Iran Feature: Is Civil Disobedience Taking Off? (Tait)

Protest over Lake UrmiaWhen Leon Panetta, the new United States defense secretary, declared on September 6 that it was only "a matter of time" before an Arab Spring-style revolution came to Iran, it seemed to smack of wishful thinking. 

And since this year's outbreak of popular uprisings that have unseated dictatorships in Tunisia, Egypt, and Libya, and destabilized authoritarian regimes elsewhere in the Middle-East countries, there have been numerous expressions of desire for a "Persian Spring" to go with the Arab variety. 

Yet now opponents of the Tehran regime feel its nemesis may finally have arrived -- in the form of proliferating acts of civil disobedience.

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Iran Live Stream: "Answering the Iranian People's Call for Human Rights"

The Live Stream of the conference has finished. We will post the archived video as soon as it is available.

The National Iranian American Council in Washington is hosting a one-day conference, "Answering the Iranian People's Call for Human Rights". The morning session, beginnng 8:45 a.m. local time (1345 GMT), will feature addresses by Suzanne Nossel, the US Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for International Organizations; Jonas Hafström, Sweden's Ambassador to the United States; Representative Keith Ellison; and Nazila Fathi, the New York Times correspondent in Tehran who was forced to leave soon after the June 2009 Presidential election.

In the afternoon, there will be a panel discussion on "The Human Rights Crisis and Iran’s Democracy Movement" with academic and author Nader Hashemi, analyst Alireza Nader, and Sarah Leah Whitson, the Middle East and North Africa Director of Human Rights Watch.

The Live Stream will began at 1345 GMT.