Defiantly, bravely, they are marching for their freedom in
the streets of Teheran. The mullah’s men are gassing, beating, shooting and
jailing them.The people are chanting:
“Death to the turbans,” “Down with the
dictator,” “We want democracy“. The demonstrators
are risking their very lives in order to tell the world the truth about Iran:
That it is one gigantic prison in which elections are rigged, children are
sacrificed to clear landmines from the fields, and woman, intellectuals, and
homosexuals, are routinely jailed and murdered by corrupt dictators who sponsor
terrorism abroad.
In the face of all of this, the Obama administration has been
disturbingly timid. The White House's most consistent response to North Korea's
belligerent moves has been to ignore them and hope North Korea decides to behave
itself.
Matching their meekness toward Iran, the G-8 leaders
responded to Pyongyang's most recent provocations with an announcement that they
would like to become friends with Kim Jong Il. As Obama put it, "It's very
important for the world community to speak to countries like Iran and North
Korea and encourage them to take a path that does not result in a nuclear arms
race in places like the Middle East."
OVER THE past several weeks, as the regimes in Pyongyang and
Teheran have become ever more brazen in demonstrating their belligerent contempt
for the West, the prevailing wisdom has argued that the West has no good options
for containing or defeating them.
The traditional take on North Korea is that the world's
leading missile and nuclear proliferator poses less of a burden to global
stability than a post-regime North Korea filled with millions of starving people
who have been cut off from the world for 60 years. By this thinking, the world
is better off living with a psycho-state capable of fomenting a global nuclear
war than caring for its victims.
As for Iran, as Gabriel Schoenfeld wrote last month in The
Wall Street Journal, due to the gutting of the CIA's capacity to conduct covert
political warfare during the 1970s, today the US lacks the capability to assist
Iranian regime opponents in their efforts to overthrow the mullocracy. As
Schoenfeld put it, "the US appears utterly powerless to influence the course of
events."
They are killing people marching for one man, one vote, and the jihad President aids and abets the slaughter of our would be executioners. Raye Man Kojast has this eyewitness account of the jihad against the Iranian people:
An apparent eyewitness account from Tehran today, came to me in an email in Persian:
"At
5 pm we went to one of the meeting points, but there was no one
there...At 6 pm we were at the intersection of Palestine and Keshavarz
Blvds (the center of town). The police were busy identifying people.
There were two groups: the disciplinary forces (police) and the
plainclothes (lebas shakhsi). Then we went towards Laleh Park but we
saw that the demonstrators were coming from Laleh Park toward Vali Asr
and they were shouting "Mir Hossein, Ya Hossein." We asked them why
they're coming this way and they said every other way was closed, we
had to change direction. Again we arrived at intersection of Palestine
and Keshavarz Blvds and the police attacked with tear gas and batons.
We were stuck and being attacked from both sides. People had opened the
doors of their houses, many were seeking refuge in the houses. People's
cigarettes and the fires people had lit in their gardens were
counteracting the tear gas. When things calmed down a bit we went
toward Keshavarz again, but this time we were encircled from three
sides -- East, West, and the Northern streets and alleyways. Suddenly
an empty bus appeared and drove straight into the demonstration. Inside
the bus was filled with plainclothes officers who were hiding and
wanted to attack from the center of the crowd. We ran away toward the
southern alleyways, one out of five houses open their doors for us. We
heard shootings - we don't know if the bullets injured anybody. But
thereafter the houses were filled with people injured
One
person had his arm shattered in different places, another had a broken
skulls. As soon as we came out of the houses they continued to use the
tear gas and batons. We ran, but it was no use. A young girl and young
man were killed in front of us. Know that it was the disciplinary
forces that fired the bullets and were attacking people with the batons
and tear gas. The plainclothes officers did not have batons, they had
planks of wood to beat us to death. The Ansar (special forces) were
also there, they took a young guy right in front of us. The police were
attacking people; once they targeted someone they would catch them and
hit them to death. There were a lot of people lost/disappeared.
The
mobile phones were cut off in many areas. Our only hope was people's
houses who had opened their doors to us. They had water and fire to
counteract the tear gas and they all had first aid kits. After a lot of
running away and chasing, we tried to get out of being encircled by
police. The only option seemed like suicide -- we had to cross them,
passing through hundreds of officers. They did not think that any
protesters would come toward them, so they didn't think we were part of
the demonstration. There was a lot going on during the rest of our
journey, but all the roads heading toward Vali Asr were filled with
cars honking their horns in protest. The police hitting the cars as
well, using batons on
We were in the red zone and it was nothing less than war. Pray for us."
The two Iranian Christian women, Maryam Rustampoor
(27) and Marzieh Amirizadeh (30) continue to be held in Evin prison in Iran
because of their Christian faith, unfairly labeled as ‘anti-government
activists’, because of the hostility of the government towards practising
Christians.
In the aftermath of the political turmoil in Iran, they are now in danger of
being forgotten. One church leader from Iran said, “With so many hundreds of
protestors now in the prison system, Maryam and Marzieh are likely to be
forgotten.”
Arrested on March 5 , 2009, the two young women have now been in prison for
four months. After being in solitary confinement for three weeks in May and
early June, they were then put one small cell together for about two weeks.
Then, following the arrests of thousands of protestors after the disputed
presidential elections, Marzieh and Maryam were moved to a larger cell to make
room for new prisoners. About 600 women were brought Evin prison during the days
of the protests. There is still no clarity regarding their case. In one court
session in June a judge told them that he would make sure they were both
executed as ‘apostates’. Maryam and Marzieh have responded with courage,
however, telling the judge to “expedite his sentence.”
“Maryam and Marzieh have demonstrated great courage and trust in God. They
believe the promise of Jesus that they will be given the words to speak when
they are taken before judges,” says Sam Yeghnazar, founder of Elam Ministries.
Please continue to pray for Maryam and Marzieh as they suffer in prison
in Iran. Pray they will continue to experience the strengthening presence of God
and that they will be a witness of the love and grace of Christ in Evin prison.
We invite you to post a prayer on our Persecuted Church
Prayer Wall.
Please also consider Maryam and Marzieh in prison at:
Evin Prison Saadat Abad Tehran Islamic Republic of Iran
Yes, you can write in English but if you wish to compose a letter in Farsi,
our US sister mission has an online tool that can help you. Click here.
Please note When writing a letter, never mention the
name of the source of your information or the name of any organization such as
Voice of the Martyrs or Prisoner Alert. It is not dangerous for a prisoner to
receive letters from individuals, but if an organization is mentioned they may
be accused of links with ‘foreign organizations’ and receive harsher sentences.
Also, please do not state anything negative about their government.
12:12 PM: Roozbeh Farahanipour returns to Iran. Under Farahanipour's leadership, the Marze Por Gohar Party led the pro-democracy movement in July, 1999. The Iranian journalist, democracy activist was a former political prisoner in Iran. The Ministry of Intelligence declared the Marze Por Gohar an "illegal Party," and called Farahanipour "one of the leaders of the unrest", he was subsequently arrested and tortured.
A key leader of the 1999 student uprising that shook the Islamist
regime in Iran returned to Iran clandestinely this week, and plans to
lead a nationwide protest on Thursday.
Roozbeh Farahanipour, 37, was jailed for several months in 1999
for his role in the protests and was tortured extensively. But that
hasn’t deterred him from going to back to his homeland.
“These are momentous times,” he told Newsmax shortly before
leaving the U.S. for his secret journey to Iran. “After 10 years, I am
fulfilling my dream.”
The postelection protests of the past several weeks “have
already succeeded in crippling half of the regime,” he said. “They can
no longer work together, no longer trust each other. Our job is to help
cripple the other half as well.”
If Farahanipour can successfully elude Iran’s secret police,
Thursday’s protests will be the first time that a political figure who
has gone into exile has ever returned to lead a demonstration against
the Islamic regime.
Farahanipour, who founded the Marze Por Gohar (Glorious
Frontiers Party) in 1998, wants to see a secular, democratic government
emerge from the current turmoil in Iran.
“This Thursday is my demonstration,” he said. “It is not
Mousavi’s event. It is the 10th anniversary of the 1999 student
uprising.”
Farahanipour says the time for any pretense of reforming the regime
is over. “People are shouting, ‘Death to the Dictator,'” he said. “The
regime lost all international credibility. Only 15 countries have sent
messages of congratulations to Ahmadinejad after the elections. The
first to support him were Hamas and Hezbollah.”
Now is not the time to reassure the regime, but to confront it, he believes.
Already, regime intelligence agents been on the lookout for
Farahanipour, and scoured the area near Busheir, where Iran’s nuclear
power plant is located, when rumors circulated that he was in the
vicinity earlier this week.
11:40: Twitter: heavy clashes all over tehran, protests all over Iran. sisters and brothers fighting for freedom. the revolution ain't over!
Hundreds of young men and women chanted "death to the dictator" and
fled baton-wielding police in the capital Thursday as opposition
activists sought to revive street protests despite authorities' vows to
"smash" any new marches. (more here)
Tehran: clashes in Azadi, Enqelab, Vanq, Jomhouri, Valiasr - Nothing on the networks on the thousands who have taken to the streets.
Today is the Anniversary of the 1999 Iran Protest; the brave take to the streets.
Tweeting: Chants are more radical this time: "Death to Khamenei"
11:31 am: Shoot outs started in various places in Mashad & Tehran.
Multiple reports of protesters being attacked in different locations throughout Tehran.
Shootings reported. "Tweets passing around that there
are heavy clashes near Azadi Square.. Word is out that 3 people have
been shot by security forces." Tweets from Iran.
People are being arrested brutally in Enghelab, and tear
gass is used in Vanak // Enghelab square being packed with people
coming from side streets // Clashes infront of Tehran Universi and
VankSq. unconf. // very heavy Basiji presence. Almost all have
handguns.
One girl harshly arrested as she was dragged on the ground and thrown into a van... many others arrested
Apparently HUGE turnout, Basij desperately trying to block enghelab
6:29pm in Tehran right now, Reports of Moussavi showing might pop up as he had stated he would attend earlier
10:20 pm: Hamid Maddah, activist & member of the Mousavi campaign, who was arrested & tortured in Mashhad, has died of injuries! Families of recent detainees gather in front of Evin prison & security forces are trying to disperse! Despite official reports, initial counts by medical personnel show more than 92 people dead in & around Tehran alone. 6 young men found dead, shot in the neck in Shahriar (outside Tehran). (hat tip Banafsheh Zand-Bonazzi )
2:36 pm: Robert Tracinski of TIA Daily, The Intellectual Activist (PAID only), has written a seminal piece on the revolution.
Backing the mullahcracy exposes the inhumanity and cruelty of the international community, and worse, an American president. It is a disaster, but it certainly shines a light on the brutality of the Islamic regime and the world's complicity. If the Muslim regime will do this to their own people, surely they will enjoy taking out free nations once they are up to nuclear speed. And yet the world is turning a blind eye to their weapons program and the brutality committed against those marching for one man, one vote. We have entered a dark age.
The Fundamentalist
Apostates Robert Tracinski, TIA Daily
The big news over the weekend is that
the revolution is still on.
No, I am not talking about the July 4 tea parties, which I will cover
tomorrow. (In the meantime, if you attended one of the tea party events, please
send me your observations, if you have not done so already.)
I am talking about the revolution in Iran. When last we checked, the regime
had crushed
the street protests by force, and a hard-line cleric was advocating
death sentences for protest leaders.
Since then, the regime has continued its crackdown. It has arrested and threatened
to put on trial Iranian employees of the British embassy, and it is
broadcasting forced
confessions from protesters and reformist leaders, coerced through methods
such as these:
In 2001, Ali Afshari was arrested for his work as a student leader.
He said he was held in solitary confinement for 335 days and resisted confessing
for the first two months. But after two mock executions and a five-day stretch
where his interrogators would not let him sleep, he said he eventually caved in.
"They tortured me, some beatings, sleep deprivation, insults, psychological
torture, standing me for several hours in front of a wall, keeping me in
solitary confinement for one year," Mr. Afshari said in an interview from his
home in Washington. "They eventually broke my resistance."
[...]
So a government that styles itself as a Shiite Islamic theocracy is now
opposed by a growing number of actual Shiite religious leaders—and it has banned
wearing the color that symbolizes Islam and attacks people for shouting that
"God is great."
The very people who claim to be religious "fundamentalists" are now turning
into apostates. I don't know how you can maintain a theocracy for very long at
all when it has so thoroughly lost its religious legitimacy.
Unfortunately, our own leaders in the United States are not doing all that
they could to capitalize on this unprecedented opportunity to deal a lethal blow
to radical Islam. The only action the Obama administration is taking is to sell out
Honduras to socialist dictatorship. As for Iran, both President Obama and
Vice-President Biden declare
that they are still seeking an "engagement" with the blood-soaked military junta
in Tehran.
In an interview with The New York Times, a day before his
scheduled departure for Moscow on Sunday, Mr. Obama said he had "grave concern"
about the arrests and intimidation of Iran's opposition leaders, but insisted,
as he has throughout the Iranian crisis, that the repression would not close the
door on negotiations with the Iranian government.
But there is one sliver of hope for external action.
Mr. Biden echoed the same themes in an interview conducted in Iraq
and broadcast Sunday on the ABC News program "This Week." But in a rare foray
into one of the most sensitive issues in the Middle East, the vice president
argued that the United States "cannot dictate" Israel's decisions about whether
to strike the plants at the heart of Iran's nuclear program. He said only
Israelis could determine "that they're existentially threatened" by the prospect
that Iran would gain nuclear weapons capability.
The Obama administration has refused to be swayed from its policy of
appeasement by new evidence of the evil of the enemy—except to one small degree:
they may no longer block an Israeli air attack on Iran's nuclear facilities.
The Times of London reports
that the Saudis could also cooperate in such a strike.
The head of Mossad, Israel's overseas intelligence service, has
assured Benjamin Netanyahu, its prime minister, that Saudi Arabia would turn a
blind eye to Israeli jets flying over the kingdom during any future raid on
Iran's nuclear sites….
"The Saudis have tacitly agreed to the Israeli air force flying through their
airspace on a mission which is supposed to be in the common interests of both
Israel and Saudi Arabia," a diplomatic source said last week.
The Iranian regime's days are numbered. It faces two inexorable threats:
growing resistance to its rule at home, and the looming prospect of a
humiliating military defeat to be delivered by its most hated enemy. We'll see
which will bring down the regime first.—RWT
Without Western support of those marching for one man, one vote - this was unavoidable:
Calling the move "a new phase of the revolution," leaders insist there is no room for compromise on Ahmadinejad's reelection
Reporting from Beirut — The top leaders of Iran's elite
Revolutionary Guard publicly acknowledged they had taken over the nation's
security and warned late Sunday that there was no middle ground in the ongoing
dispute over the reelection of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in a threat against
a reformist wave led by Mir-Hossein Mousavi.
Maj. Gen. Mohammad Ali
Jafari, commander of the elite military branch, said the Guard's takeover of the
country had led to "a revival of the revolution and clarification of the value
positions of the establishment at home and abroad."
"These events put us in a new stage of the revolution and
political struggles, and all of us must fully comprehend its dimensions," he
said at a Sunday press conference, according to reports that surfaced
today.
"Because the Revolutionary Guard was assigned the task of
controlling the situation, [it] took the initiative to quell a spiraling unrest.
This event pushed us into a new phase of the revolution and political struggles
and we have to understand all its dimensions."
Meanwhile, their commander
in chief, Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, warned Western leaders against exploiting
the country's political turmoil for their own ends.
In the media's ongoing campaign to institute the agenda of the Organization of the Islamic Conference and advance Islam, it has been previously withheld from the public that Neda Soltani was a Christian.
In the oft-reproduced picture run across world media, her cross is cropped out. What deceit.
That Neda was a Christian is ample proof that everyone in Iran who took to the streets was marching for different reasons but certainly under the umbrella of liberty and one man one vote. How vile to imply that millions marched for the inside politicking of Islamic cleric rule. Her religion flies in the face of every cold blooded pundit who has attempted to dismiss this historic movement as simply more sharia in shades of green. Photo hat tip Robert via PI)
The video
From PI (Translated from German with google German translator)
Neda, which became a symbol of the Iranian uprising, it was - as in
today's print edition of the WORLD on page 5 wiki - a Christian (to
enlarge click on image).
A young woman tells of horror with tears, which she herself has
witnessed. The security forces fired indiscriminately on demonstrators
as if they were animals. It describes how young men were slaughtered
with axes are:
"This is a massacre, a genocide is Hitler ... help us!"
6:11 pm: Judiciary has ordered Iranian ISPs and Web based service providers to give them info (including IPs) of users.
Evil assclown of the day: Incoming IAEA chief: No evidence Iran seeking nuclear weapons. Those perverse lilliputians over at the Nobel Foundation in Stockholm, Sweden, must be polishing up their next award for this tool (it will stand next to El Baradei's, Yaser Arafat's, Dhimmi Carter's and Al Whore's).
Iran
Human Rights, July 4: According to the state run Iranian news agency
Fars, 20 people were hanged in the Rajaee shahr prison of Karaj (west
of Tehran) early this morning July 4.
On July 3., Iran Human Rights warned that 29 prisoners were scheduled to be executed in Tehran today July 4.
Iran Human Rights is investigating whether among those (...)
2:55 pm: Execution Update: 20-Tehran; 14-Shiraz; 6-Qom; 6-Evin Prison. 14-scheduled in Qom. More tomorrow.................
I have one vote, I give it to no one. I have one life, I give it to free Iran. (Twitter)
While the Obama administration continues to vigorously pursue the criminalization of Bush and Bush officials for defending the American people against Islamic jihad, Obama abets the mullahs in Iran. Iran will execute another 20 people tomorrow. Obama? Silent.
Another 29 people will be hanged for peacefully marching for one man one vote, and Obama will block sanctions against these bloodthirsty murderers at the coming G8 summit.
At the same time, John Yoo, an ex-Justice Department
attorney who wrote memos justifying harsh interrogations of
terrorism detainees, lost his bid to dismiss a lawsuit blaming
him for alleged violations of a detainee’s rights: Yoo, Bush Administration Lawyer, Must Face a "Torture Lawsuit". Jose Padilla, a Muslim terrorist who planned a nuclear attack in America, claims that Yoo’s memos led to a system under which
he was subject to coercive interrogations and cruel and unusual
punishment while being denied his right to an attorney, access
to courts, freedom of religion and due process. Yoo, his colleagues, and those brave men at GITMO (who get feces and urine thrown at them daily) saved thousands (perhaps millions) of American lives. Obama says, respect Islamic jihad!
Yoo argued that, as a government official, he was immune to
such lawsuits. He didn’t personally participate in Padilla’s
treatment and decisions about the government’s conduct during
war should be decided by the president and Congress, he said.
Obama's silence speaks volumes. The man never shuts up. Who else is sick and tired of his daily seizing of the airwaves for his dose of dear leader propaganda?
The Wall Street Journal opined, "Here's a political thought experiment: Imagine that terrorists stage
an attack on U.S. soil in the next four years. In the recriminations
afterward, Administration officials are sued by families of the victims
for having advised in legal memos that Guantanamo be closed and that
interrogations of al Qaeda detainees be limited.
Should those officials be personally liable for the advice they gave President Obama?
We'd say no, but that's exactly the kind of lawsuit that the
political left, including State Department nominee Harold Koh, has
encouraged against Bush Administration officials. This month a federal
judge in San Francisco ruled that a civil suit filed by convicted
terrorist Jose Padilla can proceed against former Justice Department
lawyer John Yoo for violating the terrorist's rights. Mr. Yoo is one of
those who wrote memos laying out the legal parameters for aggressive
interrogation of al Qaeda captives. If Mr. Yoo can be sued, why
couldn't Obama officials also be held liable for their advice if
there's an attack on their watch?"
According to news received by the
International Committee against Executions, 29 people are to be executed
tomorrow, Saturday, in Ghezal Hesar prison in Karaj. It has been reported that
the 29 have been separated from other prisoners. There is no information on
their charges.
The executions are being carried out in order to
intimidate people and is directed at the protesting people of Iran.
We
are calling for people in Iran and everywhere to condemn the executions and
exert pressure to stop them.
The announcement by Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati alarmed European nations and fueled calls for tougher action against Tehran. Britain is pressing for members of the European Union to pull their ambassadors out of Tehran to protest the arrest of its embassy staffers last week — a step that the EU so far has hesitated to take.
After Jannati's comments, French President Nicolas Sarkozy on Friday expressed backing for Britain, saying "our solidarity with our English friends is total." He said France backs sanctions "so that Iranian leaders will really understand that the path that they have chosen will be a dead end."
Speaking with the Makor
Rishon newspaper, Lubrani said, “Obama says he wants to reach an
arrangement with the Iranians regarding a halt to the enrichment of
uranium. In my best judgment, there is no chance of this happening.
Iran of today is not the Iran of a month ago, before the riots, and the
conditions in which the Americans had prepared for talks after the
elections are no longer the same.”
“I fear that the Americans
don’t know what to do,” Lubrani said, “but have don’t yet realize that
they don’t know what to do. A tragedy is unfolding in front of our
eyes. The tragedy is that the American administration actually will
come to the conclusion, at the end, that negotiations have no chance –
but they will reach this conclusion a year or two too late, and in the
meanwhile, the nuclear clock is ticking.”
2:17 pm: Six more people hanged in Ghom (Qom) Friday by the Revolutionary Guards. This brings the total that we know of up to 12 within 48 hours. (hat tip Banafsheh)
2:00 pm:The Bush revolution sans Bush *sigh*
New video of clashes with plain clothes militia:
1:12 pm: SHOCKER: Obama, in a stunning and disastrous move, backs the murdering mullahs. The man has the audacity of hypocrisy to evoke our "moral authority" and "fundamental values" when defending ourselves against Islamic jihad (ie Gitmo, waterboarding). His administration wants to prosecute Bush and Cheney, but he backs the new Nazis.
