Sunday, May 28, 2006

Iran Azeris protest over cartoon - BBC

- I encourage all Iranian Azeris to go out into the streets and protest not only against this cartoon, but also the complete inability of this regime to administer the country and the despicable acts of the Regime security forces that lead to several people dieing during these protests. No government is allowed to kill people over differences in opinion and expressions of disapproval. The Iranian people deserve the freedom to express their dislike of any regime in Iran and those government officials may not so much as lay a finger on them.

The Iranian people will teach the mullahs and those corrupt and murderous administrators that are under them that it is the job of the government to do the people's bidding. A government should be scared of its people, not vice versa.

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There have been demonstrations in several parts of north-west Iran, with thousands of ethnic Azeris protesting at a newspaper cartoon.

Azeris said the cartoon, which was published earlier this month, compared them to cockroaches.

Reports from the cities of Ardebil, Naqadeh and Meshkin Shahr say Iranian security forces fired on demonstrators, killing at least five people.

Dozens of others were injured and hundreds arrested.

It showed a succession of people attempting to talk to a cockroach in Persian.

Each time, the insect responded by saying, in Azeri: "What do you mean?"

Azeris are the largest ethnic minority in Iran, and the cartoon caused outrage among those who believed it suggested that all Azeris were stupid.

Thousands of people took to the streets in protest and, shortly afterwards, the newspaper was shut down and its editor arrested.

But that did not quell the anger. In the latest protests on Saturday, government buildings were targeted, and a number of banks and television stations burnt down.

What is ironic is that the man who drew the original cartoon is also an ethnic Azeri. He too has been arrested.

Original Article

Friday, May 26, 2006

Riots in Tehran Universities: 'We Don't Want Nuclear Energy' - The Middle East Media Research Institute

- The occupiers of Iran can not quell the Iranians' thirst for freedom and democracy. We will achieve our goals and the leaders of the Islamic Republic will pay for their crimes against the Iranian people. I praise the brave students who are standing up to this brutal regime. Each one of them are the heart and sole of Iran and their country and is forever indebted to them for their courageous efforts. The entire Iranian community stands with them and we are all working to end the rule of this despotic regime.

Marg bar Jumhurieh Eslaami!
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Via: Iran va Jahan

Several media outlets in Iran reported, albeit in a restricted and censured fashion, that there has been rioting on several university campuses in Tehran for the past four days. The reformist Internet daily Rooz reported that over 500 members of riot-control units have besieged the Tehran University campus, and that there have been clashes between rioting students and Basij and police forces.

The riots broke out following a student protest over what appeared to be a purge of the academic faculty of Tehran University. This coincided with the marking of the "Second of Khordad," the day of the Persian month of Khordad on which Mohammad Khatami was first elected president of Iran (May 23, 1997).

During the riots, eight student leaders were arrested, and, according to eyewitnesses quoted in Rooz, 25 of those under siege in the campus were wounded, five of them severely. Eyewitnesses reported that students were chanting anti-regime slogans, such as "We don't want nuclear energy" and "Forget Palestine - think of us."

The eyewitnesses also reported that Iranian security forces fired live bullets, and that shots were fired at homes outside the university. One of the students told Rooz: "The university campus is on fire, raids are being conducted throughout the campus, and the students are in fear and anxiety... Gunfire is heard from all directions... There is blood everywhere." The university's telephone lines were reported to have been cut.

According to other eyewitnesses, "police riot-control units entered the campus with helmets, shields, and clubs, and beat students so severely that many can't even walk." A campus security guard told a Rooz reporter: "We were told that we were permitted to use violence against the students, but not to hit them on their heads or their faces, in order to avoid leaving marks. We were told not to be respectful towards any student, unless he is a member of the Basij student union."

One of the students said: "They are sending more riot-control forces [into the campus]. I estimate that they are about 3,000 strong... There is also an intensive presence of Ansar-e Hizbullah forces in vehicles or on motorcycles. They have also brought in several fire trucks [to disperse the students]..." One of the reporters said: "Reporters who came to cover the events were stopped by university security guards, and none were permitted to enter [the campus]."

