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But what shocked Nemat the most was the speed of her nation’s descent into a theocratic regime in 1979. Within a matter of months, she and her fellow Iranians lost the limited rights they had enjoyed under the country’s previous government, itself a repressive monarchy.
Though at first she thought he was being treated well, the iron bars that prevented her from embracing her father soon jolted Wai Hnin to reality. In that moment, she says, a child became an aspiring voice for human rights, one who would speak out over the nearly three decades since that meeting — as her father was repeatedly imprisoned, most recently after the military’s February coup.
Wai Hnin, now living in exile, writes that her father’s “commitment to helping build a lasting democracy in Burma has taught me that an equal and just political system is not a guarantee. It requires hard work.”
Evan Mawarire never got to experience freedom in his country. By the time he turned three, Robert Mugabe had become Zimbabwe’s prime minister — and for the next 37 years, the dictator would run the country with the full weight of the government and military behind him, claiming that “only God” could remove him from power.
In 2016, Mawarire, now a pastor, concluded that the status quo in Zimbabwe could not stand. Corruption was rampant, deflation had replaced hyperinflation, and free and fair elections were long gone.
His decision to post a video, in which he draped himself in the country’s flag while giving an impassioned lament for the current state of Zimbabwe, was a huge risk. Still, Mawarire tells CNN, he got to the point where he realized “no one else is going to fight for this country with as much passion and commitment as I am.” He was later imprisoned for his political activism and, like Nemat and Wai Hnin, now lives in exile.
Mawarire, Nemat and Wai Hnin are among the 21st century’s freedom fighters — people who have risked their lives and liberty in a battle for democracy that is being fought…
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Source : cnn
