AVOID MUSLIM IRAN
Guardian
October 24, 2022
Iranian
security forces fired teargas outside a girls’ school in Tehran when
clashes broke out after staff attempted to inspect students’ mobile
phones amid ongoing anti-government protests.
Iran’s
Ministry of Education said several students were treated by emergency
services for a drop in blood pressure, but denied that security forces
had entered the school.
But
videos circulating on social media showed heavily armed security forces
outside the school. One clip showed them on motorbikes and firing at
least one teargas canister. The authenticity of the footage could not
be independently verified.
Unrest
ignited by the death of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old Kurdish-Iranian
woman who was detained by the Islamic Republic’s morality police for
“improper attire” and died in police custody, has swept Iran for five
weeks. Rights groups say nearly 250 people have been killed in the
crackdown.
Women
and girls have played a prominent part in the protests, removing and
burning veils. The deaths of several teenage girls reportedly killed
during protests have fuelled more anger.
Demonstrations
continued on Monday, with a rally at a university in the western city
of Hamedan, and students shouting down a government spokesperson who
visited a Tehran university, according to students’ and rights groups.
The
education ministry said there was a clash at the Tehran high school
between staff, students and parents after the school principal insisted
on checking the girls’ phones.
The
widely followed activist Twitter account Tasvir1500 said uniformed
forces attacked the school and at least one girl was wounded, but the
city police denied their account.
“After
news of a conflict near a high school … police were dispatched to the
area and investigated the issue which turned out to be a fight between
a number of thugs,” Tehran police said, adding that agitators were
identified and arrested.
Rights
groups say thousands of people have been arrested in the crackdown,
which started in Amini’s home town of Saqez in north-west Iran before
spreading across the country.
Protesters
have called for an end to the religious clerical rule that has governed
Iran since the 1979 Islamic revolution, and for the overthrow of the
supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
On
Monday a court in Tehran indicted 315 people arrested in recent “riots”
for “gathering and conspiring with intent to damage national security,
propaganda against the system and igniting public disorder,” state news
agency Irna reported, citing a judiciary official.
Four
of the detainees have been charged as enemies of God, an offence which
under Iran’s interpretation of sharia law incurs the death penalty.
Videos on social media showed anti-government protests at several universities, with students chanting “Death to Khamenei”.
Khamenei
has warned that nobody should dare think they can uproot the Islamic
Republic, and has accused adversaries of fomenting the unrest. State TV
has reported the deaths of at least 26 security force members.
At
the Khajeh Nasir Toosi University of Technology in Tehran, video
footage showed government spokesperson Ali Bahadori Jahromi being
interrupted with chants of “Woman, life, freedom” as he addressed
students, who also shouted: “We don’t want a corrupt system, we don’t
want a murderous guest.”
Husband Says Iran Sentenced Activist Wife to Prison, Lashes
1-25-22
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Iran has sentenced a prominent human rights activist to more than eight years prison, according to her husband.
Paris-based Taghi Rahmani tweeted on Sunday that his wife, Narges Mohammadi, was tried in five minutes and sentenced to prison and 70 lashes. He has said she is prohibited from communicating and has no access to lawyers. Last week, she was sent to Gharchak prison near Tehran.
Authorities arrested Mohammadi in November after she attended memorial for a victim of violent 2019 protests. Rahmani said in December his wife stood accused of “spying for Saudi Arabia.”
Mohammadi has a long history of imprisonment, harsh sentences and international calls for reviews of her case.
In May, the European Union called on Iran to reconsider her sentence of 30 months in prison and 80 lashes on charges of protesting the killing of protesters during the country’s 2019 unrest.
A spokesperson for the bloc urged Iran to look into Mohammadi’s case under “applicable international human rights law and taking into account her deteriorating health condition.” Mohammadi confirmed her sentence at the time in an Instagram post, saying she does not “accept any of these sentences.”
In the post, Mohammadi said one of the charges against her is having a party and dancing in jail.
She was released from jail in October 2020, after serving eight and a half years in prison, after her initial, 10-year sentence was commuted. In that case, she was sentenced in Tehran’s Revolutionary Court on charges including planning crimes to harm the security of Iran, spreading propaganda against the government and forming and managing an illegal group.
Before imprisonment, Mohammadi was vice president of the banned Defenders of Human Rights Center in Iran.
Mohammadi has been close to Iranian Nobel Peace Prize laureate Shirin Ebadi, who founded the center. Ebadi left Iran after the disputed re-election of then-President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in 2009, which touched off unprecedented protests and harsh crackdowns by authorities.
In 2018, Mohammadi, an engineer, was awarded the 2018 Andrei Sakharov Prize.
Iranian guards sexually
assaulted female IAEA inspectors - report
Iranian
security guards allegedly sexually assaulted female IAEA inspectors at the
Natanz nuclear facility.
SEPTEMBER 14,
2021
Iranian
security guards made female International
Atomic Energy Agency(IAEA) inspectors remove clothing and then
inappropriately touched them at Iran's Natanz nuclear facility, according
to The Wall Street Journal.
At least four
separate incidents of harassment were reported since early June, one diplomat
told The Wall Street Journal, while another diplomat said that there had
been five to seven. The most recent incident was reported in the past few
weeks.
"What I
understand is that there was touching in different places, sensitive places and
so on," said one diplomat to the newspaper.
A paper
circulated by the US among IAEA members ahead of a board meeting of the
agency's member states this week demanded an end to the conduct.
"Harassment
of IAEA inspectors is absolutely unacceptable, and we strongly urge you to make
clear in your national statement at the Board meeting that such conduct is
deplorable and must end immediately, and that the Board should take appropriate
action if further incidents are reported," read the paper, according to
the report.
The IAEA
confirmed to The Wall Street Journal that incidents had occurred at
the facility, without providing details.
The UN nuclear
watchdog on Tuesday described as "unacceptable" incidents in Iran
involving its inspectors, in which diplomats say security staff subjected
female inspectors to inappropriate searches that the United States is calling
harassment.
"The
Agency immediately and firmly raised this issue with Iran to explain in very
clear and unequivocal terms that such security-related incidents involving
Agency staff are unacceptable and must not happen again," the IAEA said.
"Iran has
provided explanations related to reinforced security procedures following
events at one of their facilities. As a result of this exchange between the
Agency and Iran there have been no further incidents."
Iran's
ambassador to the IAEA, Kazem Gharibabadi, said on
Twitter: "Security measures at the nuclear facilities in Iran are,
reasonably, tightened. The IAEA inspectors have gradually come up with the new
rules and regulations."
“The Agency
immediately and firmly raised this issue with Iran to explain in very clear and
unequivocal terms that such security-related incidents involving Agency staff
are unacceptable and must not happen again. Iran has provided explanations
related to reinforced security procedures following events at one of their
facilities,” an IAEA spokesman told the newspaper. “As a result of this
exchange between the Agency and Iran there have been no further incidents.”
This isn't the
first time that Iran has faced allegations of harassment against IAEA
inspectors. In 2019, a female inspector was detained at the airport and Tehran
had her travel documents taken from her. Iran claimed at the time that she had
traces of explosives on her and later released her.
Other
incidents of alleged harassment took place before nuclear negotiations began in
2013 before the JCPOA nuclear deal was signed, according to The Wall
Street Journal.
In
April, Iran was elected to
the United Nation's Commission on the Status of Women for a four-year term
along with China, Japan, Lebanon and Pakistan.
The Commission
on the Status of Women is the "global champion for gender equality,"
according to the organization. It works to develop and uphold standards in
which all women can exercise their human rights. The commission focuses on
issues it deems fundamental to women's equality and attempts to promote the
progress of women worldwide.
Women's rights
are severely restricted in Iran, Human Rights Watch (HRW) reported, saying that
they face "serious discrimination" on
a variety of issues including marriage, divorce and child custody. Women have
been jailed for speaking out in favor of women's rights, HRW reported.
Domestic
violence, marital rape, early and forced marriage are all offenses that Iranian
authorities have failed to criminalize, according to Amnesty International.
These offenses and other gender-based violence against women remain widespread
in the country, according to Amnesty International.
Authorities
have also failed to take steps against men who kill their wives or daughters
and the legal age for marriage is 13, although men can obtain permission to
marry their daughters and granddaughters earlier, said Amnesty International.
“Electing the
Islamic Republic of Iran to protect women’s rights is like making an arsonist
into the town fire chief,” said Hillel Neuer,
executive director of UN Watch, at the time. “It’s absurd — and morally
reprehensible.”
Ultraconservative
'Butcher' Ebrahim Raisi who ordered thousands killed
in mass executions and tortured pregnant women wins Iranian presidential
election
Ebrahim Raisi, 60, will be Iran's eight president after Friday's
election
Turnout
figures of just under 50 per cent were recorded amid 'boycott'
Three other
candidates dropped from the race before results were announced
Amnesty
International believe Raisi should be investigated
for alleged crimes against humanity, with their calls backed by the National
Council of Resistance
PUBLISHED: 05:25
EDT, 19 June 2021
Ebrahim Raisi has been named Iran's next president, after his rivals
conceded before official results were even announced in the country's lowest
ever election turnout for a presidential election.
Raisi is known as 'the butcher' for disappearing
and executing thousands of opposition prisoners in 1988 while serving as
Tehran's deputy prosecutor and allegedly ordering pregnant woman
tortured.
It is thought
that at least several thousand and possibly more than 30,000 activists were put
to death - hanged by construction cranes in batches of 10 - during the
purge.
Iranian
political prisoners who were interrogated, tortured and sentenced to die by Raisi have recently told of their horrifying
experiences.
Farideh Goudarzi, who was
jailed for being part of a banned political group, told MailOnline
how Raisi watched guards drop her baby on the
floor as part of one brutal interrogation - after she was tortured while
pregnant and forced to give birth in jail.
Similarly Mahmoud Royaee,
another political prisoner interrogated by Raisi
during the 1988 executions, said he once handed down a death sentence to an
inmate who was in the midst of an epileptic fit.