It is obvious that Obama wants this desperate call for freedom to go away. It seems he is whispering to Ahmadinejad, "harder, faster!" Obama Betrays Freedom Again
Iran's police chief says a doctor who was present at the death of a young Iranian woman during opposition street protests in Tehran is under investigation by both Iran's Ministry of Intelligence and by the international policy agency Interpol.
"The United States is opposed to enacting a new set of financial sanctions against Iran that are due to be discussed in the G8 summit next week, diplomatic officials in New York reported Friday. According to officials, sanctions against Iran are expected to top the G8's agenda. Sources are also predicting a pointed debate between the heads of the industrialized nations over an appropriate response to Iranian authorities' suppression of reformist demonstrations in Iran led by Mir Hossein Mousavi and other Iranian opposition leaders. "
Well, torture is one thing at which the Germans are certifiably expert.
It is not, unfortunately, in English, but the courageous Iranian dissident Banafsheh Zand-Bonazzi sends this link from IranPressNews, to the effect that "German TV reports the sale of torture devices to the Mullah regime." You can watch the German news video there -- I caught the word "electroshock."
This redounds to the everlasting shame of the German corporation or corporations involved, and the German government.
If any German-speaking Jihad Watch readers can provide a translation of the video, I would be most grateful, and will post it forthwith.
The protests in Iran are abating, but our attentiveness is not abating. The pressure on opposition leader Mousavi is increasing. Today, radical delegates called for putting Mousavi on trial. Critics are still being put down in the prisons. Whenever the clubs rain down on the demonstrators, whenever electro-shockers are used for forced confessions, when modern wire-tapping technology turns Iran into a perfect police state, then many of these products are made in Germany. This is and will remain a topic for "Monitor" [The name of the TV magazine]. Norbert Hahn and Jan Schmidt report about German High-Tech for the Mullahs' regime.
The annual Iranian police fair [IPAS 2009] starts in 2 weeks. On sale is everything the security forces of a dictatorship more or less need. The organizer of the fair is the purchasing department of the Iranian military forces, the handymen of a dictatorship, which have clubbed the last bits of resistance on the streets into silence. Thousands have been detained and 20 are dead, according to official estimates. Today, on July 2, it is supposed to be quiet in Tehran. The violence of the regime has won so far.
The woman's rights advocate Resvan Mohadam has personally witnessed this violence. In the course of 30 years she has been detained time and time again, in particular under Ahmadinejad. Her husband was tortured to death. Whenever she talks about this, she appears very composed. The last time she was detained occurred in 2007 during a demonstration on "woman's day."
"They beat and kicked everyone. They beat the women on the head and kicked against their breasts. I intervened because they started beating a young girl. Then they started beating me."
The current demonstrators are incarcerated here, in the infamous Evin prison. The advocate knows how prisoners are treated here. She could hear herself how prisoners were tortured with electro-shockers in neighboring prison cells. Amnesty International has re-enacted the brutality.
"It must be so horrific that they make people admit things they have never done."
Electro-shockers like these are made in Germany. Until now, about 100 electro-shockers have been discovered, which were supposed to have been delivered to Iran. They were discovered essentially by chance. The investigations by the police force and customs have shown that the illegal goods are dismantled into several components. There are many routes into Iran. Some take the direct route, some take a detour across the CIS states, and then some goods take the route across the free trade zone of Dubai. This form of deception is performed systematically.
Since September, Resvan Mohadam has been living in Germany. But whenever she talks with friends in Iran over the telephone, she is scared that her friends may simply disappear thereafter.
"If you're an advocate for civil rights in Iran, then it is like living in a glass house. One is permanently controlled, everything, friends coming and going, the telephone is tapped."
Technology from Germany is used for eavesdropping. Siemens developed it; the German/Finnish subsidiary Nokia-Siemens-networks has sold it to Iran. Mobile phones can be tapped using the delivered "monitoring centre." The Austrian Erich Möchelt is an expert on this technology, he knows in particular the technology delivered to Iran. Using the data from this monitoring centre, the location of persons can be determined, their communication profile can be determined, i.e. who they talk to. Groups of people can be identified and monitored, even if they do not want to appear as a group. A special form of computer-aided search can be performed using this monitoring centre.
The press officer of Nokia-Siemens-Networks only responded to our request in writing and downplays the usefulness of the system.
"Among our supplied goods in 2008 was a recording device, which is used for recording a very small number of calls in order to fight against crime."
Only listening to a small number of criminals?
This sounded quite different during the trade fair for security technology in Dubai, named ISS.
"The users of the monitoring system can display and analyse very fast a large number of caller data by analyzing the call connections."
The possibilities for communicating are increasing dramatically.
However, the dictators want to remain in control. The market is booming. This relates to security technology in the IT domain and also increasingly to surveillance technology, cameras, electronics, software and data centres for monitoring movement and communication.
The Iranian police fair IPAS: The connection with the dictatorship hasn't stopped many German Companies from displaying their products, among them "Rohde und Schwarz." In the West, this company is known as the foremost in radio technology, in particular for the military and secret services. "Monitor" wanted to know whether the company plans to attend the fair organized by the Iranian security forces. We received no clear answer. This is their statement:
"Rohde und Schwarz has been maintaining business connections with customers in Iran for years. All of the exported goods are scrutinized according to the presently valid regulations."
If German security technology continues to be exported to Iran, this would not be acceptable to the human rights commissioner of the federal government.
"Following the protests of the past weeks, it appears distasteful to keep on acting as if nothing had happened and as if the police force and other military armed forces had not substantially quashed the protests. Therefore, I feel it is distasteful to go there in order to talk about good business for oppression."
Resvan Mohadam: In secrecy she has been convicted for yet another prison term and additionally to flogging ten times. Hence, she won't go back to Iran in the foreseeable future -- unlike many German sales representatives.
Pictured taken by Iranian born Farhad Moradian whom organised this event in order to show the Iranian people our solidarity in Israel with their suffering and also to convey the message to Obama.
The BBC broadcast to Iran picked this demo and it was broadcast - Facebook as well was a useful tool to send this message.
Mr. Moradian said that many Iranians respond to it and some did it by saying: "For 30 years we cursed Israel and made a demonstration for the Palestinians people, despite the poverty in Iran our government send our money to Lebanon and Gaza, but we did not received any support from the Palestinians now even not a demonstration... The Israelis do support us and showing solidarity".
"We also cannot keep this country safe unless we enlist the power of our most fundamental values".
I make this claim not simply as a matter of idealism. We uphold our
most cherished values not only because doing so is right, but because
it strengthens our country and keeps us safe. Time and again, our
values have been our best national security asset - in war and peace;
in times of ease and in eras of upheaval.
Fidelity to our values is the reason why the United States of
America grew from a small string of colonies under the writ of an
empire to the strongest nation in the world."
"America must demonstrate that our values and institutions are more resilient than a hateful ideology".
Is that from the "President's" statement on Iran? No, GITMO.
"There is also no question that Guantanamo set back the moral authority that is America's strongest currency in the world".
No, Mistuh President, your position on Iran did that.
11:44 am: Obama's hypocrisy and brutal inhumanity in light of recent events shocks even the most jaded among us. Americans had to listen to his daily tongue lashing about our morals and values as a defense in closing GITMO (home to the worst war criminals), while admonishing us for the use of benign waterboarding in order to save thousands of American lives. Now, just weeks later, we watch Obama turn a blind eye to the horrible brutality, beatings and murder the Islamic regime (one that Obama says we must respect "even if we don't agree") is committing against people peacefully marching for liberty. He pledges to reward this regime with recognition.
One has to ask, why did this man run for President? The knee jerk reaction to such a question is, a man (or woman) runs for President because he loves America. It is becoming increasingly clear that Obama ran for President because he hates America and wants very much to "change" it.
With Iran's hard-line mullahs and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps unmistakably back in control, Israel's decision of whether to use military force against Tehran's nuclear weapons program is more urgent than ever.
Iran's nuclear threat was never in doubt during its presidential campaign, but the post-election resistance
raised the possibility of some sort of regime change. That prospect
seems lost for the near future or for at least as long as it will take
Iran to finalize a deliverable nuclear weapons capability.
Accordingly, with no other timely option, the already compelling
logic for an Israeli strike is nearly inexorable. Israel is undoubtedly
ratcheting forward its decision-making process. President Obama is
almost certainly not.
He still wants "engagement" (a particularly evocative term now) with Iran's current regime. Last Thursday, the State Department confirmed
that Secretary Hillary Clinton spoke to her Russian and Chinese
counterparts about "getting Iran back to negotiating on some of these
concerns that the international community has." This is precisely the
view of Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, reflected in the Group
of Eight communique the next day. Sen. John Kerry thinks the recent
election unpleasantness in Tehran will delay negotiations for only a
few weeks.
[....]
Only those most theologically committed to negotiation still believe
Iran will fully renounce its nuclear program. Unfortunately, the Obama
administration has a "Plan B," which would allow Iran to have a
"peaceful" civil nuclear power program while publicly "renouncing" the
objective of nuclear weapons. Obama would define such an outcome as
"success," even though in reality it would hardly be different from
what Iran is doing and saying now.
[...]
In short, the stolen election and its tumultuous aftermath have
dramatically highlighted the strategic and tactical flaws in Obama's
game plan. With regime change off the table for the coming critical
period in Iran's nuclear program, Israel's decision on using force is
both easier and more urgent. Since there is no likelihood that
diplomacy will start or finish in time, or even progress far enough to
make any real difference, there is no point waiting for negotiations to
play out. In fact, given the near certainty of Obama changing his
definition of "success," negotiations represent an even more dangerous
trap for Israel.
11:52pm: Oppressed peoples of the world unite! Funny -- sort of. The Chinese Falun Gong are helping those fighting for liberty in Iran. Regular Atlas readers remember Falun Gong. The repressive Chinese government despises them, persecutes them and harvests their organs. Yes, harvests their organs.
ABC-OZ: Computer software invented to beat China's stringent internet controls is being used by pro-democracy activists in Iran to manoeuvre around authorities there.
Developed and managed by a team of volunteers from the Falun Gong spiritual group, Freegate was created to allow net users to bypass Beijing government censorship.
Now it is estimated as many as a million Iranians use the free service each day, as anti-government demonstrators take their protests online.
9:42 pm: The evil overlords weigh in from Nazi HQ:
The OIC, about which I have written extensively here, is driving the UN bus. The same bus that Obama wants America to get on and throw off American sovereignty. Enter Harold Koh, stage left.
8:10 pm: Arrested, beaten and raped: an Iran protester's tale. Afshin, a shopkeeper from south-west Iran, alleges that one of his friends was beaten and repeatedly raped after being arrested at an opposition rally after last month's disputed election. He gave this account to Esfandiar Poorgiv, a journalist and academic. It is published here as part of the Guardian's project to trace those killed and detained during the unrest. (hat tip James the Fin)
He
came to my shop around 10.30am. You could tell straight away that he had just
been released. His face was bruised all over. His teeth were broken and he could
hardly open his eyes.
He was not even into politics. He was just an ordinary 18-year-old in the
last year of school. Before the election he came to me and asked how he should
vote. He looks up to me. His father is an Ahmadinejad supporter.
He had gone home directly after his release, but his father did not let him
in. He didn't mention he had been raped. At first, he didn't tell me either. It
was the doctor who first noticed it and told me.
When he came to my shop he collapsed in a chair. He said he had nowhere to go
and asked if he could stay with me. I called a friend of mine who is a doctor to
come home and see him. Then I brought him home.
His shoulder blades and arms were wounded. There were some slashes on the
face. No bone fractures, but he was bruised all over the body. I wanted to take
some photos but he did not let me. The doctor said only four of his teeth were
intact, the rest were broken. You could hardly understand what he said.
Then the doctor told me what had happened. He had suffered rupture of the
rectum and the doctor feared colonic bleeding. He suggested we take him to the
hospital immediately.
They registered him under a false name and with somebody else's insurance.
The nurses were crying. Two of them asked what sort of beast had beaten him up
like that. He was a broken man. He told us not to waste our money on him, and
that he would kill himself.
He was arrested in Shiraz on 15 June, the Monday after the election. Some
sturdy young men made a human shield around the demonstrators. He was among
them. He said he managed to hit some of the anti-riot police. But then they
caught him and beat him up.
"I was kept in a van till evening that day and then transferred to a solitary
cell where I was kept for two days," he said. "Then I was repeatedly
interrogated, beaten and hung from a ceiling. They call it chicken kebab. They
tie your hands and feet together and hang you from the ceiling, turning you
around and beating you with cables.
Read it and weep.
7:00 pm: The handwriting is on the wall and everybody is scrambling. If the people who protested prevail, the struggle will be over what did they fight and die for.
Iran’s reformist opposition on Wednesday delivered a co-ordinated message to Iranians, declaring the government of Mahmoud Ahmadi-Nejad illegitimate and encouraging supporters to challenge it.
A statement by Moussavi, the opposition leader who says the June 12 election was rigged in favour of the hardline Mr Ahmadi-Nejad, followed similarly defiant calls by Mosharekat, Iran’s largest reformist party, and Mehdi Karroubi, the second reformist candidate.
6:48 pm: More than 500 Demonstrators gathered today in front of Chinese counselor in L.A to condemn China's support of Ahmadinejad.
Where are the tens of thousands who marched across Europe, the US and Asia against Israel when they were defending themselves in Gaza back in January? Now we know who and what those people are.
Iran's opposition leader accused of nine offences in letter to chief prosecutor as Ahmadinejad cancels Libya trip
What are they going to do? Arrest the whole country? Haven't they done that already? In North Korea.
11:48 am: Numerous reports on twitter today of people gathering in "six places (Bahareset, Valiasr, Enghelab, Vanak, Tajrish, Sadehgieh)"
Amid the talk of despair and quashed protests, one defiant reformist supporter told this reporter: "The regime wants the world to think they have won. Don't believe it... Even if this regime is about to collapse, they would not let anybody know until their final hour."
"I've made it clear that the United States respects the sovereignty of
the Islamic Republic of Iran and is not interfering with Iran's
affairs." Obama day before yesterday
I would suggest that Obama watch these hangings, but that bloodless fiend wouldn't blink an eyelash.
Israel should seize this opportunity to take out Iran's nukes. This is cannot go on. Free and fair elections without "pre-selected" candidates.
As the Iranian authorities warned the opposition on Tuesday that they would tolerate no further protests over the disputed June 12 presidential elections, a report emerged of the hangings of six supporters of defeated candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi.
Speaking after Iran's top legislative body upheld the election victory of incumbent Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, sources in Iran told this reporter in a telephone interview that the hangings took place in the holy city of Mashhad on Monday. There was no independent confirmation of the report.
Underlining the climate of fear among direct and even indirect supporters of Mousavi's campaign for the election to be annulled, the sources also reported that a prominent cleric gave a speech to opposition protesters in Teheran earlier this week in which he publicly acknowledged that the very act of speaking at the gathering would likely cost him his life.
On Monday, witnesses said thousands of policemen and Basij
militiamen carrying batons were deployed in Teheran's main squares to prevent
any recurrence of the opposition protests. Drivers who so much as shouted
"Allahu Akbar" or beeped their horns had their windows smashed by the Basiji and
riot police.
Women police, better known as the Sisters of Zeynab, are also
now out in force, the witnesses said.
"Some people are still going out into the streets, but there
is despair and sadness"
Israel's grand Twitter conspiracy.Via NIAC, a major hard-right newspaper in Iran, Kayhan, "reports" that Israel posted 18,000 Twitter messages urging people to complain about voter fraud two days before
Nico Pitney reported earlier that "Host quits Iran's Press TV over 'bias' after election.
"It is called Press TV, is funded by the Iranian regime, and opponents
say that from its nondescript offices off Hanger Lane in northwest
London the 24-hour news station is beaming pro-Tehran propaganda into
homes across Britain. Nick Ferrari, a leading British radio presenter, quit his show on the station yesterday in protest
at the regime crushing dissent after the Iranian elections, but Press
TV continues to employ plenty of other Britons -- including MPs and
Cherie Blair's sister."
8:38: I linked to this yesterday but I want to recirculate it:
Iason Athanasiadis, a Greek journalist based in Istanbul, is
being held by the Iranian authorities. He was arrested 17 June 2009.
The arrest seems particularly perverse since Iason, on assignment for
the Washington Times and GlobalPost, is a long time Iran-hand,
Farsi-speaker, and Iran-lover, who spent 2 years at Tehran University.
Efforts to secure his release are being managed by the Greek Foreign
MInistry, and the Greek embassy in Tehran.
12:26
am Tuesday morning: IHRDC Calls on the World to Prevent Iran from
Executing Prisoners Arrested in Connection with the June 12
Presidential Election (hat tip Paul)
June 29, 2009
NEW HAVEN, CONNECTICUT – Today, ILNA, an official Iranian news outlet,
announced the creation of a special commission to “determine the fate
of recent arrestees.” If history is any barometer, the creation of this
commission and the men appointed to it, are ominous signs that the
regime intends to severely punish, and execute, demonstrators and other
human rights activists. The world cannot stand by and watch.
Ayatollah Shahroudi, the Head of the Judiciary who is appointed by the
Supreme Leader, directed that members of the commission will include
Hojatoleslam Dorri Najafabadi (Iran’s General Prosecutor), Ibrahim
Ra’isi (Deputy Judiciary Chief), and Mostafa Pour-Mohammadi (Head of
the General Inspection Organization). He also directed the commission
to coordinate its activities with the Prosecutor of Tehran, Saeed
Mortazavi.
This announcement followed closely on the heels of Friday’s sermon by
senior cleric Ayatollah Ahmad Khatami in which he stated that
demonstrators are muharib, a status that makes them subject to the most
severe punishment, including execution. The sermon and creation of the
commission follow a familiar deadly pattern, particularly given the men
involved.
Mortazavi has been implicated in the death of photo-journalist
Zahrah Kazemi, and the arrests and torture of other journalists and
bloggers. Two of the named commissioners, Pour-Mohammadi and Ra’isi,
were members of special commissions that were created in July 1988 on
the orders of the then-Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khomeini. Those
commissions, known as Death Commissions, sent thousands of already
sentenced political prisoners throughout Iran to their deaths based
solely on their responses to a few questions. The Iranian government
secretly executed the prisoners and has never acknowledged that they
took place. To this day, the exact numbers and identities of those
executed remain unknown.
In a pattern eerily similar to today, as the executions were beginning
in 1988, the then-Chief Justice Musavi Ardebili delivered a sermon
claiming that “[t]he people say they should all be executed without
exceptions.”
Given this history involving many of the same powerful men, the
creation of special commissions coupled with a call for executions, are
clear signs that Iran intends to severely punish, and execute,
demonstrators and other human rights activists. The IHRDC calls on the
United Nations to prevent this from happening.
Ever since the revolution and especially after the hostage crisis,
the western media, unconsciously perhaps, pictured Iran as a hostile,
threatening country with uncivilized people. The western media were not
alone in this; they had an accomplice in the Iranian government, who
embraced this villain-ized picture of Iran. To them, the more alienated
the world was from the true Iran, the less they cared about what goes
on in the country. In fact, it was not until its secret nuclear
facilities were discovered that western governments took a real
interest in Iran.
I remember September 11, 2001. I remember watching TV all day
worried and sad. I remember holding candlelight vigils with my friends
for the victims. Then George W. Bush went on to declare us as one of
the “Axis of Evil.” I remember asking myself, “Why?” Not a single one
of the terrorists was Iranian, and I wondered why he didn’t bother to
make a distinction between the government and the people. In fact, in
all of the Middle East I don’t think there is a more pro-American
nation than Iran, but no one made such a distinction. Consequently, the
Iranian people were viewed with an aura of suspicion in every airport
and embassy around the world for the rest of the Bush administration.
But all of that unfounded negative stereotyping came to an end when,
in the aftermath of the elections, the nation stood up to the
manipulative authorities and separated its account from that of the
government. We shattered the stereotype with the amateur photos and
videos taken with our own mobile phones. We captured the true picture
of the Iranian nation and relayed it to the world, a picture of a young
and highly educated nation yearning to be free.
Now I must tell the people of the world: Thank you! To the western
media: Thank you for believing in us and in our cause. To the drinkers
in the pubs of London: Thank you for supporting us and for lending us
your voice.
The workers of the Khodro automobile company in Iran today issued the following declaration (translated for The Field from the original Farsi by Iraj Omidvar):
We declare our solidarity with the movement of the people of Iran.
Autoworker, Fellow Laborers (Laborer Friends): What we witness today, is an insult to the intelligence of the people, and disregard for their votes, the trampling of the principles of the Constitution by the government. It is our duty to join this people's movement.
We the workers of Iran Khodro, Thursday 28/3/88 in each working shift will stop working for half an hour to protest the suppression of students, workers, women, and the Constitution and declare our solidarity with the movement of the people of Iran. The morning and afternoon shifts from 10 to 10:30. The night shift from 3 to 3:30.
Oh, those pious mullahs! So righteous! Is this what they mean by sharia finance? I guess this is their idea of a "green revolution". And you have to love those little Swiss piggies. Neutral? Yes, just like during World War II. Neutral for Nazis. Neutral on the bloody backs of millions.