Local police claim that only 100 students were involved in the riots, but according to eyewitnesses quoted by Rooz, the riots involved some 3,000 of the 4,000 students attending the main campus, and another 2,000 from the law and political science campus.

The ultra-conservative daily Kayhan, which is close to Iran's Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, called the student leaders "American representatives of the [U.S.] Congress in Tehran University," and reported that "yesterday afternoon, illegal forces demonstrated in the [university] classrooms after several faculty members were forced to retire." According to Kayhan, the demonstration organizers are not even students but are from outside the university.

Morteza Talai, commander of the Tehran Metropolitan Police, told the Iranian Students News Agency (ISNA) that "at 9:30 PM, 100 students gathered at the campus gates, and 20 or 30 of them started throwing stones, sticks and firebombs at homes in the area." The report continued: "[Talai said that] the police reacted with restraint, and, until 5:30 AM, made efforts to curb the demonstrators throwing the firebombs... but [the students] paid no heed... Only in the morning did the police raid [the campus], and by 7:00 AM, it had made arrests and cleared the area, with the help of municipal forces... During this activity, three students were injured while attempting to climb onto the roof of the dormitory building."

Original Article

Determined Foes Mount Challenge To Iran's Mullahs - NY Sun

While foreign ministers met in London to finalize measures to persuade the Iranian regime to suspend uranium enrichment, the country's ruling clerics will be facing the most determined opposition they have seen in three years.

In Tehran, university students staged a second day of strikes over the firing of eight professors and the new policies enacted by Tehran University's president.

In Tabriz, the regime tried to quell riots earlier this week over a cartoon depicting members of the Azeri minority as cockroaches.

In Qom, the theocracy was absorbing the aftershocks of a candid interview from Grand Ayatollah Montazeri, who told an Iraqi news agency that the current Islamic Republic has failed to deliver the democracy it promised in the 1979 revolution.

The stirrings inside Iran are the most serious challenge to befall the mullahs since the protests that accompanied the 2003 commemorations of the July 9, 1999, Tehran University student rebellions. They also suggest the regime that America and Europe are now hoping to cajole into suspending its nuclear program may be more fragile than intelligence agencies recognize.

One of the steering committee members of Iran's largest student organization chapter at Tehran Polytechnic University, Abbas Hakim Zadeh said in an interview from Tehran Tuesday that his organization was now 90% in favor of rejecting slow reform in favor of nonviolent resistance.

"About nine years ago, the reformist movement under Khatemi took place, but Khatemi could not deliver and the Iranian people have no longer any faith in the reformist movement," he said.

Those words should come as no surprise to observers who have followed the intellectual evolution of dissident journalist Akbar Ganji, who was released from Evin Prison in April and is the author of a manifesto rebuking the reform movement for its timidity and calling for direct elections of the supreme leader.

But Mr. Zadeh's comments could be shocking to diplomats in Western capitals and analysts in Washington pressing for negotiations with Iran in part because it would re-empower the political movement of President Khatemi, the reformer to whom Mr. Zadeh was referring.

Yesterday, Mr. Zadeh said the country's largest student organization, Takhim Vahdat, rejected any direct talks between America and Iran if the negotiations centered around security guarantees in exchange for promises on nuclear enrichment.

"If there is any dialogue and conversations or negotiations between the Islamic Republic and the international community, whether the United States or other countries individually or collectively, if it is around the nucleus of human rights, democracy and the openness in Iran, it is something worthwhile to consider," he said.

"However if the idea is for Iran to get security guarantees embedded in it that the regime can suppress the human rights and the will of the people, that is something the Iranian student movement, the Iranian labor movement and the Iranian women's rights groups reject firmly and totally."

The atmosphere at Tehran University was tense as student protesters entered into the second day of a strike designed to oust the school's president appointed by President Ahmadinejad, Amid Zanjani.

In an interview on the Voice of America's Persian service, a student activist at Tehran University, Mohsen Sabri, said he estimated that 1,200 students were clashing with security officers. His colleague and a member of the national steering committee for Takhim Vahdat, Ali Nekomesbati, estimated that 15 students have been kidnapped since the sit-in strike began and another 70 have been injured.