Amnesty
International have said that Raisi should be
investigated for alleged crimes against humanity for his role on the 'Death
Commission'.
'That Ebrahim Raisi has risen to the presidency instead of being investigated
for the crimes against humanity of murder, enforced disappearance and torture,
is a grim reminder that impunity reigns supreme in Iran,' Amnesty said in a
statement.
Raisi won 62 per cent of the votes with 90 per
cent counted so far. Turnout figures of just under 50 per cent were recorded
after voting was extended by two hours amid fears that turnout would be lower
than 50 per cent.
Exiled
opposition groups said that the majority of voters shunned the presidential
elections, hailing the boycott which they urged voters to take part in as a
blow to the country's theocratic system.
Maryam Rajavi, the leader of the National Council of Resistance of
Iran (NCRI), said the 'nationwide boycott' was the 'greatest political and
social blow' to the system led by supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
'The boycott
proved and showed the world that the Iranian people's only vote is to overthrow
this mediaeval regime,' she was quoted by the NCRI as saying.
The People's
Mujahedin Organisation of Iran (MEK/PMOI) whose
political wing is the NCRI believe the actual turnout was 10 percent and the
authorities have inflated it by a factor of five in an 'astronomical
fabrication', the NCRI said.
Their
assessment was based on reports of 1,200 witnesses from 400 cities in Iran and
more than 3,500 video clips from polling stations, it said, without indicating
how the figure had been calculated or giving further proof.
The three
other candidates in the race congratulated the 60-year-old ultraconservative on
his victory following an 'election' that saw moderate candidates purged from
voting lists.
Outgoing
President Hassan Rouhani, 72, congratulated 'the people on their choice' and
added: 'My official congratulations will come later, but we know who got enough
votes in this election.'
Other
candidates Mohsen Rezai and Amirhossein Qazizadeh Hashemi and Abdolnasser Hemmati also offered
their congratulations.
Raisi will be Iran's eight president taking over
from Rouhani, a moderate who has served the maximum of two consecutive
four-year-terms, in August.
Ultimate
political power in Iran, since its 1979 revolution toppled the US-backed
monarchy, rests with the supreme leader.
But the
president, as the top official of the state bureaucracy, also wields significant
influence in fields from industrial policy to foreign affairs.
Rouhani's key
achievement was the landmark 2015 deal with world powers under which Iran
pledged to limit its nuclear programme and refrain
from acquiring the atomic bomb in return for sanctions relief.
But high hopes
for greater prosperity and a reopening to the world were crushed in 2018 when
then-US president Donald Trump withdrew from the accord and launched an economic
and diplomatic 'maximum pressure' campaign against Iran.
While Iran has
insisted its nuclear programme is for peaceful
purposes only, Trump accused it of secretly seeking the bomb and of destabilising the wider Middle East through armed proxy groups,
and hit the country with sanctions.
Raisi will take over as the country looks to
salvage its nuclear deal with major powers and free itself from the US
sanctions which have contributed towards a
economic downturn.
Many voters on
Friday evening chose to stay away after the field of some 600 applicants,
including 40 women, had been whittled down to just seven male
candidates.
Ex president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who
has refused to vote as a result, and a former parliament speaker were excluded
from the ballot.
Three of the
candidates dropped out of the race two days before the election on Friday, with
two of them throwing their support behind Raisi.
Enthusiasm for
the election has been dampened by claims that the election has been state
managed, and by inflation, job losses and the coronavirus pandemic, which has
killed more than 80,000 people in the country according to the official
count.
One shopkeeper
said: 'Whether I vote or not, someone has already been elected,' scoffed Tehran
shopkeeper Saeed Zareie. 'They organise
the elections for the media.'
But, many of
those who voted showed support for Raisi, who has
promised to fight corruption, help the poor and build millions of flats for
low-income families.
A nurse called
Sahebiyan said she supported him for his anti-graft
credentials and with the hope that he would 'move the country forward... and
save the people from economic, cultural and social deprivation'.
To opposition
and human rights groups, Raisi's name is linked to
the mass execution of political prisoners in 1988 - something which he has
denied being part of.
It added that
the 'whereabouts of [victims] bodies are, to this day, systematically concealed
by the Iranian authorities, amounting to ongoing crimes against
humanity.'
The group also
said that Raisi had 'presided over a spiralling crackdown on human rights' while serving as
Iran's judiciary chief for the past two years.
It said the
crackdown had seen 'hundreds of peaceful dissidents, human rights defenders and
members of persecuted minority groups arbitrarily detained'.
'Under his
watch, the judiciary has also granted blanket impunity to government officials
and security forces responsible for unlawfully killing hundreds of men, women
and children,' the statement read.
'We continue
to call for Ebrahim Raisi to be investigated for his
involvement in past and ongoing crimes under international law, including by
states that exercise universal jurisdiction,' it said.
Iranian political
prisoners who were interrogated, tortured and sentenced to die by Ebrahim Raisi have told of their horrifying experiences
as Iran prepares to make
him the country's next president.
Farideh Goudarzi, who was
jailed for being part of a banned political group, told MailOnline
how Raisi watched guards drop her baby on the
floor as part of one brutal interrogation - after she was tortured while
pregnant and forced to give birth in jail.
Meanwhile Mahmoud
Royaee, another political prisoner interrogated by Raisi during the execution of up to 30,000 opposition
activists in a 1988 purge, said Raisi once handed
down a death sentence to an inmate who was in the midst of an epileptic fit.
On Friday, the
60-year-old hardliner is expected to be named Iran's next president following
an 'election' that saw moderate candidates purged from voting lists.
Both Goudarzi and Royaee said Raisi's appointment is intended to send a message to
Iranians - following a series of large protests in recent years - that dissent
will no longer be tolerated.
'Raisi is being brought to power to massacre these
people,' Goudarzi said.
'So the message to the people of my country is detention,
torture, and execution.
'The message
of for the rest of the world is the propagation and export of terrorism. There
is no other message.'
Goudarzi explained that she was first arrested in
1983 for being part of the People's Mujahedin of Iran, a left-wing
pro-democracy organisation and militant group.
At the time of
her arrest she was 21 years old and eight months
pregnant by her husband who was arrested two days before her, alongside her
brother.
Despite being
heavily pregnant, she said she was taken to torture chambers beneath the
courthouse in the city of Hamedan - into a small, bloodstained room where
she says she was tied down to a bed and beaten by guards.
There, guards
asked her to give up the names and addresses of other members of
the Mujahedin, which Goudarzi said she refused
to do - leading them to torture her.
'In the corner
of the room I saw a number of cables of different sizes and different widths,
on the floor next to the bed was a lot of blood,' she said.
'It was clear that
before me another prisoner had been tortured there.
'They put me
on the bed and would slap and strike my face, with the cable they flogged my
hands.'
Goudarzi said there were seven or eight people in the
room, one of whom was Raisi - overseeing the interrogation
in his position as the prosecutor of Hamedan.
After two
weeks in detention she said she gave birth to a son,
but was sent immediately to solitary confinement with her infant child.
The
interrogations did not stop even after she gave birth, she claims, saying she
was taken to torture chambers virtually every day and asked for information.
When that
failed to yield results, Goudarzi says the
guards began to use her son as part of the torture regime.
'When my son
was only 38 days old, one night about 1am, a number of guards and interrogators
raided the cell looking for documents.
'They banged
the door open and several came in. They grabbed my child and from a distance of
2ft they threw him on the ground.
'I was
screaming 'what do you want' but nobody was paying attention. My son woke up
and was screaming.
'The guards
ripped his clothes off... They were looking for documents or information, but
they didn't specify what exactly
'The next day
me and my child we were blindfolded and taken to the Hamedan court.
'From 8am
until 2pm I was interrogated, in all that time my child was hungry and crying
of hunger.
'One of the
guards grabbed him and in front of my eyes hit him on the back, and the entire
time I could hear the cries of my child.
'Standing
there and witnessing the whole thing was Raisi.'
Goudarzi said her husband was also tortured - flogged
and lashed so severely that he had to spend time in a mental hospital.
After 11 months
in detention, in 1984, he was handed a death sentence by Raisi
and hanged from a construction crane in the courtyard of the courthouse.
Meanwhile her
brother was given 20 years in prison for belonging to a banned group. She was
sentenced to five years.
That
meant Goudarzi and her brother were still in
jail when the regime began purging political prisoners in what became known as
the 1988 Death Commission.
It is thought
that an order - possible from Ayatollah Khomeinei
himself - was sent to prosecutors across Iran ordering them to put all
political prisoners on trial for their lives as 'apostates of Islam'.
The order
covered tens of thousands of prisoners who were serving sentences for belonging
to opposition groups including the Mujahedin, as well as thousands more
who had completed their sentences and were waiting for release.
Many had been
students when they were initially arrested, including some who were as young as
15 or 16.
One of those
men was Mahmoud Royaee, who told MailOnline that he was originally arrested aged 18 in 1981
and taken to the notorious Evin prison in Tehran
where he was tortured and then handed a death sentence for belonging to
the Mujahedin.
His sentence
was reduced to 10 years after his father paid money to the court, and until
1988 he was moved between three jails before ending up in Gohardasht
prison, some 20 miles from Tehran, as the Death Commission got underway.
Royaee told MailOnline
that he was hauled to court in Karaj, where Raisi was
also a prosecutor, and told to sign a piece of paper denouncing
the Mujahedin and requesting amnesty from Khomeinei.
When he
refused, he said Raisi and another prosecutor threw
him out of court - unbeknownst to him, they had ordered his execution.
But, thanks to
well-connected family members who knew people at the court, Royaee
was not immediately hanged and was instead sent back in front of prosecutors -
clutching a piece of paper on which he had written a short statement saying he
was not in contact with any opposition groups.
Royaee said he was thrown out a second time and
sent to a 'death corridor' where people waiting to be executed were sat -
although they didn't know this at the time.