1) Ali Khamenei
- Sparkasse Bank (Frankfurt/Germany) Acct.# 234075617: DM 112.1 Millions
- Corner Bank (Geneve/CH) Acct. # 217824: US$ 97 Millions
- Banque Cantonale (Lausanne/CH) Acct. # 71713: US$ 73.2 Millions
2) Ali Akbar Hashemi Rasfandjani
- Union Bank Suisse (Geneve/CH) Acct.# 223870390:SF 532.5 Millions
Societe Generale (Zurich/CH) Acct.# 30064183: DM 477.2 Millions
- Sparkasse (Ciborg/Germany) Acct. # 2957132: DM 238.2 Millions
3) Mohammad Ali Tasskhiri
- Societe Generale (Geneve/Ch) Acct.# 500032654: DM 280.7 Millions
- Midland Bank (London/UK) Acct.# 832-150270: BP 12.2 Millions
- Dressdner bank (Dusserdolf/Germany) Acct.# 8354783: DM 48.3 Millions
4 ) Mohammad Golpayegani
- Credit Bank Suisse (Geneve/CH) Acct.# CEO7680: SF 85.7 Millions
5) Bijan Namdar Z angene
- Union Bank Suisse (Geneve/CH) Acct.# 314380320: US$ 141.7 Millions
6) Habibollah Asgar Aladi
- Corner Bank (Geneve/CH) Acct. # 3983BHK: US$ 180 Millions
7) Ahmad Jannati
- Midland Bank (London/UK) Acct.# 92114016: BP 54.2 Millions
8) Abdollah Nategh Nouri
- Union Banque Suisse (Geneve/CH) Acct.# 2102120321ND: USD 123.9 Millions
- Deutsh bank (Hamburg/Germany) Acct.# 03223486: DM 64.1 Millions
9) Mohsen Rafighdoost
- Union Banque Suisse (Geneve/CH) Acct.# 2183130687: USD 122.7 Millions
10) Mohsen Hashemi Bahremani
- Deutsh bank (Munchen 3/Germany) Acct.# 1732736: DM 370.7 Millions
- Credit Bank (Geneve/CH) Acct.# 928530FC: USD 178.2 Millions
11) Abbas Vaez-Tabassi
- Corner Bank (Geneve/CH) Acct.# FAH7272: SF 97.2 Millions
- Sparkasse (Hamburg/Germany) Acct #. DFH72251660:USD 216.7 Millions
12) Hossein Shariatmadari
- Midland Bank (London/UK) Acct.# 34414011: BP 37.8 Millions
13) Mohsen Rezai
- Union Banque Suisse (Geneve/CH) Acct.# 442760430: USD 78.2 Millions
- Credit Bank (Geneve/CH) Acct.# FAH7967: SF 52.7 Millions
14) Massood Movahedian
- Commerz Bank (Koln/Germany) Acct.# 3528817: DM 287.8 Millions
15) Kamal Kharrazi
- Corner Bank (Geneve/CH) Acct.# AMF4567: USD 18.2 Millions
16) Ali-Reza Mo-ayeri
- Societe Generale (Geneve/CH) Acct.# 50024814: USD12.6 Millions
17) Hossein Kordi
- Corner Bank (Geneve/CH) Acct.#14710025: USD 14.7 Millions
18) Abbas-Ali Forooghi
- Corner Bank (Geneve/CH) Acct.# 12930034: USD 10.7 Millions
I have a piece today in the Canada Free Press on the perfidy of the media in their lack of coverage of the Iranian revolution. This historic event has cataclysmic implications for the course of human events; instead, the media obsesses over the cocktail of drugs has-been Michael Jackson was using to assuage the pain of his oh so tragic life. Ugh.
Despite Obama’s passivity, Iran and its henchmen are blaming America for the
uprising. Hezbollah’s deputy leader, Sheikh Naim Qassem, said Thursday: “The
extent of Western and American involvement in Iran’s internal affairs is now
clear. What is going on in Iran is not a simple protest against the results of
the presidential election. There are riots and attacks in the streets that are
orchestrated from the outside in a bid to destabilise the country’s Islamic
regime.”
As that regime strikes back hard, I do not believe the movement has been
quelled, but I do believe it has been silenced. And this is partly due to the
failure of the Western media. The mainstream media fearlessly took on Bush,
Rumsfeld, Cheney. They were so tough on those who didn’t share their ideological
views. They had no fear of those they ridiculed, marginalized, tongue lashed
mercilessly. Who can forget how they climbed all over each other to get embedded
into Iraq so that they could make America look terrible?
But when it came to really doing their job, they have been absent on Iran.
Why weren’t they clamoring to get into Iran to cover an historic, cataclysmic
event? CNN has been the only news network to cover Iran in any depth. FOX has
been negligent in its lack of coverage. Left leaning sites on the Internet have
been leading the way – notably the Huffington Post, whose reporter Nico Pitney
has been almost a singular voice in speaking up for the Iranian protesters. And
blogs like Revolutionary Road and Get Honest Third Eye deserve commendation for
doing the job the mainstream media has not been doing. Get Honest Third Eye had
the first video that showed an Iranian being shot on camera by government
officials. The shooting occurs while the person filming is quite far away, but
the video then shows closer images of his body.
It is indelible images like those that reveal the full horror of what
has been going on in Iran. But now, Iran’s citizen journalists have gone dark.
The tweets are not coming in. “New” twitters, pro-Ahmadinejad (twitters with
ironic names like “antifascista”) have been tweeting vile propaganda. The media
can talk about
Michael Jackson all day, with no news coming out of Iran to distract
them.
The only losers are those who are yearning to be free.
Back when sanity was in order, fine, decent men governed. Today they stand on the sidelines, hoping against hope that free men will wake up and heed their words of caution, much like Churchill when he too was cast into the wilderness. John Bolton wrote such words yesterday in the LA Times in his exceptional OpEd: The only answer for Iran is regime change, posted at Atlas here.
Today in the Wall Street Journal, Jose Maria Aznar, former prime minister of Spain (1996-2004), takes up the mantle for freedom. Bravo!
The Islamic Republic that the ayatollahs have created is not just
any power. To defend a strict interpretation of the Quran, Khomeini
created the Pasdaran, the Revolutionary Guard, which today is a true
army. To expand its ideology and influence Iran has not hesitated to
create, sustain and use proxy terrorist groups like Hezbollah in
Lebanon and Hamas in Gaza. And to impose its fundamentalist vision
beyond its borders, Iran is working frantically to obtain nuclear
weapons.
Those who protest against the blatant electoral fraud that handed
victory to the fanatical Mahmoud Ahmadinejad are in reality demanding a
change of regime. Thus, the regime has resorted to beating and shooting
its citizens in a desperate attempt to squash the pro-democracy
movement.
This is no time for hesitation on the part of the West. If, as part
of an attempt to reach an agreement on the Iranian nuclear program, the
leaders of democratic nations turn their backs on the dissidents they
will be making a terrible mistake.
President Obama has said he refuses to "meddle" in Iran's internal
affairs, but this is a poor excuse for passivity. If the international
community is not able to stop, or at least set limits on, the
repressive violence of the Islamic regime, the protesters will end up
as so many have in the past -- in exile, in prison, or in the cemetery.
And with them, all hope for change will be gone.
To be clear: Nobody in the circles of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei or
Ahmadinejad is going to reward us for silence or inaction. On the
contrary, failing to support the regime's critics will leave us with an
emboldened Ahmadinejad, an atomic Iran, and dissidents that are
disenchanted and critical of us. We cannot talk about freedom and
democracy if we abandon our own principles.
Some do not want to recognize the spread of freedom in the Middle
East. But it is clear that after decades of repression -- religious and
secular -- the region is changing.
Jailed Iranian reformists have been tortured in an attempt
to force them into TV "confessions" of a foreign-led plot against the Islamic
regime, it was alleged today, as the country's guardian
council buried hopes for any significant revision of the disputed
presidential election.
According to Iranian opposition websites, the "confessions" are aimed at
implicating Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi
Karroubi, the defeated reformist candidates, in an alleged conspiracy.
Mostafa Tajzadeh, Abdollah Ramezanzadeh and Mohsen Aminzadeh, all Mousavi
supporters, are reported to have undergone "intensive interrogation" sessions in
Tehran's Evin prison since Mahmoud
Ahmadinejad's disputed re-election.
They are among several hundred activists, academics, journalists and students
detained
in a crackdown coinciding with the brutal suppression of street protests.
Prisoners
reportedly heard screams from Tajzadeh and Ramezanzadeh in Evin's section 209,
which is reserved for political prisoners and is run by the hardline
intelligence ministry. Aminzadeh, a former deputy foreign minister, was heard
shouting: "I am not going to give interviews."
Amnesty International said the reports came from "very credible sources".
8:40 pm: Streets of Tehran like a garrison. People are depressed and angry.
8:13 pm Dissident Hoda Saber, of the Freedom movement, and journalist Reza Alijani were freed. Taghti Rahmani was also released earlier. (hat tip Chad)
What is happening to the less visible political prisoners?
7:54 pm: Unconfirmed, but I am getting this repeatedly off the tweetdeck....that the most prolific and courageous twitter poster, Persian Kiwi, has been arrested. This is looking more like genocide. Where is the world? Where is America? Many of us who were following Persian Kiwi felt as if we knew PK personally. Another one of us ..........disappearing.
One of the many PK tweets: : I'm so sorry.I recived [sic]the persiankiwi arrest news from a honest source but I hope it's been incorrect.
Ali Hejvani & Ali Mosleh arrested. They are bloggers.
When Obama campaigned on change!, who could have imagined that he meant change from freedom lover to freedom snuffer.
Mahtab Nasirpour Homar Rusta (right)
7:25 pm: Tweeters getting arrested. Latest off the tweet deck: At least two actresses arrested : Homa Rusta & Mahtab Nasirpour.
7:01 pm: Ahmadinejad mocks Obama here. Perhaps this will galvanize the left and they will come out against Ahmadinejad in a furious way (ya know, they way they destroy Republicans). Ahmadinejad ridiculing their messiah? Let's see how BO's hos take off the jihad loving gloves and lace into the poison dwarf.
5:49: The illegal brutal government of Ahmadinejad has succeeding in quelling the street protests by mowing peaceful protesters down in the street over the past two weeks.
Groups of "hacktivists" — Web hackers demanding Internet freedom —
say they are targeting Web pages of Iran's leadership in response to
the regime's muzzling of blogs, news outlets and other sites.
It's
unclear how much the wired warriors have disrupted official Iranian
sites. Attempts by The Associated Press to access sites for state news
organizations, including the Islamic Republic News Agency and Fars, were unsuccessful — with a message saying the links were "broken."
Heh.
According to twitterers:Trading has come to a halt today and the Bazaar is virtually closed. Bazaar is are on strike
4:12 pm: Great American Rich Davis took up the cause of the brave in Iran at his weekly West Chester Victory rally on the corner of High and Market Street in West Chester, PA. oorah!
Rich writes me:
Today the American Sheepdogs, home of the Chester County Victory Movement
wore green wristbands as a show of solidarity with the brave protestors in Iran
who are being beaten and shot and taken away at night because they are standing
up against the brutal rdictator and mullahs that are running their
country.
All of us wore green wristband in the hope it will inspire other Americans
to show similar support for the courageous people in Iran. For years American
leadership has encouraged the people to rise up against the brutal Ahmadinejad
regime, and when they finally do, they got a tardy and weak response from Obama
who they were counting on for support. Most distressing is the way the
barbarian regime is going after the Iranian women. Shooting them (like Neda).
Our hearts are wrenched as we watch them being massacred. The press is
unwilling to cover the killings, but we hope our little show of support will
bring awareness to the atrocities being committed to those who seek freedom.
Going Green, the Sheepdogs show support for Freedom Fighters.
Great group shot, everyone has the green
Military moms: Evie, (left) her son is an army combat medic fresh off a tour of Afghanistan, Mary (in the middle) her son is young Marine officer, fresh from Iraq, Mary Lou (on the right) - her son is serving in Iraq as we speak. He is with the PA national guard. Great Americans all!
Tehran building attacked by security forces
Twitter Amnesty International claims Mousavi aides tortured to extract confessions
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Iranian paramilitary Basij forces stage nightly raids in Tehran, invading private homes and beating residents in an attempt to stop protests against Iran's disputed election, Human Rights Watch reported.
"Witnesses are telling us that the Basijis are trashing entire streets and even neighborhoods as well as individual homes trying to stop the nightly rooftop protest chants," Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East director at Human Rights Watch, said in a June 26 report by the New York-based group.
"On June 22, while we were shouting 'Allahu Akbar' from the rooftops
... the Basiji entered our neighborhood and started firing live rounds
into the air, in the direction of the buildings from which they believe
the shouting of 'Allahu Akbar' is coming from," a middle-aged resident
of Vanak district said, according to the report.
A woman said Basijis climbed over walls to enter homes after they
failed to kick down doors in Velenjak district when people were
shouting from rooftops on June 23.
"When they entered the homes, they beat the residents. The neighbors
took to cursing the Basijis and throwing stones at them to divert them
from beating the residents, but then the Basijis attacked those
neighbors' houses and tried to enter them," she was quoted as saying.
Another resident said Basijis spray-painted a sign on the doors of
houses in a central district where they thought protesters had fled.
"A few minutes later, they came back and attacked the marked houses,
breaking down the doors and entering them. They beat the owners, and
broke the windows in the house and of their cars," the resident said,
according to the report.
3:10 pm: I take it back. It is better when FOX doesn't cover Iran. The very little coverage they are giving it today serves the interests of Ahmadinejad. They keep talking to Kayvon Biouki, "freelance journalist," who claims there is no torture going on (we have video, schmuck), and there is no unrest. The guy is clearly a pro-government tool, so why would FOX give him such a platform?
2:17 pm: The left can't muster the same enthusiasm for supporting those being slaughtered in Iran as they could for their anti-America, anti-Iraq war efforts. Vigilant squirrel has full coverage here. At least these poorly attended efforts are not for Ahmadinejad.
The right should be staging big rallies. It is a mistake not to get behind these people.
The Brigade went to the two commie-sponsored rallies on the 26th of June in
Manhattan.
The first 'event' by the Worker Party-types at the Islamic
Republic of Iran's Consulate was about 7 people from the Workers Party with no
Iranians; basically a non-event. (will post a few pictures later)
The
Big Display was later at Columbus Circle.They do know how to put on a display
with lots and lots of green and candles and speakers and music..... However,
the most prevalent aspect (besides their supposed support for "free" elections)
was their out-reach via Revolution newspapers, very Leftist speakers and
Commie-sponsored flyers from the Workers Party and Amnesty International. (will
also post the flyers later)
Mixed in with their support for "Free"
elections, were plenty of slams at America and praise for the "Big Zero".
1:156 pm: Mousavi rejects bogus gesture to recount 10% of the vote.
Unfortunately, as you witness in the international media, contrary to
the letter of the constitution, and the stated freedoms in the Islamic
Republic, all my communication with the people and you has been cut
off, and people’s peaceful objections are being crushed. The national
media which is being financed with public funds, with a revolting
misrepresentation is changing the truth, and labels the peaceful march
of close to three million people as anarchist, and the media that are
being controlled by the government have become the mouthpiece of those
who have stolen the people’s votes.
I’d like to thank you again
for your peaceful objections which have received widespread coverage
across the world, and would like to ask you that by using all legal
channels, and by remaining faithful to the sacred system of the Islamic
Republic, to make sure that your objections are heard by the
authorities in the country. I am fully aware that your justified
demands have nothing to do with groups who do not believe in the sacred
Islamic Republic of Iran’s system. It is up to you to distance yourself
from them, and do not allow them to misuse the current situation.
A good statement, no doubt, and who knows the pressure he is under, but it appears that Mousavi is faltering. Big mistake.AP reports:
Iran's increasingly isolated opposition leader said he'll seek
government approval for future protests, even as he complained of
unfair restrictions - a new sign that he is backing away from
confrontation with Iran's rulers over a bitterly disputed election.
This is a complete turnaround from his position just the day before when he said that the attempt to steal the election would be crushed.
A goodbye on Facebook. "I got a
very disturbing good bye message on Facebook from my cousin (who has
been active in the Tehran protests). Please share my cousin's words
with the world because I don't think people will know how many people
are being killed and tortured until years from now (this is what
happened during the crack down after the revolution) and please share this website with the people in Iran who need to know how to protect themselves." (hat tip Huff Po)
The note from her cousin:
Hey guys,
I would not be around that much,we have real security issues over here
and I have confirmed news that a lot of people are being arrested
through Cyber stuff like videos,photos and internet posts.
They r monitoring everything closely now that they are a little bit free.
We will try to somehow pass the news as much as we can,but things
are getting too risky over here,there is a lot that you guys don't know
about how they r arresting ppl and what happens to some of them,where
they are taken and how they are tortured(all I can say is that it is
worst than what happened in revolution).
Don't talk about any of this stuff over the phone when you call Ir.I
know it sounds scary,but it is true.The way they r monitoring is not a
trick just to scare us,they are taking actions against the info they
have found.So I am just going to lay low for a while.
Take care all and wish us luck.
2:59 am Saturday: Twitter: Why don't we Iranians just reject Islam and go back to what we were before arabs forced this allah akbar thing on us? #iranelection 2 minutes ago from web
9:300 pm “How long does it take the U.N. to get together to have a resolution if the subject would be Israel? It takes 12 hours,”Rabbi Hier said, describing a double standard used by the U.N. in addressing human rights violations.
“Here, not a single country from the EU, not a single country from the Arab world, from the United States, Canada, has come forward asking for an emergency meeting of the security council of the U.N. to discuss a fraudulent election.”
Back on June 8th female supporters of Iranian reformist Mousavi, with green ribbons around their wrists, hold up
posters and release green balloons during a pro-reform
electoral campaign rally at Badr stadium in southern Tehran
Today
Iranian blogger posted this picture of green balloons about to be launched into the air above Iran as part of Friday’s “green sky” protest
9:20 pm: NiteOwl AKA Josh Shahryar - twitter.com/iran_translator on twitter
- has e been immersed in tweets from Iran for the past several
hours. He is very careful in choosing his tweet
sources. Here are a couple of blurbs from his reliable twitter sources. Remember, this is all from tweets. No news
media outlets have been used.
These are the important happenings that Shahryar can positively confirm from Friday, June 26 in Iran.
No large rallies or prostests were held today. There were
unconfirmed reports of small gatherings in isolated areas of the city,
but for the most part, Tehran didn't seem to witness the same as it has
been for the past two weeks. Sources indicated that it was in no way a
sign of giving up, but rather a brief interval in more protests that
are to come. They added that currently, the Sea of Green is organizing
and regrouping as well as coming up with new ways to defy the
authorities and also know of the fate of their leaders in order to
progress.
At 1 PM, however, a large number of people in Tehran took to roofs
and released green balloons to show solidarity with the Sea of Green
and to commemorate protesters who've died so far. (Link showing the
balloons: YouTube - IRAN RIGGED ELECTIONS: Green balloons were used as a form of protest all over Iran 6/26/2009
) At night, the people again took to the roofs and chanted "Allah o
Akbar" and "Death to the Dictator". They also burned candles and held
vigils. There was confirmation of the death of one protester who was
fired upon by security forces as he chanted from his rooftop. Reports
of vigils also came from Mashhad.
Meanwhile, on the government's official English News channel, Press
TV, George Galloway, a British MP representing the constituency of
Bethnal Green and Bow, spent several hours denouncing the protests,
Israel and Zionism. He called upon the world to accept Ahmadinejad's
re-election and called on the protesters to go home and accept the will
of the people. He did not indicate which people he meant when he made
that statement.
A reliable source indicated that Khomeini's family has thrown its
lot behind the protesters. Although they denied calling out for a
protest tomorrow, they indicated that they were with the protesters and
claimed to be supporting the protesters lawful demands and don't
consider Ahmadinejad's government legitimate anymore. This, coupled
with Montazeri's statements and Larijani's lethargy, is a strong
indication that the clergy are divided in what to do with the
protesters and that there is a considerable level of public support now
for the protesters among the religious elite.
The spokesperson of the Guardian Council announced today that a
commission had been formed to recount 10% of the ballots cast with
representatives of the candidates present. The commission includes Ali
Akbar Velayati, Hadad Adel, Eftekhar Jahromi, Aboutorabi Fard, Dari
Najafabadi and Hossein Rahimian. He also gave candidates 24 hours to
appoint representatives that would join the commission in the recount.
As reported before, the government is heavily charging people for
the return of their dead family members' bodies who were killed during
the protests. Families are being charged thousands of dollars and are
also required to sign a waiver that states they won't sue the police
and that Mousavi is the reason behind the death of their loved ones.
More people were arrested today including Mohammad Mostafaie, who is a
prominent lawyer and important reformist.
The government is continuously attacking and arresting Iranians who
are using twitter to get the message out to the world. Several of our
sources have so far been arrested or have stopped using twitter
altogether, yet the remainder have pledged to continue until the last
minute. Amidst the somber mood, some emotional moments can also be
seen.
Iran embassy in Switzerland was hit by a firebomb. Apparently, "it was a peaceful demonstration until someone
threw a molotov cocktail at the wall of the Iranian embassy." The man who threw the explosive is standing in the background (next to the fire): More pics here via Huff Po
5:10 pm: Glenn Beck is wearing a green shirt and a green tie on his show today. Solidarity brothers (and he is holding up a copy of Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged). heh.
Now, if only Glenn would talk about Iran. He's not talking about Michael Jackson, that's a start.
The Iranians who are resisting the electoral putsch are not only being
humiliated and beaten by the batons and bullets of the Pasdaran but also by the
inaction of the so-called freedom-loving world: no call for a special session of
the UN, no threats of sanctions, no boycott declaration, no economic embargo,
not even the smallest warning—let's just not take sides or make any commitments
as long as the result of the struggle in Iran remains open. So Obama doesn't need days but weeks to slowly
pull back his outstretched hand, while the German Foreign Ministry argues all
the more emphatically for a dialogue with the putsch-regime. Undauntedly, the
German-Iranian Chamber of Industry and Commerce in Tehran advertises the
building of a German-Iranian Business Center in Berlin, while the German-Iranian
Chamber of Commerce in Hamburg reported today that its upcoming seminar on
"Export Certification in Iran Trade" (July 13) is already overcrowded. And
haven't we gotten along somehow or other with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad during the
past four years?
But this time this optimistic hope that things will just go on is a
self-deception.
[...]
About two years ago, Nicolas Sarkozy warned of a "catastrophic alternative":
either the Iranian bomb or the bombing of Iran. He proposed negotiations as the
last resort. Yet this path is blocked because Khamenei does not want to
negotiate.
Today the uprising in Iran sheds new light on the nuclear dispute. Since
June 12, defusing the bomb is now linked to the victory of the democracy
movement. The help that the West withholds today will turn back on it as nuclear
terror tomorrow.
Whatever the outcome of the current power struggle in Tehran, one thing is
certain: the ruling establishment is split down the middle, with little
possibility of reconciliation in the near future.
