Since protesters took to the streets in Tunisia in December, dozens of other countries have experienced political unrest. Egypt, Libya, Bahrain, Iraq and Iran are just a few of the countries where people are demanding democratic reforms. Young people are playing a key role in the protest using social media like Facebook and Twitter to organize.

Meanwhile some traditional media outlets in the Arab world are struggling with government censorship.

As the unrest continues to spread, theAQ asks two former STU students, Ayat Mohammad and Soror Irani, about their role in the Arab and Persian media.

This is one of their stories.

Soror Irani

Saturday afternoon Soror Irani sits down in the recording studio at CHSR. Her long black hair drapes her shoulders, veiling the STU logo on her fleece vest. The studio is small, just big enough for Irani and the recording equipment.

She swivels in her seat, adjusts the microphone and hits record.

“Persian New Green Movement Radio Show, producer and host Soror Irani,” she says. “This program does not belong to any political party or religious group.”

Irani is a STU graduate, a UNB student, an Iranian immigrant, and a mother. Soror Irani is not her given name. Even though she lives in Fredericton, she has to hide her identity to protect her family.

Her show airs on CHSR on Saturday afternoons, but Irani relies heavily the podcast to reach her listeners across the globe from Toronto to India. For about a year she has been reporting facts about the Iranian government that don’t often get reported in mainstream media.

Her program is an hour long– the first half is in English, the second half in Persian. She produces her show all by herself, and she has no formal radio training.

Irani spends between 20 and 25 hours a week working on her show. She does most of her interviews over Skype and prerecords them before coming into the studio.

“It takes a lot of my time but I think it’s kind of a responsibility because we have been suffering all of our life through an abnormal society,” she said. “We want a voice and we want to change the situation.”

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Her second move is to open up her Facebook account.

“All of the time I should have my Facebook open,” she says. “If I’m not on Facebook, I don’t know what’s going on.”

For Irani, Facebook has been an important tool. She uses it to contact interviewees, to get news from her home country and from Iranian asylum seekers, and to deliver her podcast to Iranians who are still living in Iran. Facebook has connected Irani with a network of Iranians who are looking for solutions to the problems in their country.

“For so long I did not know about Iran politics. I knew something was wrong, but I didn’t know I could help. Now, I’m so tuned to that,” she says. “I found a huge network, huge support from Iranians around the world. It’s like a village.”

Irani has been using Facebook to keep track of a new wave of protests.

“February 14th we decided to have a huge rally. We decided to learn from Egypt, to stay in the streets, don’t come home until the regime collapses,” she said. “I have Iranians that go to the demonstrations. I write on their wall and I say ‘please write to me after if you are alive, if you are safe and sound.’”

Irani says the problem with using Facebook is she feels that she is being watched.

“There is a lot of spying among us, no matter if you’re in Iran or outside of Iran, people come to your Facebook, come to your contact list and they ruin everything. They know everything about us but we don’t know anything about them. That’s a huge problem.”

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Today the English portion of Irani’s program features an interview with Maria Rohaly of Mission Free Iran. Rohaly is spreading awareness about Houtan Kian, an Iranian lawyer who has been sentenced to death for defending his client.

When the interview is over, Irani explains the next portion of her show will be in Persian, and signs off with “stay Green”.

Irani’s show has been on the air for a year. In that time she has tried to bring her listeners news about Iran without a specific political motive.

“My [radio show’s] main purpose is to get the voice of Iranians out. I have been suffering. I don’t want the next generation of Iranians suffering,” she said. “I’m not going to justify if the news is good or bad. I just put it out and people can decide for themselves and they can do their own research.”

Due to her criticism of the Iranian government, Irani cannot return to her home country until the current regime changes.

“My parents, both of them, are sick and old and if something happened to them I can’t go to Iran. The time I get to the airport, I’m going to jail,” she said.

The pseudonym “Soror” she has adopted is Persian for “Happiness” and “Irani” is the nom de guerre many other Iranian independent journalists and activists have chosen to hide their identities from the Iranian government.

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Irani wraps up her show with the Persian portion, which includes an interview with an Afghani woman who seeks asylum in Turkey, but is worried she will be rejected. If the woman returns to Afghanistan, Irani says, the Taliban will kill her and her two daughters.

“I can’t listen to this again. It’s too emotional,” she says, fast forwarding to the end of the interview. “When you get to know people, their stories get to your heart. It doesn’t go away, it becomes part of you. I wanted all of my life to become a journalist, but I didn’t know I’d become so involved in people.”

Despite the emotional stress, the time commitment and the personal dangers she has incurred, Irani will continue to broadcast her radio show, just as many demonstrators will continue to flood the streets of Iran, until her country is free.

Part one: Ayat Mohammad’s story is available here.