But his name
was never called by the executioners - he believes because the handwritten appeal
was never resolved by prosecutors, meaning his name was not added to the death
lists and he survived.
Others were
not so lucky.
'One of my
friends who was a prisoner was suffering from heavy epilepsy. More than 50 per
cent of his body was disabled, he couldn't move it,' Royaee
said.
'Also his prison term had expired and was finished, he was
waiting to be released. They still took him to the death commission.
'When they brought
him to the [court] he had a seizure. The other prisoners there, although they
were blindfolded, they tried to help him to stop him from striking his head on
the ground.
'In that
condition he was summoned by Raisi and his death
sentence was signed - a person whose prison sentence was finished.
'He was
suffering epilepsy, he was half paralyzed, he had lost some of his memory. Even
to him, they showed no mercy.
'If Raisi was not on the death commission, he would still be
alive. Nobody else would have given that sentence.'
The man's
death was just one of many that took place in five bloody months in the summer
of 1988.
While exact
numbers of the dead are unknown, it is thought that at least several thousand
and possibly more than 30,000 people were put to death - hanged by construction
cranes in batches of 10.
Among them
was Goudarzi's brother, who was still serving
his 20-year sentence for being part of the Mujahedin.
She was also
taken back to solitary confinement and tortured for three months to try and
extract more information, but ultimately escaped the death penalty thanks to
the pleadings of a senior cleric.
Fortunately,
by that time her son had been allowed to leave prison and go to live with her
family so he escaped the torture.
She was finally
released from jail in the autumn of 1988, just a few months after the Death
Commission ended. Royaee was forced to serve out
the remaining three years of his sentence before he was also released.
Four years
later Royaee fled Iran with the help of friends who
live outside the country, and he now lives in Albania.
Goudarzi remained in Iran for the next 28 years, but
decided to flee the country when her son was arrested for belonging to
the Mujahedin - just as she was.
Fearing that
he would suffer the same fate as his father and uncle, the pair fled the
country before also making their way to Albania.
But while the
pair may have left their old lives behind, both said that Raisi
is a figure that will never leave their minds.
Royaee said: 'He had no humanity,
he was very vicious towards the prisoners.
'The hatred
that he was filled with against the prisoners - I have seen very few people
like that.
'It's
intolerable for me, for the families of the victims and for the nation of Iran
to even contemplate such a man having the presidency.
'His place is
in court, on the defendant's chair.'
Goudarzi added: 'In my opinion Raisi
is the murdered of the children of Iran, he is a criminal.'
Both have
called on western governments to oppose Raisi's
appointment and to put pressure on the regime by refusing to deal with it - a
pointed reference to nuclear negotiations that Biden has pledged to
resume.
Iranians do
get to vote in the presidential election with the ballot held on Friday, but
candidates have to be vetted and approved by the regime ahead of time - with Raisi their clear favourite.
Raisi - currently the head of the Iranian
judiciary who has been responsible for the detention of foreign nations and
crushing protests in Iran - is also the current frontrunner with voters,
according to polling.
Hassan Rouhani,
a religious moderate who has been president since 2013, is barred from running
again due to term limits - while other members of his political faction have
been purged from the candidate lists.
While the
country Supreme Leader - Ayatollah Ali Khamenei - has the final say on all
matters to do with the state, the president sets domestic policy and is also
responsible for setting the tone in which Iran interacts with the world.
How Iran
Completely and Utterly Botched Its Response to the Coronavirus
We were
doctors in the Iranian health system for years. This is what happens when you
make health policy subservient to politics.
By Kamiar Alaei and Arash Alaei
Kamiar and Arash Alaei are Iranian health-policy experts and co-presidents
of the Institute for International Health and Education in Albany, N.Y.
March 6, 2020
Iran has one of
the very best health care systems in the Middle East, a decentralized system
with thousands of medical centers across the country that provide primary,
secondary and tertiary care with an effective referral system. We worked as
doctors in that system for years.
Yet at
least 107 people in
Iran have been killed by the new coronavirus, the largest
number of deaths outside of China. The dead include a senior adviser to the
supreme leader. One of the country’s vice presidents, 23 members of Parliament,
the deputy health minister and several other senior government officials are
among the 3,513 people officially confirmed to have been infected.
Lives could
have been saved and the scale of the contagion contained if the Islamic
Republic had not made health policy subservient to its politics. As the World
Health Organization classified the outbreak a “public health emergency” at the end
of January, we worried about Iranian authorities not being prepared and not
choosing the right approach to battle the virus.
We helped
expand H.I.V. prevention and care programs in Iran. The government of the early
2000s supported us, and the program to battle AIDS made great progress. In the
fall of 2005, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad replaced the reformist Mohammad Khatami as
the president. Mr. Ahmadinejad was suspicious of Iranians working with foreign
partners, and he insisted there were no gays in Iran. Soon, restrictions on our
work increased.
In June 2008,
we were arrested. After a very brief trial, we brothers were sentenced to
prison, for three years (Kamiar) and six years (Arash), for “communicating with an enemy government.” After
our release from prison, we moved to the United States, where Kamiar had earned a master’s degree from Harvard.
Our experience
made us worry about the Iranian response to health crises, especially given the
sense of siege and volatility that has followed increased conflict with the
United States, an economy devastated by sanctions, the brutal suppression of
mass protests in November.
Iranian
authorities showed no signs of being prepared to deal with a coronavirus
outbreak and were dismissive of the danger it posed. On Jan 31, Iran’s
neighbor Turkey canceled
flights to China and started screening foreign arrivals at its
airports.
Hundreds of
Chinese students and junior clerics study at the seminaries at Qum, which is
the most important center of theological study for Shiite Muslims from across
the world and draws pilgrims to its shrines.
Iranian businessmen
frequently travel to China. Hundreds of Chinese workers and engineers are
employed across Iran. China is an important partner for Iran, and Tehran did
not risk slighting Beijing. Flights between Iran and China continued.
Iran donated one
million face masks to China.
The first
mention by the Iranian government of the disease’s arrival in the country was a
report of two deaths in Qum on Feb. 19. The first victim is believed to be an
Iranian businessman who had traveled to Wuhan, the Chinese city where the
coronavirus was first detected. A doctor in Qum is believed to be the second
Iranian victim. They are feared to have been sick and infecting others, from
their family members to friends and colleagues, for weeks before their deaths.
The contagion
spread to all of Iran’s 31 provinces. Pilgrims from several countries who had
visited Qum were found to be infected. On Feb. 24, officials from the health
ministry announced that there were 64 cases in the country and that 12 people
had died from the outbreak. Ahmad Amirabadi Farahani,
a member of Parliament from Qum, contradicted the official accounts and told an
Iranian news agency that 50 people in the
city were already dead.
The official
response was glaring denial of the magnitude of the crisis. Iraj
Harirchi, the deputy minister of health, denied Mr.
Farahani’s allegation and promised to resign if the death toll proved to be
even one fourth of his claim. A day later, Mr. Harirchi
himself tested positive
for the coronavirus, and is under quarantine.
By that time,
the fourth week of February, it became evident that a disproportionate number
of members of Parliament and senior government officials were infected. Iranian
politicians and officials travel frequently between Tehran and Qum, and it is
most likely that one of them contracted the virus in Qum and infected
colleagues in Tehran, where the newly elected Parliament was in session.
Iranians have
a culture of greeting each other by kissing the other person on the cheeks.
Politicians often overdo it to show their closeness to power players. In this
particular moment, the greeting could have transmitted the virus.
We learned of
the officials being infected early on because Tehran made the welfare of the
elite a priority and moved them to the front of the line for testing.
Even doctors
and medical staff members at the smaller government hospitals were not alerted
to take precautions until after the number of cases started to increase
rapidly. The results of a test of a nurse from a small village in Geelan province were
communicated a week after her
death.
Iran reported
the first deaths in Qum two days before the parliamentary elections. The trust
in the government was low after its brutal suppression of the protests in
November and its cover-up of the accidental shooting-down of a Ukrainian
jetliner in the aftermath of Gen. Qassim Suleimani’s
assassination.
A high turnout
in the elections would help improve the legitimacy of the government. Tehran
seems to have suppressed information about the coronavirus because it did not
want participation in the elections to be affected.
Although the
hard-liners won the elections, voting was the lowest since 1979. The supreme
leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, accused the country’s enemies of exaggerating
the threat of the coronavirus right before the elections to keep voters away
from the polls.
Iran could
have minimized the outbreak by moving swiftly to quarantine Qum, which is very
crowded and heavily infected, but it did not. Some measures have now been
taken. For instance, subway cars in Tehran have been disinfected, schools
across the country are closed and Friday Prayer services are canceled in most
provinces.
The
authorities must immediately get relatives of all the infected and the deceased
tested. They must put out truthful, transparent numbers and make assessments
based on those numbers, enhance protections for health care workers and target
the most affected areas. Qum must be quarantined.
Western
countries in collaboration with the World Health Organization and other
international institutions must take the lead on global medical diplomacy and
do more to provide testing kits to Iran. The United States must overcome its
belligerent posture toward Iran, provide the medical and technical support that
could save lives and ease the difficulties American and European companies face
in supplying medicines and medical equipment to Iran.
The most
important lesson of the coronavirus crisis in Iran is that health policy must
never be politicized, especially in terms of emergency medical response.
Kamiar Alaei and Arash Alaei are Iranian
health-policy experts and the co-presidents of the Institute for International
Health and Education in Albany, N.Y.
Iran
introduces 2,000 new morality police units in response to women's hijab protests
by Ahmed Vahdat
7 JUNE 2019
The Telegraph
Iran has
introduced 2,000 new morality police units in reaction to what officials call
an “increasing defiance” of the compulsory wearing of hijabs.
The units,
called “resistance groups for verbal and practical response to bad-hijabi women”, were launched recently in the northern
province of Gilan as part of a pilot scheme.
They are each
made up of six women who have the power to arrest and detain those they deem to
be flouting the country’s strict veiling laws.