[...]
The military are equally split.
Some, like Defense Minister General Mostafa Muhammad Najjar and Interior
Minister General Sadeq Mahsouli have sided with Khamenei's new hard-line stance.
Others like Admiral Ali Shamkhani, a former defense minister, and General
Yahya Rahim Safavi, a former Commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps
(IRGC), have indicated support for the opposition.
The split in the IRGC may be deeper than many suspect.
According to unconfirmed reports, at least 17 mid-ranking IRGC officers have
been relieved of their posts. A senior commander, General Ali Fazli, who led the
elite "Master of the Martyrs' Division", has been "reassigned" after refusing to
order troops to crush the demonstrators.
Some people from the demonstration stormed the embassy area. Embassy
personal used som kind of electronic weapons (tasers) iron batons, and
knives against demonstrators. One person were taken to hospital due to
knife stab from embassy personal another because of heart attack due to
tumult outside the fence. They were all armed from the embassy and
really violent. The demonstrators smashed windows of cars and smashed
some windows of the buildings and tried to defend themselves against
the heavily armed, embassy personal who didn't even hesitate of using
their weapons against people.
Video shows when protesters enters the embassy area and get beaten by the staff of the embassy.
Obama's policy, and that of the United States, should be the overthrow
of the Islamic revolution of 1979. The massive resistance to the June
12 elections is just another fact supporting that conclusion.
The
Tehran regime -- not just Ahmadinejad but the entire Islamic revolution
superstructure -- is enormously unpopular for three major reasons.
First, the regime's economic mismanagement has brought the economy of a
country rich in oil and natural gas to near-gridlock. Periodic but
piecemeal strikes have been put down, but the prospect of a
simultaneous, sustained, nationwide strike remains a potent threat
Second,
Iran's young people -- two-thirds of the population is under 30 -- know
they could have a much freer life if they could only overturn the
mullahs' strict rule. The young are educated and sophisticated, and
they know there are alternatives to Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini's velayat-e faqih, the system of "guardianship of Islamic jurists" that imposes harsh Sharia law on Iran today.
Third,
Iran is only about 50% Persian. Arabs, Baluchis, Azeris, Kurds and
others resent the ethnic, political and religious discrimination they
face constantly and have little or no love for the Islamic revolution.
Of
course, these various sources of discontent are not entirely
reinforcing, and are sometimes in conflict, which indicates how
difficult it is for a purely internal Iranian opposition to coalesce.
Had the U.S. and others over the last 30 years done more to help
Iranian dissidents, overtly and covertly, we might be in a different
place today. The question is whether we are prepared to do now what we
should have been doing for some time. To date at least, the
Obama administration's answer remains a resounding no. Obama wants
negotiations with Tehran, not regime change. Given that the
Revolutionary Guard and the hard-line mullahs -- and not the people --
are increasingly likely to be the short-term winners of the current
Battle for Iran, supporters of regime change must now make longer-term
plans. We have missed a huge opportunity because of Obama's
error (and that of his predecessors), but the continuing threat of
Iranian nuclear weapons and support for international terrorism make
the imperative of regime change no less compelling. The Iranian people
will continue their opposition no matter how inconvenient it is for
Obama's hoped-for negotiations. We should support them, and not just by
rhetoric.
About an hour ago they brought in an young man in his early twenties who was
severely beaten by the Basij. His CPK was 118000, which is a big deal in
medicine. CPK is a measure of muscle lysis so guess how badly he must have been
beaten for such an incredibly high CPK. In fact so much muscle was lysed and
myoglobulin was released that he went into renal failure (an expected aftermath
of rhabdomyolysis or extensive lysis of the muscles). One of the attending
cardiologists said that he would give him his kidney if need be… We all felt the
same… The clashes are now sporadic… But the chants of Allah o Akbar are higher
than ever…
1:59 pm: Iran media: Obama sent secret letter of support to Khamenei before election.
12:13pm: Khatami said during nationally broadcast Muslim sermon on Friday that the government should punish "leaders of the riots, who were supported by Israel and the U.S., strongly and with cruelty."
Iran's increasingly isolated opposition leader effectively ended his role in street protests, saying he'll seek permits for future rallies. A senior cleric demanded in a nationally broadcast sermon Friday that leaders of the unrest be punished harshly and that some are "worthy of execution."
The official Web site of opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi, his main tool of communicating with his supporters, was hacked Friday, leaving it blank, an aide said.
[...]
Hundreds have been detained since the vote, including journalists, academics and university students, and a special court has been set up to put them on trial.
Story continues below
In Friday's central Muslim sermon at Tehran University, a senior cleric, Ayatollah Ahmed Khatami, called for harsh retribution for dissent.
"Anybody who fights against the Islamic system or the leader of Islamic society, fight him until complete destruction," he said in the nationally broadcast speech.
The cleric alleged that some involved in the unrest had used firearms.
"Anyone who takes up arms to fight with the people, they are worthy of execution," he said. "We ask that the judiciary confront the leaders of the protests, leaders of the violations, and those who are supported by the United States and Israel strongly, and without mercy to provide a lesson for all."
Khatami said those who disturbed the peace and destroyed public property were "at war with God," and said they should be "dealt with without mercy."
The uncompromising words emerged as the Group of Eight countries, including the United States, fired a fresh broadside Friday saying they “deplored” the post-election violence and demanding that the “the will of the Iranian people is reflected in the electoral process.”
(photo hat tip Banafsheh)
2:27 AM: Makeshift Tehran Hospital Accepting Injured Protesters (uploaded the 25th)
By official count, some
450 people have been arrested in opposition protests against Iran’s
presidential election results. Many sources inside Iran put the count
in the thousands. To those arrested 10 years ago, in Iran’s last great
wave of student demonstrations, what the new detainees face next is
already clear. Ali Fathi (a pseudonym) was one of those students
arrested in 1999. This is his story.
What will happen to the people who have been arrested in the protest rallies in Iran? I can tell you.
I was arrested during the 1999 student demonstrations in Tehran, exactly 10 years ago.
What
I did was as trivial in terms of real crime as what the protesters in
Iran have done now by expressing rage over the presidential election
results.
Freedom Movement Rally this weekend in support of those marching for democracy in Iran.
Location: Liberty State Park. (flag plaza) 2 p.m. to 4:30 p.m. Saturday Flag Plaza, Liberty State Park Bayone, New
Jersey Saurday: June 27th,2009 Time: 2pm Questions: 202- 470-3272
Council of Iranian Cultural Renaissance
IRANIANS ASK AMERICANS TO SHOW SUPPORT FOR FREEDOM MOVEMENT Rally
Scheduled Saturday in New Jersey’s Liberty Park
Most Americans don’t know the
significance of Derafsh Kaviani.
But they do know the significance of their
own Statue of Liberty, powerful symbol of freedom to both those born here and
those seeking a new home. On Saturday an international Iranian group seeking
freedom for Iran is asking Americans to gather with them near Lady Liberty to
show their support for Iran as group members unfurl and fly their own potent
symbol of freedom, unity, and defiance against oppression, the ancient flag
known as the Derafsh Kaviani. The flag, royal standard of the Sassanid
Emperors which has been repressed since Muslim invaders conquered Iran about 600
A.D., represents Iranian independence and resistance against foreign tyranny,
according to Babak Iran, spokesman for the Council of Iranian Cultural
Renaissance which is sponsoring the rally. Iranians will gather from 2 p.m. to
4:30 p.m. Saturday at Flag Plaza, Liberty State Park, in Bayone, New Jersey, and
are appealing to Americans to join them. The rally will begin with the flying
of the Derafsh Kaviani over the Statue of Liberty; the plane will fly the flag
after first tipping its wings above the site of the former Twin Towers in
tribute to the Americans who died there at the hands of terrorists on September
11, 2001. “We’d like to fill the park with 50,000 people, with Americans from
all walks of life who support freedom and abhor the repression going on in
Iran,” Babak Iran said. He said the group especially hopes for the support of
young Americans, since large numbers of young Iranians are braving the wrath of
Iranian authorities to stand up for their freedom. He cited Neda Soltan, the
27-year-old Iranian woman who has become a symbol of the movement for freedom
after being killed last week in Tehran while peacefully protesting.
I asked great American Lt Colonel Allen West for his thoughts on the terrible events in Iran. This, dear readers, best embodies American exceptionalism. This best represents our future.
I have sat and watched the situation in Iran post the fraudulent elections
and just shake my head. When I departed Kandahar Afghanistan in late October
2007 my Interpreter/Translator staff asked of me one thing, "do not forget us".
I looked each of those young Men in the eye and gave them my commitment. The
covenant was simple, that in my lifetime I would seek to free Afghanistan from
the tyranny of mullahs, clerics, imams, and bloodthirsty terrorists.
I never break a promise.
I will not "bear witness" to this demonic display of inhuman treatment and
human rights violations. Heck, where is the UN and the world leaders who waste
no time in condemning Israel for defending herself against same theocrats and
barbaric thugs.
How many of you recall that just a little over 30 years ago, a previous
weak, ineffective, effete Democrat president allowed the Ayatollahs to rise to
power. Hence resulting in a fleeing of exceptionally gifted Persians and
ushering in of a new era of radical Islamic terrorism.
Now, some 30 years later we have a redux of an effete, ineffective
President whose nuanced intellectual elite responses offer no support to those
desiring Liberty. Indeed, President Obama's apologetic Cairo speech just
emboldened the Mad Mullahs and Annoying Ayatollah's, as well as Johnny Jihadi.
The theocrats and despotic autocrats who dominate the Islamic world realize they
are free to butcher and suppress their own people, young people, who desire one
thing.....Freedom.
Imagine if Obama existed in the days of the Soviet Union, Lech Walesa, and
Vaclav Havel, would that wall have indeed come down? I know that the "messiah"
believes that his mere presence and a teleprompted speech will convice killers
to lay down their arms and worship at his feet.
That is the state of delusional malignant narcissism which now occupies
1600 Pennsylvania Ave.
We must break the power and control of the theocrats if we are to defeat
radical Islamic terrorism. We must have leadership that is bold and
convicted and not cower being concerned about "they will blame me if I meddle".
The world is watching as America loses respect, but hey, I suppose everyone
likes us now.
My message to President Barack Hussein Obama, there is no button to vote
"present" in the Oval Office. If you have not the courage to face the enemy, do
us a favor, leave the Greatest office in the World and go make speeches, or
co-host the Oprah Winfrey Show.
History is indeed repeating itself as the shadow of Sir Neville Chamberlain
walks the halls of the White House.
11:17 pm: Jane spoke to my friend with family in Iran - she can't call her family on their cells -
everything has been shut down.
10:52 pm There has surely been a terrible blackout, as the most
reliable Iranians on twitter, whom I have been following for days, have
gone dark for almost 10 hours now. I fear the worst. So many bloggers
and journalists have been arrested in Iran, it is
difficult to get information. So if you are in Iran and have news,
please email me at writeatlas@aol.com.
6:52pm: Butcher of the press and torturer of Tehranto "interrogate" and head prosecutions of protesters.This is a nightmare:
The Iranian regime has appointed one of its most feared
prosecutors to interrogate reformists arrested during demonstrations,
prompting fears of a brutal crackdown against dissent.
Relatives of several detained protesters have confirmed that
the interrogation of prisoners is now being headed by Saaed Mortazavi,
a figure known in Iran as "the butcher of the press". He gained
notoriety for his role in the death of a Canadian-Iranian photographer
who was tortured, beaten and raped during her detention in 2003.
"The leading role of Saeed Mortazavi in the crackdown in Tehran
should set off alarm bells for anyone familiar with his record," said
Sarah Leah Whitson, the Middle East and North Africa director of Human
Rights Watch.
6:36 Tweets: Thugs were setting fire on trees of the streets of ShahrakGharb from which AllahAkbar was shouted.
Tonight in Shahrak-e-Gharb while people were chanting from rooftops, plain cloths put trees on fire.
Reports: 1 shot dead and more than 20 injured at Baharestan SQ. (not conf.)
CNN once again....and FOX is MIA. Two women who witnessed the protests and violence:
As the Iranian government’s murderous repression of the
Iranian people continues, critics right and left agitate over the deafening
silence of an American president who, as a candidate, derided the Bush
administration’s ambitious democracy promotion as too timid. They speculate as
to why Barack Obama won’t speak out: Why won’t he condemn the mullahs? Is he
daft enough to believe he can charm the regime into abandoning its nuclear
ambitions? Does the self-described realist so prize stability that he thinks
it’s worth abandoning the cause of freedom — and the best chance in 30 years of
dislodging an implacable American enemy?
In truth, it’s worse than that.
Even as the mullahs are terrorizing the Iranian people, the Obama administration
is negotiating with an Iranian-backed terrorist organization and abandoning the
American proscription against exchanging terrorist prisoners for hostages
kidnapped by terrorists. Worse still, Obama has already released a terrorist
responsible for the brutal murders of five American soldiers in exchange for the
remains of two deceased British hostages.
5:33pm Sullivan over at The Atlantic has this: A reader writes:
I just talked to my brother in Tehran. It's awful.
He
couldn't go to Baharestan himself, but was very worried for his friends
who had gone. Also, he was saying that the state-run TV is broadcasting
pictures of
people who have been participating in the protests and asking viewers
to give information on them. They have also apparently taken pictures
in the demonstrations, matched
them with the national ID card database and are now rounding people up
in the dead of night.
Martial law and police state indeed.
5:28 PM: And who wrote on this genius traitor's hand?
3;49: Obama shamed: "WH Rescinds July 4 Invites To Iranians". No hotdogs or halal for those Iranian diplos. Was it perhaps because the Iranians had already RSVPed NO?
"What a disgrace that this man is leader of the free world; and at such
a point in history. If he had put America stoutly behind the protesters
and championed them against the regime, by now they might have toppled
it." - Melanie Phillips
3:18: FOX finally is running some Iran coverage -- all day they have ignored it. Shep (!) is talking to some Iranian tool saying that the streets were quiet today.
Ten minutes ago Shep (!) was expressing such outrage at the Governor who admitted an affair today ("he lied! He lied to so many people!"). Shep keeps copping out to "we can't verify these reports from twitter"; "don't know if the youtubes are staged"... huh? ....as if. What does one need, a journalism degree? Gimme a friggin break. Get a clue, FOX. I cannot believe how FOX dropped the ball on one of the most historically important stories of this young century.
3:07 pm Just uploaded. This is the worst that I have seen.** GRAPHIC! **
"I've made it clear that the United States respects the sovereignty of the Islamic Republic of Iran and is not interfering with Iran's affairs." Obama yesterday
This overtures from the
administration to the Iranian regime put Obama’s apathy towards the Iranian
protesters in perspective. Seems Obama was playing it cool towards the uprising
in the hope he could still score a date with the regime, like a wary suitor
waiting for a cue from a skeptical beloved.
2:48pm: So I guess this crushing massacre is what Obama has been waiting for. He has been holding back, hoping people desperate to be free would just go away so he could bow before the mullahs while the kicked dirt in his (our) face.
Anyone see Obama yukking it up on TV? The left as a whole is looking away. How do these savages sleep at night? And how did they take hold of the American soul? Obama has already distributed $300 million American taxpayer dollarsof the $900 million promised to the jihad in Gaza. 300 million dollars and he talks of "Palestinian" suffering. Hamas is in Iran cracking heads and he is funding these cannibals. He is a degenerate.
2:07 PM: Neda Soltan's family 'forced out of home' by Iranian authorities.
Parents of young woman shot dead near protests are banned from mourning and funeral is cancelled, neighbours say
The Iranian authorities have ordered the family of Neda Agha Soltan
out of their Tehran home after shocking images of her death were circulated
around the world.
Neighbours said that her family no longer lives in the four-floor apartment
building on Meshkini Street, in eastern Tehran, having been forced to move since
she was killed. The police did not hand the body back to her family, her funeral
was cancelled, she was buried without letting her family know and the government
banned mourning ceremonies at mosques, the neighbours said.
"We just know that they [the family] were forced to leave their flat,"
Iran lashed out at UN chief Ban Ki-moon on Tuesday over remarks the foreign ministry said smacked of "meddling" in its affairs, the state broadcaster reported.
Indigo Red: "A gruesome observation: The sniper victims are being shot in the high upper torso just below the neck so as to increase visible bloodflow. The trachea and esophagus are smashed, the vein and artery burst causing maximal blood flow from the nose and mouth. Death is not immediate and is more akin to drowning as blood is inhaled into the lungs. These sniper shots are meant to be as gruesome, frightening, and graphic as possible; it is intimidation and emotional torture, as well as cold blooded murder".
1:33 pm: The Guardian has this account from a medical student inside Iran.
I only want to speak about what I have witnessed. I am a medical student. There was chaos at the trauma section in one of our main
hospitals. Although by decree, all riot-related injuries were supposed
to be sent to military hospitals, all other hospitals were filled to
the rim. Last night, nine people died at our hospital and another 28
had gunshot wounds. All hospital employees were crying till dawn. They
(government) removed the dead bodies on back of trucks, before we were
even able to get their names or other information. What can you even
say to the people who don't even respect the dead. No one was allowed
to speak to the wounded or get any information from them. This morning
the faculty and the students protested by gathering at the lobby of
the hospital where they were confronted by plain cloths anti-riot
militia, who in turn closed off the hospital and imprisoned the staff.
The extent of injuries are so grave, that despite being one of the most staffed emergency rooms, they've asked everyone to stay and help--I'm sure it will even be worst tonight. What can anyone say in face of all these atrocities? What can you say to the family of the 13 year-old boy who
died from gunshots and whose dead body then disappeared?
This issue is not about cheating (election) anymore. This is not about stealing votes anymore. The issue is about a vast injustice inflected on the people. They've put a baton in the hand of every 13-14 year old to smash the faces of "the bunches who are less than dirt" (government is calling the people who are uprising dried-up torn and weeds). This is what sickens me from dealing with these issues. And from those who shut their eyes and close their ears and claim the riots are in opposition of the government and presidency!! No! The people's complaint is against the egregious injustices committed against the people.
More tweets:
Lalezar Sq is same as Baharestan - unbelievable - ppls murdered everywhere
CALL HILARY CLINTON (202)647-529 plans to execute over 450 protesters arrested. This is murder!
We are being murdered like mice in a lion's den!!! BUT WE STILL FIGHT!!! The world just watches
TheGuardian has an interview with one of the riot police:
Newspaper Roozonline has an interview (in Persian) with one of the young plainclothes militiamen who have been beating protesters.
UPDATE:
Robert says the man is paid 2m rial per day, which would be about £1220
for ten days of work. A hefty fee, even by UK standards. A reader
writes: "You can imagine what that kind of money means to a villager
from Khorasan".
The Guardian's Robert Tait sends this synopsis:
The man, who has come from a small town in the eastern province of
Khorasan and has never been in Tehran before, says he is being paid 2m
rial (£122) to assault protestors with a heavy wooden stave. He says
the money is the main incentive as it will enable him to get married
and may even enable him to afford more than one wife. Leadership of the
volunteers has been provided by a man known only as "Hajji", who has
instructed his men to "beat the counter-revolutionaries so hard that
they won't be able to stand up". The volunteers, most of them from
far-flung provinces such as Khuzestan, Arak and Mazandaran, are being
kept in hostel accommodation, reportedly in east Tehran. Other
volunteers, he says, have been brought from Lebanon, where the Iranian
regime has strong allies in the Hezbollah movement. They are said to be
more highly-paid than their Iranian counterparts and are put up in
hotels. The last piece of information seems to confirm the suspicion of
many Iranians that foreign security personnel are being used to
suppress the demonstrators. For all his talk of the legal process, this
interview provides a key insight into where Iran's supreme leader,
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, believes the true source of his legitimacy
rests.
12:45pm Listen to a student's eyewitness account of the massacre:
WHITE HOUSE: Iranian officials still invited to July 4th parties. (Impeachable?)
11:52: LIVE FEED HERE: Iranians are reporting massacres, people being thrown off bridges. In one place they say there are 150 dead ................
Tweet: they pull away the dead into trucks - like factory - no human can do this - we beg Allah for save us
Nothing on FOX news. WTF is wrong with everyone?
11:22 am:Different tweets all describing unspeakable horror:
in Baharestan we saw militia with axe chopping ppl like meat - blood everywhere - like butcher
HOPE! CHANGE! What a stunning indictment of the Obama presidency. He will never outrun this. It's a slaughterhouse. I fear we will lose our best source of information --
rumour they are tracking high use of phone lines to find internet users - must move from here now
phone line was cut and we lost internet -getting more difficult to log into net
Iranian snipers is taking out protesters june 24 2009
More::
saw 7/8 militia beating one woman with baton on ground - she had no defense nothing - sure that she is dead
they were waiting for us - they all have guns and riot uniforms - it was like a mouse trap - ppl being shot like animals
I see many ppl with broken arms/legs/heads - blood everywhere - pepper gas like war
just in from Baharestan Sq - situation today is terrible - they beat the ppls like animals
10:45: Tweets:
all shops was closed - nowhere to go - they follow ppls with helicopters - smoke and fire is everywhere
ppl run into alleys and militia standing there waiting - from 2 sides they attack ppl in middle of alleys
so many ppl arrested - young & old - they take ppl away -- we lose our group
Dearest Paulo, I
am now in Tehran. The video of Neda's murder was taken by my friend,
and you can recognise me in the video. I was the doctor who tried to
save her and failed. She died in my arms. I am writing with tears in my
eyes. Please don't mention my name. I'll contact you with more details
soon. Love Arash
Coelho explained why he was
planning to reveal Arash's name. "I may leak your name to the press, in
order to protect you - visibility is the only protection at this
point," he said.
Arash has now fled Iran.
Josh Shahryar AKA NiteOwl - iran_translator on twitter:
Although most sources had confirmed that there was going to be a
strike Tuesday in Tehran, the city had only partially closed down its
shops. Throughout the day reports kept arriving that Mousavi had not
ordered the strike, however, most people continued urging protesters to
comply with the strike. It seemed that there was a complete lack of
coordination between the movement and its leader. This is the first
time it has happened, however, and seems to be a direct result of
government’s tireless efforts at trying to jam communications between
protesters and their leaders.
