The Tales from the Zirzameen

Khavaran 21st anniversary

Subject: Letter from political prisoner in the 80’s massacre!

************************************

In the hope that someday the murderous head of the Islamic Republic regime will be prosecuted and in the memory of all the lost lives

The heat of July and august arrives and pain captures my whole being. I am reminded of the hurtful memory of the summer of 1988.
Before all the killings and executions in the ward, I was sent off to solitary. A place where not many come back alive. Therefore, the happenings of that year seemed different to me, as I went to solitary, after having my last meetings, I heard that MUJAHEDIN have attacked at the borders and are advancing into Iran. There were the cellmates who no longer considered themselves as a member of Mujahedin and were more realistic to this news, however, the ones who still considered themselves a part of them have created a false hope and thought the victory will be theirs! In the beginning of this news, I was sent to solitary. The solitary officers knew me well as I used to go there often. When they saw me, they said that you are also one them, go ahead. Since I didn’t consider any of their comments to be intelligent, didn’t pay much attention hence they directed me towards the cell while continuing to tell me that I will be here till they send me to Gohardasht Prison. Solitary was not much different this time around than the other times as I had prepared myself for another 3-4 of confinement.

In the early days, I used to hear lots of commotions in the cells. I used to thing there were new detainees added. I could tell from the opening and closing of the cell doors during the food distribution, how many of the cells were filled. It seemed all the cells were filled, although the building of the psych ward was much more spacious than the ward 209 and was 3 stories tall where the girls and boys sections were separated and the opening and closing of the cell doors on the other floors was heard. Whenever there was a chaotic situation going on, the prison revolutionary guards were static and happy. After all the day’s commotions, the night activities would begin which was odd as during the day the interrogations would take place and at nights the prisoners had a bit of calm relatively. At nights, the cell doors would open but wouldn’t close.

The footsteps of the prisoners moving slowly and quietly while the prison rev. guards were running back to take the next group laughing hysterically, was being heard. When they didn’t take the prisoners with the intention of returning them back, the cell door would stay open meaning they would take them with their stuff and I would compare the recent activities with the past ones, hence everything was weird and out of place! After many were taken in such way, I was sure these were not new detainees as the interrogations couldn’t have been finished all at once in such short periods when they would be all taken to the ward at once and from different floors at the same time, therefore, I thought a new transferring plan is being put in place during night hours. I don’t know why I couldn’t think of the transfers that were being done in the early 80’s, comparatively, when we all knew the night transfers were significant of the execution orders. However, after spending 7 years in prison, it seems too far off and somehow I didn’t want to believe it. In any case, after they would take the prisoners, the prison rev. guard would all follow. There was complete silence in the ward for while and after 1-2 hours the sound of trucks were being heard. They transfered the prisoners by trucks.

The noise of numerous trucks at once was one of those things that didn’t quite correlate with my past experiences then the sound of dropping objects heavier than the baggage of the prisoners into the trucks. I used to think that it were the baggages being thrown in there for transfers to Gohardasht, however it was a bit shocking that so many bags and so heavy to the point that their heavy sounds were echoed, hence one could tell what really went on! After all this, the sound of one of the prisoners was echoed from the ward above singing :"Kiss me, kiss me for the last time, may god keep you as I am going to my destiny”

This song meant execution in prison. I didn’t want to believe it and kept telling myself that he is wrong, they are taking them to Gohardasht Prison and there were reasons confirming my thoughts such as every morning when they would come to serve our food, they would tell me on daily basis: “are you still here?” I would answer, as you can see, yes, they would respond:” the will take you to Gohardasht soon.” This has been repeated so many times that it took a ridiculous turn and I just would no longer answer as I believed these guys were sick in their minds.
Also, when they would take me to take showers, I used to read on the doors of the bathroom: ” They have taken us to Gohardasht Prison” or “we’re gone to Gohardasht” or names of people who were written by them.

In any case, these events would repeatedly happen every night and our friend kept singing ” Kiss me for the last time…” and I kept thinking the same as it wasn’t true while I wanted to make him understand it too until one of these nights I never heard him sing anymore and I was happy as I thought that he finally caught on just like me that everyone is going to Gohardasht Prison. My dear readers, writing these memories are very painful for me!

In conclusion, this happened till end of august and may be a bit longer when these nightly nightmares would repeat itself and I kept thinking that they have transported everyone. Bit by bit I noticed there were less movements. The Prison Rev. Guards are not in good mood and don’t laugh hysterically any longer as they were only happy when engaged in criminal and evil activities. In any case, they took me back to the ward finally after all was finished and I was faced with empty cells and the truth of what went on. In the ward all of my cellmates were meeting and talking about the barrage of events but I was ignorant to it all and now with pain and sorry I could remember and imagine the sound of the trucks with heavy objects falling on their beds and these were the bodies of my cell mates and the sound of the “Kiss me….going to my destiny” echoed in my head as he was being thrown into the truck bed!

In the memory of all the lost lives who were killed and executed in the most excruciating manner and in the hope that one day these thugs will be prosecuted for what they have done. It can only be said: ” Down with Islamic Republic of IRAN".
——————–

Says country’s supreme leader has ‘trampled’ people’s rights

Grand Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri said the ruling system showed its true nature with the violent crackdown against the hundreds of thousands who protested President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s re-election and the torture of detainees that led to at least three deaths.
…

The government has confirmed that at least 30 people were killed in the post-election crackdown, but the opposition says at least 69 died and many more were tortured in prison. The abuse of detainees has also prompted criticism from conservatives, complicating Khamenei’s efforts to end the turmoil.

read more:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/32571993/ns/world_news-mideastn_africa/

yes BRIAN i enjoyed your book. and my daughter is reading it in
Seattle. i have been away from Iran for 3/4 century. so anything
reminding me of old country is welcome/ in the old days people used to
live in ZIRZAMIN IN THE DAYTIME AND IN THE POSHT-E-BAUM (ROOF-TOP) IN
THE EVENINGS. SO IF YOU WRITE MORE OF OF YOUR EXPERIENCE YOU CAN CALL IT
;POSHT-E-BAUM/ DIARY. GOOD LUCK.

Sadegh

Hi Brian jaan,

I loved the interview, and of course, the book. Your Farsi is great, congrats!

Rgds,
Nader

TEHRAN, Aug. 17 (Mehr News Agency) – The late pioneer of Iranian modern art Behjat Sadr was commemorated by a group of colleagues at the Iranian Artists Forum here on Sunday. Behjat Sadr died of a heart attack last week aged 85 on an island in the south of France. She is widely believed to be one of the pioneers of Iranian modern art.

Aidin Aghdashlu, Javad Mojabi, Mohammad Ehsaii, Iraj Eskandari, Bahman Farmanara, Morteza Katuzian, Gizella Sinaii and Khosro Sinaii were among the participants.

http://www.payvand.com/news/09/aug/1145.html

http://www.tehrantimes.com/index_View.asp?code=201287

http://www.payvand.com/news/09/aug/1216.html

… By STEVEN R. HURST and DEVLIN BARRETT, Associated Press

…The new group and new directives to rely soley on the Army Field Manual when interrogating prisoners is an attempt by the administration to separate itself from allegation that the Bush administration tortured some prisoners. While the practice of waterboarding — simulated drowning — already has been banned, the directive to stick only to procedures in the field manual means other harsh tactics, such as subjecting prisoners to loud music for long periods and sleep deprivation, are also now a thing of the past.

The administration is announcing the new interrogation unit on the same day that the CIA inspector general was to unveil a report on Bush administration handling of suspects. Details were expected to show that highly questionable tactics were used.

Subjecting prisoner abuse cases to a new review and possible prosecution could expose CIA employees and agency contractors to criminal prosecution for the alleged mistreatment of terror suspects in the years after the Sept. 11 attacks.

Holder reportedly reacted with disgust when he first read accounts of prisoner abuse earlier this year in a classified version of the IG report.

The Justice report is said to reveal how interrogators conducted mock executions and threatened at least one man with a gun and a power drill. Threatening a prisoner with death violates U.S. anti-torture laws…

read more:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090824/ap_on_go_pr_wh/us_cia_interrogations

also see:

http://act.truemajorityaction.org/p/7002/holder_victory?tell_a_friend_KEY=200

Wall Street Journal Aug 24, 2009

Ali Motahari

By FARNAZ FASSIHI
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is facing criticism of his cabinet nominees both at home and abroad, as the political turmoil in the country deepens less than a month into his second term.