The move comes
amid a growing backlash by women in
the Islamic Republic, hundreds of whom have been arrested for taking off their
head coverings in public in protest at the law.
A campaign
by rights activists called “White Wednesday” encouraging women to wear white
and discard their hijabs has also gained support, much to the consternation of
conservative clerics.
While Iran has
had various forms of "morality police" since the 1979 Islamic
Revolution, the decision to increase their numbers as well as introduce
all-female brigades, is a sign that authorities are adopting a tougher approach.
Mohammad Abdulahpour, the commander of Gilan
province’s Revolutionary Guards unit, has said that the survival of the Islamic
revolution depends on the full implementation of Islamic traditions and that
“the issue of hijab is not a simple matter, but rather a serious political and
security issue for our country.”
“The enemy is
heavily investing in changing our nation’s culture to adopt a Western
lifestyle,” Mr Abdulahpour
told local Tasnim news agency.
Cleric Rasoul Falahati, representative
of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei in the province, condemned women who defy
the hijab as an insult to the Islamic Republic.
“We do not
wish to show a violent image of our religion, but models and promoters of vile
fashions not only defy the hijab,” he said. “But are nowadays appearing almost
naked on our streets.”
Iran’s police
have also recently installed special cameras on the country’s highways to take
photos of those female drivers who remove their hijab once they leave the town centres.
Women’s rights
defenders across the country have joined an unprecedented protest movement
against veiling laws in Iran.
Women began
taking to the streets last year, silently waving their headscarves on the ends
of sticks. In response, they suffered a backlash from the authorities, facing
violent assault, arrest and torture, and some were jailed after what human
rights groups called unfair trials.
Nasrin
Sotoudeh, prominent human rights lawyer, was sentenced last May to seven years
in prison after defending the protesters.
Both President
Hassan Rouhani and Ayatollah Khamenei support a softer attitude toward women
who do not properly follow the dress code, although hardliners who are opposed
to any such easing still dominate Iran’s security forces and the judiciary.
A recent
study by Iran’s parliament showed that up to 70 per cent of the female
population would like to see the relaxing of laws on the mandatory wearing of
headscarves, while 30 per cent accepted it as part of the national culture.
Iran
Spends $7 Billion Annually on Terror Activities in Middle East
JANUARY 22, 2019
The Algemeiner
Israeli
UN Ambassador Danny Danon revealed to the Security Council
on Tuesday details of Iran’s terror activities throughout the Middle East.
“The
Iranian regime’s obsession with Israel is not just well-known. It is
expensive,” he said. “Seven billion dollars annually are directed toward the never ending attempts to destroy Israel. Follow the bloody
trail of money starting in Tehran and you will arrive at the terror tunnels in
Lebanon and Gaza and the weapons warehouses in Syria. It is now trying to
infiltrate Judea and Samaria,”
“With
the help of Saleh Al-Arouri, Hamas’ deputy political
chief, and Saeed Izadi, the head of the Palestinian branch of the Iranian Quds
Force, Iran is trying to turn Judea and Samaria into a fourth military front
against Israel,” Danon added. “The world’s silence
allows Iran to continue with its operations and aggression to undermine
stability in the Middle East.”
The
ambassador urged the Security Council to blacklist Hamas and Hezbollah, noting
that “weakening these terrorist organizations is the first step to dismantling
the epicenter of terrorism that sits in Tehran.”
House-Church
Members in Iran Reportedly Sentenced to Year in Prison
Authorities continue to lash out at
Christians.
August 17, 2018 By The Editor
(Morning Star News) – A convert from Islam in Iran said he and 11 other
Christians were sentenced to a year in prison for “inclination to the land of
Christianity” among other charges, according to Mohabat
News.
“Interrogations were obviously indicating that they were looking for confession
to communications with [those] abroad, especially America, Britain and Israel,”
the Christian, identified as Payam Kharaman, told Mohabat, which focuses on human rights abuses in Iran.
Mohabat reported last week that Kharaman
and 11 other members of a church in Bushehr, a port city in southwestern Iran,
were sentenced to one year in prison on charges of “propaganda activities
against the system and in favor of Zionist Christianity through holding house
meetings, evangelism, and invitation to Christianity and inclination to the
land of Christianity.”
Kharaman and the other Christians were jailed for
three years following their arrest on April 7, 2015, obtaining bail only last
April, according to Mohabat.
Judge Abbas Asgari of the Islamic Revolutionary Court
of Bushehr issued the sentence earlier this year, saying the accused would be
informed last June 20, according to the verdict.
Kharaman told Mohabat News
that authorities began pressuring him in early 2012.
“I was repeatedly summoned by the Office of Police Monitor Public Place in Bushehr
and interrogated about evangelism and communication with abroad, and I always
insisted on the belief in Christianity for myself and not for promotion of
Christianity,” he told Mohabat. “Because I had a
boutique shop in Bushehr, a number of officers’ family members in the office
knew me and informed of heavy sentences against me, and the case which was
under investigation by the intelligence office.”
He said he took their statements as empty threats at the time.
On April 7, 2015, three plain-clothes security agents came to his house with a
warrant shortly after 8 a.m. and seized his computer, mobile phone, flash
drive, CDs, books and pamphlets and a private photo album, he told Mohabat. They took him to the intelligence office of
Bushehr and interrogated him all day, he said.
Among those sentenced along with Kharaman was Shapour Jozi and his wife, Parastoo
Zariftash.
“In the part of the verdicts issued,” Jozi, also a convert from Islam, told Mohabat, “[it] was hinted that many books and pamphlets, publications,
CDs, banners, a lectern painted with a cross for holding prayer and lectures,
the Holy Gospel, computer case, the boards painted with signs of Christianity,
tablet, mobile phone and statue were discovered, all of which were seized in
favor of the government.”
Mansour Borji of advocacy group Article 18 reportedly
suspects that security agencies’ inability to stop the spread of Christianity
in Iran has led them to try to eliminate Farsi-speaking churches “through
unlawful pressures and false accusations in revolutionary courts and seemingly
legal routes.”
“The harassment of religious minorities, particularly Christians, has been
mandated for the Islamic Republic’s security apparatuses,” he said, according
to Mohabat. “Many Iranian Christians have preferred
to abandon their homes in the last two decades and leave Iran to avoid the
securities and judges.”
Three Christians were arrested from their homes on July 24-25 following the
violent arrest of pastor Yousef Nadarkhani on July
22. Pastor Nadarkhani, a convert from Islam like the
others arrested, was awaiting a summons to begin a 10-year prison sentence
after his appeal of a conviction for “propagating house churches” and promoting
“Zionist Christianity” was upheld in May.
Iran is a signatory to the International Covenant on Civil and Political
Rights, which guarantees the right to change one’s religion. Additionally,
Article 23 of the Iranian Constitution states that “the investigation of
individuals’ beliefs is forbidden, and no one may be molested or taken to task
simply for holding a certain belief.”
The U.S. State Department has designated Iran as a Country of Particular Concern
for severe religious freedom violations, and the U.S. Commission on
International Religious Freedom this month recommended it remain on the list.
Iran ranked 10th on Christian support organization Open Doors’ 2018 World Watch
List of the 50 countries where it is most difficult to be a Christian.
‘Death to America’ Iran 'more dangerous than North Korea' after nuclear funding
approval
EXCLUSIVE: IRAN could replace North
Korea as the biggest threat to the United States as lawmakers overwhelmingly agreed
to pump more money into its nuclear programme.
By VICKIIE OLIPHANT
Aug
16, 2017
Express
Tehran’s parliament voted to funnel thousands of pounds into the development of
its nuclear missile project in a bid to fight US “adventurism” at the weekend.
Chants of “death to America” echoed around the chamber as the bill which will
increase the state’s military budget by almost $800million was passed with a
huge majority.
Now experts have warned the flagrant disregard for international relations
shows Iran could be about to drop out of a nuclear deal agreed internationally
two years ago.
And some even warned the totalitarian state could become even more dangerous
for the US than North Korea, dubbing Iran a more “destructive” power.
Under Iran’s new laws, which still need to be rubber-stamped by the country’s
overseeing body, $260million will be pumped into the missile programme alone.
A further £300m will to the country’s Quds force, while the remaining millions
will be spent on other intelligence related projects.
The bill charges the government of recently re-elected President Hassan Rouhani
with confronting the “threats, malicious, hegemonic and divisive activities of
America in the region.”
Today President Hassan Rouhani even warned he could ramp up his nuclear missile
programme if the US continues with its “threats” of
sanctions, agreed by Donald Trump earlier this month.
And he hinted he could pull out of the nuke deal he cut with world leaders in
2015.
He told lawmakers: “In an hour and a day, Iran could return to a more advanced
[nuclear] level than at the beginning of the negotiations.”
His remarks are thought to be his most direct warning yet that the deal could
fall apart, and risked ratcheting up tensions with the US and President Donald
Trump.
The US Treasury imposed sanctions on six Iranian firms in late July for their
role in the development of a ballistic missile programme
after Tehran launched a rocket capable of putting a satellite into orbit.
Now some have even claimed the move is evidence the “destructive” regime is
actually more of a credible threat to the West than North Korea - despite its
nuclear weapons program supposedly being less well-developed.
Shahin Gobadi, an Iranian engineer who actively
speaks out against the regime, told Express.co.uk: “I think in more than one
aspect Iran already is more dangerous than North Korea.”
He explained that over the past 25 years, the Iranian regime has failed to be
transparent about the programme - claiming “always it
has been hide and seek, catch me if you can”.
And he suggested the regime now intends to give up on the programme,
when he claims they are so close to having viable weapons despite Iran’s
insistence this is not the case.
Alireza Jafarzadeh added: “This move by the Iranian regime is a flagrant
disregard for its obligations to the international community as well as the US
and international sanctions.
“This is going to have an adverse impact on the US policy regarding Iran as
this is a clear indication that Tehran never had
the desire to abandon its nuclear weapons program.