The fracas at Tehran University flared as Iran's president took measures this week to calm tensions in Tabriz after hundreds of Azeris began burning parts of the city to ostensibly protest a state-run newspaper that ran a cartoon depicting Azeris as cockroaches.

The protests this week are a direct rebuke to Mr. Ahmadinejad. While Iran's president does not command the military or have final say on domestic and foreign policy decisions, he does have the power to appoint personnel in government agencies.

Since assuming power in August, Mr. Ahmadinejad has stacked the security services, universities, prison warden system, and social service departments with ideological allies from the ranks of the paramilitary group he is associated with, the Basij.

A colleague of Mr. Zadeh at Tehran Polytechnic University, Bijan Pouryousefi, said yesterday that Iran's student movement was reaching out to form a more unified front with labor unions and women's groups.

"The civil struggles of the Iranian people for democracy and human rights is alive, but it is fragile," he said. "You see this with the women's groups, the labor unions and this as a whole. We need the support of the international community by supporting democracy, and other organizations can provide the basis for the support of our movement."

But Mr. Pouryousefi was careful to say that at least Takhim Vahdat would reject direct funding from America or any foreign government. "When you talk about money, we will have our character assassinated. There are human rights organizations that can defend the rights of the individuals. The subject of the money is separate," he said.

Takhim Vahdat was created in the late 1970s to support Ayatollah Khomeinei and the 1979 Islamic Revolution. In recent months, the regime has tried to restrict the organization's ability to elect a national coordination committee by attempting to appoint students who favor the regime. Last summer the organization led the fight to release Mr. Ganji from jail and encouraged students to boycott elections that resulted in Mr. Ahmadinejad assuming the presidency.

Original Article

Wednesday, May 24, 2006

Iran tests missile - News 24

- Once again the Islamic Regime believes that it is more important to test old and out-dated missile technology than give Iranians what they really need. If the Islamic Regime is so concerend with Iran's security why does it test-fire missiles rather than empower its own people. For years now, the Islamic Regime has been complaining that the United States is closing in on its borders. Supposedly, the United States is the big bad enemy of the Islamic Republic, but what the mullahs of Iran fail to mention is that their real enemies are already all around them; the Shahab missile will not help the Regime when the Iranian people stand up and assert their independence. Just like the Soviet Union, the Islamic Regime suffers from a false sense of security that more weapons translates into more time in power. If the Soviet Union fell with all of its nuclear weapons, then the Islamic Republic does not stand a chance. So have your out-dated Russian technology Mr. Khamenei. It won't do you any good when the real revolution comes knocking on your door.

Long Live Iran
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Washington - Iran fired a medium-range Shahab-3 missile on Tuesday night in a test, a US defence official says.

The missile test has not been announced by Tehran.

"It can always help Iran increase its confidence in the programme," said another defence official without commenting on whether a test had taken place.

The test comes amid a mounting diplomatic confrontation with Iran over a uranium enrichment programme that the United States insists is part of a secret effort to develop nuclear weapons.

Iran insists its nuclear programme is for peaceful purposes but has refused international appeals to stop.

The Shahab-3, which is modelled on the North Korean No-Dong missile, has a reported range of about 1 300km - putting Israel, Afghanistan and US military installations in the region within reach.

Iran is reported to be working on extending the missile's range.

An Iranian general in January said that the Shahab-3 was capable of striking targets 2 000km away.

This would be the about the ninth flight test of the missile since 1998, according to experts who have tracked the programme.

Original Article

Sunday, May 21, 2006

MASOUR OSANLO AFTER HIS TORURE BY THE IRAN'S REGIME - Price of the Freedom

This is a video of an interview that was conducted with Mansour Osanlo showing the injuries that he was left with after his torture. Mr. Osanlo is the leader of the nearly 500 bus drivers that were imprisoned by the Islamic Regime.