Mr. Ahmadinejad introduced 21 cabinet nominees last week and, as the law stipulates, submitted the list to Parliament for a vote of confidence. Parliament said Sunday that it would review and vote on the cabinet over a three-day period starting Aug. 30.

The names drew harsh criticism, even from his allies, as they surfaced. Some lawmakers said they were reluctant to approve the candidates because many lacked the appropriate skills and experience.

“It appears his choices for a cabinet are even weaker than the previous government. We are not obliged to vote for the president’s list,” cleric and lawmaker Mehdi Pour Fatemi told a semiofficial parliamentary news agency.

Mr. Ahmadinejad’s pick of three women ministers – for the health, education and welfare, and social-security portfolios – scandalized clerics in the holy city of Qum, who warned that there are limits to women’s abilities. Women activists questioned the hard-line president’s motives and charged that these female candidates would only push his agenda.

“The president wants to be the ruler in sensitive ministries. So he has introduced people whose major quality is that they are ‘yes-men,’” conservative lawmaker Ali Motahari told Mehr News Agency on Friday.

read more…

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB125107447206452667.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

http://www.sign4change.info/spip.php?article=4560

Times on Line August 22, 2009

…Reza’s ordeal was far from over. He was taken with about 130 other prisoners to the city’s Revolutionary Court, where they were herded into a yard. The judge told them that he would hang those who had violently resisted the Islamic revolution and read out the names of ten teenagers, including Reza. The message was clear: if they continued to say they had been raped they would be executed…

read more:

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/middle_east/article6805885.ece

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6vgukCbb9B8&eurl=http://www.youtube.com/user/20071305&feature=player_profilepage#t=32

comment:

well in Iran the guards and even judiciary rape prisoners…in the USA prisoners rape eachother and citizens rape eachother every hour in every urban area every day across the nation…pick your hell but don’t pretend paradise exists in either country…let’s try to keep things in perspective…

rasool

How often does sexual assault occur?

In 2007, there were 248,300 victims of rape, attempted rape, or sexual assault.(These figures do not include victims 12 years old or younger.)

Every 2 minutes, someone in the U.S. is sexually assaulted.

Here’s the math. According to the U.S. Department of Justice’s National Crime Victimization Survey – the country’s largest and most reliable crime study – there were 248,300 sexual assaults in 2007 (the most recent data available).

http://www.rainn.org/get-information/statistics/frequency-of-sexual-assault

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ocKlSQWCh8

families of political prisoners ending fast on first day of Ramadan in front of Evin prison Aug 22, 2009

at www.Iranianmovies.com

I love this website!!! I finally found a DVD of “Lovers’Wind” by Albert Lamorisse on this site which I had been looking for for many years!!! It’s great!

4 excellent hard to find films by Khosrow Sinai

Lost Requim about Iranian humanitarian efforts to help 100,000 Polish refugees from Stalin’s work camps

Viva

Impressions of a City Old Tehran

Talking with a Shadow Sadeg Hedayat

As US-run studies have shown, US-Iran conflicts could be mitigated, probably ended, if the US and Iran were functioning democratic societies, in which popular opinion played a significant role in policy. By very large majorities, the people of both countries agree that Iran has a right to nuclear power but not nuclear energy;

that nuclear weapons should be banned from the entire region (Iran to Israel); that the nuclear states should live up to their legal obligation under the NPT to eliminate nuclear weapons; and that the US should withdraw all threats of force against Iran and move towards normalizing relations.

We cannot act directly to bring democracy to Iran, but we can support the courageous Iranians who are struggling to do so instead of undermining their efforts by threats of force. And it is surely within our power to convert our own countries into functioning democracies.
Noam Chomsky
http://www.chomsky.info/

First Iranian National Flag from Sassanid King black smith turned hero Kaveh

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Derafsh_Kaviani

Rare Gold Qajar 5000 Dinar Coin

Gold 1 Toman Qajar coin

Silver 5000 Dinar Qajar coin

I am sending this out as this effects our heritage and perceptions of
it.
Many of you are not aware that I am involved in the precious metals and
numismatics fields for over a decade, and I own a large collection of
historic Iranian Gold and Silver coinage.
Recently one of the major dealers in the precious metal/numismatic
business, Krause Publications, has been devaluating the value of
historic Iranian Gold coins in their books. For instance, Qajar 5000
Dinar Gold coins and Gold Pahlavis of Mohammed Reza Shah are valued at
less than the meltdown value of Gold. Having exammined the Standard
Catalog of World Coins 1901-2000, 37th Edition which Krause released a
few months ago I noticed Iran is one of the few countries who’s historic
coinage is valued less than their melt value. For more info about
Krause and their books go to their site at
http://www.krausebooks.com/category/coins_papermoney or visit any major
bookstore near you and see for yourself.
Peter Khan Zendran

While Esha may be free, there are still countless other prisoners of conscience suffering in prison cells in Iran and we hope and continue our efforts so they can join Esha in freedom…

read more:

http://for-esha.blogspot.com/

http://www.irna.ir/View/FullStory/?NewsId=643821

comment:
I hope to live to see the day that Evin Prison is torn down and every one of the judges, administrators, prison guards,baliffs, police, Basiji and RCG associated with the sentencing, arrest and abuse of political prisoners be put on trial for crimes against humanity…

rasool

http://www.sociarts.com/sepidehdesign

Come join us as we boycott Mansour’s concert at Club Nokia. Every single Iranian should know by now that Nokia is Iran’s cell phone supplier and that Nokia is accused of having tracking devices on its cell phones. The tracking device on Nokia cell phones has led to many arrests and disappearances in Iran. As many of our fellow Iranians in Iran are struggling to fight for freedom and democracy, we ask why would a fellow Iranian hold a concert at a venue that is owned by Nokia? Please come out and show fellow Iranians and Americans that our fight for freedom and democracy is still continuing daily in Iran. We will not stand for the support of any company and supplier that deals with Iran and supports its current regime.

Video From our Last Protest by Nokia (Los Angeles):
http://www.facebook.com/l/;www.youtube.com/watch?v=YTdXqIktkNQ

To Boycott This Event Go To:
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=132568163192&ref=mf

comment from OC Protests to Rasool Aryadust:

Name: Arezo

Address: jamboree & barranca

Citystate: Irvine, CA

Zip: 92606

Email: ocprotests@gmail.com

Comment: Thank you for posting our event. There are people still standing on that corner nightly for a free, democratic Iran. Thank you.

…

“This is a shameless attempt to use Iran’s tragic history of foreign intervention to instill fear in the Iranian public for political ends,” said Dokhi Fassihian, a NIAC board member. “What we have witnessed in the past two months is not a foreign conspiracy, it’s a homegrown movement demanding that their votes be counted and their rights be respected.”

…

read more:

http://www.niacouncil.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1480&Itemid=2

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=im2BGPeIYII&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SyfjZiSMrts

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sBm5tuBkzKc

Will Iran’s ‘Kennedys’ Challenge Ahmadinejad?
By Robin Wright, Time Magazine

…"Larijani has been a very ineffective speaker,” says Iran scholar Shaul Bakhash. “[Parliament] has been a virtual no-show on all issues during his leadership … And his investigation of allegations of mistreatment of prisoners was clearly slapdash.”
…

read more:

http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1916828-2,00.html

By NASSER KARIMI, Associated Press Writer

http://cosmos.bcst.yahoo.com/up/player/popup/?rn=3906861&cl=15030303&ch=4226714&src=news
…

In apparent attempt to fend off criticism and move ahead with his second term, Ahmadinejad named three women who, if confirmed, would be Iran’s first female Cabinet ministers since the 1979 Islamic Revolution.

The trial, now in its third session, has included a number of televised confessions and has drawn international condemnation from human rights groups that allege the confessions are coerced. The U.S. last week labeled the event a “show trial.”
…

read more:

Taraneh Moussavi “imaginary” gang rape victim…these hardline clerics want to shoot the messenger Karroubi…sweep it all under the Persian carpet…revise history with threats and lies…
rasool

http://www.amilimani.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=153&Itemid=2

TEHRAN, Iran (AP) – A group of former reformist lawmakers appealed to a powerful clerical body in Iran to investigate Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s qualification to rule in an unprecedented challenge to the country’s most powerful man over the postelection crackdown.

