We Search For In Fiction Is Not So Much Reality But The Epiphany Of Truth.

I Would Like To Say How Much I Resent People Who Say Of The Islamic Republic That This Is Our Culture - As If Women Like To Be Stoned To Death, Or As If They Like To Be Married At The Age Of Nine.

I Believe That It Is Only Through Empathy, That The Pain Experienced By An Algerian Woman, A North Korean Dissident, A Rwandan Child Or An Iraqi Prisoner, Becomes Real To Me And Not Just Passing News. And It Is At Times Like This When I Ask Myself, Am I Prepared - Like Huck Finn - To Give Up Sunday School Heaven For The Kind Of Hell That Huck Chose?

Thus The Regime Has Deprived Iranian Women Not Just Of Their Present Rights, But Also Of Their History And Their Past.