Tuesday, May 16, 2006

Woman Walks Without Oppressive Islamic Headscarf

- Here is a woman who is brave and willing to do what is necessary to stand up to the tyranny of the Mullahs. I feel awkward posting this picture on the internet because the more these pictures get passed around the more likely it will be that this brave woman will be identified. I am only doing this in the hope that it will inspire more Iranian women to follow in her foot-steps. I hope that all women will be able to walk free in the streets of Iran soon.


Original Source

Monday, May 15, 2006

EU promises "generous, bold" Iran nuclear offer - Swiss Info

-The Europeans are so desperate to hold on to the Islamic Republic that they will do almost anything to appease the Mullahs. Europe has invested billions in the oil and gas sector in Iran and they have also invested heavily in goods-production as well. The Europeans do not want regime-change in Iran because that will mean an end to their contracts and competition with the United States who currently does not do any business in Iran.

But the Europeans are dreaming if they think that they can prevent Iran from becoming free and democratic. We will achieve our goals in Iran and it would be wise for the Europeans to be on the side of the Iranian people and not this brutal and corrupt regime.

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The European Union pledged on Monday to make Iran a generous offer of technology, economic and other incentives but stressed Tehran must comply first with international demands to halt sensitive nuclear activities.

The 25-member bloc wants to present Iran with a stark choice of accepting the offer, expected to be delivered around the end of the month, or risk seeing international support grow for a U.N. resolution that would pave the way for possible sanctions.

"It will be a generous package, a bold package that will contain issues related to nuclear, economic matters and maybe if necessary security matters," EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana told reporters before a meeting of EU foreign ministers.

A draft statement for Monday's EU meeting obtained by Reuters stated the EU could help Tehran develop "a safe, sustainable and proliferation-proof civilian nuclear programme" while stipulating it halt all enrichment activities on its soil.

"If they (the Iranians) do come back into compliance, people will work hard to help them achieve what they really need, or say they need, which is access to civil nuclear power," Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett told reporters.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said on Sunday Iran would not accept any EU offer if it included a demand that Tehran stop what he called peaceful nuclear activities.

Solana gave no details of the package but said the EU wanted to present it to Iran in the coming weeks simultaneously with the approval of a U.N. resolution calling on Tehran to halt enrichment of uranium or face consequences.

Efforts to agree a U.N. resolution last week stalled in the U.N. Security Council amid opposition from Russia and China.


"A MATTER FOR AMERICA"

Iran, the world's fourth-largest oil exporter, insists its nuclear plans are purely to make electricity. Solana said Tehran's affirmations that it would reject any demand to stop peaceful nuclear work were a misunderstanding of EU policy.

"We have said over and over again that we have nothing against Iran having nuclear capabilities if they are strictly devoted to the production of energy," he said.

But Iranian demands to be allowed to conduct enrichment for research purposes were still "something that at the moment we (the EU) cannot accept", he said.

The United States made clear on Sunday it had no intention of holding direct talks with Iran on the nuclear issue despite a letter to President George W. Bush last week from Ahmadinejad -- the first direct communication between the two countries' leaders for more than two decades.

Germany has called publicly for Washington to engage Iran directly. France and Britain, the other two major EU powers, have not joined the call publicly.

"That's a matter for America and Iran themselves," Beckett said. "What is important is that there is a clear, strong and consistent message coming from the international community."

French Foreign Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy, who skipped the EU meeting on Iran to attend a cultural event in Paris, told reporters: "The best of the solutions, and even, the only solution today is of a diplomatic nature."

Original Article

Tuesday, May 09, 2006

Translation of Aghmagh-nejaad's Letter to President Bush - Le Monde

Here is the English translation of the Aghmagh-nejaad letter that was sent to President Bush. Suffice it to say that it was garbage from beginning to end, but everyone should have the opportunity to make up their own minds. Let me give my two-cents:

First I want to start by commenting on Mr. Aghmaghnejaad's thoughts on the "undeniable contradictions" that exist in the world. Aghmagh-nejaad is the president of a Regime that favours only those close to it. Government contracts and the best jobs are only given to those who support the Regime and not to those who best fit the work to be accomplished. Is that not a contradiction? Here is a man who talks about human rights but had, himself, overseen the killing of countless innocent free thinkers before becomming president. Here is a man that is so obsessed with the existence of Israel that he fails to mention his own "blood-staned hands." Specifically he complains that the Israeli regime shows no mercy "even to kids." Was it not the Islamic Republic that recently killed several minors? Did they not hang these minors and show no mercy even when the Iranian people pleaded for it? Did they show mercy to the over 9,000 people they have murdered in the name of their religious rule?