The call came as controversy heated up Friday over allegations that protesters detained the crackdown were tortured. Hard-line clerics across the country demanded that a senior reform leader be prosecuted for claiming that some detainees were raped by their jailers…

Some detainees were “forced to go naked, crawl on their hands knees and knees like animals, with prison guards riding on their backs.” Others were forced to lie “naked, on top of one another,” Karroubi said in a statement late Thursday.

“Young people were beaten severely … to death because they chanted slogans,” said Karroubi, a cleric who also ran in the June 12 election. “It is deplorable that people detained over election protests are tortured. Do such treatments conform with Islam, which is a religion of mercy?”

Karroubi said the reports came from Tehran’s Kahrizak prison, which has been at the center of abuse claims and was orderd closed by Khamenei this month in an attempt to ease the uproar.

Karroubi criticized Larijani’s speedy denial of the rape allegations, saying no probe could have been completed that fast. He also vowed he won’t remain silent over the “medieval torture and corruption” in Iran ’s prisons.

“Insults and criticism won’t make me silent. I’ll defend the rights of the people as long as I’m alive and you can’t stop my tongue, hand and pen,” said Karroubi, leader of the reformist National Confidence Party.

read more:

http://www.news-gazette.com/news/local/2009/08/14/reformers_call_for_probe_of_irans_supreme_leader

IRAN: Allegations of Rape in Detention Centres - Majid Ansari claimed that the issue of rape in prisons was a fact and the evidence had been submitted to officials. “Regretfully these [allegations] are true. It seems that the situation has deteriorated so much in the Islamic Republic that such atrocities can in fact occur,” claimed Ansari who is a cleric and also a member of the Expediency Council. 8/15/09

http://www.payvand.com/news/09/aug/1123.html

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iwCNSzWHyS4&eurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww%2Epayvand%2Ecom%2Fnews%2F09%2Faug%2F1123%2Ehtml&feature=player_embedded#t=425

Rape in prisons of Iran…not a new phenomena…

prison rape victim at the age of 18.

Hi,

In this video Nina Aghdam tells us her prison account in Islamic Republic of Iran.

“The interrogator said now I will do something that will crush you, and I was crushed”

Nina was raped and tortured when she was 18.

Neda Mousavi

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RYtZqGd1gNo

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wAQsRmioHzU&feature=related

by Stephen Kinzer, Posted May 5, 2009

http://www.fff.org/freedom/fd0902d.asp

“Yes, my sin, my greater sin…, and even my greatest sin is that I nationalized Iran’s oil industry and discarded the system of political and economic exploitation by the world’s greatest empire” ~Dr. Mohammad Mossadegh, the only democratic elected P…M of Iran (1951-1953) whose government was toppled by evil alliance of US imperialists and UK colonialists through a coup d’etat (Operation Ajax)

“…This at the cost to myself, my family; and at the risk of losing my life, my honour and my property. …With God’s blessing and the will of the people, I fought this savage and dreadful system of International espionage and colonialism. ….I am well aware that my fate must serve as an example in the future throughout the Middle East in breaking the chains of slavery and servitude to colonial interests.”

Dr. Mossadegh will always alive in heart of Iranians who love Iran and Iranian people!

by John Len, BBC News, Tehran correspondant

…It is clear the Basij have been preparing to deal with this sort of internal unrest for many years, quite different from their role as frontline soldiers in the Iran-Iraq war…

“These Basijis are also part of the nation and gradually you don’t expect them to stay loyal to the authorities when they see that people in the streets are their neighbours and their children,” he said.

“I heard that many, many of the Basijis, especially their commanders, when they go home they have problems with their children and their wives, and they ask ‘why do you kill people?’ ” …

read more:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/8200719.stm

Irene Khan, Secretary General of Amnesty International

By ALI AKBAR DAREINI, Associated Press Writer Ali Akbar Dareini, Associated Press Writer – 1 hr 34 mins ago
TEHRAN, Iran – President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad fired at least four senior Intelligence Ministry figures in a purge targeting officials who disagreed with the crackdown on the opposition after the disputed presidential election, lawmakers and media said Monday.

The purge deepens a rift between Ahmadinejad and critics within his own conservative camp and also reveals splits within the security establishment itself over the heavyhanded suppression of the pro-reform opposition since the June 12 election.

…

Conservative and pro-reform media identified four deputy ministers who were removed — including the head of counterespionage and a 25-year veteran, both of whom were “trusted” by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, according to one conservative Web site Khabaronline

…

Reports of abuse against detainees — several of whom have died in custody — have also brought criticism from conservatives and leading clerics in Iran’s religious hierarchy.

Mahdi Karroubi, one of two defeated pro-reform candidates in the disputed June 12 presidential election, said on his Web site Sunday that he has received reports from former military commanders and other senior officials that some detainees, male and female, were raped in custody.

“A number of detainees have stated that some female detainees were so brutally raped that their genitals were damaged. Others savagely raped young boys so that they suffer from depression and serious physical and mental damage,” Karroubi said in a letter posted on his Web site.

He said such crimes, if proven true, would “disgrace” Iran’s Islamic ruling system.
…

As the issue of detainee abuse has come to the fore, Amnesty International reported that the number of executions in Iran has risen sharply. The group said that between the June 12 election and Ahmadinejad’s inauguration on Aug. 5, there were 115 executions — an average of about two per day. Most of the prisoners are said to have been convicted of drug smuggling or similar offenses.

“This represents a significant increase, even compared to the appallingly high rate of executions that has been so long a feature of the human rights scene in Iran,” Amnesty Secretary-General Irene Khan said in the report, released Friday…

read more:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090810/ap_on_re_mi_ea/ml_iran

comment:

It is becoming apparent that Ahmadinejad has no regard for any other governing body with his IRG/Basiji private army and so although the people have recognized this with their roof top shouting of “Death to the Dictator,” I think the other government agencies and military are in for a rude awakening…it will take a civil war to uninstall this Mahdiist madman…

rasool

IAC

Iranian Lives and American Spare Parts: An Open Letter to President Obama from Hooshang Amirahmadi
——————————————————————————–
President Barack H. Obama
The White House
Washington, D.C.

Dear Mr. President,

I write to bring to your attention a human tragedy that plane crashes have brought to the Iranian people and visitors who travel to Iran. In tune with your “hope” and “change” slogans, I also write to urge that you help mitigate this calamity by lifting sanctions on the sale of American-made civilian planes and spare parts to Iran.

As you consider this request, Mr. President, please remember that an increasing number of Iranian-Americans and Americans also travel to Iran and that they and their Iranian loved ones must also fly these extremely unsafe Iranian planes. Protecting the lives of these citizens is, Mr. President, among your most basic Constitutional duties.

Mr. President, your humanitarian gesture will be greatly appreciated by the Iranian people on both sides of the post-election struggle, particularly by those fighting for their citizenship rights on the streets of Iran. Please keep in mind that the fallen icons of that struggle, as well as those serving prison terms, could have been in one of those crashed planes! Read More:

http://www.us-iran.org/ltopc_english.pdf

http://us1.campaign-archive.com/?u=f45e17a58bc2f172f8dade1c8&id=ef1a293b66&e=56b773d720

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4fueI7bXzOo

By MWC NEWS

Averting catastrophe—not only the spread of weapons but their lethal use—will require major shifts in attitude and policy in every one of the nuclear weapon states, declared and undeclared. But such change is undoubtedly most needed, and must come first, in the United States and Russia. Despite important and creditable moves, both unilateral and negotiated, since 1991 to reverse their bilateral arms race, and piecemeal measures to restrain proliferation, none of their initiatives and proposals has shown a decisive shift away from cold war notions of the broad functions of and requirements for nuclear weapons in “superpower” arsenals.

read more:
http://mwcnews.net/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=32385&Itemid=26

08/08/09
TEHRAN, Aug. 8 (Mehr News Agency)

Names of rogue cops should be announced: – MP Mohammad Karamirad believes that the names of those police officers who had violated law in their treatment of prisoners detained after the election be announced to the public in an open court.

The MP made the remarks as the Law Enforcement Forces has formed a special committee to investigate the issue.