“The Iranian regime remains as the biggest threat to the world with its nuclear
weapons and missile program, its sponsorship of terrorism, and funding Islamic
fundamentalist groups.
“However, the Iranian regime is extremely vulnerable as the increasingly
discontent young population and the formidable organised
opposition threaten its survival."
And Hossein Abedini of the London office of the
National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) exclusively told Express.co.uk:
“One has to bear in mind the Iranian regime is heavily involved in all the majors wars that have engulfed the Middle East.
“It is the main state sponsor of terror and has been the main source of the
ominous phenomenon of Islamic extremism since its inception.
Such a regime’s drive to obtain the most dangerous weapon and ballistic
missiles as its delivery mechanism duly creates concern.”
Earlier this year Rudy Giuliani, the ex-Mayor of New York and advisor to Mr Trump warned Iran was already considered an enemy of the
US.
He said: “Iran is our biggest enemy, Iran is our
fiercest enemy. It is the greatest danger to freedom in the world.
“Iran [is] a bigger threat than North Korea, it is expanding into an empire.
North Korea is contained.
“They have more technological capability and they have what is truly an insane
regime.
“In North Korea, we’re not sure about Kim Jong-un and we do have the hope that
China can contain him.”
It comes after North Korean dictator Kim Jong-Un seemed to back off on threats
to annihilate the US, after Mr Trump threatened the
hermit state with "locked and loaded" military retaliation.
Iran warns of retaliation if U.S. breaches nuclear deal - Khamenei website
BEIRUT, Nov 23 (Reuters) - Extending
U.S. sanctions on Iran for 10 years would breach the Iranian nuclear agreement,
Iran Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei said on Wednesday, warning that Tehran
would retaliate if the sanctions are approved.
The U.S. House of Representatives re-authorized last week the Iran Sanctions
Act, or ISA, for 10 years. The law was first adopted in 1996 to punish
investments in Iran's energy industry and deter Iran's pursuit of nuclear
weapons.
The Iran measure will expire at the end of 2016 if it is not renewed. The House
bill must still be passed by the Senate and signed by President Barack Obama to
become law.
Iran and world powers concluded the nuclear agreement, also known as JCPOA,
last year. It imposed curbs on Iran's nuclear program in return for easing
sanctions that have badly hurt its economy.
"The current U.S. government has breached the nuclear deal in many
occasions," Khamenei said, addressing a gathering of members of the
Revolutionary Guards, according to his website.
"The latest is extension of sanctions for 10 years, that if it happens,
would surely be against JCPOA, and the Islamic Republic would definitely react
to it."
The U.S. lawmakers passed the bill one week after Republican Donald Trump was
elected U.S. president. Republicans in Congress unanimously opposed the
agreement, along with about two dozen Democrats, and Trump has also criticized
it.
Lawmakers from both parties said they hoped bipartisan support for a tough line
against Iran would continue under the new president.
President-elect Trump once said during his campaign that he would "rip
up" the agreement, drawing a harsh reaction from Khamenei, who said if
that happens, Iran would "set fire" to the deal.
The House of Representatives also passed a bill last week that would block the
sale of commercial aircraft by Boeing and Airbus to Iran.
The White House believes that the legislation would be a violation of the
nuclear pact and has said Obama would veto the measure even if it did pass the
Senate.
Iran Sentences 18 Christians to Prison for
Their Faith in New Crackdown on Christianity
BY STOYAN ZAIMOV
CHRISTIAN POST REPORTER
June 3, 2015
Iran's
revolutionary court is believed to have sentenced 18 Christian converts to
prison for their faith in a new crackdown on Christianity in the Islamic
Republic, a report said.
Fox
News noted that the charges include evangelism, propaganda against the regime,
and creating house churches to practice their faith. It added that the total
sentences come close to 24 years, but it's not known how many years each
individual received, due to the lack of transparency in Iran's judicial system.
"The cruelty of Iran's dictatorial leaders knows no limits," said
Saba Farzan, the German-Iranian executive director of Foreign Policy Circle, a
strategy think tank in Berlin.
A
number of the imprisoned Christians were arrested in 2013, and sentenced in
accordance with Article 500 of the Islamic Penal Code, which penalizes threats
to Iran's clerical leaders.
Morad Mokhtari, an Iranian
convert to Christianity who fled the Islamic Republic in 2006, added: "Iranian
religious authorities prefer that they [converts to Christianity] leave Iran
because the authorities can't control them," Mokhatari
said. "Just their name is evangelism. Imagine someone says he's a
Christian and has a Muslim name."
Christians
in Iran make up a tiny minority of the 78 million-strong population, and often
face persecution from the government. Watchdog group Open Doors lists the
country at No. 7 on its World Watch List of nations where Christians are most
heavily targeted for their faith.
Open
Doors points out on its website that almost all Christian activity in Iran is
considered illegal, "especially when it occurs in Persian languages — from
evangelism to Bible training, to publishing Scripture and Christian books or preaching
in Farsi."
It
added: "In 2014, at least 75 Christians were arrested. More Christians
were sentenced to prison and pressure on those detained increased, including
physical and mental abuse."
Iran's
human rights record has faced great scrutiny, especially in light of a historic
nuclear deal it reached earlier this year with the U.S. and other Western
nations, which promises to lift international sanctions on Iran in exchange for
restricting its nuclear program.
The
American Center for Law and Justice and other groups have said that the deal
should not be finalized until Iran shows clear signs it is willing to improve
its treatment of Christians — and release the American Christians it currently
holds in its prisons, including pastor Saeed Abedini.
U.S.
Senator Mark Kirt, R-Ill., has added in a statement:
"The Iranian regime's systematic persecution of Christians, as well as
Baha'is, Sunni Muslims, dissenting Shiite Muslims, and other religious
minorities, is getting worse not better," Kirt
said.
"This
is a direct consequence of President Obama's decision to de-link demands for
improvements in religious freedom and human rights in Iran from the nuclear
negotiations."
Iranian protesters storm British diplomatic
compounds
By Robin PomeroyTEHRAN
| Tue Nov 29, 2011 6:30pm EST
(Reuters) - Iranian protesters stormed two
British diplomatic compounds in Tehran on Tuesday, smashing windows, torching a
car and burning the British flag in protest against new sanctions imposed by
London.
Britain said it was outraged and warned of
"serious consequences." The U.N. Security Council condemned the
attacks "in the strongest terms." U.S. President Barack Obama said he
was disturbed by the incident and called on Iran to hold those responsible to
account.
The attacks come at a time of rising diplomatic
tension between Iran and Western nations who last week imposed fresh sanctions
over Tehran's nuclear program, which they believe is aimed at achieving the
capability of making an atomic bomb.
Iran, the world's fifth biggest oil exporter,
says it only wants nuclear plants to generate electricity.
The embassy storming is also a sign of
deepening political infighting within Iran's ruling hardline elites, with the
conservative-led parliament attempting to force the hand of President Mahmoud
Ahmadinejad and expel the British ambassador.
"Radicals in Iran and in the West are
always in favor of crisis ... Such radical hardliners in Iran will use the
crisis to unite people and also to blame the crisis for the fading economy,"
said political analyst Hasan Sedghi.
Several dozen protesters broke away from a
crowd of a few hundred outside the main British embassy compound in downtown
Tehran, scaled the gates, broke the locks and went inside.
Protesters pulled down the British flag, burned
it, and put up the Iranian flag, Iranian news agencies and news pictures
showed. Inside, the demonstrators smashed windows of office and residential
quarters and set a car ablaze, news pictures showed.
One took a framed picture of Queen Elizabeth,
state TV showed. Others carried the royal crest out through the embassy gate as
police stood by, pictures carried by the semi-official Fars news agency showed.
All embassy personnel were accounted for, a British
diplomat told Reuters in Washington, saying Britain did not believe that any
sensitive materials had been seized.
Demonstrators waved flags symbolizing martyrdom
and held aloft portraits of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei who has the
final say on matters of state in Iran.
Another group of protesters broke into a second
British compound at Qolhak in north Tehran, the IRNA
state news agency said. Once the embassy's summer quarters, the sprawling,
tree-lined compound is now used to house diplomatic staff.
An Iranian report said six British embassy
staff had been briefly held by the protesters. British Foreign Secretary
William Hague said the situation had been "confusing" and that he
would not have called them "hostages."
"Police freed the six people working for
the British embassy in Qolhak garden," Iran's
Fars news agency said.
A German school next to the Qolhak
compound was also damaged, the German government said.
BRITAIN OUTRAGED
Police appeared to have cleared the
demonstrators in front of the main downtown embassy compound, but later clashed
with protesters and fired tear gas to try to disperse them, Fars said.
Protesters nevertheless entered the compound a second time, before once again
leaving, it said.
British Prime Minister David Cameron chaired a
meeting of the government crisis committee to discuss the attacks which he said
were "outrageous and indefensible."
"The failure of the Iranian government to
defend British staff and property was a disgrace," he said in a statement.
"The Iranian government must recognize
that there will be serious consequences for failing to protect our staff. We
will consider what these measures should be in the coming days."
The United States, alongside the European Union
and many of its member states also strongly condemned the attacks.
There have been regular protests outside the
British embassy over the years since the 1979 Islamic revolution that toppled
the U.S.-backed shah, but never have any been so violent.
The attacks and hostage-taking were a reminder
of the 1979 takeover of the U.S. embassy in Tehran carried out by radical
students who held 52 Americans hostage for 444 days. The United States cut
diplomatic ties with Iran after the hostage-taking.
All British embassy personnel were accounted
for and safe, a British diplomat, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told
Reuters in Washington.
The diplomat said the attack likely flowed from
Britain's November 21 decision to impose new sanctions on Iran because of its
nuclear program, including a ban on British financial institutions dealing with
their Iranian counterparts.
"It's impossible, really, not to reach
that conclusion," the diplomat said, suggesting that the protests may have
been sparked by the Iranian authorities.