There were sporadic reports of a more successful strike in parts of
the Kurdish-inhabited areas of northwestern Iran. In Kurdistan
province, the cities of Sanadanj and Seqqez were reported to have had
half their shops closed. There were also reports from Mahabad in
Western Azerbaijan province to the north of Kurdistan province. That
city is also inhabited by Kurds. The main stream media has not
confirmed these reports; however, sources were pretty uniform about the
veracity of them. There have been unrests in Mashhad and Tabriz as
well, but no solid news came out for us to investigate further.
People in Tehran, though, acted in different ways to continue to
defy the authorities. There were anti-government posters stuck on
walls, anti-government slogans adorned parts of the walls of the city
and waves of small rallies broke out in various parts of the city. Car
headlights were turned on in the city at dark to commemorate those
killed in the protests and chants of Allah o Akbar continued to ring
loudly at night. Among these chants, there were also chants of “Death
to the Dictator” and surprisingly enough, some people also chanted
“Death of Khamenei” – although the last one was only reported in
isolated areas.
The city of Tehran was literally crawling with Basijis and police.
There were roadblocks everywhere and the streets were heavily patrolled
by the security forces. Most sources complained that going outside was
dangerous for anyone – even if the person wasn’t a protester as
security forces continued to beat up anyone they could get their hands
on.
There were reports of clashes in northern, western and eastern
Tehran between small numbers of protesters and the security forces,
though; no news of any casualties reached us. Shots were fired late at
night as well, but still no word of casualties today. People had
started small fires on the streets that were continuously being put
down by the security forces.
Arrests continue to take place throughout the day. Journalists from
Kalemeh newspaper were picked up and there were unconfirmed reports of
the arrest of at least 2 journalists affiliated with the foreign media,
however, the latter claim could not be independently verified. One of
these is a Greek reporter with the Washington Times. The government has
now announced the creation of a special court in order to investigate
and decide the cases of people who have been so far arrested by the
government.
The Iranian government continued to blame the West for Iran’s
current state of affairs. As a direct result of this, Iran expelled to
British diplomats in protest, resulting in the expulsion of two Iranian
diplomats by the British government. There are reports of the EU
mulling over imposing sanctions against Iran. Shirin Ebadi – the Nobel
Peace Prize laureate from Iran – has asked the world to only impose
political and not economic sanctions on Iran.
State media in Iran are continuing to denounce protesters as thugs,
hooligans and terrorists. It has been reported that Keyhan Daily’s
tomorrow’s edition is going to call for Mousavi’s arrest. Reports were
also published and broadcasted about Mohsen Rezaee – on of the four
candidates during the election – has taken back all his complaints
against the elections. Khamenei has extended the period for registering
complaints against the elections for five more days. The deadline was
Wednesday, before.
Throughout the day, there were reports of Mousavi organizing a
fresh rally as well as Karoubi calling on people to stage rallies in
different locations. Both leaders were said to have wanted rallies late
afternoon on Thursday. Yet, the reports were often so conflicted that
for now, the place and time of the protests cannot be verified. As
before, it seems they are trying to confuse the government into keeping
less armed personnel around the protest area by not letting them know
where it’s actually at. So far, reliable sources have mostly agreed
upon a rally at Baharestan Square in the late afternoon.
Read this if you want to help or get help!
The government in Iran is still increasing internet filtering and
throttling in an attempt to silence their people. Anonymous info shows
that many in Iran are looking for proxy and Tor information in Tehran
and all around the country. Please donate your bandwidth to help bring
down the Iran Curtain. Here are links on how to help and get help on
this:
Obama should be apologizing. Wouldn't it be nice if Obama offered to cover the cost of the "bullet fees" being charged to families of slain protesters?
Iranians take on the Basijs chanting "Death to the dictator"
This is a summary transcript of the conversation that took place
between Ahmadinejad and Ayatollah Mesbah Yazdi and others in Qom immediately
after the elections (23/3/88 Persian calendar).
Apparently Mesbah Yazdi has spoken and it is Ahmadinejad’s turn to speak.
Ahmadinejad humbly requests that special attention be paid to what he is to
say which is about starting pure Islamic rule, not only in Iran but all over the
world. He said we had a set back because we were not doing our Islamic duty to
pressure people be more enlightened with Mohammadan Islam.
Islamic rule should not and cannot be limited only to Iran. Our efforts to
expand it throughout the world are soon to be materialized with the help from
God.
Mesbah-Yazdi - called the "world's most dangerous
man" by Iranian converts to Christianity - was invited to speak at a Canada
university, where he has Sunni followers (one of whom led the witchhunt against
Mark Steyn). (more here and here).
Pre-election proof that Mesbah-Yazdi fatwahed for a
fix.
Following the discovery of a "Fatwa" ("religious decree") issued by ayatollah
Mesbah Yazdi which sanctions cheating in Friday’s presidential election and was
published in an open letter written by a group of Ministry of Interior
employees, the heads of the Election Supervision Committees established by
reformist candidates Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karoubi sent a letter to the
head of the Guardian Council, Ayatollah Jannati, warning about the possibility
of manipulating election results.
The middle man between M-Y and Ahmadinejad is:
Hassan Abbasi (the other, other bad guy). While there was some press coverage of Abbasi's genocide
advocacy and stated intent to destroy America, the Bush regime actually
retracted its opposition to the hardliners in Iraq, in submission to Bush's
fears that they might upset events in Iraq. At last count, Abbasi's group had
signed up "40,000" Iranians to wage final jihad against America.
Program of the Brigades of the Shahids of the
Global Islamic Awakening
"There are 29 sensitive sites in the U.S. and in
the West. We have already spied on these sites and we know how we are going to
attack them." This Revolutionary Guard officer continued by saying, "Iran's
missiles are now ready to strike at Western targets, and as soon as the
instructions arrive from Ali Khamenei, we will launch our missiles at their
cities and installations." From an arab site:Hassan Abbasi, the radical Muslim
strategist, who is close to the Revolutionary Guards (Sepah-e Pasdaran) says
Islam does not embrace democracy and attacks Khatami for his ideas about the
dialogue with the West. He believes Iran should not play the game by the rules
of liberal democracies, but by Islamic rules. Hassan Abbasi “America means
enemy, and enemy means Satan.”
Number of major US media reports on Mesbah-Yazdi
and Hassan Abbasi = ZERO
Why Abbasi-Ahmadinejad-Mesbah-Yazdi's genocide
campaign - including certain use of Iranian diplomats to smuggle arms into
Western Civilization - has gone unreported and undetected by intelligence
agencies: Politicians since the Saudi owned weasel - Bush1 - support a cleric
based pseudo "peace" in the Middle East. Hence the pathological search of
chimerical "two-state solutions" in Israel, and attempts at "normalization" of
relations with genocidal aggressors, who WILL soon face the US Homeland with
nuclear tipped ICBMs.
Lastly, we need to know the dhimmi mentality that
allows genocidal ayatoilets to pose as open to "normalization" and deserving of
mutual "respect." See this document that denies the truth of the "clash of
civilizations" fact:
The following story was sent to the left wing web site Salon, a site I can barely tolerate (so, no, I won't link). What is so irksome is why these stories are being sent to left wing sites. The comments are vile. This horrible story of torture and beating generated comments like this:
We're worse
Yadda yadda blah blah America sucks
--
GLR
Terrifying.
Jesus GLR. Even if we ARE worse, these pictures are stunning.
How terrifying ---Yekdeli
Where have I heard this kind of story before...?
Let me see, Gitmo perhaps, maybe Bagram.
Hypocrisy is the worst. ---Bill Owen
Torture, a Everyday Way of Life
This article is just the daily way of life in Iran between the
Basij and the citizen. This is a reminder about how these religious
zealots treat their own people. Men, women ,and kids, they are all
considered a threat. The American people will stand behind you, but
it is yout [sic] battle, we cannot get involved except to give you
support and our prayers.
--
FredHartkopf
If it's Basij, this must be Torture
But if they waterboarded the kid, that was just harsh
interrogation.
And that is just a sample of the comments at Salon. What kind of zombies react that way? I will never know.
Salon received this tale of horror, from an "activist who forwarded it to Salon wanted it published to show
what's happening as Iran is gripped by ongoing protests and a harsh
government crackdown". The message was translated from Farsi. Why Salon? It's beyond me but I am glad they released it and didn't sit on it or call it a fabrication (something we are seeing the left do with Neda).
The torture of a 17-year-old in Iran
June 24, 2009 | The pictures you are about to
see are not from someone who supports anarchy, he is not even a part of
the "DUST" that Ahmadinejad called his opponents. He is just a
17-year-old boy who was supposed to take the university entrance exam
within a month before his fingers were broken and the finger webs were
cut with a blade. He was arrested violently in the parking lot of a
living complex without even taking part in any of the recent
activities, and after more than 24 hours he returned home while his
face was fully covered with blood and one could only see his eyes.
These pictures are taken hours after his return home, his bruised face
and broken nose cannot be shown due to his and his parents fear from
the security guards. This is a summary of his story:
"It was
around 12:30 a.m., and I was with my friend, his brother and his
brother's wife. We were talking right in front of his place, which is
about 2 to 3 blocks away from my place, while a group of people
escaping entered the alley and took refuge in houses with open doors.
My friends' place is in the middle of the alley so nobody took refuge
there, and we went in and closed the doors. His brother and his wife
went in building and asked me to join them as well, but since I was not
feeling comfortable with his family, my friend and I stayed out in the
parking."
"All of a sudden agents in black uniforms and helmets
carrying batons broke the door and entered. We tried to hide behind the
big trash bin at the end of the parking but one of them saw us,
whistled and informed the rest of them who were just leaving the
parking. It was just baton strikes all over my body after that, and we
were transferred to the minus 4 level of Ministry of Intelligence
building. There were a lot of riot police in black uniforms like those
on the streets there. They were mostly non-Farsi speakers, and those
who spoke Farsi kept telling us they could kill us right away and no
one would ever know, they were also insulting us with very bad words."
"One
of them asked me if Mr. Khatami would come save us, while they were
breaking my fingers and cutting the finger webs. Although I swore a
thousand times that I had not voted and had never participated in any
demonstration, they didn't care and just kept beating me hard. I
fainted once or twice but there were some of us who fainted every time
their bones were broken, and as soon as they gained their
consciousness, the riot police started beating them again. I was trying
to contract my muscles to avoid further bone fracture."
"This
continued till around 1 p.m., when they took us to another place, where
security guards were in charge. We were then interrogated by the
militia. Again, they kept beating me although I told them that I have
never participated in any demonstration. In general, they were less
harsh than the previous ones. In the evening, we were transferred to a
police station where normal police with green uniform hung us by our
hands (you can see the signs of the string around my wrists on the
pictures), they hung some of us upside down and started beating us
again."
"Around
2 AM, they took us to a police hospital where they just stitched the
web of my fingers that were still bleeding and bandaged my head without
any stitches. They released us in a highway, I think they knew we did
nothing; otherwise they would not release us. I am surprised how I
tolerated all the tortures and survived. I didn't see anyone dying
there; a lot of people just lost their consciousness, but I guess the
baton strikes were so harsh that brain injury or internal bleeding was
inevitable. I can never forget the scenes I saw there."
The prevailing wisdom in Middle Eastern circles is that the Iranian protests will only grow ............. here is a translation of an influential editorial in CAIRO. I have reviewed a number of pieces like this ....
EDITORIAL EXPECTS FURTHER ESCALATION OF IRANIAN PROTESTS
CAIRO AL-AHRAM IN ARABIC 23 JUN 09 P 11(U)
Editorial: "Escalation of the Iranian Political Crisis"
No signs are visible in Iran of a possible waning of the movement
of protests and demonstrations that flared up in opposition to
Ahmadinejad's victory in the presidential elections held on 12
June. The political crisis, which is almost blowing Tehran away,
will likely escalate.
Perhaps the main reason for the worsening of the Iranian crisis is
the state of confusion dominating the ruling circles. These have
ignored the reasons why Iranians are protesting the election
results and have resorted to describing the protesters as
terrorist groups. This amounts to slander against the patriotism
of the Iranians and a great insult to their legitimate aspirations
and hopes for freedom and democracy.
This official Iranian position will tend to inflame the moves of
the demonstrators. It will not divert them from striving to
realize their demands, especially after members of the Iranian
people have been killed or wounded, in addition to the campaign of
arrests of demonstrators.
Neutral political observers therefore deem it likely that the
protest movement will escalate and that the country will fall into
spirals of bloodshed, since the Iranian protest movement is
gaining new crowds of people every day opposing the results of the
presidential elections, despite the official repression and
violence.
This means that the current confrontation between the mass protest
movement and the Iranian authorities will escalate in the next few
days in a way that may portend a further disturbance of Iranian
conditions.
Cairo Al-Ahram in Arabic -- State-Owned
daily newspaper of record
Earlier this morning I posted this video asking for translation. It has been attributed to Twitter, when in fact it was first posted on the blog Raye Man Kojast blog (where is my vote?): Ahmadinejad and Yazdi preparing a coup (unconfirmed), an excellent blog I have been watching since the start of the revolution. It has since circulated through the blogs and Rusty has posted this translation. The commentary is a jaw dropper. (hat tip cathy)
This is a summary transcript of the conversation that took place
between Ahmadinejad and Ayatollah Mesbah Yazdi and others in Qom immediately
after the elections (23/3/88 Persian calendar).
Apparently Mesbah Yazdi has spoken and it is Ahmadinejad’s turn to speak.
He thanks the audience with common Arabic courtesies:
Ahmadinejad humbly requests that special attention be paid to what he is to
say which is about starting pure Islamic rule, not only in Iran but all over the
world. He said we had a set back because we were not doing our Islamic duty to
pressure people be more enlightened with Mohammadan Islam.
Islamic rule should not and cannot be limited only to Iran. Our efforts to
expand it throughout the world are soon to be materialized with the help from
God.
Struggle against corruption is of course enjoyable, but the ultimate joy will
be the time when we realize the final heart-desired aim. We are always at work
to realize that ultimate objective. I believe that revolution is beginning to
find its way and a renewed evolution is taking place in it.
The revolution was hard and, began with difficulty, and the road ahead is
even harder and more difficult. But this difficult road is exactly what to be
expected.
There is enormous energy which has started within the country and is serving
the country and is expanding, but needs guidance and supervision/management.
All the things that we have planned and talked about, is becoming a
reality.
This plan needs strong ideological and operational support from you. The best
place to start it is right here and in front of you. Who have the foresight,
passion, experience and fortitude to ensure that it takes shape and becomes a
reality.
I think timing is right, all necessary arrangements have been made. I seek
your support and help. I am almost nobody compared to you in this struggle, in
this grand movement. This is a blessing and is the beginning of a grand
evolution in the world. I think this can become a reality. And building Iran as
an example for others to follow and be a witness to on the road to realize the
grand Islam.
It is possible to accomplish this, otherwise I would not be here sitting with
you. Tehran is ready; the university is working on implementing it. Everything
is taken care of in Tehran; we need your endorsement and
approval.
Our translator also added this commentary and some of
his opinions to provide us with some additional context.
We also notice that he spoke more with codes. My Persian friend's
interpretation is that he was preparing everyone for all out Nuclear war. I
asked him to give me his own interpretation late this evening. My own feeling is
in the next two weeks, they will do something huge, perhaps a nuclear test to
divert the attention. Remember, Ahmadinejad wants to create a situation to sever
that Mehdi to appear and make the world straight. At the moment, they are like
wounded snakes with nothing to lose. I think the world should be prepared. He
and Khameni are getting ready to a major Bing Bang: Here is Ahmadinejad way of
thinking:
To understand Ahmadinejad’s mind set and behavior requires a close scrutiny
of the elaborate and intricate theology of Hujetieh Shiism – perhaps the most
fundamentalist of numerous Shiite sects.
For our purposes, however, it is sufficient to document the fact that
Ahmadinejad is not unhinged. “Unhinged” is a derogatory term for a person who is
mentally disturbed. A prominent feature of a mentally disturbed person is the
display of contradictory thoughts and behavior. Ahmadinejad’s words, deeds and
beliefs show a fully hinged person. He, to the perception of many, may be hinged
to a dangerous and faulty hinge. Yet he is hinged.
There is a full internal consistency in Ahmadinejad. Below are a few examples
of his sayings, beliefs and actions. Whether one agrees or disagrees with them,
they all fit perfectly into a consistent pattern.
▪ He literally believes in the imminent emergence of the Mahdi – the Shiites
promised one who is expected to appear to set aright a decadent and wretched
world.
▪ He views himself as the vassal of Mahdi, working for him and being
accountable to him.
▪ His main task is to prepare the world so to hasten the Mahdi’s coming. If
this preparation requires much destruction and bloodshed, so be it.
▪ As a former mayor of Tehran, he developed elaborate detailed plans
preparing the city for the arrival of the Mahdi.
▪ He allocated generous sums for extensive road improvement to a mosque at
Jamkaaraan near the city of Qum where it is believed the promised Mahdi is
hiding in a well since the age of nine over 1100 years ago.
▪ He reportedly visits the well frequently and drops his written
supplications into the well for the hidden Mahdi to act upon them.
▪ He has said in private that it was him who asked the Mahdi to inflict the
massive stroke on Ariel Sharon.
▪ He sees the Jews as the sworn enemies of Islam. The hostility dates back to
the time of Muhammad’s own treatment of the Jews in Medina. At first,
expediently, Muhammad called the Jews “people of the book,” and accorded them a
measure of tolerance until he gained enough power to unleash his devastating
wrath on them.
▪ He says that the Holocaust is a myth. He is, in this respect, in good
company with a number of other revisionist claimants.
▪ He wants Israel to be wiped out of the map or transferred to Europe.
▪ In his speech at the UN general assembly, he implored the Mahdi to come and
save the world. He claimed that during his speech of some twenty odd minutes, a
powerful light enveloped him and all participants were held transfixed unable to
move their eyes.
▪ He believes that the earth is Allah’s and all people must either become
believers of his brand of Islam or must perish as infidels najis (unclean) who
by their very presence defile Allah’s earth.
▪ He believes that this earthly life is passing and worthless in comparison
to the afterlife awaiting a devoted and faithful believer. Hence, he holds to
the old belief that if a faithful kills and infidel, he goes to Allah’s
paradise; and, if the faithful gets killed in the process of serving the faith,
again he goes to Allah’s paradise. Hence, it is a win-win proposition for the
faithful.
There is nothing “unhinged” about Ahamadinejad’s thinking, statements and
actions. They are internally consistent. He is simply a fanatic who is wedded to
an extremely dangerous exclusionary system of belief. Humanity must learn that
dismissing a fanatic as lunatic or unhinged rather than squarely facing the
likes of Ahmadinejad and Hitler will result in great suffering. And in the age
of Weapons of Mass Destruction a man with huge sums of petrodollar can indeed
serve as the catalyst of total annihilation. It is by far more prudent to err on
the side of being an alarmist than a complacent dismissive. Humanity cannot
afford to ignore the emergence of the final thereat to its very existence on
this planet.
Also here's a .pdf of the Farsi or Persian working
transcript for those of you who can read that sort of thing.
A key Iranian dissident tells Newsmax he was stunned when he heard President Barack Obama tell reporters that, despite government's brutal crackdown in Tehran, the Islamic Republic has time to regain “legitimacy” in the eyes of the Iranian people.
“I was hoping President Obama would lead the world and start a boycott of Iranian oil,” said former presidential candidate and opposition activist Mohsen Sazegara. “This is the best way to save the lives of the Iranian people.”
Instead, Sazegara told Newsmax, he listened to Obama’s news conference on Tuesday with a sense of disbelief.
It's "not too late for the Iranian government to see there is a peaceful path that leads to legitimacy in the eyes of the Iranian people,” Obama told reporters when asked for his reaction to the violence in Iran.
Sazegara, who was involved in the reform movement in the 1990s but eventually left Iran after the reformist government jailed him, said he listened to Obama with a sense of “deep, deep, deep regret. I never expected President Obama to say something like that.”
The Iranian opposition leader Mirhossein Mousavi is under 24-hour guard by
secret police and no longer able to speak freely to supporters, according to
the film director Mohsen Makhmalbaf.
n a telephone interview, Mr Makhmalbaf, the director of the 2001 film
Kandaha, denied suggestions that the protests against the re-election of
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad were losing steam.
"The regime, arguably, is losing ground, not the protests," he said. "Ordinary
Iranians are openly rejecting the legitimacy and power of Ayatollah
Khamanei. That is entirely new, unheard of."
Mr Makhmalbaf, a friend of Mr Mousavi for 20 years, said that there were
reports from Iran that some of the militia deployed to suppress protest were
"speaking Arabic". "That is unconfirmed but it suggests that the regime is
unable to trust its own security forces to repress the Iranian people," he
said. "It suggests that people are being used from abroad."