“The society should be informed of the incidents that have happened. The names of the lawbreakers should be announced, their violations examined, and their sentences should be in accordance with the crimes they have committed,” he told the Mehr News Agency on Saturday

read more:

http://www.payvand.com/news/09/aug/1069.html

Iran’s most senior dissident cleric, Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri, has also compared the mass trial and the public confessions to the tactics of former Soviet dictator Josef Stalin, former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein and other authoritarian rulers.

read more:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090810/ap_on_re_mi_ea/ml_iran_election;_ylt=AoEk2HQnqZmG8Yk5E2bbWt6s0NUE;_ylu=X3oDMTMyOG05cHM0BGFzc2V0A2FwLzIwMDkwODEwL21sX2lyYW5fZWxlY3Rpb24EY3BvcwM4BHBvcwM1BHB0A2hvbWVfY29rZQRzZWMDeW5faGVhZGxpbmVfbGlzdARzbGsDaXJhbmp1ZGljaWFy

show trial with Clotilde Reiss

From, Fascism Anyone?, Lawrence Britt, Free
Inquiry, Spring 2003, page 20.

1. Powerful and Continuing Nationalism - Fascist
regimes tend to make constant use of patriotic mottos,
slogans, symbols, songs, and other paraphernalia.
Flags are seen everywhere, as are flag symbols on
clothing and in public displays.

2. Disdain for the Recognition of Human Rights -
Because of fear of enemies and the need for security,
the people in fascist regimes are persuaded that human
rights can be ignored in certain cases because
of “need.” The people tend to look the other way or
even approve of torture, summary executions,
assassinations, long incarcerations of prisoners, etc.

3. Identification of Enemies/Scapegoats as a Unifying
Cause - The people are rallied into a unifying
patriotic frenzy over the need to eliminate a
perceived common threat or foe: racial , ethnic or
religious minorities; liberals; communists;
socialists, terrorists, etc.

4. Supremacy of the Military - Even when there are
widespread domestic problems, the military is given a
disproportionate amount of government funding, and the
domestic agenda is neglected. Soldiers and military
service are glamorized.

5. Rampant Sexism - The governments of fascist nations
tend to be almost exclusively male-dominated. Under
fascist regimes, traditional gender roles are made
more rigid. Opposition to abortion is high, as is
homophobia and anti-gay legislation and national
policy.

6. Controlled Mass Media - Sometimes to media is
directly controlled by the government, but in other
cases, the media is indirectly controlled by
government regulation, or sympathetic media
spokespeople and executives. Censorship, especially in
war time, is very common.

7. Obsession with National Security - Fear is used as
a motivational tool by the government over the masses.

8. Religion and Government are Intertwined -
Governments in fascist nations tend to use the most
common religion in the nation as a tool to manipulate
public opinion. Religious rhetoric and terminology is
common from government leaders, even when the major
tenets of the religion are diametrically opposed to
the government’s policies or actions.

9. Corporate Power is Protected - The industrial and
business aristocracy of a fascist nation often are the
ones who put the government leaders into power,
creating a mutually beneficial business/government
relationship and power elite.

10. Labor Power is Suppressed - Because the organizing
power of labor is the only real threat to a fascist
government, labor unions are either eliminated
entirely, or are severely suppressed.

11. Disdain for Intellectuals and the Arts - Fascist
nations tend to promote and tolerate open hostility to
higher education, and academia. It is not uncommon
for professors and other academics to be censored or
even arrested. Free __expression in the arts is openly
attacked, and governments often refuse to fund the
arts.

12. Obsession with Crime and Punishment - Under
fascist regimes, the police are given almost limitless
power to enforce laws. The people are often willing to
overlook police abuses and even forego civil liberties
in the name of patriotism. There is often a national
police force with virtually unlimited power in fascist
nations.

13. Rampant Cronyism and Corruption - Fascist regimes
almost always are governed by groups of friends and
associates who appoint each other to government
positions and use governmental power and authority to
protect their friends from accountability. It is not
uncommon in fascist regimes for national resources and
even treasures to be appropriated or even outright
stolen by government leaders.

14. Fraudulent Elections - Sometimes elections in
fascist nations are a complete sham. Other times
elections are manipulated by smear campaigns against
or even assassination of opposition candidates,
use of legislation to control voting numbers or
political district boundaries, and manipulation of the
media. Fascist nations also typically use their
judiciaries to manipulate or control elections.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pooCcHn1lAo&NR=1–

comment:

the regime is committing this kind of brutality against all humanity not just Iranians, it is a crime against all mankind and that they do it in the name of religion makes it all the more wicked…this kind of idealogy has no place here on earth…every one of these bastards must be tried and jailed and should spend eternity in hell…and as Nazanin Afshar-Jam says any foreign government who recognizes their legitimacy is an accomplice to their crimes…

I lived in Iran many years and never met an Iranian fanatic capable of such acts…I met kind and generous people who even when I was taken hostage fed me and did not mistreat me and in fact apologized for using me as a political tool. It is as if this regime is not Iranian but some kind of aberrant Wahabi foreigner…not the Iranians I know and love…the Iranian people deserve better than this…this regime is made up of every aberrant sociopath that was hiding under a rock, loser, excuse for a human being…like putting a psychotic in charge of a country…and he wants Mojtaba next unless Ahmadinejad and the IRG/Basiji miscreants have other plans…

Last summer in Iran, every person I met tried to speak English with me and asked me if the USA was going to attack Iran. They all wanted peace,not one wanted war in the name of religion or for any other reason. They also asked me whether I liked Iran better before the revolution or now…I did not want to say anything to hurt their feelings, they asked me with such earnestness and trust so I told them the truth,which is that each regime had it’s good points and bad…I feel so betrayed by this regime now with its election fraud and post election atrocity. It is not that I am naive or unaware of the atrocity it has committed over the past 30 years but I thought it was moving into a more moderate era just as the 85% voter turn out indicated the same hope…I feel so disillusioned and betrayed and I am only a visitor…imagine how Iranians in Iran who voted feel, imagine what those arrested are experiencing right now as you read this…we cannot idly stand by and permit this to stand or we are all accomplices…

rasool

Response To 44 Nobel Laureates Open Letter Regarding Brave Men and Women of IranShare
Yesterday at 9:41pm

Sign the Petition -
View Current Signatures

http://www.petitiononline.com/achat82/petition.html

To: 44 Nobel Laureates, UN and FREE World Leaders

We, the undersigned, would like to thank the 44 Nobel Laureates for showing courage when the leaders of the free world stood ear-splitting silent. Your August 3rd Open Letter titled “Do not feel abandoned. Do not lose hope” was an inspiration to millions of Iranians during a critical time when the U.N. and most of G8 leaders turned a deaf ear with no real actions. Your unilateral action will not be forgotten.

during a critical time when the U.N. and most G8 nations
turned a deaf ear.

“IRAN OPEN LETTER: AN OPEN LETTER

to All the dissidents –
the brave men and women of Iran:
Do not feel abandoned.
Do not lose hope.

The world knows that its physical and spiritual survival is linked to yours.

We, the undersigned Nobel Laureates, strongly condemn the flagrant human rights violations in the wake of the recent presidential election in Iran.

We deplore the violent and oppressive tactics the current regime is using to dissuade protestors from expressing their right to free speech. Your election was shamelessly tampered with and your human rights disregarded. We are outraged by your government’s denial of basic liberties to its people, such as detaining large groups of professors, students and innocent civilians, and denying proper funeral services to victims of its violence. These events, and the decision to ban all international media from covering these events, are blatant violations of the democratic principles your government claims to uphold.

We are well aware that throughout the long and glorious history of the Iranian civilization, your ancestors have often stood firmly against both interference from without and repression from within. Today, once again, you are fighting for a just cause.

We urge President Obama and the world’s political leadership to support, with all means at their disposal, the people of Iran, who deserve to have their votes counted, their voices heard, and their dignity respected.