Who does Aghmagh-nejaad think he is when he questions the coup of 1953! Does this murderer believe that he is on par with Dr. Mossadegh? Nobody in the Iranian community can ever think of comparing themselves to that great man, but even if they could Aghmagh-nejaad and his cronies would be last on that list!

Aghmagh-nejaad's lesson the Mr. Bush on lies is pleasantly amusing. He tells Bush that he lied with respect to WMD's in Iraq. But, once again, he fails to mention the lies he tells the Iranian people on a daily basis. The mullahs of Iran came to power in Iran because they promised freedom. They promised prosperity and free gas and petrol. They promised everything under the sun, but the Iranian people got nothing. Recently, the Islamic government promised that they would develop the Iranian economy. Instead, the mullahs of Iran, who are now the richest in the world, have pulled out 200 billion out of the Iranian economy. They Promised to fight the huge drug problem in Iran, but it has only gotten worse. There are credible stories that it is the Mullahs themselves who are profitting from the drug trade. No wonder Rafsanjani is one of the world's richest men.

When Aghmagh-nejaad speaks of security, has he forgotten about prostitution in Iran? Somebody should ask Aghmagh-nejaad who profits from exporting the women of Iran to prostitute themselves in foreign countries! I don't think these women feel very secure! I really could go on and on about this, but it's really not worth the time or effort.

READ THIS LETTER CRITICALLY. Everything he accuses the American government of doing he has done himself. He has killed, he has tortured, he has jailed, he has lied, he has STOLEN!

This man must think the people of the world are as stupid as he is ugly if he believes this letter will cause the Iranian people and the world to change their minds on whether the IRI should be toppled!

Long Live Iran

Monday, May 08, 2006

Several wounded in blast at government building in southwest Iran - USA Today

-Shame on the IRI for pushing the people of Iran to such an extent that they have turned to bombing buildings and killing people in order to have their voices heard. Shame on this regime for turning our people to these desperate methods. The mullahs will soon find out that they can never repress speech. The more they opress the people of Iran, the more likely it is that this expression will find its way out in violent ways. Here is proof!
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TEHRAN, Iran (AP) — Two bombs that exploded minutes apart Monday ripped through government offices in Kermanshah, a city with a large Kurdish population in southwestern Iran, the state news agency reported. Six people were wounded.

The blasts followed shelling by Iranian forces against Kurdish rebel positions inside Iraq last week and came shortly after Turkey's deployment of thousands of troops on Iraq's northern border to try to block Kurdish guerrillas from crossing over.

No one claimed responsibility for the afternoon blasts at the governor's office and the province's trade and commerce office in the city 280 miles southwest of Tehran and 90 miles east of the Iraqi border.

Kermanshah is normally quiet. But Kurdish rebels to the north have increasingly reactivated their drive to consolidate their autonomy gains inside Iraq after the ouster of Saddam Hussein. Their long-term goal is an independent homeland that includes heavily Kurdish regions in Iran and Turkey as well as Iraq.

Iranian and Turkish troops reportedly have penetrated into Iraqi Kurdish areas, and the Iranians shelled border positions inside Iraq twice last week, causing no casualties but uprooting residents. The Iranians launched a similar barrage April 21.

Rebels seeking self-rule in Kurdish areas of Iran have been operating from Iraqi territory, mounting attacks against Iranian army and Revolutionary Guard posts. Turkey meanwhile has been fighting a Kurdish insurgency that has killed thousands in the southeast of the country.