We will not waste our energy, but act efficiently. We have conveyed our words to the coup-makers to the world in the streets. Now we need to change our strategy. From this Tuesday, at 9 every morning we will all go to the bazaar in our towns all over the country. If they prevent us, the bazaar will close. If they do not, there will be such congestion that the business will get interrupted and the bazaar will close. If they disconnect the telephone lines, again all activities will get interrupted and the bazaar will close. As much as possible, we will shut down the whole town and go to the bazaar to shut it down. Take everyone with you. Bring the children, too –without any slogans-without green signs-without sit-ins; pretending to go shopping but not buying anything. We will only think of shutting down the bazaar, but do not leave any traces, not even a victory sign by our hands. NOT AT ALL. We will only think of victory. Bring the children, all the towns of Iran, without slogans, without slogans, without slogans, quietly, quietly, quietly, without greens, without sit-ins, without fighting. If anyone starts quarrels or shouts, we will not join because we pretend to be going shopping. There is no need to fear, and everyone will come. No fights, no bloodshed, no slogans, no sit-ins. If they prevent us, we simply return because we mean to shut down the bazaar, not to assemble. If they shoot tear gas, the bazaar will close. We will act smartly and will not engage in any sort of fights although if any fighting happens the bazaar will close due to insecurity. But we will not engage in any fights, and calmly and solely think of victory. With the congestion the bazaar will shut down, or no one will be there. Under any circumstances we will win. Dear Mr. Mousavi: We do not need your martyrdom and self-sacrifice; we need your leadership until we reach our goals. Until 9am Tuesday, the 3rd day of the martyrdom of June 20th martyrs, we will have enough time to inform everyone. Inform friends by any means: through websites, foreign media…. From Tuesday towards bazaar. Send this message to friends and the addresses below so that it gets widespread all over our dear Iran. This strategy is effective and there is no need to fear, and will bring millions of Iranians into the scene without any bloodshed. Rest assured this strategy is so effective that the enemy will soon start denying and making rumors, and will start struggling. Do not believe them because this program will continue. Do not listen to rumors and inform everyone by whatever means possible. Wishing for success
Feed from Iran's "Press TV" on Live Station reveals that the Ayatoilets are using Agent Provacateurs. Phony "confessions" are being posted; with the BBC being accused of inciting rioters. Live Station is free; you have to download safe software. (hat tip Supercargo)
3:54 PM: STREETS JAMMED WITH PEOPLE SHOUTING "DEATH TO THE ISLAMIC REPUBLIC!"
Here is what Obama called "fundamentally unjust" earlier today. Unjust?
ATLAS observation on P. O's press conference: Obama has failed free peoples around the world. What a dismal performance by an American president. I am embarrassed.
UPDATED LIVEBLOGGING 12:55 pm: Obama speaketh! He says he is 'appalled' by the violence, but he won't take sides.
I've made it clear that the United States respects the sovereignty of the Islamic Republic of Iran and is not interfering with Iran's affairs.
He won't "meddle" (just in Israel eh, O?).He is trying to cover his .......... have it both ways.
Now he is talking about leadership in energy. "Clean" energy. Another industry he wants to hijack. How ironic to hear dear leader talk about being the "leader" in the free world while in the same breath he won't meddle in people dying in the streets in Iran for freedom and democracy.
Obama being questioned - he said "Iran is in the middle of "an extraordinary debate". Debate? When did Neda speak? When have any of the peaceful demonstrators been given any opportunity to speak in this "extraordinary debate"?
Obama: It is up to them to make a decision as to whether they choose that path. What we've been saying over the last several days, the last couple of weeks, obviously is not encouraging in terms of the path that this regime may choose to take.
And the fact that they are now in the midst of an extraordinary debate taking place in Iran, you know, may end up coloring how they respond to the international community as a whole.
Reporter: "So should there be consequences for what's happened so far?" [to Iran]
Obama: "The international community is bearing witness." Is that even an answer?
Obama looks for the Huff Po's Nico Pitney (who has done the best Iran blog reporting, IMO) - Nico asks a question from Iran. He knew he would be asked, he said so on his blog last night. Nice little coordination going on there.
Nico: "Under which conditions would you accept the election of Ahmadinejad? And if you do accept it without any significant changes in the conditions there, isn't that a betrayal of -- of what the demonstrators there are working to achieve?"
MR. OBAMA: Well, look, we didn't have international observers on the ground. We can't say definitively what exactly happened at polling places throughout the country.
We didn't have "international observers" on the ground, so there is no way of knowing what has really happened. Ugh. Now he is mumbling about a "peaceful path".
Major Garrett of FOX asks Obama "What took you so long?" GO MAJOR!
Obama scolds the Major, says "Track what I have been saying". [Uh, we have, O, that's your problem].
Obama insists he has "been consistent". Yes, consistently weak. He has not been consistent. He lies.
"We will not be a foil." "We have been consistent." He is still copping out to Iran not using the US as an excuse. As if ............... Another non-answer here.
I wish America were watching this performance. Actually, as Klinghoffer points out, he is mighty late. The UN, Britain, France, Germany, Czech Republic and Finland have all preceded him.
Major Garrett asks of the Iranian officials will be welcome at the 4th of July parties held by the State department.
Obama: "That's a choice the Iranians will have to make."
Garrett: "The offer still stands?"
Obama: "That's a choice the Iranians will have to make."
The officials to party, or the Iranian people dying in the street?Which choice, Mr. President?
Obama is asked by a reporter if he was influenced by John McCain and Lindsey Graham to become stronger on Iran.
Obama asks "What'd you think?"
The White House press whores corps break out in hysterical laughter.
Obama: "I am the President of the United States."
It's to vomit from.
1:25: CNN reporter asks Obama if he has seen the Neda video of her dying.
Yes, he said, he has."Heartbreaking" .......... it's far worse than that, O. Far more, far worse.
After 5 days of not being heard of a female student of Azad university of Bandarabbas , now it has been confirmed by security guards that she has been killed.
She was shot and taken away by security guards in front of the entrance of Bandarabbas Azad University on June 18th
To avoid spreading this news and persuading it by Bandarabbas people, her body was buried secretly and without informing her relatives.
Yesterday, monday 1. of Tir (23-06-2009) : Hundreds of familymembers to the young people arrested in the last days of protests are making a stand in front of the Central Courthouse of Tehran.
The families of the arrested young people in front of the Central Courthouse of Tehran in the Moallem Street, demand the unconditional release of their family members.
This proterst is taking place, because the authorities have refused to answer any question about the arrested people.
There are no information about the condition and whereabouts of the arrested young people. The families are therefor worried for their loved ones.
Hundreds of Sari protesters demonstrated against Islamic regime. But demonstration was attacked by Police and special guards quickly and some of the protesters were arrested.
12:32 pm: Reports of the crackdown (from the Huff Po):
"We are having difficulty getting updates to u as so many of our contacts been arrested - life here is v/v/dangerous now"
"Getting reliable news has become extremely difficult. Most of my sources have been arrested and I think about the few remaining ones and am very worried."
12:01 pm: Obama is taking to the airwaves 12:30 pm for his daily marketing, branding and propaganda mushfest with the White House press whores corps. He will actually be taking questions off the teleprompter -- let's hope he takes a non-lemming question. Get your motion sickness bags out.
All memorials for Neda have been banned. A man identifying himself as the boyfriend of the 'Angel of Freedom' whose grisly death in Iran's post-election protests was captured on video and posted on YouTube has said that she only wanted democracy and freedom for the people of Iran.
This video was posted on iReport 12 hours ago. (Raymenakojast is working on more translation) and will be posting more.
Can an Atlas reader translate?
This is a post-election video of Ahmadinejad in a meeting, in the city of Qom, with ultra-conservative Ayatollah Mesbah-Yazdi. They are basically planning a coup: to take Iran from an Islamic Republic to an Islamic State (i.e.: pure dictatorship, no more elections after him). He says “I can feel the people are spiritually ready for that…”. He also hints on the rigged elections: “now that the job has been achieved with your help…”
PRESIDENT HOPE-N-CHANGE: Not Changing Tone on Iran. White House press secretary says U.S. doesn't want to become 'political football' during bloody Iran crackdown.
I hope the good people of Iran know that Obama only speaks for himself, he does not speak for the American people. What a nightmare.
I want to know why Iranian youth must pay the price for the bitter political power struggle escalating between two ‘senior revolutionary figures’?
Iranians did not revolt to wake up three-decades later and see everything that they stood up for, every freedom and change they fought for, paid the price for in blood, is no longer.
The hypocrites, who secretly hijacked the popular revolution of Iran and imposed their will on us, have now dropped all pretense and are openly handing us the ‘royal treatment’ still fresh in the minds of countless Iranians.
How can they sleep at night knowing what they know and doing what they do?
We have reached the point of no return. It is no longer the restoration of order when ‘tanks have been brought out’ to combat civilians on the streets.
This is a war zone. This is not my country.
Guardian Council: no poll rerun Protesters demonstrate outside Iranian Embassy: Iran's Guardian Council rules out annulment of election Iran announced it would inaugurate the winner in its disputed presidential election, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to a second term by the end of August. 23
Riot police attacked hundreds of demonstrators with tear gas and fired live bullets in the air to disperse a rally in central Tehran Monday, carrying out a threat by the country's most powerful security force to crush any further opposition protests over the disputed presidential election.
As North Korea threatens a merciless attack if it is provokedand Islamic Iran spins out of control and murders its people, it is both painful and laughable to watch Obama have to come to grips with the obvious reality that the world does not share his grand view of himself. This would make me laugh out loud if I didn't love this country so. Obama's maniacal egoism has come smack up against the commonly held world view (particularly among the most prolific evil doers) that he is a self obsessed schmuck and poses no threat to their imperialistic plans. And it's only going to get worse.
President Obama took office loudly promising to be the anti-George
W. Bush of foreign policy, vowing to "extend a hand" to adversaries
"willing to unclench" their fists. What he has received instead is an
education in the reality of global rogues, and how he responds has
become a major test of his Presidency.
Associated Press
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei delivers a sermon in front of a picture of the late Ayatollah Khomeini in Tehran on Friday.
The
immediate challenges are North Korea and Iran, governments that the
American left claimed were "evil" only because Mr. Bush had declared
them so. Perhaps Mr. Obama believed this too, though five months later
he has learned otherwise. North Korea has rejected his every overture
and is now defying the U.N. to press its nuclear and proliferation
ambitions. As for Iran, the mullahs are attempting to crush a popular
uprising after a stolen election while also showing disdain for Mr.
Obama's diplomatic entreaties.
The question is whether Mr. Obama will now adapt his policies to
meet challenges he clearly didn't expect. Jimmy Carter took office with
similar illusions about the Soviet Union, promising to cure our
"inordinate fear of Communism." Our enemies pushed back at what they
perceived to be U.S. weakness, and Mr. Carter and his NSC adviser
Zbigniew Brzezinski never recovered. We'll soon learn if Mr. Obama is
made of sterner stuff.
On North Korea, for example, the President has vowed that "words
matter" and that renegade missile and A-bomb tests must have
"consequences." The U.S. has rallied the U.N. to pass sanctions against
Pyongyang, albeit no tougher than those the U.N. issued in 2006. Those
sanctions include a Security Council "call" to intercept North Korean
attempts to sell or spread weapons and delivery systems of mass
destruction. The issue is whether those sanctions will be enforced.
As it happens, a U.S. Navy destroyer is currently tailing a North
Korean ship suspected of carrying illicit weapons toward Burma via
Singapore. The cargo ship Kang Nam left a North Korea port last
Wednesday, and a South Korean intelligence report said it is believed
to carry missiles and other parts. This would violate U.N. sanctions,
and the U.S. has every legal right to board the ship. Alternatively,
the USS John S. McCain (named for the Senator's father and grandfather)
could steer the Kang Nam to Singapore and inspect her there.
Either action carries risks because North Korea has said it will
consider such an inspection to be an act of war. No one knows how the
North would respond, though its leaders must know that any attack on
South Korea would guarantee the end of their rule. It's also possible
the entire North Korean crew could defect if promised asylum.
The risks of doing nothing are even more serious because it would
show the North -- and the world -- that the U.N. sanctions once again
mean nothing. The threat of a North Korean attack on the South is
small, but the danger of nuclear proliferation to the U.S. and its
allies is clear and present. We know Pyongyang has proliferated to Iran
and Syria in the recent past. Senator John McCain said yesterday the
U.S. should board the Kang Nam, a sign that Mr. Obama could count on
domestic political support. Will the President let Kim Jong Il make a
mockery of U.N. condemnations?
Regarding Iran, Mr. Obama will also have to rethink his hopes for a
grand nuclear bargain with Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. This
diplomatic desire explains the President's cautious refusal last week
to take sides in the post-election standoff -- or, as a Washington Post
headline put it, quoting Administration sources, "Obama Seeks Way to
Acknowledge Protesters Without Alienating Ayatollah." It's impossible
to imagine the Reagan Administration whispering something similar about
Soviet dissidents and the Politburo.
Obama and his media flacks would have us believe that by speaking of American values and by distinguishing friend from foe, former president George W. Bush raised the hackles of the world against America. Perhaps there is some truth to this assertion. Perhaps there isn't.
What they fail to consider is that by genuflecting to tyrants, Obama has made the US an international laughingstock. Far from sharing their adulation of Obama and his cool demeanor, most of the nations of the world believe that the US has abandoned its leadership role. And unlike the US media, they realize that America has no understudy.
Unfortunately, unless the Obama effect wears off soon, by the time the American people become aware of this fact it may be too late to make a difference.
Photo of Neda Agha Soltan, the 26 year old murdered by Islamic rulers in Iran. Her name, Neda, means "voice" or "the call"..............
The most extraordinary aspect of the Iranian revolution is the leading role women have taken -- indeed, the leadership role they have assumed. They are the heart, the soul, the fuel of this enormously courageous effort. I do not believe these women are fighting for more sharia -- nor do I believe they will throw off their head dress at first either. Why expose themselves like that to authorities? I would keep my sunglasses and head scarf on --- why flaunt your identity with these barbarians?
Judith Klinghoffer writes of these inspirational women in the context of the women of the American revolution here:
I also know that Iran’s women stand in the vanguard. For days now,
I’ve seen them urging less courageous men on. I’ve seen them get beaten and
return to the fray. “Why are you sitting there?” one shouted at a couple of men
perched on the sidewalk on Saturday. “Get up! Get up!”
Another green-eyed woman, Mahin, aged 52, staggered into an alley clutching
her face and in tears. Then, against the urging of those around her, she limped
back into the crowd moving west toward Freedom Square. Cries of “Death to the
dictator!” and “We want liberty!” accompanied her.
As I read Roger Cohen's report,
America’s own “Daughters of Liberty” come to my mind. I recall the American
women who entered “into a resolve for every mother to disown her son, and refuse
the caresses of her husband, and for every maiden to reject the addresses of her
gallant” if any of them failed to hold fast to the patriotic position. I
remember, Hannah Arnett, who in the presence of her husband and local leaders of
Elizabeth Town, declared:
For me, I stay with my country, and my hand shall never touch the
hand, nor my heart cleave to the heart of him who shame her . . . . Isaac, we
have lived together for twenty years . . . But I am the child of God and of my
country, and if you do this shameful thing (turn the town over to Cornwallis), I
will never again own you for my husband.1
Looking at the beautiful, blood covered face of “NEDA” whose image has
emerged as the symbol of the current Iranian revolution, I think of Hanna
Caldwell of Newark. “Neda,” is the code name of a young woman who was standing
aside with her father watching the protests, when she was shot from a rooftop of
a house. She died
on the street within a couple of minutes. Hanna Caldwell, a mother of nine,
chose to stay in her home and was shot. She was not alone. “Six widows are
burned out; some very aged, and others which were not burnt, were torn to
pieces, entirely plundered” reported the New Jersey Gazette on July 12,
1780 following the battle of Springfield. At such tumultuous times, home no
longer affords protection. Just listen
to the cries heard as a Tehran apartment is invaded in the dead of night.
And how can I forget the wife and partner, Abigail Adams. She, too, has a
counterpart in the current Iranian saga. Indeed, if the tragic image of “NEDA”
has emerged as the symbol of the revolutionary phase of the struggle, the image
of Mir Hossein Mousavi holding hand with his wife, university professor Zahra
Rahnavard, encompassed its reformist phase. Iranian law forbids public displays
of affection, including hand holding. Their defiance of that prohibition held
the promise that Mousavi “will not forget the Ladies.“ For then, as now,
economic discontent led to demands for greater democracy. Americans cried “No
Taxation without Representation.” Iranians cry “Where is my Vote?”
American women fought
and died in the revolutionary army. Iranian women march and die in the
streets. The risk they take is just as great. Even name and connections do not
offer much protection. The daughter
of President Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani is amongst the arrested. Nobel
prize winner Shirin Ebadi is still at large and, to her credit, far from silent.
She has not only identified with the opposition by calling for new elections but
used her Nobel fame to demand that the international community meddle:
I expect the international community to prevent the pursuit of
violence by the government . . . I expect it to stop (the government) firing on
the people.
In 1778, American revolutionaries raised their glasses with the following
toast:
The Fair of America; may their virtues and patriotism, so much
hidden by arbitrary fashion, be more publicly displayed, and they be rewarded by
gratitude of every observer
There are more women in position of authority than in 1776. Thus, when Shirin
Ebadi asks, U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay responds
with a call for Iran to rein in Islamic militia:
It is the responsibility of the government to ensure that militia
members and regular law enforcement agencies do not resort to illegal acts of
violence," she said in a statement.
If they are perceived to be acting outside the law, it could provoke a
serious deterioration in the security situation, which would be a great tragedy
and is in nobody's interests.
Angela Merkel, Germany’s prime minister steps up the plate. The same cannot
be said about Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, the woman Iranian often
compare to Zahra Rahnavard. She was forced to prevaricate while working hard
behind the scene to
convince President Obama to stand by those marching in the streets. In the
end, it was NEDA’s blood and the blood of her fellow Iranian women and men that
did the convincing. Let me end, as I started with a quote from Roger Cohen:
“Can’t the United Nations help us?” one woman asked me.
I said I doubted that very much.
“So,” she said, “we are on our own.”
May the Iranian Daughters of Liberty meet with success and may the
descendents of the American Daughters of Liberty do their utmost to aid them. It
may not be enough but they are owed our best efforts.
There is, it seems, a power struggle going on behind the scenes, between wannabe Islamic dictators. Is there no voice for Persian nationalism? That would be discouraging; it remains to be seen. This is a tipping point; we don't know what is happening.
Firstoff, on Mousavi, I wrote of who and Mousavi really is 10 days ago.
Which is why any genuine substantial change appears unlikely.
Nonetheless, events in Iran bear close watching -- after all, the Shah
ran a relatively secular state, and there is still a considerable
number of proponents of such a state in Iran. As the chaotic events
unfold, things could turn in their direction.
The NY Times reports on the “the fight within” Iran’s ruling clerical establishment:
On Sunday, I saw Mehdi Hashemi Rafsanjani, the son of
the establishment’s embittered éminence grise, Ali Akbar Hashemi
Rafsanjani. He told me his father, who despises President Mahmoud
Adhmadinejad, is fighting a furious rearguard action to have the
election annulled by the Guardian Council, the 12-member oversight body
that will pronounce this week on the election’s legality.
Rafsanjani was either the first or one of the first to call directly for the use of nukes against Israel back in December of 2001. (Iran Press) hat tip Audrey
"If a day comes when the world of Islam is duly equipped with the arms Israel has in possession, the strategy of colonialism would face a stalemate because application of an atomic bomb would not leave any thing in Israel but the same thing would just produce damages in the Muslim world", Ayatollah Ali Akbar Hashemi-Rafsanjani told the crowd at the traditional Friday prayers in Tehran
This, he said, is because the use of a nuclear bomb in Israel will leave nothing on the ground, whereas it will only damage the world of Islam.
Every year, in a tradition introduced by the late Ayatollah Ruhallah Khomenei, Iran marks World Al-Quds (Jerusalem)
Day on the last Friday of the month of Ramadan to show its solidarity with the Palestinian people. Former Iranian
president and "Expediency Council" Chairman Ali Akhbar Hashemi Rafsanjani gave the Al-Quds Day sermon on
December 14, 2001 at Tehran University, which was attended by thousands of worshippers. In the sermon, he
addressed solving the problem of Israel with nuclear weapons.
Following are core elements of the speech, as reported in Iran's English, Farsi and Arabic newspapers.[1] As
none of these sources provided a direct transcript of Rafsanjani's speech, all style problems can be attributed to the
original Iranian English version which we adhered to:
On Colonialism and Zionism
Rafsanjani said that "global arrogance, led by the U.S. and U.K.," is
responsible for the crimes that the "artificial" state of Israel has
been committing worldwide over the past half-century. The UN and other
segments of the arrogant world have been supporting Israeli crimes, he
said, and, cautioning against what he called "global arrogance arms
buildup [by the U.S.]" in an attempt to revive the colonialist era, he
asked nations and governments to prevent colonialism from attaining its
goals.
Rafsanjani added: "International Zionism has
been the driving force of this ugly phenomenon; Zionism is divisive; a
century has passed since the onset of Zionism, but not every Jew is a
Zionist, and not all members of the Zionist party are Jews."
He noted that the Zionist party is still
highly active worldwide, and it is the driving force of important
events taking place in the world in connection with Israel. He called
the disasters that have occurred in the half-century-old state of
Israel an encyclopedia of colonial crimes. Palestinians are not the
only ones to have suffered from the plan to establish this "forged"
Israeli state; the Jews too are paying the price, he added.
Rafsanjani claimed that the Jews had a place
in various parts of the world, living rather well in each country. But
this phenomenon [Zionism] caused them to take a stance regarding their
religious state and leave their homes, under pressure and in the name
of migration [to Israel]. Jews should wait for a day when this
"extraneous matter" would be removed from the region and the world of
Islam, and those who have gathered together in Israel would one day be
dispersed again.
Rafsanjani stated that the establishment of
Israel has inflicted hundreds of billions of dollars in damage on
states in the region. However, since the essence of the phenomenon of
Israel is colonialist - colonialism benefits from this fabricated
government. Rafsanjani added that following the end of the official
colonialist [era], the perpetrators of colonialism set out to replace
it, examined various means, and [found that] the most important means
was to create states that were connected by the umbilicus to
colonialism in sensitive areas.
The formation of the Zionist state in the land
of Palestine was a multi-faceted base for colonialism. By this means,
the West rid itself of Zionism, while establishing it in Palestine.
Meanwhile, the colonialists affiliated themselves with Zionism and the
state of Israel so as to keep them like a tool in their service, even
though, for its own survival, colonialism is itself dependent on
Zionism.
Rafsanjani added that with the formation of
Israel, colonialists created insecurity in the region, exposing states
to threats so as to bring them under the dominion of colonialism. The
survival of Israel depends on the interests of global arrogance and
colonialism, and as long as this base is beneficial to them, they will
preserve it.
Nuclear Weapons Can Solve the Israel Problem
Rafsanjani said that Muslims must surround colonialism and force them
[the colonialists] to see whether Israel is beneficial to them or not.