Richard Axel, Nobel Prize, Medicine (2004)
Baruj Benacerraf, Nobel Prize, Medicine (1980)
Paul Berg, Nobel Prize, Chemistry (1980)
Günter Blobel, Nobel Prize, Medicine (1999)
Mario R. Capecchi, Nobel Prize, Medicine (2007)
Aaron Ciechanover, Nobel Prize, Chemistry (2004)
Stanley Cohen, Nobel Prize, Medicine (1986)
ClaudeCohen-Tannoudji, Nobel Prize, Physics (1997)
Elias James Corey, Nobel Prize, Chemistry (1990)
Robert F. Curl Jr., Nobel Prize, Chemistry (1996)
John B. Fenn, Nobel Prize, Chemistry (2002)
Edmond H. Fischer, Nobel Prize, Medicine (1992)
Jerome I. Friedman, Nobel Prize, Physics (1990)
Donald A. Glaser, Nobel Prize, Physics (1960)
Sheldon Glashow, Nobel Prize, Physics (1979)
David J. Gross, Nobel Prize, Physics (2004)
Roger Guillemin, Nobel Prize, Medicine (1977)
Leland H. Hartwell, Nobel Prize, Medicine (2001)
Dudley R. Herschbach, Nobel Prize, Chemistry (1986)
Avram Hershko, Nobel Prize, Chemistry (2004)
Roald Hoffman, Nobel Prize, Chemistry (1981)
Tim Hunt, Nobel Prize, Medicine (2001)
Daniel Kahneman, Nobel Prize, Economics (2002)
Eric R. Kandel, Nobel Prize, Medicine (2000)
William S. Knowles, Nobel Prize, Chemistry (2001)
Roger D. Kornberg, Nobel Prize, Chemistry (2006)
Harold W. Kroto, Nobel Prize, Chemistry (1996)
Finn E. Kydland, Nobel Prize, Economics (2004)
Eric S. Maskin, Nobel Prize, Economics (2007)
John Mather, Nobel Prize, Physics (2006)
Craig C. Mello, Nobel Prize, Medicine (2006)
Marshall W. Nirenberg, Nobel Prize, Medicine (1968)
George A. Olah, Nobel Prize, Chemistry (1994)
John C. Polanyi, Nobel Prize, Chemistry (1986)
Stanley Prusiner, Nobel Prize, Medicine (1997)
Robert C. Richardson, Nobel Prize, Physics (1996)
Richard J. Roberts, Nobel Prize, Medicine (1993)
Heinrich Rohrer, Nobel Prize, Physics (1986)
Jens C.Skou, Nobel Prize, Chemistry (1997)
Hamilton O. Smith, Nobel Prize, Medicine (1978)
Wole Soyinka, Nobel Prize, Literature (1986)
Joseph H. Taylor Jr., Nobel Prize, Physics (1993)
Bishop Desmond Tutu, Nobel Prize, Peace (1984)
Betty Williams, Nobel Prize, Peace (1976)
Elie Wiesel, Nobel Prize, Peace ( 1986) “

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yy0IHx6nJyY

comment:

At first I thought the persecution of Baha’is after the 1979 revolution was to remove them from top positions in the infrastructure and to take their wealth like the Nazis did to the Jews in Germany. Then I started digging and found that they have been persecuted right from the beginning. Look at the life of poetess and early woman’s rights advocate Tahereh Qorratol’Ein.

Part of it is like the Rabbis persecuting Jesus, the Shia clerics did not want any competition over their perishoners. Then they did not want their religion invalidated or surplanted by a new one and they labelled Baha’U'llal, the False Hidden Imam.

So today we have Ahmadinejad who apparently imagines himself to be the herald of and to be guided by the Mahdi so there is no room for a religion which believes the last prophet already arrived.

One thing is for certain, any religion which feels that it is the only true faith is a danger to humanity.

Like Sri Rama Krishna once said:"Many ladders can lead to the same roof.” I think that for the average person living by the Golden Rule of “Do unto others as you would be done by” would be enough to change the world as we know it. These hardline Mahdi’ists have forever damaged the perception of Islam worldwide now with all this brutality, torture, rape, execution, stoning, mock trials, forced confessions, child executions…this is not about God, not about compassion, love, forgiveness and tolerance…in the course of history Sufis with their miracles and faith healing contributed to the expansion of Islam more than the sword and often when they found unity with God and proclaimed it like El Ghazali, they were called heretics by the dogmatists, and executed…in fact Dervishes have also been persecuted under the Shah’s and by the IRI…those who claim rule by divine right do not accept any competition.

What is being practised by the IRI against the Bahai is nothing less than genocide. It is not a religious act by any stretch of the imagination. These fanatics think killing and raping and beating and killing women and children is God’s work? What kind of a God is that? Ares?

For me every human being has a soul and a natural religion within themself, which they are capable of experiencing on their own without the outside enforcement of old power hungry men with their paid enforcers praying on fear and ignorance. Christ once said that “if you want to know God, know thyself…” He also said that if you want to find God, follow the way of the birds and the fishes. To me that means the divine is in our nature…we have only to look inward to find it…

Rasool

Bahaullal

Tahereh Ghoratolein
(Tahirih Qurratu’l-’Ayn)
writer

Born: in the city of Qazvin, Persia between 1817 and 1820. The exact date is unknown because her birth records were burned together with her books and clothing the day after she was killed.

Died: 1852

http://www.exil-archiv.de/html/biografien/ghoratolein.html

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PIkLdJXo0ck&eurl=http%3A%2F%2Fpayvand%2Ecom%2Fnews%2F&feature=player_embedded

by
John Lyons, The Australian, August 6, 2009

Assembly of Experts in former Senate Building

…It now seems only dramatic change will satisfy the masses. The best chance for the least violent outcome is that the government agrees to concessions such as trying to bring a figure such as Mousavi into the government.

Two more dramatic outcomes are also possible: that the regime crumbles in the face of mass opposition, or Rafsanjani convinces enough of the 86 clerics on the Assembly of Experts to force out Khamenei.

This would become messy as the next issue would be what happens to Ahmadinejad, who has his own power base: he’s been shrewd enough to ensure control of the Basiji militia. This is the bloodiest possible scenario. Ahmadinejad only needs to give the word for the Basiji militia to take all its firepower into the streets. The consequences would be tantamount to civil war.

Apart from the security apparatus, Ahmadinejad is something of a loner. Presidential candidate Mohsen Rezai, a former commander of the Revolutionary Guard, offered an insight in this regard before the election: “He has created a kind of loneliness around himself and no one feels safe around him.”

The problem now for Khamenei and Ahmadinejad is that everywhere they look they see enemies, possibly even when they look at each other.

The regime of the Islamic Republic of Iran is crashing. The big question is how much damage will be caused in that crash.

read more:

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,,25888294-15084,00.html

Hundreds of supporters of Iranian opposition leader Mirhossein Mousavi chanted “death to the dictator” in Tehran on Thursday, a witness said, a day after Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was sworn in as president.

read more:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20090806/ts_nm/us_iran_protest_3

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MZoJQ9v0m78

it is interesting to realize that weaponless martial art techniques were developed in places like Okinawa when the Japanese overlords did not allow commoners to have weapons…which just goes to show you that no matter how oppressive a regime, there are ways to fight back…look at the idea of Judo…you use your opponents’ own weight and momentum to defeat him…

look at the French and Italian resistence movements against the Facists and Nazis during WWII…why the hell can’t the French and the Italian governments relate to the Iranian people and boycott the IRI instead of being led by neo facists like Sarkozy and Berlusconi who only think of oil and money?

Rasool

Well let’s see, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon sends a congratulation, China and Russia and France and Switzerland and Italy all continue to do business with these murderers and thugs and Obama won’t officially refuse to recognize Ahmadinejad as the president…only Germany who remember the Nazis has taken a stand and if we dare criticize, the IRI says our record on human rights and on humanitarian bombing is no better…as if two wrongs somehow make a right…that if we criticize we are inteferring with their national sovereignty…well guess what, when a government hurts its citizens they no longer owe it any loyaly (Adam Smith.)
And when a government violates human rights especially in such a blatant way without regard for world opinion which it says is irrelevant then all of us human beings have a right to intervene because we all share our human rights collectively (Sa’adi).

