​​​​​​​September 28, 2022

My beloved UWLA community,

Once again, I stand before you to enlist your consciousness and lift your awareness for yet another atrocity of oppression being perpetrated on members of our community. If you have been following the Iranian movement across the world, then you have heard the aggrieved voices of the Iranian people and in particular its woman. You have heard their cries, their exhaustion, frustrations, and their condemnation of the current regime. They have been subject to decades of pain, agony, fear, and anger. The true Iranian people have been ignored and completely disconnected from the real Iran for over 43-years. It is humiliating and demoralizing.

They are simply fed up.

I feel compelled to raise this issue with my UWLA community to raise your awareness and your support. Many of you might not know, but my darling daughter in law, Shaghayegh (Shay), is of Iranian descent. So admittedly this issue and the pain that it has caused is personal to me. I want to make you aware and perhaps also in order to garner your support, I would like for this issue to also be personal to you. It is when we ignore these issues and fail to rally to the support of assistance of those under attack that the oppressors feel embolden and the victims feel helpless. We can no longer allow that to happen no matter where the battle.

My daughter wrote the following:

Across the globe, women led protests have been sparked by the death of Jina Mahsa Amini , a 22-year-old woman, arrested by Tehran's morality police earlier this month for alleged ly violating the country's strict hijab laws. The family has disputed whether Mahsa was violating any hijab laws, but what is undeniable is that she died days later at the hands of the police. Her death was covered by the police and announced as a heart attack. However, leaked autopsy results show blunt force trauma to her skull. Her death struck a nerve for every single one of us around the world, gaining attention through social media despite severe limitations on the internet access in Iran. The Iranian government utilizes its control to shut down the internet during civil unrest. This allows them to shut out the Iranians from the rest of the world and kill their innocent citizens without consequence and without the eye of the western countries on them. Security officials have been trying to suppress the unrest, by restricting internet access, beating, arresting, and killing protestors. Amplifying their voices is critical during the internet outages so the world can be witness to the atrocities caused by this regime.

During the unrest, I am consumed with guilt and sorrow. I keep thinking Mahsa could be me; it could be my friends, my cousins, our family. Tossing head scarves into bonfires, dancing bareheaded before security agents, young Iranian women have been at the forefront of these demonstrations, supplying the defining images of defiance. Iranian women had participated in protests against the regime before in 1979, 2005, and 2009, but never before have they been so embattled and openly subject to such personal violence and atrocities. Women are paying for their defiance in blood.

I am heartbroken and overwhelmed with emotion for my brothers and sisters in Iran.

We see you; we hear you; we stand with you and pray for a free Iran.

Zan (Woman), Zendegi (Life), Azadi (Freedom)

We will be hosting a zoom conference next week to highlight what is happening to the woman and people of Iran. I encourage you to attend this conference and learn first-hand what is occurring. I encourage the UWLA community, as influential lawyers and business leaders, to never sit idly by and ignore the pleas of those who are subject to oppression, misogyny , and subjugation. It is our duty to speak out and to be supportive. Join me in lifting our voices and our consciousness to fight suppression and hatred no matter where it arises.

UWLA will never countenance such hostility to any segment of its family. As epitomized in the statute of the David, we will stand up with our voices and all of our might to any adversarial forces no matter how overwhelming they might otherwise seem, that is our DNA! This oppression and subjugation will no longer be tolerated or go unaddressed. It shall stop!!

Sincerely,

Robert W. Brown, CEO & President