If one day, he said, the world of Islam comes to possess the weapons
currently in Israel's possession [meaning nuclear weapons] - on that
day this method of global arrogance would come to a dead end. This, he
said, is because the use of a nuclear bomb in Israel will leave nothing
on the ground, whereas it will only damage the world of Islam.
This thing is much bigger than Mousavi. He is swept up in the movement. He
ain't the movement. He is not Gandhi or King, and the Islamic leaders in Iran know this -- and want to salvage an Islamic regime. Are people dying to trade one Islamic leader for a
different Islamic leader? I don't think so. I do not believe people are
taking bullets for more sharia. Yes, there are chants of allahu akbar, but there are far more
"down with the dictator" chants.
The people who supported the Westernized lax-Sharia Pahlavi
regime haven't gone away or all been killed. Iran as a secularized Western ally again is possible. Anything is possible, but without the support of the free world, it's improbable.
10:55 PM ET -- Farnaz Fassihi over at the Wall Street Journal reports on this horrific story of a 19-year-old shot in the head and killed during the demonstrations and Iranian officials asked his parents to "pay an equivalent of $3,000
as a 'bullet fee' -- a fee for the bullet used by security forces --
before taking the body back."
Minutes before, an ambulance had arrived from Tehran's morgue carrying the body of their only son, 19-year-old Kaveh Alipour.
On Saturday, amid the most violent clashes between security forces
and protesters, Mr. Alipour was shot in the head as he stood at an
intersection in downtown Tehran. He was returning from acting class and
a week shy of becoming a groom, his family said.
The details of his death remain unclear. He had been alone.
Neighbors and relatives think that he got trapped in the crossfire. He
wasn't politically active and hadn't taken part in the turmoil that has
rocked Iran for over a week, they said.
"He was a very polite, shy young man," said Mohamad, a neighbor who has known him since childhood.
When Mr. Alipour didn't return home that night, his parents began to
worry. All day, they had heard gunshots ringing in the distance. His
father, Yousef, first called his fiancée and friends. No one had heard
from him.
At the crack of dawn, his father began searching at police stations, then hospitals and then the morgue.
Upon learning of his son's death, the elder Mr. Alipour was told the
family had to pay an equivalent of $3,000 as a "bullet fee"—a fee for
the bullet used by security forces—before taking the body back,
relatives said.
Mr. Alipour told officials that his entire possessions wouldn't
amount to $3,000, arguing they should waive the fee because he is a
veteran of the Iran-Iraq war. According to relatives, morgue officials
finally agreed, but demanded that the family do no funeral or burial in
Tehran. Kaveh Alipour's body was quietly transported to the city of
Rasht, where there is family.
According to several prominent Western bloggers with direct ties to the
protesters, Obama's statement left the Iranians underwhelmed and angry.
[...]
THE MOST IMPORTANT repercussion of the US media's propagandistic
reporting is that the American public is denied the ability to
understand events as they unfold. Take for instance The New York Times'
write-up of Khamenei's sermon this past Friday in which he effectively
declared war on the protesters. As Russell Berman pointed out in the
Telos blog on Saturday, the Times' write-up was misleadingly selective.
The Times did not mention that Khamenei ascribed world events to a
Zionist conspiracy which he believes controls the US. It similarly
failed to mention his long rant against the US for the FBI's 1993 raid
on David Koresh's Branch Davidian compound in Waco, Texas.
Had the Times - and other major media outlets - properly reported
Khamenei's speech, they would have made clear to their readers that he
is not a rational thinker. His view of world events is deeply distorted
by his hatreds and prejudices and paranoia.
But then, if Times readers were permitted to know just how demented
Khamenei's views of the world are, they might come to the conclusion
that Obama's intense desire to sit down with him, and his constant
pandering to Iran's "supreme leader" are ill-advised and
counterproductive. They might come to the conclusion that it is
impossible to achieve a meeting of the minds with a man who calls
Americans "morons" and leads his subordinate government officials in
chants of "Death to America," "Death to Britain" and "Death to Israel."
Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper,
adopting one of the toughest lines on Iran of any Western leader,
condemned on Monday what he said was Tehran's totally unacceptable use
of "brute force and intimidation" to deal with protests. Obama looks worse and worse and his negative poll numbers reflect it. Hope-n-change, blech.
Tuesday 10:01 am
If you are on twiitter, help support the people in Iran willing to risk
their lives by having your location be IRAN, and your time zone under
settings be TEHRAN. Make it harder for the regime to kill even this
method of communication. Bombard them, help keep them from identifying
who is real and who isn't...............
9:13 PM ET -- Guardian Council 'rules out vote nullification. (Nico reporting on the Huff Po)
'
Hardly a surprise. Iran's state media reports: "Iran's Guardian Council
rules out the possibility of nullifying the country's June 12
Presidential election, saying there has been no record of any major irregularity.
Abbas Ali Kadkhodaei, the council's Spokesman said late on Monday that
most of the complaints reported irregularities before the election, and
not during or after the vote. He added that the Guardian Council was
not the relevant body to look into such complaints. The Guardian
Council is the body in charge of supervising the elections and has to
approve the outcome before any result could be official."
9:00 PM ET -- "Uprising in southern Tehran?" The woman in the video says, "Bravo
to the youth.
8:54 PM ET -- Rumor patrol. I've seen nothing to
corroborate rumors on the web that a Revolutionary Guard commander in
Tehran was arrested for refusing to cooperate with the crackdown on
demonstrators. It could be true, but I've seen no evidence that it is.
Earlier today I reminded Atlas readers of the July 4th party invitations Obama's State department sent out to Iranian officials.
----------------------- WASHINGTON (AFP) —
The United States said Monday its invitations were still standing for Iranian
diplomats to attend July 4 celebrations at US embassies despite the crackdown on
opposition supporters.
President Barack Obama's administration said earlier this month it would
invite Iran to US embassy barbecues for the national holiday for the first time
since the two nations severed relations following the 1979 Islamic
revolution.
"There's no thought to rescinding the invitations to Iranian diplomats,"
State Department spokesman Ian Kelly told reporters.
"We have made a strategic decision to engage on a number of fronts with
Iran," Kelly said. "We tried many years of isolation, and we're pursuing a
different path now."
8:45pm: Check out 'Livestream - persianq (Iran) With Chatroom'
The chatroom can be ugly - but the Iranians' are saying they want George W. Bush.
And Ahmadinejad wants Obama, I'm sure.Obama is still talking about engagimg tje poison dwarf.
6:50: In the course of just a couple of hours, Google moves fast and kills a blog using Google's publishing service to post photos of the demonstrators to collect their personal information.
Bahrain has ordered the closure of a prominent newspaper after it printed an article critical of political leaders in its powerful Gulf neighbour Iran.(h/t Rut)
Iran's Uncrowned Prince Cries Over Violence (hat tip DJM)
From the Prince's speech:
"Do not let them define what is disrespect for sovereignty, what is interference in others affairs..."
I wonder who that was for?
Here is the complete text: (thanks to DJM)
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights knows no national boundaries. Its
defense is not only a matter of ethics, but a mutual obligation of all
governments who are its signatories. It is also in their interests.
No
one, no one will benefit from closing his or her eyes to knives and cables
cutting into faces and mouths of our young and old… (pause) or from bullets
piercing our beloved Neda… whose only sin was the quest for freedom. No one but
tyrants and their thugs.
Do not let them define what is disrespect for
sovereignty, what is interference in others affairs.
Ladies and
gentlemen, a movement was born. On the 22nd of Khordad in my calendar, the 12th
of June in yours.
It is not Islamic or anti-Islamic, it is not for
Capitalism or Socialism, nor any other ideology or specific form of government.
It cares little about historical squabbles before its birth. But it is about the
sanctity – even more – the sovereignty of the ballot box.
It may not
succeed immediately. It may have ebbs and flows. But let me assure you, it will
not die. Because we will not let it die.
5:39 PM ET --The Huff Po has this:
Big day on Thursday. "Mousavi's
facebook page just announced that they want to hold global solidarity
demonstrations on Thursday 'for the martyrs that have been lost so far
in our fight for justice.' In Tehran, the demonstration will be held at Imam Khomeini Shrine, according to the announcement."
This follows another statement by Karroubi today also calling for a demonstration to commemorate the dead.
I am just back from 7 tir square where there was supposed to be a memorial for the 7th day of the martyrs.
Drove down there at 4 ish. there were a lot of people in the square,
but no one allowed to gather, so people were just walking up and down
the meydoon (square). there was a HEAVY military presence — all kinds,
basij, riot police, khahki (camouflage) uniformed ones — all on
motorbikes, or in pick up trucks or standing — they ALL had those
batons and weren’t allowing people to stand still (ie. gather). we
walked around and tried to have a look from those walkways that cover
the meydoon/square but the police were also on them so wouldn’t let u
stand still for a second.
people were also gathering in the koocheh’s (alleyways) off the
side of the square too see what was going to happen and if we could
gather in one place. there was not just young people, but all kinds of
age groups and people from all walks of life. then the police would
start coming to an alley where a lot of people were and shout at them
to move along/disperse. they would then get aggro and start chasing
people down the alleyways, hitting with batons. people would run but
then gather in another alleyway… very resilient.
we moved through the various alleyways too until shouted at to
leave. these police are v v intimidating. like animals really as u just
dont know if they are gonna wack you (which they would).
i wanted to
take photos of the milit presence, but it was way too scary. honestly
people who manage to record or take photos are incredibly shoja
(brave). then we saw that they had blockaded one alleyway (koocheh
mina) and people were getting trapped and beaten up with the batons.
there were people on roofs/windows looking so i hope they managed to
record some stuff. we moved around the meydoon and streets. after
hearing/seeing that they were blockading people in alleys. [...]
then around 6 ish we were standing near an alley entrance and the
police on motorbikes with batons started chasing us badly. we could
only run up the street and they are chasing u on these bikes about 5/6
mtrs away shouting at u to disperse — it is absolutely petrifying. we
were running on the sidewalk. they also had whips with them. there were
so many of them just riding and shouting at you. then we heard shots
and u just don’t know whether they are going to even shoot (as we know
they have done before). i am not sure whether it was guns or
firecrackers or what but at the time u all think is that it is
guns, and that u are about to feel a bullet hit u in the back or
something as u run. all i did was run with my hands clasped (like i was
praying) and just trying to make eye contact with them so that they
could see the sheer fear in my face! then a door opened in the street
and some people were ushering us into their garden to hide in there in
case the motor police guys came back (honestly there must have been
like 50-70 of them chasing us).
we then hid in this grdn for a bit with like 20 or so other people
but it really wasn’t the best idea. i thought as i had seen them go
into people’s houses and smash doors etc minutes before and then there
is no escape for u. so we waited like 10 mins and crept out. it was
really quite scary. anyways. let us see what else comes out of the news
this evening. i hope no one was killed but i do know pple were beaten
up for sure.
also, on another note, i heard (god knows if it was true) that hashemi-rafsanjani has just come from qom with 40 signatures.
Blog comment: "One thing is certain: 30 years of Islamic “cultural revolution” has fallen drastically. Iranian youth, protesting and sacrificing their lives in the frontal rows of this movement, defy every bit of propagandist educational system that desperately tried to brainwash them after the Islamic revolution. Iran won’t be the same after this uprising. Marg Bar Dictator!"
5:50 PM: Dutch foreign minister Maxime Verhagen has lodged a renewed protest with the Iranian chargé d’affaires in The Hague over what he described as excessive violence used against demonstrators in Iran over the weekend. (Raye Man Kojast? Where Is My Vote?)
Sharoudi Sports Complex, shown in the video, is very close to Haf-e-Tir Square, where an opposition rally was broken up
TEHRAN, Iran (CNN) -- A defiant and chaotic protest
sprouted in and around a public square Monday despite a warning by
Iran's Revolutionary Guard against the kind of street demonstrations
that have roiled Iran for more than a week, witnesses said.
3:49 pm:t CNN is reporting that Reporters without Borders is calling Iran the largest prison for journalists. I have to say that this is the first time in years that I have been watching CNN, but their coverage of Iran, is hands down, the best over the other cable news networks.
3:21 pm: U.S. Navy Hangs Back in Persian Gulf as Questions Mount About Defecting Iranian Revolutionary Guard (Foxnews.com)
President Pantywaist:
the last thing that I want to do is to have the United States be a foil for those forces inside Iran who would love nothing better than to make this an argument about the United States. That’s what they do. That’s what we’re already seeing. We shouldn’t be playing into that. There should be no distractions from the fact that the Iranian people are seeking to let their voices be heard.
That's the American president talking. COWARD! Playing to the mullahs. No one thinks this about America, fool.
Students Being Shot At By Basij - Injured young students die in Iran **GRAPHIC**
Tehran Bureau on Twitter reports:
pls be careful and keep your cameras at home -- or well-hidden ... !
A
note from Tehran: police/basij pulling cars over to inspect at
checkpoints... they will seize any cameras along with the owner's ID
card"They are stopping and searching cars and peoples bags. They are taking peoples ID cards and cameras."
from Tehran: "They have cordened off about 20 metres of road in Vanak Square, I was there at 7pm tonight."
Basij crawling around haft-tir Sq.
Tuesday is general strike day In Iran.
Tweet: Polish strike advice: Stay inside in factories/buildings in groups with food, water, supplies, etc
They would know. The"solidarity" movement was successful - but then again they were not dealing with Islamic barbarian rulers.
The question is, how did America fall from the soaring rhetoric of President George W. Bush's 2005 State of the Union address - when he said: "And to the Iranian people, I say tonight: As you stand for your own liberty, America stands with you" - to a position on the sidelines, passively watching Iranian security forces club and shoot unarmed demonstrators on the streets of Tehran?
The apparent answer is that advocates of a policy of accommodation that is more in sync with the priorities of the Tehran regime than with U.S. national security interests now wield influence from inside the Obama administration.
Young Women beaten in streets of Tehran while protesting.
1:40 p.m. Witnesses at Neda Soltan's memorial service today in Tehran said that
it was violently broken up by the security forces and that people there were being arrested and beaten.(NY Times)
Poster hat tip DJM. This is based on the last words her Neda's father
said: "Neda, don't be afraid. Neda, don't be afraid. [obscured by others
yelling] Neda, stay with me. Neda stay with me!"
The New Yorker has a report
“from the streets and the rooftops” of Tehran by a resident of the
city. Here are some of this anonymous correspondent’s observations:
On the afternoon of June 15th, I bumped into my old friend Reza at the
huge demonstration on Azadi Street—the march that nobody will ever
forget. He was with his wife, Hengameh, his arm raised, giving the “V”
sign for victory and shouting, “Death to the dictator!” Then he saw me.
His eyes widened and we kissed on both cheeks. “How many?” he asked
breathlessly, before answering himself. “A million, I’d say.” I had
last seen Reza a few months before, in the small office where he runs a
modest trading business. He had looked pale and tired, and was
complaining about money problems. But now was different. He shone.
“Come to dinner tomorrow night,” he called, and then we were separated.
According to a police official who was quoted in the Western press,
a million or more people took part in the Azadi Street march. Later, I
asked a person close to the rally organizers how many people there
were, and he told me that he thought the figure was closer to two
million. It was, he said, the biggest protest Iran had seen since the
1979 revolution, which overthrew the Shah. From where Reza and I stood,
half a mile from the western end of Azadi Street, where it enters Azadi
Square, a thick belt of humanity stretched eastward seemingly without
end. Although the rally was illegal, there was no sign of riot police
or Basij militiamen. In an Islamic republic that regards large,
unsanctioned gatherings as a threat, the marchers were smiling with the
joy of being in one happy, unhindered mass—a pleasurable feeling,
utterly unfamiliar. [...]
For any Iranian who remembers 1979, today’s unrest is full of
echoes. The slogans we were hearing, such as “Death to the dictator!”
and “Freedom or death!,” evoke the revolution, as does the victory
sign. And now, joining other people from the building on the roof—and
the inhabitants of thousands of other apartment blocks—we sensed
something else: that, after thirty years, the revolution seemed to be
destroying itself.
IRANIAN REVOLUTIONARY GUARD THREATENS TO CRUSH PROTESTS
PRAGUE, June 22 (Reuters) - The Czech European Union presidency asked
the bloc's members on Monday to consider summoning the heads of Iran's
missions in Europe to express "deep revulsion" over post-election
violence there.
The Czechs said they had summoned the head of
the Iranian ministry in Prague to reject Iran's protest that the EU and
its member states were illegitimately interfering in Iran's affairs.
Teheran
officials summoned the Czech charge d'affaires on Sunday along with
other 26 EU representatives to complain about EU critical remarks on
Iran's elections. The Czechs hold the rotating EU presidency until the
end of June. (Reporting by Jana Mlcochova)
Islamic rulers are firing live ammo into the crowd.
The Islamic regime attacks its own, again.......
TEHRAN, Iran – Riot police attacked hundreds of demonstrators with
tear gas and fired live bullets in the air to disperse a rally in
central Tehran Monday, carrying out a threat by the country's most
powerful security force to crush any further opposition protests over
the disputed presidential election.
Britain, accused by Iran of fomenting post-election unrest, said it was evacuating the families of diplomats and other officials based in Iran.
Witnesses
said helicopters hovered overhead as about 200 protesters gathered at
Haft-e-Tir Square. But hundreds of anti-riot police quickly put an end
to the demonstration and prevented any gathering, even small groups, at
the scene.
At the subway station at Haft-e-Tir,
the witnesses said police did not allow anyone to stand still, asking
them to keep on walking and separating people who were walked together.
The witnesses asked not to be identified for fear of government
reprisals.
Tehran's prosecutor general's office has
said that some armed saboteurs opened fire on civilians and killed
people in post-election violence in Tehran.
"A number of Tehrani citizens were shot dead by unknown vandals Saturday night," said the office on Monday.
It said security forces have arrested an armed man involved in
Saturday's riots but rejected reports over the arrest of an armed man
whose photo was released by some news agencies.
"Iran's security and intelligence officials are currently probing
into the identity of the individual whose photo was published and
broadcast by news agencies," it added.
This is while the situation in Tehran is back to normal for the
second consecutive day on Monday. On Saturday, 'terrorist elements'-who
had infiltrated the rallies --created the most violent day of protests
by setting fire on a mosque and two gas stations as well as killing a
number of people.
An Iranian protester throws a burning box as others cover their faces from tear gas during clashes with riot police in Tehran. Thsey people need weapons
Recent Tweets From Tehran bureau:
Please
tell the world that we protesters are not terrorists [as reported by
state tv]. it's the other way around: they're terrorizing us!
Sepah [IRGC] has announced it will crush us. they're murderers.
I'm going, but I'm scared. I may go quietly.
there were plans to go and gather at 7 Tir [earlier today Tehran time] for that poor young woman Neda.
people are frightened to death here. they have gone quiet. the stores are closed.
you cannot believe it. they have turned this place into a killing field.
they cannot make official visits to this country either!
this man cannot be invited to international summits!
This man doesn't represent us!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
The United States cannot grant this man a visa!
don't you see, they're massacring us here.
there is no other option: everyone has to get involved to help us.
from Tehran (earlier today): tell the Europeans, stop posturing
If the mad mullahs crush dissent.......what will become of those freedom fighters and citizen journalists who beamed those messages, tweets, pics and reportage, without which the world would never have known of the brutal oppression and violence of Islam?
..............in confronting the political turmoil that has consumed the country
this past week, the Iranian government appears to be engaging in a
practice often called deep packet inspection, which enables authorities
to not only block communication but to monitor it to gather information
about individuals, as well as alter it for disinformation purposes,
according to these experts.
The monitoring capability was provided, at least in part, by a joint venture of Siemens AG, the German conglomerate, and Nokia Corp., the Finnish cellphone company, in the second half of 2008, Ben Roome, a spokesman for the joint venture, confirmed.
The "monitoring center," installed within the government's telecom
monopoly, was part of a larger contract with Iran that included
mobile-phone networking technology, Mr. Roome said.
"If you sell networks, you also, intrinsically, sell the capability
to intercept any communication that runs over them," said Mr. Roome.
The sale of the equipment to Iran by the joint venture, called Nokia
Siemens Networks, was previously reported last year by the editor of an
Austrian information-technology Web site called Futurezone.
The Iranian government had experimented with the equipment for brief
periods in recent months, but it had not been used extensively, and
therefore its capabilities weren't fully displayed -- until during the
recent unrest, the Internet experts interviewed said.
"We didn't know they could do this much," said a network engineer in
Tehran. "Now we know they have powerful things that allow them to do
very complex tracking on the network."
UPDATE: Nokia/Siemens issues a statement concerning the WSJ report that it provided Iran with censoring technology. Read their statement is here.
Recent media reports have speculated about Nokia Siemens Networks’ role in providing monitoring capability to Iran. Nokia Siemens Networks has provided Lawful Intercept capability solely for the monitoring of local voice calls in Iran. Nokia Siemens Networks has not provided any deep packet inspection, web censorship or Internet filtering capability to Iran.
"Iranian state radio said Monday that 457 people were arrested in clashes
between demonstrators and security forces in Tehran that took place
late Saturday. The arrests were made around the Iranian capital's Azadi
square, the radio report said, quoting the police."
Forty police officers were wounded and 34 government buildings damaged, FARS news agency said, also quoting police.
These people need guns. And leadership. Secular leadership.
11:21 AM ET -- Neda was engaged. BBC Persia has an interview with Neda's fiance
(some translation would be great). Also, AP prints some new details:
"An acquaintance of her family said Neda worked part-time at a travel
agency in Iran and that the government barred the family from holding a public funeral Monday.
The acquaintance spoke on condition of anonymity because she feared
government reprisal. The Iranian government has banned all public
gatherings, though there was no specific information about funerals for
those killed in recent clashes."
It's in German with an accent (possibly Persian); it must have been read out in a German-speaking country.