Rasool

Mahmoud giving the world Cornuto!!!

killing children and raping young men and women to death…
paving the way for the Mahdi? No thank you…

So let’s see, the only thing the world wants to do is increase sanctions like on gasoline imports…the people are supposed to then suffer so much that they overthrow their government, right?! Sure, let’s see the IRG and Basiji have all the weapons, the people have none…how does that work exactly? And how many of you comfortable bourgoisie would set about unarmed trying to overthrow your own governments if they dealt with their political opponents as brutally as the IRI does? Even executing defense lawyers, forcing confessions by torture, extracting money from the families of the victims to get the bodies of their loved ones back…these are not Iranians in charge but some kind of neo Nazis who even make Wahabi’s look moderate…

rasool

By SABINA AMIDI, SPECIAL TO THE JERUSALEM POST

In Tabriz, Iran’s fourth-largest city, the bodies of five lawyers were returned to their families earlier this week, the sources said. The five had been representing some of the hundreds of Iranians detained in the northwestern city during the post-election protests. They were then themselves accused of disrupting security and encouraging unethical actions against the regime, and were sentenced to three years each in jail.

RELATED
‘Press association in Iran shut down’

Three of them then died from injuries suffered during their detention. They were so badly beaten that their families could barely recognize their faces, this reporter was told.

The other two - prominent figures in the local community - were executed, having been sentenced to death on trumped-up charges of drug possession, the sources said.

read more:

http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1249418544518&pagename=JPost/JPArticle/ShowFull

comment:
Ahmadinejad considers himself the herald of the Mahdi who will bring justice to the world…so far it doesn’t seem much like justice but more like atrocity upon atrocity and a mockery of justice…let’s see, executing defense lawyers, raping women before executing them, forced confessions extracted under torture, arresting journalists…hanging people by their feet for days til their lungs hemorrage them to death…what kind of a world order would this be?

rasool

As Ahmadinejad Is Sworn In for 2nd Term, Deep Fissures Are Laid Bare - The inauguration ceremony itself exposed deep rifts in Iran’s ruling elite. Many seats were empty, with most of Parliament’s reform faction boycotting the event, according to Parlamaan News, a reformist Web site. Several reformists who did attend walked out as the president began his speech. -New York Times 8/6/09
read more:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/06/world/middleeast/06iran.html?hpw\

The End of The Republic?

By Bernd Kaussler Al Zazeera English

…

Militarisation of politics

The chief architect of Ahmadinejad’s ideology is the hardliner cleric Ayatollah Mesbah Yazdi.

Time and again, Yazdi has questioned the legitimacy of the concept of republic within an Islamic system and he continues to advocate totalitarian rule of the jurist consult over the people, who he considers unable to form any social contract with the state.

Iran’s Revolutionary Guard has become increasingly powerful [GALLO/GETTY]
For most of his tenure, journalists, human rights activists and academics have been the target of arbitrary arrests, violence and, in the case of the Baha’is, outright persecution.

Judging by its appalling human rights record, which appears to have culminated with the current level of state sponsored violence against its own citizens, Ahmadinejad’s government seems close to perfecting the hardliners’ vision of Iran: the militarisation of politics and securitisation of society.

Under Ahmadinejad the Basij and the Iranian Revolutionary Guards (IRG) have gained tremendous momentum.

Over the course of the last four years, numerous government contracts and senior government appointments have provided the Guards with ever-increasing economic and political clout at the expense of an increasingly irate clergy.

On several occasions, Guards commanders have openly challenged the clergy and called on them to leave governance to the military and politicians.

Ahmadinejad’s penchant for Shia eschatology, particularly his repeated claims to be personally guided by the Mahdi, the prophesised messiah of Islam, infuriated the elite in Qom as much as it revealed his disconnection from the majority of society.

When, in November 2007, Major General Jafari, the commander of the Guards, stated that “the main mission of the Basij and the IRG is to fight internal enemies” the new fault lines of Iranian politics were laid open. They would eventually manifest themselves on a large scale in the aftermath of the June 2009 elections…

read more:

http://english.aljazeera.net/focus/2009/08/20098171953790365.html

God save us from the zealots:

http://www.meforum.org/1985/ahmadinejad-and-the-mahdi

Monday, 03 August 2009
Standing on two feet doesn’t make a person human, only standing on principles does. It is for this reason that I am saluting Angela Merkel, the Chancellor of Germany: A German woman who has bravely divorced herself and her nation from the ignominious past of Nazi Germany. A German woman who is standing for principles at the risk of her nation losing considerable profits from recognizing the legitimacy of a fraudulent government of neo-Nazi Mahmood Ahmadinejad.
Chancellor Merkel has unequivocally expressed her revulsion at the fraud and violence by the Islamic republic in reinstalling the maniacal Ahmadinejad in office for another four years. She has seen irrefutable evidences of heartless beating, torture, and murder of Iranians who aimed to free themselves and their country, by peaceful means and through the ballet box, from the mullahs’ suffocating medieval rule.

read more:

http://www.amilimani.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=152&Itemid=2

Along with Bakhtiar and his friends, Boroumand played an active role in the creation and development of NAMIR. He was not deterred by the danger inherent in such an endeavor. On April 18, 1991, Boroumand was stabbed to death in the lobby of his Paris apartment by agents of the Islamic Republic. Three month later, on August 6, 1991, Bakhtiar and his assistant Soroush Katibeh were also killed by three agents of the Iranian government.

Boroumand described the political regime he was fighting for in the following terms: “NAMIR aims at restoring national sovereignty in Iran. National sovereignty means that people would enjoy democracy in domestic affairs and independence in international affairs. By democracy I mean the rule of the majority, while all political and social rights of the minority are respected so that the minority gets the opportunity to become the majority. This is not a new goal. This was also the ideal of all the patriots and freedom lovers in our country since the constitutional revolution of 1906.”

…The Abdorrahman Boroumand Foundation–including its first project, Omid, a Memorial in Defense of Human Rights in Iran–is dedicated to promoting Boroumand’s ideals. Its creation also sends a message to the proponents of terror: Using violence to eliminate their opponents will not succeed in eliminating their ideas. Indeed, the memory of their victims challenges the collective conscience of a nation and spurs many to fight for freedom and human rights. Killing an opponent may delay, but it surely will not end, the quest for freedom, as the desire for liberty is inherent in human nature.

read more:

http://www.iranrights.org/english/about_boroumand.php

——————–

Subject: PEOPLE4IRAN EVENT: TUES, AUG 4TH, 6-9PM, LENOX & PTREE, Atlanta, Ga.

http://twitter.com/people4iran

We wish to ask the international community, governments, forward thinking people and progressive organizations to join us in this effort to promote civil and human rights in Iran by refusing to recognize the presidency of Ahmadinejad, as he does not promote human rights in Iran.

Several Western human rights organizations and governments have criticized Ahmadinejad’s human rights record.
According to a report by the group Human Rights Watch, “Since President Ahmadinejad came to power, treatment of detainees has worsened in Evin Prison as well as in detention centers operated clandestinely by the Judiciary, the Ministry of Information, and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps."[93] Again according to Human Rights Watch, “Respect for basic human rights in Iran, especially freedom of expression and assembly, deteriorated in 2006. The government routinely tortures and mistreats detained dissidents, including through prolonged solitary confinement.” Human Rights Watch described the source of human rights violations in contemporary Iran as coming from the Judiciary, accountable to Ali Khamenei, and from members directly appointed by Ahmadinejad.
Responses to dissent have varied. Human Rights Watch writes that “the Ahmadinejad government, in a pronounced shift from the policy under former president Mohammed Khatami, has shown no tolerance for peaceful protests and gatherings.”

We demand the following:

-that the Iranian authority immediately terminate its brutal and violent crackdown on demonstrators. And allow peaceful congregation and protest.

-that all political prisoners be released immediately.

-the respect and upholding of the universal human rights charter in Iran.

People 4 Iran
This is a group that has been created by a few proud Iranians as a grass roots organization to help our fellow Iranians.
We intend to create awareness and promote the cause of human rights in Iran. We would like to be the voice of millions of Iranians that have been made to silence. We wish to ask people of all walks of life and any ideology and religious belief to please join us in this effort, as we need help to let the world see what’s is happening inside Iran. We want to show the world inhumanity of this government and it’s method of ruling by terror, imprisonment, psychological warfare, and death.
We’ve created this organization to accommodate people of any political, religious, and Ideology background so that we can have a more forceful impact. Pleas come join us. We need your help and Iran needs all of her children now.
Here is our platform:

1- We respect all political activities but we do not have any political agenda other than as it relates to Human Rights

2- We respect all religions but we have no religious affiliation other than as it relates to Human Rights

3- We respect all ideologies, but we have no Ideology, other than as it relates to Human Rights

4- We respect all flags but we are not promoting any flags, in fact we ask people to refrain from bringing any flags to our gathering (if anybody does bring, we will not get into argument with them).

