Local Iranian citizen reacts to protests, unrest

[Note: Mirsharifi is a doctoral student in UW-Madison’s Second Language Acquisition (SLA) program. She is teaching in the university’s summer Arabic & Persian Immersion Program (APIP) coordinated by UW-Madison Global Studies. ]

Link to story here.

View news video here.

MADISON (WKOW) — Fatemeh Mirsharifi teaches Persian at a special language immersion program at the UW this summer.

She’s also from Iran, the only member of her family not living in the country.

She drove to Milwaukee last week to vote in the Iranian presidential election.  She says the Pakistani Embassy arranged for a special balloting process at a Best Western motel there.

“I think it’s the beginning of a revolution,” said Mirsharifi.  “It’s the beginning of a new thing for Iran.”

She says she voted for the opposition candidate, Mir Hussein Moussavi.

“Most of the Iranian youth hate Ahmadinejad.  They really do not like his politics.  We think this is not the real vote.  They are just cheating.  This is our beliefs.”

E-mail Dan Cassuto at dcassuto@wkowtv.com.