The speaker says:
"I am here in order to tell you that she died in her father's arms. "I am here in order to tell you that my sister had big dreams. "I am here in order to tell you that my sister was very modest [in her dreams]. "She
longed - just like me - after one day feeling the wind in her hair, and
just like me she loved poems by Farukh (?), a Persian poet, and she...
"... longed for freedom and equality. "She longed after one day being able to say, 'I am Iranian' with her head held up high. "She
longed after one day falling in love with a man with a [inaudible]
haircut, giving birth to a daugter, singing lullabies at her cradle, or
to plait her child's long hair. "My sister died because she was not
allowed to live like a human being; my sister died because injustice
would not end; my sister died because she loved life so much, and my
sister died because..
"... she cared lovingly for her fellow humans' well-being. "All our brothers and sisters in Iran: You are not alone!"
I hope to see a struggle, with the Persians winning out over the Islamic supremacists. The people who supported the Westernized lax-Sharia Pahlavi regime haven't gone away or all been killed. A secularized Western Iran -- what a wonderful turn that would be.
There is a leadership vacuum and a scramble by Iran's Islamic leaders.
Folks, this is huge. Huge. A report from Saudi Arabia's al-Arabiya,
Iranian clerics
seek supreme leader alternative, indicates that Rafsanjani is seeking to
eliminate the Supreme Leader. Not just the man, but the position and role
presiding over Iranian politics and the Iranian society.
Religious leaders are considering an alternative to the supreme leader
structure after at least 13 people were killed in the latest unrest to shake
Tehran and family members of Ayatollah Rafsanjani were arrested amid calls by
former President Mohammad Khatami for the release of all
protesters.
Iran's religious clerks in Qom and members of the Assembly of Experts, headed
by former President Mahmoud Ahmedinejad, are mulling the formation of an
alternative collective leadership to replace that of the supreme leader, sources
in Qom told Al Arabiya on condition of anonymity.
Skipping down a bit, here's what they seem to have in mind, obviously a bit
sketchy at this point.
Members of the assembly are reportedly considering forming a collective
ruling body and scrapping the model of Ayatollah Khomeini as a way out of the
civil crisis that has engulfed Tehran in a series of protests,
The discussions have taken place in a series of secret meetings convened in
the holy city of Qom and included Jawad al-Shahristani, the supreme
representative of Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, who is the foremost Shiite leader in
Iraq.
An option being considered is the resignation of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as
Iran's president following condemnation by the United States and other European
nations for violence and human rights violations against unarmed
protestors.
This is a huge development. One of the biggest questions I and others have
had since the Iranian protests/revolt/revolution began was whether Mousavi would
be any different in tangible effect (Hizballah & Hamas support, etc.) than
Ahmadinejad and whether Rafsanjani was seeking to sack 'Supreme' Leader Khamenei
simply to acquire the powerful position for himself. That question perhaps may
have been answered today.
First of all, thank you for showing the pictures of the casualties in Iran. They are graphic and disturbing but their exposure is necessary. People need to see what is happening in there. My heart goes out to those brave people in Iran, they are fighting for freedom and I admire them. They have more of a spine than many Americans today do. But that is because they have experienced some things that most Americans haven't: hardship and oppression. We have forgotten how it feels to be in their shoes. Again, may God help the Iranian people overthrow their oppressors.
I'm actually writing to you tonight to tell you how proud I have been these last few days to be an Iraq Veteran. There is something missing in our news media and all the talk about the events in Iran- Maybe, just maybe, is it at all possible that these people in Iran saw a functioning democracy right next door in Iraq and thought, "Why can't we have that?" Or is this all just a coincidence? I've asked that question to a lot of people in the last few days and I refuse to believe that they are not connected. You can't tell me that those Iraqis coming out of the polls with their blackened fingers didn't have any influence on the Iranian people and what is happening today.
According to Bush and Cheney one of the reasons we went to Iraq was to set up a democracy right in the center of the Middle East in the heart of repressive regimes and that freedom would spread in a reverse domino effect. Is this the start of that? I think so. But if it is nobody wants to give any attention to it because they won't admit that Bush may have done something right. Case in point: President Obama. He was against the Iraq War from the start. It was that single issue that he rose to prominence on. He of all people does not want to acknowledge the wisdom of George W. Bush in this area. It would undermine his entire platform of Change and no "more of the same" and all that. Everybody knows that Obama doesn't want to take an active role in this crisis but I just hope that his lack of action doesn't doom this for the Iranian people fighting in the streets. This is a great opportunity, the United States has waited 30 years for something like this, I just hope that President Obama doesn't blow it. I kind of wish it had happened even a year ago. Whatever happens happens. May the Iranian people free themselves from the oppressive grip of the Mullahs. I learned a lot in Iraq, but one thing stood out to me: freedom exists only for those who are worthy of it and willing to pay for it. The problem with the Iraqis was that they didn't want it bad enough. Turn on the TV, the Iranians want it. I hope they want it bad enough now and will be willing to pay for it. It won't be cheap.
Anyways, I have been especially proud of my time in Iraq these last few days. It does my heart good to see Iranians stnding up for their right to vote. I feel like what we did over there had ramifications that reached further than anyone has discussed in a long time. Now we are just starting to see them. I see these brave people in Iran fighting for freedom in their streets and I feel like I helped make a big difference. If the Iranian regime collapses then there will be absolutely no doubt that Iraq was worth the struggle.
President Obama: Please do not leave the Iranian people high and dry. I beg you, please don't let this opportunity slip by.
Atlas, keep up your reporting for the Iranian Freedom Fighters. The left likes to call terrorists Freedom Fighters, these people standing up in Iran are Freedom Fighters. We need to back them up.
Netanyahu is masterful - he's everything the bumbling
Obama is not (and note how he gracefully refuses to second guess the President
of the United States).
He said he won't second guess Obama which, IMAO, spoke volumes.
Note how he praises the willingness of ordinary
Iranians to stand up for their rights.
Is Netanyahu taking Caroline Glick's advice? My sense is that
slowly but surely he is moving in that direction. Netanyahu and Israel are
taking the lead in supporting the Iranian students in the streets.
A voice from central Tehran earlier this morning (Sunday 21 June):
[Translated] Things are so bad. They are massacring people here.
Please tell Obama not to officially recognize Ahmadinjad. He’s not our
real president. He’s a dictator. Please tell people that in Tehran
they’re massacring people.
There’s nothing going on today. There was talk of something at 10 in
the morning [Tehran time] at Enghelab [Square, presumably] but nothing
happened. They had said [at the] UN [?]… I don’t know if it will take
place or not. People are scared. They [officials] kill. THEY KILL.
A voice from central Tehran earlier this morning (Sunday 21 June):
If Obama moves to support the demonstration in strong terms, this camp
will lose and Ahmadinejad will gain ground; also it is not good to make
an American domestic issue from an Iranian domestic issue. Yesterday
was brutal, but not as brutal we still do not know how many were
killed, but from the set up of the riot police it is apparent that they
want to keep people off street with the least casualty possible. This
is not a praise, it is to say that government does not want to escalate
things.
If there is no demonstration today it does not mean it is over. This is just the beginning. The focus is on having an election.
You must see the people, this is a people united, all groups and
sections are out there, war veterans, old revolutionaries, housewives.
The first girl I saw beaten yesterday was wearing a chador, this is not
a western thing here, this is a domestic issue in which Iranian people
have the right to demand a new election.
4:20 p.m. NY Times reports: Relatives of former President Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani say all five
members of his family, including his daughter, Faezeh Hashemi, have
been released by Iranian authorities. As we noted this morning, state
television said five members of the Rafsanjani family had been arrested
on Saturday night.
Thanks for your note. I am
happy to give you my judgment on the Iranian revolt. In brief, it’s one
of the most important movements of our time. It radically undermines
both the realist argument that Muslims are uninterested in democracy
and the Jihadist claim to represent the mass of Muslims. And if it
continues—whether it is crushed or triumphs in the immediate future—it
will add immeasurably to the forces of evolutionary change in the
Muslim world since it strikes me as being more like the Glorious,
American and “velvet” revolutions (i.e., it is a revolution against a
radical revolution) than like the French, Bolshevik, and 1979
revolutions.
[...]
The first is a private
e-mail form my senior colleague, Abbas Djavadi, a former head of Farda
and now the Associate Director for the service as a whole. I had asked
him to predict what might now happen. Here is his reply (which I quote
with permission) from a hurried discussion yesterday:
Defiance?
Definitely, but I don't know for how long. Nobody says it loudly but
everybody understands this is about the Supreme Leader and not only
Ahmadinejad. Yesterday after Khamenei's speech I thought they would
back off. Today in the morning I thought it may be primarily students.
This afternoon surprised me. Not only students, not only Tehran. Maybe
Mousavi has been pushed up as opposition leader against will. He had
the motivation for it for the last 20 years when he kept away from
government. He seems to be emboldened now, seeing the masses and the
ripening of something in the society, in "masses" and in most big
cities.
I
wish I could know if it would continue and how. I think nobody knows. I
am seeing here two big issues, based on what I am hearing and reading
the live inputs and feedback from the "foot soldiers":
1)
Mousavi has to further establish himself as a popular leader. Today he
again said he has prayed to God that he is ready for martyrdom, sign of
strengthened resolve. He needs support from more, hundreds of thousands
and millions of middle and upper classes (villagers never attended the
Islamic revolution 1979, workers joined just in the last few months of
the revolution, middle class did it with a bit upper classes). Bazaris,
for example, teachers, doctors, vendors, municipality workers,
mid-level state employees, lawyers... And the most important: he needs
to get more support from moderate or other clergymen opposed to
Khamenei and Ahmadinejad — people who have been critical, but have
rarely spoken out. If we have that trend growing in the next few weeks
and months, we will have a new ball game in Iran. If not, the
resistance will gradually fade out while reprisals intensify.
2)
Security and organization as well as communication of the opposition
leaders (Mousavi and Karroubi). Today and last weeks were typical. Will
they join the demonstrations? Are the meetings cancelled? There were
hundreds of conflicting news, information and disinformation until it
really happened. And it happened, mainly thanks to the websites,
Facebook and Twitter. 20 years ago it would be unimaginable. But the
communication is distorted and disorganized. Security for the leading
figures is also extremely important. What if Mousavi just disappeared?
(detained, under strict house arrest) etc.? Khomeini in 1978 had the
security provided to him in Paris and his big group of executives in
Europe instructing his army of mullahs inside Iran what to do and how
to lead the movement. In the case of Mousavi, once he is out of the
country, he would be disregarded and would play no role after a year or
so at all. [Yet] staying safe in Iran while the movement is
intensifying is a contradiction per se. And we don't have any relieving
indications that they are well organized. That's also bad. Things may
change and would change if both the defiance continues and if the
leadership grows together with the defiance.
That is the judgment of a shrewd and experienced observer of Iranian politics.
The
second item, just below, is the most recent in a series of letters from
Tehran by one of the many opposition protesters. Much of the time the
Western media has to post items that cannot be confirmed. I’m not
criticizing this. We all have to do it in these circumstances and,
provided we are absolutely candid with our readers and listeners, they
can judge the worth and reliability of such reports. But our services
are fortunate in having ordinary Iranians whom we know and trust to
keep us informed in very vivid personal accounts. The writer below is
one. I think you’ll be impressed by what he writes.
[....]
Dogs of war
We
started our march somewhere close to the Tehran University. Near the
gates of the University the “Dogs of war” (including all of the
militia, police, guards, sarrallah, plain cloth paramilitary,..) pushed
people to the south side of the street beating anyone near the gate and
we found out why as Hooman (who is about six feet tall) reported to us
“daneshjoo haa daran shoar midan,…” (the university students are
chanting behind the gate and the dogs are standing right outside the
gate) he reported. We saw about 100 guards in black armors that looked
like a full blown Japanese Samurai army facing the gates of Tehran
University which was and is a symbol of defiance (the picture of people
demonstrating under the gates of Tehran University are printed on some
money notes). By the time we got to Enghelab square tension was
mounting. People were walking in small groups of five without chanting
and without showing off any colors. But all that changed at 4:10pm
right after we passed the Jamalzadeh avenue (west of enghelaab square
towards Azadi square) as the small groups of people slowly joined each
other automatically.
“Natarsim, Natarsim Maa hame ba ham hastim”
4:20 pm
A
short figured girl who was walking next to me reached in her purse took
out a green wristband and then raised her hands up in the air with a
Victory sign. We all followed and the crowed automatically became a
quiet and defiant freedom seeker band; “be tarafe azadi..” (towards
Freedom) Hooman said aloud in a muffled bass voice. Azadi means
freedom in Persian so towards Azadi can mean either going towards Azadi
square or going towards freedom. His voice was horse from nights of
chanting “Allah Akbar” on the rooftops. The guards had all things
planned and they stopped us in front of the Dampezeshki University
(Veterinary University). They actually blocked us from the front, back
and from the streets. So we pushed ourselves into the street and then
the war started. The evil guards charged towards us and scream
replaced the victory signs. Jaleh, Hooman and I held each others hands
as the wild dogs attacked and the people scrambled and fell over each
other. Within seconds they reached us and they were swiping people up
their feet with clubs, chains, and some innovative black rubber piece
(that looked like a short water hose). We hid behind Hooman but he was
hit on the leg and fell on top of us, Jaleh was hit on her face and I
fell on my right ankle. Screams and yells were everywhere and we were
at first very scared but it seems that the fear disappears after the
first hit. People started chanting “Natarsim, natarsim maa hame ba ham
hastim” (we are not afraid cause we are united).
“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.” – John F. Kennedy
Today, all Iranian expatriates are united in solidarity with the
Iranian people in Iran. Today, we are all standing tall to let the
world hear our continuous aspiration for a free and democratic Iran.
Today, we pledge ourselves, under the divine inspiration, to stand
beside the Iranians in Iran and echo their voices around the globe.
Today, we make history, yet again.
It is critical that freedom-loving people, governments and media, rally
behind the Iranian people and end the tyrannical mullahcracy that is a
scourge on Iran as well as the world. The Iranian people themselves are
fully capable and are determined to remove the cancer of Islamism from
their country. The United States and Israel and other democracies have
a huge stake in the success of the Iranian people to rid themselves of
the Islamic oppression and tyranny.
2:07 pm: How cancerous is leftist thinking? It knows no bounds and infects the very souls of people. Who can forget all those "death to the Jews" marches back in January during the Gaza defensive when Israel finally attempted to put an end to the 8,000 plus rocket attacks from Gaza. The leftists and the Muslims took to the streets in Europe, Asia and the US screaming for the death of the tiny Jewish nation. Tens of thousands of haters.
Where are these voices now? Where is the left now? Where are the fellow Muslims of the victims of the Iranain revolution? Where's da ummah?
Where are the tens of thousands of hypocrites, liars and degenerates? At Trader Joe's?
1:23pm: Obama To Demonstrators:
"We Are Bearing Witness". Ugh. Longing for Bush. Longing for testicular fortitude. Longing for a president that sides with freedom not jihad.
More splintering among Iran’s clerics is reported by Reuters. The most senior opposition ayatollah, Hossein Ali Montazeri, distanced himself further from Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who declared the June 12 elections valid and demanded a halt to public protests in a hard-line sermon on Friday. In a statement posted Sunday on his Web site, Ayatollah Montazeri said, “Resisting people’s demand is religiously prohibited … I am calling for three days of national mourning from Wednesday.” Last week the ayatollah described the election results as something that “no wise person in their right mind can believe.”
Screw the clerics. They are trying to make this a religious revolution? I don't think so. Call me crazy but it's a violent reaction against the religious regime.
1:15 pm: “Have no fear, we are all together,” and then “Down with dictator.” The video is said to be of a demonstration on Sunday on Shirazi Street in Tehran.
1:06: There's been a lot of speculation that former President Hashemi Rafsanjani is very much a player behind the scenes............. in support of the revolution. Must be some truth to it. They arrested his daughter.
Iranian state television says authorities have arrested the daughter of former President Hashemi Rafsanjani together with four other family members for taking part in unauthorized protest rallies.
State TV has shown pictures of Faezeh Hashemi, Rafsanjani's eldest daughter, speaking to hundreds of opposition supporters last week.
12:57: CNN is showing amateur video of Tehran. The streets are packed with protesters.
12:25pmTwitition (twitter petition): Since the Iranian government is blocking internet access, Google should update the satellite images so people can follow the movement of protesters.
12:05pm: Over at Boston.com: PARIS—Iranian authorities have arrested 23 journalists and bloggers since post-election protests began a week ago, according to a media watchdog that says reporters are a "priority target" for Iran's leadership.
11am: (hat tip Kenneth via the Guardian) The man who leaked the real election results from the Interior Ministry - the ones showing Ahmadinejad coming third - was killed in a suspicious car accident, according to unconfirmed reports, writes Saeed Kamali Dehghan in Tehran.
Mohammad Asgari, who was responsible for the security of the IT network in Iran's interior ministry, was killed yesterday in Tehran. Asgari had reportedly leaked results that showed the elections were rigged by government use of new software to alter the votes from the provinces.
Asgari was said to have leaked information that showed Mousavi had won almost 19 million votes, and should therefore be president.
As the Iranian authorities continue
their crackdown on opposition rallies, foreign journalists, and the internet,
what next for the protest movement? Follow live updates on the aftermath of
Iran's disputed presidential election
The youth draw on videos like this for inspiration before they hit the streets and put their lives on the line.
Supporters of Mir Hossein Mousavi protest in the streets of
Tehran. Somayeh Soheily/The Guardian
But he also endorsed the guardian council's decision to conduct a partial
recount of Friday's ballot.
"Those in charge of supervising the elections are always trustworthy people,
but this should not prevent an investigation into possible problems and
clarifying the truth," Khamenei is quoted as saying.
8am: On the subject of Twitter,
we face a tricky dilemma.
We have been contacted by a number of people urging us not to link to
individual Twitter users in Iran. They claim that this puts people in real
danger, although Twitter users in Iran have not repeated this concern.
On the other hand Twitter
users are providing vital updates on the situation at a time when foreign
journalists are facing severe restrictions. Linking to tweets (which are of
course published on the internet) helps readers to asses the veracity of what is
being reported. If we don't link won't this simply help silence opposition and
citizen journalism in Iran?
8.20am: More disturbing video
footage of the clampdown on protesters has been posted to YouTube (and talked
about on Twitter). As is so often the case it is impossible to know when this
was filmed, but I haven't seen it before.
8.50am: Twitter linking update:
My bosses (our own Guardian Council) have decided that it is best to err on the
side of caution and not to link to Twitter updates from Iran for now.
Reuters copy is now accompanied by this warning: "Reuters coverage is now
subject to an Iranian ban on foreign media leaving the office to report, film or
take pictures in Tehran."
9.15am: Our Middle East editor,
Ian Black, says the opposition movement is "amorphous and leaderless" in
contrast to the power of the state. He says the outcome of the current power
struggle could hinge on a partial recount of the election ordered by the
guardian council. "How many people are going to believe the outcome?" he asks.
It notes the previous crackdown on similar rallies. "Tehran's governor
general Morteza Tamaddon is quoted as saying: "Seven people were killed and 29
injured during the illegal rally on Monday."
The report adds: "While Mousavi backs the right of his supporters to express
their dissatisfaction with peaceful protests, the candidate, who suffered a
crushing defeat, has asked his supporters to keep calm and vigilant and to not
fall into 'traps'."
9.55am: Iran's foreign ministry
has summoned European ambassadors to criticise their "interventionist
and impudent" stances on the disputed election, according to the state news
agency ISNA.
10am: The Iranian authorities
have intensified their crackdown on communications by blocking access to Yahoo,
writes Saeed Kamali Dehghan from Tehran.
Yahoo Messenger had played an important role since Friday, when the
Iranian government began to block Iran's mobile phone network and satellite TV
channels, including the BBC's Persian Service.
"Yahoo Messenger was one of the most important means that Iranians could
still distribute information after the government filtered Facebook and
Twitter‚" said Mahmoud Mirhashemi, 24, an engineering graduate from the Iran
University of Science and Technology.
"In the early morning I couldn't log into my Yahoo Messenger account. First I
thought that's because of the government clampdowns on the internet but then I
found that I have access to other websites but not my Messenger," he said.
"The internet has a very important social function in Iran in comparison to
Europe and other countries. We are one of the top 10 world's active blogging
communities because of the level of censorship inside the country and now the
government is cracking down on the internet as well," he said.
An Iranian blogger, who wished to remain anonymous, said: "Iran's blogging
community has been very quiet this week - mostly because they are afraid of
being arrested. The government has already filtered thousands of websites and
blogs since Friday's election."
Iran has already blocked access to Facebook, Twitter and at least 20 websites
affiliated to Iran's defeated reformist candidate, Mir Hussein Mousavi, although
some users still can update their profiles by using proxy sites.
"Before this we could bypass filtering by using proxy websites, the links for
which were distributed daily among friends by email. But now the Iranian
communication ministry has also begun to tackle proxy websites too‚" said Majid
Farahani, a 21-year-old student.
"But there is still a small number of people who update their Facebook and
Twitter profiles by using special anti-filtering programmes installed on their
PC rather than regular proxy websites. The problem is that many people don't
know how to use this software‚" he said.
10.05am: The Revolutionary
Guard, an elite military force answering to Supreme Leader, warned bloggers to
remove any materials that "create tension" or face legal action, AP reports.
Meanwhile, the US-based International Campaign for
Human Rights in Iran says there has been mass arrests
of leading reformists including politicians, intellectuals, activists and
journalists.
It is getting reports that in the city of Tabriz more than 100 prominent
figures have been arrested.
Iranian protesters after the helicopters released some sort of chemical liquid.
Tweet: Call from Iran reports severe skin burns due to the unknown liquid dropped from helicopters.
![[REVIEW & OUTLOOK]](http://s.wsj.net/public/resources/images/OB-DX413_oj_1ro_E_20090621214643.jpg)
Associated Press
The speaker says:
"I am here in order to tell you that my sister had big dreams.
"I am here in order to tell you that my sister was very modest [in her dreams].
"She longed - just like me - after one day feeling the wind in her hair, and just like me she loved poems by Farukh (?), a Persian poet, and she...