5- We simply want to be the voice of Iranians, while they are forced to be quiet.

6- We want to make sure that Iranian people are not forgotten as some other interesting new hits the media (I.E. the passing of Michael Jackson)

7- We just want to create awareness as well as sending a message to the people in Iran that ‘We Are With You”

8- Since we would like to send a POSITIVE message to our American Audience, we refrain from slogans that promote violence (death to or down with) within our organization and rallies

9- We are asking all Iranians to put Iran before anything else. Our people are getting massacred on daily basis, as we continue to do nothing. Please get out and Help

10- We will provide face mask to protect the identity of the participants.” Hide Your Face, Do Not Hide Your Voice”

We think any decent person, regardless of their ideology can be supportive of such broad and justice seeking platform.

THANK YOU AGAIN FOR ALL OF YOUR SUPPORT!!!!!!!!
- A FEW PROUD PERSIANS

by Ayman El-Amir of Al-Ahram Weekly,Cairo

…With the US military presence in Iraq being scaled back or redeployed, the only purpose of Western military expansion in the Gulf region is to hem in Iran. This overkill capacity is likely to prove a danger, particularly if Israel decides to embark on one of its blitzkrieg adventures…

…Caught between such hard choices Israel is behaving like a cat on a hot tin roof. Its argument for military action against Iran is wearing thin and could endanger the entire region, US interests included. Yet if it cannot even accept the removal of settlements, repeatedly judged illegal and an obstacle to peace, it is hard to see how Israel can reach a final and acceptable settlement with the Palestinians…

read more:

http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2009/958/op4.htm

By DAVID E. SANGER
Published: August 2, 2009
New York Times

Aug 2

The Obama administration is talking with allies and Congress about the possibility of imposing an extreme economic sanction against Iran if it fails to respond to President Obama’s offer to negotiate on its nuclear program: cutting off the country’s imports of gasoline and other refined oil products.

read more:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/03/world/middleeast/03nuke.html?hp

From June 2nd:

President Barack Obama reiterated that Iran may have some right to nuclear energy _ provided it takes steps to prove its aspirations are peaceful.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/06/02/obama-iran-nuclear-energy_n_210332.html

comment:
I predict the regime will not negotiate with Obama because he will want them to only buy enriched uranium not make their own. Then the gasoline embargo will start and it will be impossible to enforce without patrol boats and confrontation possibly escalating to war, the Iranian people will suffer mightily without gasoline or with war but the regime will consolidate its power under foreign seige as people rally around the flag when attacked…with all the decades of oil revenue it seems unfathomable to me why Iran doesn’t have enough refining capacity to meet its own gasoline needs…it imports $9 billion in gasoline per year…when I was their last summer it was already rationed and people had to cue up at stations. so meanwhile even without tougher sanctions, there is plenty of trouble ahead…the opposition will not back down nor will the regime…eventually with enough martyrs, the military, revolutionary council and even the basiji will lose their stomach for killing civilians…there is division among the military and among the clerics and with no clear majority there will most likely be civil war…of course a massive general strike including the oil workers could bring the government to its knees if there were enough people willing to strike…

meanwhile if we want to look for root causes of all this I think it begins with the sizeable population of illiterate and poor who think religion is the solution to their woes and who follow authority blindly exascerbated by the brain drain…

How much longer til Iranians can live in a civil secular society with a more equitable distribution of their oil wealth and a respect for human rights?

By ALI AKBAR DAREINI, Associated Press Writer Ali Akbar Dareini, Associated Press Writer – 7 mins ago
TEHRAN, Iran – Iran’s supreme leader formally endorsed Mahmoud Ahmadinejad for a second term as president Monday in a ceremony that sought to portray unity among the country’s leadership but was snubbed by prominent critics of the disputed election…

…even conservatives have turned against the leadership over the elections and the harsh crackdowns that have followed. On Sunday, Ahmadinejad’s main conservative election challenger, Mohsen Rezaei, demanded that authorities hold trials for those accusing of killing protesters…

read more:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090803/ap_on_re_mi_ea/ml_iran_election

comment:
not only was the ceremony boycotted by Rafsanjani, Moussavi, Khatami and Koroubi but by Khamanei’s reformist grandson who left the country and none of Khomeini’s relatives attended…

now the charade begins on how unified the country is…meanwhile Iran is slipping into a military dictatorship as only the militia and the Revolutionary Guard will be able to fight the dissent…at some point when there are enough martyrs then there will be a rift in those forces too and depending on the split perhaps civil war…when will Iran be free and at what cost?

rasool

before

after

By FARNAZ FASSIHI
Wall Street Journal

The mass trial of Iran’s top reformist leaders over the weekend on charges that include conspiring to overthrow the regime signals that a process is under way to eventually outlaw the reformist party and ban its members and supporters from political activity, Iran analysts say.

read more:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124925705086800229.html

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wz6jRmtWYVQ&eurl=http%3A%2F%2Ftwubs.com%2Firanelection&feature=player_embedded

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=11jdR-XQ23k

Deadly Silence

By: Ben Johnson
FrontPageMagazine.com | Friday, July 31, 2009

Budapest, 1956.

Prague, 1968.

Gdansk, 1981.

Tianenmen Square, 1989.

Tehran, 2009.

Each of these surprise flashpoints in history’s long march against totalitarianism proved as dazzling at its outset as it did hopeless at its extermination. Each of them left a trail of broken bodies, but the last was different than all its historical forebears in one way: the president of the United States kept silent while it was unfolding. Barack Obama, and the world, saw police beat and gas protesters and kill 27-year-old music students and nine-year-old children; and Iranian reports indicate that those arrested were viciously tortured in a secret prison. All the while, the president maintained a reticence that helped enable the secret police. The young protesters who continue filling Iran ’s streets this weekend to renew their revolt against corruption offer Barack Obama a unique opportunity: a chance to redeem his previous, disastrous inaction. Will he act this time to prevent hundreds more of their fellow citizens from meeting a similar fate?

His predecessors, who faced the actual threat of nuclear annihilation, greeted oppression with resistance. President Johnson called the Soviet invasion “patently contrived” and threatened United Nations action. Reagan, unable to garner NATO support for an effective response, imposed the economic sanctions at his disposal. George H.W. Bush, who was overly cozy with Beijing, verbally denounced the massacre and temporarily suspended diplomatic relations.

President Obama met crisis with equivocation, choosing to “withhold comment” about the transparently rigged election and standing idly by as Iranian secret police brutalized and arrested 2,500 democratic protesters, so as not be seen as “meddling.” Republicans John McCain and Lindsay Graham condemned his actions as “timid,” and even both houses of the Democrat-controlled Congress passed measures condemning the abuse more stridently than Obama. Finally, on June 20, Obama released a statement a week later calling on “the Iranian government to stop all violent and unjust actions against its own people.”

Like his invitation for Iran to “unclench its fist” on nuclear weapons, his plea was ignored, as the mullahs’ enforcers murdered Neda Agha Soltan and rounded up hundreds more to a then-unknown location.

We now know their fate: torture and death in Iranian secret prisons. One person detailed the vicious beatings in a Kihrizak prison, where “at least 200 people in one room, and everyone was getting beatings with sticks…The walls were all bloody.” The police allegedly turned off the lights to thrash the protesters for half-an-hour in pitch black. Among those killed was Mohsen Rouhalamini, a nine-year-old boy and coincidentally the son of an adviser to one of Ahmadinejiad’s opponents. Tehran released 140 political prisoners from their cells Tuesday, citing poor prison conditions, in an attempt to tamp down outrage before Thursday’s protests. Former President Mohammad Khatami described the substandard environs: “Murders have been committed, lives have been lost, blood has been spilt. Our youth, men and women have been treated in such a way that had it been committed in prisons controlled by foreigners everyone here would be shouting and denouncing it.”

Despite the presence of a child martyr, it is Neda’s memory that draws crowds this weekend. Thursday was the 40th day since her death, a sacred day of remembrance in both Islam and Christianity. Thousands – including “defeated” presidential candidates Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karoubi – gathered at her grave Thursday, some chanting, “Neda is alive, Ahmadinejad is dead!”