"In the past we have certainly had
demonstrations that have ... been sanctioned, if not encouraged, by the
government. I don't know about this one. I don't think we'd put it past
them," said the diplomat.
"It's hard to imagine, in a place like
Iran, that these were some kind of spontaneous
(event)," said a State Department official who declined to be identified.
INFIGHTING
The demonstrations appeared to be a bid by conservatives
who control parliament to press home their demand, passed in parliament last
week and quickly endorsed by the Guardian Council on Tuesday, for the
government to expel the British ambassador in retaliation for the sanctions.
A lawmaker had warned on Sunday that angry
Iranians could storm the British embassy.
"Parliament officially notified the
president over a bill regarding degrading the ties with Britain, obliging the
government to implement it within five days," Fars
news agency quoted speaker Ali Larijani as saying.
Ahmadinejad's government has shown no
willingness to compromise on its refusal to halt its nuclear work, but has
sought to keep channels of negotiation open in an effort to limit the worst
effects of sanctions.
An Iranian official told Reuters the storming
of the British compounds was not planned by the government.
"It was not an organized measure. The
establishment had no role in it. It was not planned," said the official,
who declined to be identified. Iran's Foreign Ministry said it regretted the
attacks and was committed to ensuring the safety of diplomats.
Police arrested 12 people who had entered the
north Tehran compound, Fars said, quoting a police chief as saying they would
be handed over to the judiciary.
Protesters said they planned to stage a sit-in
at the gates of the north Tehran compound and would not move until they were
told to do so by Iran's religious leaders.
Britain, along with the United States and Canada,
imposed new unilateral sanctions on Iran last week, while the EU, France and
Italy have all said financial measures against Tehran should be strengthened.
U.S. hikers freed from Iran are heading home
After more than two years in Iranian custody,
two Americans convicted as spies took their first steps toward home Wednesday
as they bounded...
By SAEED AL-NAHDY and BRIAN MURPHY
The Associated Press
MUSCAT, Oman — After more than two years in
Iranian custody, two Americans convicted as spies took their first steps toward
home Wednesday as they bounded off a private jet and into the arms of relatives
for a reunion in the Persian Gulf state of Oman.
The families called this "the best day of
our lives," and President Obama deemed their release — under a $1 million
bail-for-freedom deal — "wonderful news."
The release capped complicated diplomatic
maneuvers over a week of confusing signals by Iran's leadership on the fate of
Josh Fattal and Shane Bauer, both 29.
For Iran, releasing the two was a chance to
court some goodwill after sending a message of defiance with hard-line justice in the July 2009 arrests of the Americans
along the Iran-Iraq border. The Americans always maintained they were innocent
hikers.
"Today can only be described as the best
day of our lives," said a statement from their families.
The release came on the eve of Iranian
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's previously scheduled address Thursday to the
U.N. General Assembly's annual ministerial meeting.
The families waited on the tarmac at a royal
airfield near the main international airport in Oman's capital, Muscat. Also
returning to Oman was Sarah Shourd, who was arrested
with Bauer and Fattal but freed, also on bail, a year
ago. She received a marriage proposal from Bauer while in prison.
At about 20 minutes before midnight, Fattal and Bauer — wearing jeans and casual shirts — raced
down the steps from the blue-and-white plane. The men appeared thin but in good
health.
"We're so happy we are free," Fattal said in Oman. "Two years in prison is too
long," Bauer said.
In many ways, the release was a mirror image of
the scene last year when Shourd was freed on $500,000
bail. That deal, too, was mediated by Oman, an Arabian
peninsula sultanate with close ties to both Iran and the United States.
Just a month ago, Bauer and Fattal
were appealing their eight-year prison terms for espionage and illegal entry
into Iran. They denied the charges and said they were merely hikers who
wandered close to Iran's border.
The first hint of change came last week, when
Ahmadinejad said they could be released within days.
But the hard-line ruling
clerics said only they had the authority to set the timing and ground rules to
release the men. After several days, the Americans' defense attorney secured
the necessary judicial approval for the bail Wednesday.
A $1 million bail — $500,000 for each one — was
posted Wednesday. The Americans' lawyer told the semiofficial Iranian Students
News Agency that the government of Oman had paid the bail. Oman also reportedly
paid bail last year to secure the release of Shourd.
Hours later, the men were in a convoy with
Swiss and Omani diplomats headed to Tehran's aging airport.
Seattle environmental activist Fred Felleman is Fattal's uncle.
"It's been a particularly hard two years, two months — too long," Felleman said Wednesday.
He said that while in prison in Iran, his
nephew had been practicing to take the exam for graduate school.
Since her release last year, Shourd has lived in Oakland, Calif. Bauer, a freelance
journalist, grew up in Onamia, Minn., and Fattal, an
environmental activist, is from suburban Philadelphia.
Arrests of Christians in Iran is Condemnable,
Incongruous
Continental News
Published on January 12, 2011 by Michael Ireland
The Religious Liberty Commission of the World
Evangelical Alliance has issued a statement condemning violence against
Christians in Iran.
The statement, released to Christian media, says: “The ongoing raiding of homes
and arrests of Christians in predominantly Shi’ite Iran, which began deplorably
during the Christmas season, needs to stop immediately.”
The RLC says that since December 26, Iranian
security agents in plain clothes have searched the homes of many Christians and
arrested at least 40 of them in a crackdown in the capital city of Tehran and a
few other places.
The Commission says: “The onslaught, targeting
converts from Islam and those engaged in evangelism, continued despite
preceding international concerns over the arrest of a pastor, Behrouz Sadegh-Khanjani, and conviction of the pastor of the Full
Gospel Church in Rasht, Yousef Nadarkhani, for
apostasy, leading to awarding of death penalty.”
The Commission statement says that Tehran’s
governor, Morteza Tamadon,
was quoted by state news agency IRNA as saying that missionary evangelicals had
stepped up their activity in Iran, which according to him is a “cultural
invasion of the enemy.” The governor went on to say, “Just like the Taliban,
who have inserted themselves into Islam like a parasite, [evangelicals] have
crafted a movement in the name of Christianity.”
WEA-RLC Executive Director Godfrey Yogarajah said, “The growing authoritarianism in Iran only shows
that the regime’s popularity is falling drastically which is making the
government highly insecure and unnerved.”
Yogarajah added: “It is highly
condemnable and incongruous that while Shi’ites themselves face persecution in
Sunni-majority countries like Pakistan where they are minorities, in Iran some
of their leaders emulate the same intolerant Sunni extremists by persecuting
the Christian and other minorities.
“Regular campaigns against minorities by the
Iranian regime cost the people of Iran dearly, as they divert the country’s
limited resources that could be used for citizens’ welfare to fund activities
that only create tensions and isolate the country even further.”
The Commission explains that in Iran, Christians account for only around one percent of the
Muslim-majority population. The Iranian regime also persecutes other
minorities, including Zoroastrians, Baha’is, and Sufis.
In its statement, WEA-RLC “urges the human
rights and religious freedom fraternity and international policy analysts to
treat and highlight the escalating persecution of minorities in Iran as an
extremely serious issue.”
The Religious Liberty Commission is monitoring
the religious liberty situation in more than 100 nations, defending persecuted
Christians, informing the global church, challenging the Church to pray (www.idop.org ) and giving all possible
assistance to those who are suffering.
The Commission also makes fact finding trips
and meets with governments and ambassadors speaking up for the suffering
brothers and sisters. At the United Nations the Commission reports about the
situation and arranges special hearings with Christians from countries under
pressure.
Mullahs' rape of Persian culture renews pattern
of violence since the 7th century
By Sheda Vasseghi
Worldtribune.com
Sunday, July 25, 2010
The barbaric regime of the Islamic Republic of Iran recently amputated hands of
several convicted thieves in the city of Hamedan or ancient Ecbatana, one of
the capitals of the Achaemenid Persian Empire (550-330 BC) whose founder Cyrus
the Great declared the world's first known Bill of Human Rights. Ms. Sakineh Mohammadie Ashtiani was forced to confess an alleged adultery after
enduring 99 lashes. As countless Iranian women before her, she awaits an
execution by stoning pending a global uproar against the regime's barbaric
behavior.
The efforts of the clerics in Tehran to destroy Iranians as a people is not the
beginning of the Iranian genocide, but the continuation of the policy of the
Muslim invasion of 7th century which spread by making Iranians the subject of
grand scale destruction. Sharia Laws provide any and all violent means to
accomplish this goal.
Iranian philosophy based on freedom of choice and equality cannot naturally
co-exist with a system based on intolerance and prejudice towards women and
people of different faiths. Simple conversion to Islam is also not sufficient
given Islam ignores pre-Islamic history and culture, and does not recognize
national identities. Iranians were aware of their national identity at least as
early as 1500 BC prior to their migration from Central Asia to what is now
known as Iran.
The past 31 years of gross violation of human
rights, amputations, hangings, child executions, prison rapes, punishments by
stoning, assassinations of nationalists and opposition leaders, and the like
are only the continuation of what Iranian people have endured in their own
country at the hands of these foreign invaders. The defeat at the battle of Qadisiyyah in 636 is considered the beginning of the
Iranian plight. The victory of an Islamic Revolution in 1979 is labeled by many
Iranians as Qadisiyyah II.
With their systematic conquest of the affluent
Sasanian Persian Empire (224-651), the Muslims burned Iranian palaces,
thousands of libraries, and priceless archives. Muslims called Iranians "ajam" or mute and "najis"
or impure. Thousands of Iranians were slaughtered, raped, and forced into
slavery. Immediately after the conquest of Iran, Muslims gave the status of
"dhimmi" or rights of residence in return for special taxes to the
majority of Iranians, who were Zoroastrians. Under this status, Iranians were
subjected to frivolous persecution, discrimination, forcible conversion, and
harassment. Thousands of Iranian priests were executed and hundreds of
Zoroastrian temples across Iran were either destroyed or converted to mosques.