Last month, Turkey deployed more than 30,000 additional troops in its Kurdish southeast and along its border with Iraq and Iran to fight Kurdish guerrillas and stop them from crossing the frontier.

That came after Kurdish rebels reportedly killed two Turkish soldiers and wounded a third, raising the number of Turkish troops killed this year to at least 17. More than 40 Kurdish guerrillas also have been killed in clashes in the same period.

Iran also has a large Arab population along its southern border with Iraq and there have been a series of deadly bombings in the region's largest city, Ahvaz, which Tehran has blamed on the United States and Britain.

Those attacks, however, are most likely the work of Arab nationalists in the region that was semiautonomous after the collapse of the Ottoman empire at the end of World War I and before it was annexed by Iran.

Original Article

The Islamic Republic is Getting Desperate!!

- Isn't this the same regime that refused to talk to anybody regarding anything with regard to Iran. In fact, they made it a point time and time again that they saw no reason to talk to the United States. Instead of begging for clemency in America, they should be begging the Iranian people for mercy! The reason why Aghmagh-nejaad wrote the letter is because they see no way out. The IRI is losing power day-by-day and this letter shows the deperation in the regime.

Le Monde has reported that Bush has refused any negotiations with the Regime. However, I don't know if it is with regard to the Aghmagh-nejaad letter. Good for you Mr. Bush. You now see what the Iranian people see. The Regime is trying desperately to buy time. It won't work; time is running out!
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Title: Iran sends letter to Bush, but tone remains unclear
Source: Reuters via Yahoo!

TEHRAN (Reuters) - Iran's president sent an unprecedented letter to President Bush on Monday, but it was unclear whether its contents offered any practical solution to a stand-off over Tehran's nuclear program.

Past Iranian public messages to the United States have been sharp rebukes, accusing Washington of bullying over Tehran's nuclear program and of imperialistic intervention in Iraq.

Government spokesman Gholamhossein Elham said the letter from President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad broached the nuclear dispute but declined to say whether it mentioned the possibility of direct talks with the United States.

"In this letter, he has given an analysis ... of new ways of getting out of the current delicate situation in the world," he told a weekly news conference.

Iran has been referred to the UN Security Council over fears it is building nuclear arms, a charge Iran denies. Washington says it would prefer a diplomatic solution to the crisis but that sanctions and military strikes are options.

Ahmadinejad's letter is the first publicly announced personal communication from an Iranian president to his U.S. counterpart since the 1979 Islamic revolution.

But its significance hinges on whether Iran changes chastising rhetoric which Washington habitually spurns.

Analysts thought there was little chance that Ahmadinejad would suggest that Iran could stop making nuclear fuel, the move which the United Nations has demanded and that Western diplomats see as the only way to defuse the atomic crisis.

On the contrary, they said Ahmadinejad was most likely to address the United States from a position of strength. After announcing that it had enriched uranium, Iran has increasingly styled itself as a regional heavyweight.

"It is a sort of announcement or approach from a position of power, that Iran is a global power to be reckoned with," Tehran-based political analyst Mahmoud Alinejad said.


FOLLOWING KHOMEINI

Ali Ansari, a specialist in Iran at Scotland's St Andrew's University, said the letter could be Ahmadinejad's attempt to follow in the footsteps of revolutionary leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.

"I suspect he may be trying to emulate Khomeini's letter to (Mikhail) Gorbachev. He gave him a lesson in international politics and told him if he carried on the Soviet Union would collapse... (Khomeini) told him to embrace Islam," he said.

The United States and Iran severed diplomatic ties in 1980, after radical students stormed the U.S. embassy in Tehran and seized 52 Americans. They were held hostage for 444 days.

Iranian and U.S. officials met secretly many times in the 1980s, famously during the "Iran Contra" scandal when Washington sold Iran arms for help freeing U.S. hostages in Lebanon.

President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani made an open overture to the United States in 1995, offering U.S. firm Conoco a $1 billion natural gas deal. President Bill Clinton rebuffed him.

U.S. officials often cite Iran's implacable hostility toward Israel as a key obstacle to restoring ties.