Already, Iranian police have responded with tear gas and batons. In a grisly spectacle, The Washington Post reports several people “fell into recently dug graves and were injured.” As the demonstrations promise to intensify this weekend, at least 20 protesters from June’s uprising are to be tried on such charges as “sending pictures to enemy media” (primarily the cell phone broadcasts of their initial, public beatings).

This mix of legal and physical oppression gives Obama what so few get: a second act – and thus far, he is blowing it. Responding to the brutality at Neda’s grave, the State Department called Iran ’s actions “disturbing.” Ho-hum.

Obama has the chance to speak forthrightly or repeat his week of weakness. He has consistently offered Mahmoud Ahmadinejiad an unclenched fist, and the mullahs turned their fists against their own citizens, possibly the most potent force to topple the regime. Iran ’s budding revolutionaries are again in the streets. Can Obama bring himself to warn the mullahs as clearly against unprovoked police brutality as he did the anti-totalitarian leaders of Honduras against setting foot in the United States? Can he deem show trials as offensive as he has the building of Jewish settlements in Israel?

The good news is, the people once crushed by Islamic oppression, are now emboldened to fight it. David Horowitz recounted how Tom Hayden told him, “If people’s heads got cracked by police… it `radicalized them.’” Iran ’s populace has become radicalized – and media reports show they are beginning to fight back. The Washington Post notes, “three members of the much feared voluntary militia known as the Basij were beaten with their own batons after a group of people pulled them off their motorcycles near a park. The motorcycles were set on fire.” Another crowd smashed the windows of a secret police van and rescued two prisoners inside. And for once, stone-throwing Muslims are casting their stones at other Muslims.

National figures have equated this regime with the Shah, toppled by the Islamic Revolution of 1979. Protesters met at Behesht-e Zahra, the cemetery that contains the bodies of the Revolution’s “martyrs.” The Iranian people are reappropriating their history with a new enemy.

If they can do that within an Islamic gulag, can President Obama at least retract his offer to meet with Iran ’s fraudulent president without preconditions? If timidity prevails, this weekend Obama may kill Iran ’s democrats with kindness.

The Iranian authorities opened an extraordinary mass trial against more than 100 opposition figures on Saturday, accusing them of conspiring with foreign powers to stage a revolution through terrorism, subversion, and a media campaign to discredit last month’s presidential election.

The accusations read out in the courtroom were a broadside against virtually every major figure associated with reform in Iran, going well beyond those actually arrested. State television broadcast images of the defendants, who included a former vice president and a Newsweek reporter, as well as some of the reform movement’s best-known spokesmen, clad in prison uniforms and listening as prosecutors outlined their accusations in a large marble-floored courtroom. Some were shackled.

Opposition leaders angrily disputed the accusations on Saturday and protested that the defendants had had no access to lawyers or to details of the charges against them.

The leading opposition presidential candidate, Mir Hussein Moussavi, issued a call on his Web site, Ghalam News, for Iranians to resume their nightly protest chants of “God is great” more intensely than ever.

read more:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/02/world/middleeast/02iran.html?_r=2&hp

by Jay Deshmukh Jay Deshmukh – Sun Aug 2, 10:00 am ET
TEHRAN (AFP) – Iran’s opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi accused the authorities on Sunday of using “medieval torture” to extract confessions from protesters on trial over the wave of post-election unrest.

Former president Mohammad Khatami also said Saturday’s mass trial of 100 protesters and prominent reformists was against the constitution, putting him at loggerheads with hardliners who openly accused him and Mousavi of “treason.”
read more:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20090802/ts_afp/iranpolitics_20090802140135

http://uk.reuters.com/article/idUKTRE5710PY20090802?rpc=60
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mbd0k0xjjcA&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UKQZEoRGdiQ

comment:
10 million blank ballots without seriel numbers stuffed the boxes…they thought they could get away with that…then they tried to blame foreigners and when they couldn’t find evidence they sacked the head od intelligence…so now they force confessions by torture and threat of torture…it reminds me of when they forced Gallileo in the 16th century to claim that the sun rotated around the earth while Giordano Bruno refused and was burned at the stake as a heretic…a forced confession does not make day night or night day…it does not change the truth…

rasool

For the first time since Iran’s 1979 Islamic Revolution, dozens of high-ranking officials – including former vice presidents, ministers, and lawmakers – are on trial in the Islamic state.

comment:
again the whole world will witness how the regime makes an ass of itself and a mockery of law and religion…

rasool

Abbas Milani

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eVq58o3Jt_s&eurl=http://www.iranian.com/main/2009/aug/milani-and-madjd-iran&feature=player_embedded

Saeid Abbasi
Abolfazl Abdollahi
Morad Aghasi (?)
Neda Agha Soltan
Younes Aghayan
Hossein Akbari
Vahed Akbari
Hossein Akhtar Nejad (?)
Hossein Akhtar Zand (2 various or the same person..? probably Akhtar Nejad is an error and it is the same Akhtar Zand from Isfahan)
Kaveh Alipour
Nasser Amirnejad
Sohrab Arabi
Kianoosh Asa
Neda Asadi (?)
Mohammad Asghari
Fatemeh Barati
prof.Jafar Barvayeh
Yaghoub Barvayeh
Mohammad Hossein Barzegar
Hamed Besharati
Hamid Hossein Beyg Araghi
Sarvareh Boroumand
Moharram Chegini Qeshlaqi
Meysam Ebadi
Alireza Eftekhari
Mobina Ehterami
Mohsen Entezami (?)
Saeed Esmaili Khanbebin
Arman Estakhripour
Reza Fatahi (?)
Ali Fatualian (or Fathalian)
Mohammad Hossein Feizi
Sajad Ghaed Rahmati
Behzad Ghahremani (?)
Ramin Ghahremani (?)
Mostafa Ghanian
Salar Ghorbani Param
Mansour Ghoujazadeh (?)
Mohsen Hadadi
Iman Hashemi
Masoud Hashemzade
Farzad Hashti (?)
Mehrdad Heydari
Mohsen Imani
Farzad Jashni
Amir Javadifar
Bahman Jenabi
Mohammad Kamrani
Mehdi Karami
Amir Kaviri (?)
Shalar Khazri
Nasser Kheirollahi
Masoud Khosravi
Mostafa Kiarostami (?)
Parisa Koli (Keli/Kali)
Maryam Lotfi (?)
Hamid Maddah Shourcheh
Maryam Mehr Azin
Milad - last name unknown(?)
Mr. Mo’azez
Taraneh Mousavi
Ahmad Naiem-Abadi
Iman Namazi
Nader Nasseri
Mohammad Nikzadi
Fatemeh Rajabpour
Ramin Ramezani
Mohsen Rouholamini
Davood Sadri
Fahimeh Salahshoor
Morteza Salahshoor (?)
Yousef Saleh (?)
Fatemeh Samsarian (?)
Babak Sepehr
Ali Shahedi
Hassan Shapoori (?)
Kasra Sharafi
Kambiz Shoaee (Shojaee)
Ashkan Sohrabi
Tina Soudi
Seyed Reza Tabatabayee
Vahid-Reza Tabatabayee
Hossein Tahmasbi
Salar Tahmasbi
Hossein Toufanpour
Milad Yazdan Panah

http://iranbodycount.blogspot.com/2009/07/hossein-akhtarzand.html

We want to put a face to each of those hundreds - possibly thousands - killed or arrested since the Iranian election. See how to help below
Datablog:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/interactive/2009/jun/29/

Last week, families who had missing relatives were taken to a cold-storage facility for fruits and vegetables in the south of Tehran that had been turned into a morgue. Pictures posted on Iranian Web sites showed bodies piled on top of one another as families tried to identify loved ones.

comment: so the regime claims only 20 dead while the overflow at the city morgue goes to a refrigerated warehouse for food…one day every one of these human rights offenders must stand trial…the lies cannotstand, the murderers and rapists cannot go free…no justice…no peace…

rasool

Evin Prison must be demo’d!!!!!!!!!

Another Holocaust in Iran by the new Hitler called “Ahmadinejad”

If a nation says we don’t want this government, they deserve a graveyard full of martyrs?

-Ayatollah Khomeini, 1979