The Iranian genocide has been an ongoing project
for centuries. Besides violent attacks against their culture, history, national
memories, arts and sciences, wealth, standard of living, and natural human
rights, Iranians were also on the verge of losing their language which was
revived by a national poet-hero Ferdowsi (940-1020).
About 200 years ago, because of an incompetent
government and excessive meddling of the clerics in the country's affairs,
Iranians lost approximately 1.35 million square miles of territories via forced
treaties.
Unfortunately, history was repeated when in
1979 the mullahs took control. Their meddling led to a bloody war with Iraq in
the 1980's resulting in hundreds of thousands of deaths and mutilations and
destruction of cities. Because of the clerics, Iranians are once again facing
destructive and detrimental separatist movements in Sistan-Baluchestan
and Khuzistan which would result in loss of
additional territories. Because of the clerics, Iranians face potential
military strikes by those nations threatened by the theocracy in Tehran which
could result in more territorial losses.
Because of the clerics, Iranian national
archives that were painstakingly collected by nationalists such as the late Dr.
Shojaedin Shafa prior to
the 1979 Islamic Revolution were once again destroyed. Because of the clerics,
Iranians continue to live with sanctions denying them access to open market
goods and services while endangering their health and financial well-being.
Because of the clerics, millions of Iranians are addicted to drugs because of
depression and oppression. Because of the clerics, Iranian girls and women are
being raped in prisons and sold to sex slavery trades in the region. Because of
the clerics, millions of educated nationalists fled the country taking their
wealth and knowledge with them. Because of the clerics, the Iranian genocide
continues.
Over 3 million brave men and women of Iran have
poured into the streets since June 2009 against the anti-Iranian occupiers in
Tehran. Iranian nationalists living abroad continue to support their efforts by
holding demonstrations and using technology to show the regime's atrocities to
foreign nations. Despite epic rise of terrorism across western countries, the
U.S. and the Free World continue to play around with the Islamist regime
assuming that short-term benefits received via sanctions and black market are
worth the long-term damages in the near future.
The longterm
prospects for mullahcracy are not good. As Samuel Johnson (1709-1784) put it:
"No government power can be abused long. Mankind will not bear it. There
is a remedy in human nature against tyranny, that will keep us safe under every
form of government."
And let us not forget the words of Thomas
Jefferson: "In every country and every age, the priest had been hostile to
Liberty."
Iranians will not cease their centuries of
struggle against inhumanity. The day will come when a free, secular, and
democratic Iran under a nationalist leadership will once again protect its
people's rights and security. The Iranian genocide organizers and supporters
will be hunted down one by one. It is time for the Free World to practice what
it preaches and support the Iranian opposition against tyranny. Regime change
is a must! It would be good for Iran, the Middle East, and world peace. The
West should stop engagements with pro-Sharia Law "reformists" and
provide media communication venues badly needed by the pro-democracy
nationalists so they can guide and educate Iranians during their national
uprising. A secular, democratic Iran will end Iranian genocide, and foster
healthy, prosperous relations with other freedom loving nations. Time is of the
essence!
Sheda Vasseghi is on the Board of Azadegan Foundation and is a regular contributor to WorldTribune.com on Iran’s Affairs.
118 Days, 12 Hours, 54 Minutes
On
June 21, reporter Maziar Bahari
was rousted out of bed and taken to Tehran's notorious Evin
prison—accused of being a spy for the CIA, MI6, Mossad…and NEWSWEEK. This is
the story of his captivity—and of an Iran whose rampant paranoia underpins an
ever more fractured regime.
By Maziar Bahari | NEWSWEEK
Published Nov 21, 2009
From the magazine issue dated Nov 30, 2009
Evin Prison, June 21, 2009
(around 10 a.m.)
The interrogator sat me in a wooden chair. It had a writing arm, like the chair
I'd had in primary school. He ordered me to look down, even though I was
already blindfolded: "Never look up, Mr. Bahari.
While you are here—and we don't know how long you're going to be here—never
look up." All I could see from under the blindfold was the interrogator's
black leather slippers. They worried me. He had settled in for a long
session.
"Mr. Bahari, you're an agent of foreign
intelligence organizations," he began. I had gotten a look at him when he
and his men had dragged me out of bed and arrested me a few hours earlier. He
was heavyset—I later learned that the guards called him "the big
guy"—taller and wider than me, with a massive head. His skin was dark,
like someone from southern Iran. He wore thick glasses. But I would know him
now only by his voice, his breath, and the rosewater perfume used by men who
piously do their ablutions several times a day before prayers, but rarely
shower.
I could see Mr. Rosewater's slippers right in front of my foot. He was towering
over me.
"Could you let me know which ones?" I mumbled.
"Speak louder!" he shouted. He bent toward me, his face an inch away
from mine. I could feel his breath on my skin. "What did you say?"
"I was wondering if you could be kind enough to let me know which organizations,"
I repeated.
"CIA, MI6, Mossad, and NEWSWEEK." He listed the names one by one, in
a low but assured voice.
I was struck by Mr. Rosewater's confidence. I did not know then exactly which
branch of the fractured Iranian government he worked for. When I was arrested,
hundreds of thousands of protesters had been filling the streets of Tehran for
a week, outraged over the disputed reelection of Iranian President Mahmoud
Ahmadinejad. There had been violence. The club-wielding militias known as Basij had inflicted much of it on the marchers, women as
well as men. But some of the protesters had fought back too. Ayatollah Ali
Khamenei, Iran's Supreme Leader, had decreed that the protests stop, but nobody
at that point was sure they would. At least, nobody outside Evin
Prison was sure. Mr. Rosewater was another matter.
I would later discover that I had been picked up by the intelligence division
of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, or IRGC. Before the June election,
this unit of the Guards was little known; whenever journalists and
intellectuals ran afoul of the authorities they were usually questioned by the
official Ministry of Intelligence. But the IRGC, which reports directly to
Khamenei, had been growing dramatically more powerful. Many suspect that the
Guards rigged the election. Certainly they led the
crackdown that followed.
IRGC intel is now responsible for Iran's internal security, which means that
its rampaging paranoias have suffused the regime. There remain players within
the system who can make rational decisions about Iran's international
interests; if there weren't, I would still be in jail. But the Guards are
exacerbating the Islamic Republic's worst instincts, its insecurity and deep
suspiciousness. As world powers try to engage Tehran to mitigate the threat of
its nuclear program, it's critical that they understand this mindset and the
role the IRGC now plays within the Iranian system. I learned all too much about
both while in the Guards' hands.
Everything was an education inside Evin—from the
questions Mr. Rosewater asked, to what answers made him beat me, to physical
details. Now, for instance, I studied his slippers and light-gray socks. In
Iran, low-ranking functionaries often wear shabby plastic sandals, and they
have holes in their socks. That first day I was hoping Mr. Rosewater was only a
junior agent, a flunky trying to make himself sound important. I was hoping to
find a hole in his socks. But there wasn't one. His slippers looked as if they
had been polished.
Mr. Rosewater was to be my nemesis
for 118 days, 12 hours, and 54 minutes. He never told me his name. I saw his
face only twice. The first time was when he led the team that arrested me.
"This prison can be the end of the line for you if you don't
cooperate" were his welcoming words. The second and last time was after I
was freed—and warned by him never to speak of what had happened to me in jail.
If I disobeyed, he said, I would be hunted down. "We can put people in a
bag no matter where in the world they are," he said menacingly. "No
one can escape from us."
I did not believe him. I do not
believe him. But the doubt lingers, which is what he wanted—what the regime he
serves wants from all of us, in fact. They are masters of uncertainty,
instilling it among their enemies, their subjects, their friends, perhaps even
themselves.
If he could, Mr. Rosewater would
threaten me for the rest of my life. But 118 days was enough. I do not want to
be his captive any longer.
Vali Asr Avenue, June 21, 2009 (a few minutes before 8 a.m.) Four of them came for me. They told my mother they had a letter for me, then showed her something resembling a warrant and followed her inside. She woke me gently. "Dear, there are four gentlemen here from...the prosecutor's office? I don't know. They say they want to take you away." Her tone was even. My father had been jailed repeatedly in the 1950s for fighting against the shah's regime. She knew what to say.
The men adhered to a strange code
of etiquette. They took off their shoes when they entered the apartment, and
later, while searching my room, they declined my mother's offer of tea. They
told me later that they did not like to impose on the families of those they
arrested. One even apologized to my mother for using a Kleenex to wipe away his
sweat while going through my personal belongings. The possibility that they
might be arresting an innocent man, however, did not seem to trouble them.
Early in the revolution Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini had issued a decree:
"Keeping the [Islamic] system alive is the most important task of a
Muslim." In their minds they were simply carrying out their religious
duty.
Three of the men had bland looks,
like accountants. Mr. Rosewater was clearly the boss. He wore a brown suit and
a white shirt. When he entered my room he sized me up
like prey. I could see a revolver under his jacket, but the way he stared at me
made it clear he preferred to use his gaze as his weapon, to pin me down with
it. I was going to be watched like that until I broke. "Don't worry,"
he told my mother with a smile as they led me away. "He's going to be our
guest."
There were five cars waiting
outside, all unmarked. No one wore uniforms or showed badges. As we drove off I asked one of my captors if we were heading to Evin Prison. "Maybe we are. Maybe we are not," he
said. Then I was ordered to take off my glasses and don my blindfold. I took a
last look around. We were on Kurdistan Highway driving north. We were
definitely going to Evin.
Built in the late 1960s, during the
reign of the shah, as a high-security jail for political prisoners, Evin Prison soon became synonymous with pulled fingernails
and broken bones. Its early residents were mostly communists and Islamists.
After the 1979 revolution, the Islamists put their captors as well as many of
their former leftist cellmates behind bars. They used some of the same
techniques as their predecessors, but more efficiently. Many of those who had
withstood the shah's torturers broke within days under the new management.
"Welcome to Abu Ghraib,
Guantánamo, or whatever it is you Americans build," a guard said to me
after we arrived. He spoke with an Azerbaijani accent, and sounded older.
