raise your hand. >>@@@@@@ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @á >> thank you for coming. i am an attorney and a blogger. i wonder whether anyone who goes to prison for political activism and journalism ever comes out. is there any torture that is not being addressed right now? >> i can tell you some examples. somebody who was a well-known journalist in iran -- he is still in prison. they accused him of activities

against islam. he criticized the supreme leader. he cannot write anymore for the future. they sentenced him to exile for five years from iran. in iran. other journalists are in prison, one is in prison for more than 10 months. he is in " the hunger strike now in the prison, during the persian new year. many of the journalists will, even photographers, we do not know exactly what is their situation. how they're living in the prison. no access to getting freedom. you do not know how they are doing in the court.

you cannot see the court and you cannot speak just for defending them. many -- the journalists, i can tell you. the most important thing is, any journalist who is criticizing the government, who they are not [unintelligible] with the rules, they are [unintelligible] this is the fortunate time. when you are in the official prison, it is ok. your family knows who you are and they can be with you weekly, maybe once in a month. some people are in secrecy. they are in a secret places. the revolutionary guards who are

controlling -- under control of the supreme leader. no one knows where they are and held there is -- how their situation. other journalists who they released. fortunately they had some voices. roxana saberi one of them. they had some voices from the united states. so, other journalists who they do not have any voices, who are spending their times in the prison, no access to any lawyer to defend them. it is complicated story. if you want to talk about this, it is more than a book. maybe hundreds. i do not know. the situation is difficult. everything is linked to the islamic law, it is really

complicated. you cannot talk directly against islam. one of the professors in iran, he is a journalist. he criticized following their -- he told, we cannot do the same 1,400 years and this we cannot do for the senior clerics. you cannot cooperate with the foreign media. i was with foreign media for 10 years. my doctor said how are you working for the united states?

other journalists are in the same situation. it is difficult to say just, you can say freely any of your opinion or your idea. it is really difficult. i hope i can answer your question. >> i want to add something about your question. two things. the first is that two weeks ago, the revolutionary guard arrested 13 netizens, 13 people using the internet to get information out. what is difficult as we do not have their names. the authorities do not want to give the names. it is difficult to know who was in prison. liviu spent two hours and you are released. it is difficult to get that information. i want to stress one example. his name was [unintelligible]

and he died in prison last year. it was before her election. he died in prison. -- it was before the election. it was negligence. it showed how difficult it is to be in prison. it is difficult to be there. he died and the press and claims that he killed himself with pills. tell me how you get pills to kill himself in prison. everything is good to say it is not the authorities fall. the last example is the protest where 13 netizens were arrested. the authorities claimed it was the cia's fault. the cia was in charge of the protest. >> the clear example of all the

things. the iranian-canadian who she was arrested in 2003 and a couple days after, she was arrested in front of the prison, she took some pictures from in prison. they were killed in the prison. no one did not answer. it is her case and this is the situation, you do not know exactly what is happening to you if you follow the information and follow the truth in the country. maybe the best idea of supporting the journalists, who they are in the prison, who they are [unintelligible] it is crucial to know the organization.

i do not know the organization. it would help those people. they have the great job and they had the good opportunity for free information for their people inside the country. now, [unintelligible] the european countries without answering to others, responding -- they're not in the good condition. some of them have problems and others with financial problems. it is not easy to live like this. all we were in the good situation in thiran, you know yr opinion, what you want. you can describe yourself with the others. you are going for the country's future. all we were like that. when you cannot feel safety in

this situation, how are you going to tell your idea? this is very important point. we can move forward. just using the access of the internet in iran. it was great decision. it was great because the people, they did not trust any source, and the official source where they're coming from the official tv channels. after three days of the election, 3 million people came out and showed, they protested against the government. no one did not invite them. they just came calling each other. the text messages by the phone, they used the telephone. for three months, they cut all the text messages.

it cannot imagine how difficult the situation in iran. even having and telling you. because of my job, i am carrying the camera. this is my job. i'm all the time behind the camera. this is the time i need to talk. i had a small camera in my car. i didn't know what can i do. if they find a small camera in the car. they searched all the people in the streets after elections. finding any pictures in the cameras or any funds. they knew how the powerful photography and information. internationally. this is important. i hope we can do

[unintelligible] 4 iran's future. -- for iransn's future. [unintelligible] >> thanks to reporters without borders for organizing this. we have time for two questions. one of the reporters who was in a hunger strike. he was hospitalized because of his condition. a few weeks ago, he made a statement that i do not want to be afraid and i do not want to be freed under these conditions. another lie so that you for mentioning that. >> you can [unintelligible]

>> the second update is with respect to the internet censorship. one of the most amazing things that i have heard recently through twitter and what not is the censoring of the word [unintelligible] in text messages. >> that is the word. they change even the flag of countries color. the color is made of green, white, and red. the changed teh green -- the green as it was used by the opposition party. the symbol of the election campaign. they changed the color of the fled to the blue. how can you trust this government.

it was the fault [unintelligible] unbelievable. you cannot say this is by chance. they're doing many stories. even painting. the corner of the streets which they were white and green. they are white and black now. it is -- you cannot find any picture of the demonstration of the 2009 election in any official web sites or semi- official web sites of the government. i checked before coming here. you cannot find any one picture. there moved everything.

