Iran is Not Done Surprising Us
June 4, 2014
Iran: Halt Execution of 33 Sunnis
June 13, 2014
Arseh Sevom — UPDATE October 31: If you are looking for the October newsletter, click here. It’s been a busy time at Arseh Sevom. We received an honorable mention for the Ars Electronica Digital Communities award. We redesigned our website to make it easier to find content. We issued the 2013 annual report. Despite some setbacks, everyone at Arseh Sevom has put in extra volunteer time to make sure we can continue to grow and flourish. The team kept writing, working on projects, and building our networks.
Board President Bert Taken had this to say in the opening letter for Arseh Sevom’s 2013 Annual Report:
“Civil society is pushing the door open wider. Every day people in Iran are working for a better society. They are raising their voices against environmental degradation, forced hijab, and poverty. They are working to make sure medication reaches people in need. They are fighting for justice and demanding their rights.”
In 2013, Arseh Sevom saw a 125% increase in website visitors. We created 4 important publications in Persian covering elections, the Cyrus Cylinder and the origin of human rights, writing and style, and 100 Iranian NGOs.
Arseh Sevom is pleased to announce that we have received an honorary mention from Ars Electronica for our digital work. Arseh Sevom was one of 2,703 projects from 77 countries nominated for consideration for a Prix Ars Electronica prize in 2014.
http://prix2014.aec.at/prixwinner/13533/
Prix Ars Electronica: Honorable Mention for Arseh Sevom
Ars Electronica Golden Nicas
Prix Ars Electronica is the oldest and most well-known competition for media art in the world. Awards are issued for several categories. Arseh Sevom was nominated for the Digital Communities award. In that category, the Golden Nica (the name of the award for the top winners), two awards of distinction, and twelve honorary mentions were given. Arseh Sevom was given an honorary mention.
It was a great honor for Arseh Sevom to receive a nomination, and an even greater honor to be recognized with an honorary mention. We were especially honored to be in such good company for the Digital Communities award. Other honorary mentions in our category include Global Voices and Syria Untold. The Golden Nica award was given to Project Fumbaro Eastern Japan, a grassroots volunteer platform in Japan, designed to deal with the needs that arose after the 2011 earthquake.
Our New Site
Over the past few months, Arseh Sevom worked on creating a site that would be easy to use, responsive, and highlight content in a way that made it more useful and accessible. In June, we launched the new site. Make sure to take a look and let us know what you think.
This month, we urge you to read an archived interview with Antonia Bertschinger. At the time of the interview, she was working with the Swiss section of Amnesty International. She had this to say about human rights work and why it attracted her:
“I always knew I wanted to work in an international environment and had some vague notion of humanitarian or human rights work. My studies were quite idealistic and humanist and removed from political reality. One thing that has really shaped me in all these years is a kind of intellectual strictness, the ability to find a principle and think it through to the end. I think this is really important in human rights work. This developed in my thinking and even in my personality removed from actual human rights work.
