The men and women whose stories you can read on [the website] are now all citizens of a silent city named Omid ("hope" in Persian). There, victims of persecution have found a common life whose substance is memory.

Omid's citizens were of varying social origins, nationalities, and religions; they held diverse, and often opposing, opinions and ideologies. Despite the differences in their personality, spirit and moral fiber, they are all united in Omid by their natural rights and their humanity.

What makes them fellow citizens is the fact that one day each of them was unfairly and arbitrarily deprived of his or her life. At that moment, while the world watched the unspeakable happen, an individual destiny was shattered, a family was destroyed, and an indescribable suffering was inflicted.

If you wander around this city, you will realize that, through their common ordeal, the citizens of Omid have created another Iran, an imaginary Iran: a democratic polity, pluralistic and diverse, where citizens posthumously enjoy their human rights.

Visit Omid, meet its citizens, and, by doing so, bring them back in memory. Let them challenge our conscience so that in the future we will prevent this kind of tragedy from happening again.

Omid was developed with the free, open source software, Analyzer, used by Truth and Reconciliation Commissions in South Africa, East Timor, Kosova/o, Sri Lanka, and Sierra Leone, www.hrdag.org [7].