-- they moved everything. we need to do something. >> the comment about the documented evidence. my question from you is i was wondering what are we doing to wondering what are we doing to help the journalists who get out of iran? do we have a support system for them? how can we do that? >> my response to this question -- my friends here are working for the human-rights organization here and also the human rights community. they have some sources.

unfortunately, they are using these sources -- this is unsafe. they need to pay the money to bring journalists out of the country. on the other hand, how we can do this situation -- which cannot bring all the journalists from the country's. they still need to get free information. of course their lives are in danger. they need to live in a safe place. in an important country like iran, you cannot just leave the country like that. maybe the ideas -- maybe the idea is to give them more chance to use the internet. i had the chance to talk with some political activists in iran. they are using this discussion with congress and the united

states -- they are using satellites sources, internet access in iran. this is very important. if you cannot avoid censorship and give the people a chance to know -- if you can avoid censorship and give people a chance to learn for information about their country, it would be great. country. because when i was 10, i told you the revolution happened. now i am thinking this was -- if there was internet during the revolution, if there was internet five years earlier than this in iran, it was great. the change to bring to the country. now, i do not think this is a

good idea to bring all the journalists out. you can talk to some of them. all the journalists they know. many journalists, the journalist's coming out. they're urging friends, they're asking [unintelligible] and three months ago, you mentioned turkey. the journalists [unintelligible] they find they were, they had some links with tv channels, the base in europe and they need to be leavea nd support -- and support their families. they cannot work in any organizations like prisoners.

if they want to come out of the prison, they cannot work because all the people know that the -- no their background. they cannot work and the official part of the government -- in the official part of the government. they need to find another job. the driving, the taxis or some others. [unintelligible] >> i want to tell you [inaudible] mobilizing people, mobilizing on the internet. what we did is we helped -- we are based in paris but we are an international organization.

what we did is helping [unintelligible] the situation they are facing. we are currently [unintelligible] and start gathering the information they have or starting to read books. we already have the initiative. the house is not only for living, it is already full. now we are planning to help them and we wish the house was bigger and other organizations would do the same. that is -- we are helping them. that is the emergency.

for the reporters, we do not want to stop working. they know how to report. that is their job. we love to say it is the only thing i can do. it is the only thing we can do. they do not want to lose that. they want to write them and they want to say what is going on. one of the ways we help them is to support [inaudible] init is true we need to be told what is going on. one of the first steps is to talk about it. it is right to be able to talk about that. thank you. >> any other questions? >> i have one. i understand you have children,

correct? where are they? they are not in the states. >> my children are going to school. they are in [unintelligible] no idea what is going on. it is not -- this is the problem for the other journalists. this is the problem which, if you want to leave the country, this is a completely different choice. if you want to decide to leave the country in any situation, you can try to handle any financial and get to a good country. how many countries, iranians

can go there? it is less than 20. how you can feel the safety in the country also? it is kind of a pretty difficult situation. you need to accept the reality. we're stopping in the h highway, -- the highway, just be careful with phone calls. it is difficult to say, it is not a choice. it is difficult to say the future, what will be happening. thank you all for coming here. [applause]

thank you. . . . >> i believe our next speaker -- we are working out the details right now. that will be at the end of april. we are more than excited to have that happen. thank you all for coming out. [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2010]

>> you are watching c-span. coming up next, a discussion on u.s. business competitiveness hosted by the american enterprise institute. that is followed by an event with house majority leader steny hoyer and others, talking about the deficit and health care costs. >> this weekend, john dean is our guest. he was the counsel to president nixon and is the writer of multiple books. that is sunday, live at noon eastern on "book tv." >> this month, see the winners of our documentary competition, middle and high school students from 40 states.

watch the top videos every morning on c-span, at 6:50 eastern, just before "washington journal." at 8:30, during the program, meet the students who made them. for all the winners, visit studentcam.org. >> the american enterprise institute hosts this event. it is about an hour and a half. >> good morning. we appreciate your coming out.

i am stan andersen. i am the managing director of the chamber's campaign for free enterprise. we welcome you this morning but to this panel discussion. in our view, while the government can blunt the sharp edges of the recession and help push the economy toward recovery, only the private sector, operating in a free enterprise system, can create the number of jobs we need to be competitive and prosperous. that is why the chamber launched its campaign for free enterprise last october. this campaign is a long term positive educational effort to try to convince americans that the free enterprise system has

operated more or less a properly over the last 200 years and is the answer for job creation in the future. the center pillar of our campaign is what we call the 20 million job challenge, the need to create over 20 million jobs over the next 10 years to reabsorb workers who have lost their jobs over the last two or three years and to accommodate the new workers that will be entering the work force over that period of time. our mission is to drive the development and adoption of public policies that increase opportunity and prosperity. we need policies that permit economic growth and job creation. the chamber has for years had an agenda for economic growth. to name just a few, we think it is important to revitalize both

the education and training system at the federal level to allow workers to be ready for the new jobs that are going to be created over the next period of time. we need to rebuild and modernize america's infrastructure to allow our companies to flourish. we think there has to be a big role for the private sector in this infrastructure activity. we need to promote help the credit markets to provide credit for small and medium-sized businesses, and particularly for entrepreneurs that are attempting to sponsor -- attempting to start businesses that create jobs. we need to start trade. we announced in january a six

point program to create jobs. one of those was to double exports over the next five years. the president, in his state of the union, adopted that standard. but in our view of rhetoric is not enough. you have to take action. you have to approve a trade agreements, you have to revitalize doha, you have to revitalize export control rules and take trade promotion seriously, which we think is not being done. finally, in our view, we need to be sensitive about taxes both at the corporate and individual right. so today this is the second in the series of discussion-focused events. we mean that -- discussion- focused events to better understand the challenges that face our free enterprise system. in my view, we have not heard