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Even if images and information about these human rights abuses are hard to come by in Iran, the international media must continue to report on them.

This will help galvanize ordinary individuals around the world to cry out against human rights violations in Iran. If other countries' citizens rally for Iranians, Iranian activists say, governments will step up their pressure on Iran, and the Iranian people will gain more courage.

Governments must keep speaking out, and with more unity and intensity. They can use the upcoming meeting of the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva to demand a special UN envoy to investigate and report on the human rights situation in Iran, as well as to call for other independent UN human rights experts to be allowed to enter Iran.

Travel bans and asset freezes for a number of Iran's human rights violators, announced by the U.S. State Department last year, can be extended to include other individuals and adopted by other countries.

The international community also should seriously explore ways to counter the Iranian government's jamming of satellite signals and restrictions on Internet access.

When the world remains quiet about Iran's human rights offenses, the Islamic Republic believes it can act with impunity.

Iranians calling for change may not agree on whether they want reform or revolution, but they agree on what they don't want: the status quo, in which violence, intimidation and human rights violatio... >>>