More than any of his recent predecessors, Ahmadinejad has raised hackles in the United States, by asserting that Israel should be "wiped off the map." Bush told Germany's Bild am Sonntag newspaper such comments should be seen as a serious threat to Israel and other countries.

Israel lies within range of Iranian ballistic missiles.

Ahmadinejad also said the Holocaust, in which six million Jews were killed by the Nazis, was a myth.

U.S. and Iranian officials have said they are willing to hold talks focusing solely on co-operation to end the bloodshed in Iraq. But Ahmadinejad has said such talks are not needed.

(Additional reporting by Parinoosh Arami and Edmund Blair in Tehran, and Dominic Evans in London)

Original Article

Friday, May 05, 2006

I wonder how long it took them to rehearse...

-In the clip below, the Islamic Republic put on a public event to commemorate the Regime's nuclear capabilities. Take a look at the little theatrical production that takes place while the commentator is talking. I don't know about you, but I thought it was quite amusing. Aside from the terrible artistic work, the Islamic Republic believes that it can convince the Iranian people their freedom and prosperity is a small price to pay for nuclear capabilities. At one point the commentator says to the viewers: "Are you not saying Allah Akbar?" - As if to mean that if you are not chanting blindly with the rest of us, then you are a traitor!

This is why the Islamic Republic will fall. It is so consumed and obsessed with its own ideology and rhetoric that it is completely clueless on the everyday problems of the Iranian people. Our nations is sliding backwards every day because of this corrupt, despotic, and murderous regime. Now we can add clueless to the description.

UPDATE: Top Scholar Detained Without Charge

-The Iranian Scholar who was detained in Iran was detained because he openly disagreed with Aghmagh-nejaad on whether the holocaust did in-fact happen. Can you believe it? The Islamic Republic is so brazen as to arrest a world renowned scholar because he expressed the obvious - It's not even a matter of opinion. The holocaust did happen and Jews, Serbs, Homosexuals, the Mentally Ill, etc… were all slaughtered by the Nazis. Here is more proof of the inhumanity of this regime.

Thursday, May 04, 2006

Iran: Top Scholar Detained Without Charge - Reuters

-Looks like the Islamic Republic is getting nervous. Once they start arresting intellectuals at random, you can assume that the government is scared of something. In fact, the Islamic republic has had a long history of detaining and even murdering its intellectuals. But then againm what do you expect from this government.
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One of Iran's most prominent scholars, Ramin Jahanbegloo, is being held in Tehran's notorious Evin prison, where he is at risk of being tortured, Human Rights Watch said today. Iranian authorities must immediately release Jahanbegloo, who is being held without charge after nearly a week in incommunicado detention.

A prominent philosopher who has written extensively on cultural and philosophical topics, Jahanbegloo is director of Contemporary Studies at the Cultural Research Bureau, a private institution in Tehran. His academic writings include more than 20 books in English, French and Persian. He has also written for newspapers and magazines in Iran and abroad.

"The arbitrary arrest of Ramin Jahanbegloo shows the perilous state of academic freedom and free speech in Iran today," said Joe Stork, deputy Middle East director at Human Rights Watch. "This prominent scholar should be celebrated for his academic achievements, not interrogated in one of Iran's most infamous prisons."

The authorities detained Jahanbegloo at Tehran Airport on or around Thursday, April 27. Officials refused to acknowledge his detention until Wednesday, May 3, when Tehran's deputy prosecutor general, Mahmoud Salarkia, confirmed Jahanbegloo's detention in an interview with the Iranian Students News Agency.

Also on Wednesday, the Fars News Agency quoted the chief of prisons in Tehran Province, Sohrab Soleimani, as saying that Jahanbegloo is being held in Tehran's Evin prison. Neither official gave any reason for Jahanbegloo's arrest. An unnamed Judiciary official told the daily Etemad-e Melli that charges against Jahanbegloo "will be announced after the interrogations."

"Iran's Judiciary is notorious for coercing confessions by means of torture and ill-treatment," Stork said. "We hold the Iranian government entirely responsible for Jahanbegloo's well-being."

Original Article