Lost in Robo-Translation
The Green Revolution is lost at sea without proper translation of Iranian texts of major significance to the movement and to the Western media: Examples are the recent warning to protesters from the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, Rafsanjani's opening statement as he entered the limelight days ago and a number of articles about comments from clerics and MPs.
The main problem is that robo-translating major texts from Farsi to English and, I suspect, the other way around, opens a far too wide window for error. The language packs are still limited, and the translation tools have serious grammar deficiencies.
The margin of error is too high to rely on robo-translating, whether for established reporting or even bloggin and tweeting.
Establish contact to Iranian NGOs
So what the movement really need at this point is organization. The Iranian tweeters must become connected with Iranian NGOs abroad.
Iranian expats have a massive world wide presence, with 150,000 leaving Iran every year and huge brain drain, as 25 % of post second-grade education professionals are expatriates.
The trick at this point is to utilize the ressources of Iranian expats. Some Iranians have been exiled by the theocracy, and many of them are furious at the oppressive regime.
Most have relatives in Iran and expats are deeply concerned about their fate, worrying about the clamp-downs as well as the future of the Islamic Republic.
It's important to utilize this connectivity and the additional ressources among Iranian expats to sustain and support and vocalize and amplify the voice of the movement.
"Important note: Iranian twitterers is the most endangered specie on Earth right now. They must be protected. Iranian groups in the West should be contacted and encouraged to follow Twitter, get involved and offer voluntary assistance - such as translation. But real identities of Iranians should NEVER be conveyed to strangers. We have to assume, at this point, all contacts are compromised or could become so."
Communicate outside news to Iran
Persian to English translation is essential for informing the West and
get a more granulated picture through in the Western press, and English
to Persian translation is essential for getting information back into
Iran.
The latter part is pretty much taken care of through bilingual twitters
and bloggers inside Iran, even if alerting them to outside news sources
is always helpful.
Also, consider the fact that Iranian web access is filtered, so links may not open properly for Iranians - to get a view of the world, they need articles sent in ways that bypass filtering or independent news transmitted via Twitter.
I do not post this to promote my own role or as an attempt by an outsider to take charge of the movement. I just hope somebody finds my advise in time to respond to it.
This, however, from an American in Iran, encourages me:
Am now in contact with the Avaaz crew, they're seeing how best to use their resources, it looks promising. June 30 2009
Examples of news items lost in translation
Mahsa Amrabadi has contacted home only once and told about her situation in a brief conversation, no news of her ever since:
Apparently Iranian government has shamelessly proposed the establishment of a US-Iranian trade council:
A Persian blog update from a user calling himself OnlyMehdi:
bush.dumbass@gmail.com //
sorry for the past entries, never liked divs. anyway here is the translation for Mahsa's story:
translation for: http://www.etemademelli.ir/published/0/00/48/4852/
Two weeks has passed since the arrest of Mahsa Amrabadi the reporter for Etemad news paper and her situation is at best unknown. Mahsa's Mother has this to say; "After 15 days since her arrest, repeated visits to Evin and Revolutionary Court, I have not been successful in visiting her. This is a major cause of alarm for us". She added; "Mahsa was able to contact home only once and during a brief conversation she informed us of her situation. Since then there has been no news of her". Amrabadi's Mother goes on saying, "Until now there are no charges brought forth from authorities and our attempts to reach out to the authorities to get any information on her situation had no results." Mahsa's Mother requests from the authorities to do what is necessary to have her daughter freed and put an end to their worries.
bush.dumbass@gmail.com //
translation of
bush.dumbass@gmail.com //
translation of