"I'm not American, my brother," I said with a smile. "You work
for them, so you're one of them," he said. "But don't worry. It's not
a bad place here." The old man handed me off to a guard in another
building. I was taken to my cell.
I once interviewed a former Islamic
guerrilla who had become a government minister. The problem with the shah's
secret police, he said, was that they thought they could break a prisoner's
will through physical pressure, but often that just hardened the victim's
resolve. "What our brothers after the revolution have masterminded is how
to break a man's soul without using much violence against his body." As I
stepped into my cell I wondered how violent was
"without much violence."
I took off the blindfold.
The Quran says that one of the worst punishments Allah inflicts upon sinners is
to make their graves smaller. My 20-square-foot cell was like a tomb. The walls
were made of faux marble. They were off-white, and the texture of the stone
reminded me of an old man's pale, transparent skin. You could see grayish-blue
veins. The walls were clean, even spotless, except for some defiant aphorisms
and Persian poetry in small, crabbed handwriting. Three sentences were written
larger than others: "My God, have mercy on me," "My God, I
repent," and "Please help me, God."
London , November 2009 My wife, Paola, is
breast-feeding our 2-week-old daughter, Marianna, on the couch. The little girl
is enjoying every drop of milk. No Madonna and child were ever more beautiful.
We are listening to one of the songs that kept playing in my head in Evin, that helped me tune out what was happening and find
some peace inside myself—"Hey, That's No Way to Say Goodbye," by
Leonard Cohen:
I loved you in the morning,
Our kisses deep and warm,
Your hair upon the pillow
Like a sleepy golden storm.
Those lines became Paola for me, part of a whole musical refuge of lyrics and
melodies. Of such stuff is survival made. Thank you, Mr. Cohen.
Evin Prison, June 22, 2009 (around 4 a.m.) A guard woke
me and told me that after morning prayers I would meet again with my
"specialist," which is what the prison guards were told to call the
interrogators. This would be my third session in 24 hours.
When Mr. Rosewater came into the interrogation room I could
hear him yawning. He asked if I wanted half of the peeled-and-salted cucumber
he was eating. When I declined, he was insulted. "What? Do you think that
interrogators don't wash their hands?" I said OK, and I ate.
Mr. Rosewater wanted me to tell him about a dinner I'd attended with eight
other journalists and photographers at a friend's house in Tehran in April,
several weeks before the election. "You are part of a very American
network, Mr. Bahari," he said, as if summing up
his case in a courtroom. "Let me correct myself: you are in charge of a
secret American network, a group that includes those who came to that dinner
party."
"It was just a dinner," I murmured.
"Yes. A very American dinner. It could have happened in…New Jersey, or
someplace like that." He paused. "Your own New Jersey in
Tehran."
The strangeness of the accusation was unsettling. New Jersey?
"You've been to New Jersey,
haven't you, Mr. Bahari?" The thought seemed to infuriate
him, and I was struck by the feeling that for some reason he might have wanted,
secretly, to go to New Jersey himself. The worst thing that can happen in any
encounter with Islamic Republic officials is for them to think that you're
looking down on them.
"It's not a particularly nice
place," I said, trying to sound conversational.
"I don't care. But it is as
godless as what you wanted to create in this country."
"I'm sorry. I don't understand."
"You were planning to eradicate the pure religion of Muhammad in this
country and replace it with 'American' Islam. A New Jersey Islam." He was
building his case, and my responses were irrelevant. "Tell me," he said, "did any of the women at the dinner
party have their veils on?"
"No."
"Then don't tell me that you
didn't have a secret American network. A New Jersey network."
I was born in Tehran and lived
there the first 19 years of my life, before going to Canada and Britain for my
studies and to begin my career as a journalist and documentary filmmaker. I
returned in 1998, making movies and reporting for NEWSWEEK. But until my
imprisonment I had never fully appreciated the corrosive suspicion that is
rotting the Islamic Republic from within. The Guards see real enemies all
around them—reformists within the country, hundreds of thousands of U.S. troops
outside. Even worse are the shadows—supposed agents of Britain, the United
States, and Israel—upon whom they impose their own fearful logic and their
reinvented history. Only Muslims, only they, are victims.
As it happens, I may be the only
Iranian or even Muslim filmmaker who has ever made a film about the Holocaust (The
Voyage of the Saint Louis, in 1994). Mr. Rosewater was offended by the very
idea and worked hard to connect me to what he called Jewish and Zionist
"elements." In his lexicon, Jewish persons were rare. There were only
"elements."
I don't know if Mr. Rosewater had ever seen a Jewish person in his life. I
think not. He had never been to New Jersey either. But he believed that he knew
everything there was to know about such people and such places, and his faith
in his facts was unshakable.
Evin Prison, June 26, 2009 (after evening prayers)
Mr. Rosewater was not alone. I could hear someone else in the room, another
interrogator. He was complaining about my written answers to questions about
different individuals. When he came closer I saw he
had shiny, polished black shoes on. His trousers were neatly ironed and
creased. "Mr. Bahari, your answers are very
general. We hope that you can give us more detailed answers," he said. He
sounded more mild-mannered than my normal tormentor. He was the good cop today,
the voice of reason.
"I just write what I know,
sir. And if I give you more details, that means I'm lying."
"Well," said Mr.
Rosewater, who had been fairly quiet up to this point, "we have
interesting video footage of you. That may persuade you to be more
cooperative." I could not imagine what that might be. Something personal?
Something that might compromise my friends? But…I reminded myself I had done
nothing wrong.
I saw the flicker of a laptop
monitor under my blindfold. Then I heard someone speaking. It was a recording
of another prisoner's confession. "It's not that one," said the
second interrogator. "It's the one marked 'Spy in coffee shop.' " Mr.
Rosewater fumbled with the computer. The other man stepped in to change the DVD.
And then I heard the voice of Jon Stewart on The
Daily Show.
Only a few weeks earlier, hundreds
of foreign reporters had been allowed into the country in the run-up to the
election. Among them was Jason Jones, a "correspondent" for Stewart's
satirical news program. Jason interviewed me in a Tehran coffee shop,
pretending to be a thick-skulled American. He dressed like some character out
of a B movie about mercenaries in the Middle East—with a checkered Palestinian
kaffiyeh around his neck and dark sunglasses. The "interview" was
very short. Jason asked me why Iran was evil. I answered that Iran was not
evil. I added that, as a matter of fact, Iran and America shared many enemies
and interests in common. But the interrogators weren't interested in what I was
saying. They were fixated on Jason.
"Why is this American dressed
like a spy, Mr. Bahari?" asked the new man.
"He is pretending to be a spy.
It's part of a comedy show," I answered.
"Tell the truth!" Mr.
Rosewater shouted. "What is so funny about sitting in a coffee shop with a
kaffiyeh and sunglasses?"
"It's just a joke. Nothing
serious. It's stupid." I was getting worried. "I hope you are not
suggesting that he is a real spy."
"Can you tell us why an
American journalist pretending to be a spy has chosen you to interview?"
asked the man with the creases. "We know from your contacts and background
that you told them who to interview for their program." The other Iranians
interviewed in Jason's report—a former vice president and a former foreign
minister—had been ar-rested a week before me as part
of the IRGC's sweeping crackdown. "It's just comedy," I said, feeling
weak.
"Do you think it's also funny
that you say Iran and America have a lot in common?" Mr. Rosewater asked,
declaring that he was losing patience with me. He took my left ear in his hand
and started to squeeze it as if he were wringing out a lemon. Then he whispered
into it. "This kind of behavior will not help you. Many people have rotted
in this prison. You can be one of them."
London , November 2009 The morning of my "confession," I woke up humming "The Partisan," a Leonard Cohen tune about World War II re-sistance fighters:
When they poured across the border
I was cautioned to surrender,
This I could not do;
I took my gun and vanished.
The thought of resisting had crossed my mind, too. But why? I was a journalist,
not a freedom fighter. Political prisoners in Iran were forced to make false
confessions all the time. I'd always known they had been coerced, and had
sympathized with the victims. Surely others would feel similarly about me. But
even now, months later, the experience gnaws at me. My father spent four years
in prison under the shah without asking for mercy. What would he think of his
son apologizing to the Supreme Leader after eight days?
Evin Prison, June 29, 2009 (after midnight) I was
deep asleep when a guard opened the door to my cell. "Get up! Specialist
time!" Mr. Rosewater did not say hello as usual. He dragged me away from
the prison guard. "The fun is over!" he said. He pushed me several
times so hard that I almost fell on the ground. He then grabbed my arm and
started to drag me along rapidly. He was breathing heavily and kept on
repeating, "Islamic kindness is over. You little spy, we will show you
what we can do with you. You're going to see what we are capable of." He
shoved me into a room. There seemed to be several people in it, whispering
among themselves. The smell of sweat and rosewater was strong.
All of a sudden the room erupted in a cacophony of
greetings. Everyone wanted to say hello to someone they called "Haj
Agha." The nickname literally means someone who has been to Mecca for
pilgrimage, but among Iranian officials it signifies seniority. Someone took my
hand and put it in Haj Agha's hand.
"Salaam, Mr. Bahari," he said. "Do you
know why you are here?" His voice sounded familiar, like that of a
well-known regime propagandist who has a show on Iranian TV. He definitely did
not want to be recognized, and told me to keep my eyes completely covered.
He turned aside and asked someone, "Is the car here yet?" Then he
addressed me again. "Mr. Bahari, you're
suspected of espionage. You have been in contact with a number of known
spies." He named a few of my friends, mostly Iranian artists and
intellectuals in exile. A car was coming to take me to a counterespionage unit,
he said. There I would be interrogated more than 15 hours a day and subjected
to "every tactic" until I talked. The investigation would take
"between four and six years." I could be sentenced to death.
Haj Agha made sure to say the word "death" as if he were talking
about a cup of tea. In fact, he immediately said, "Would you like a cup of
tea?"
"Thank you," I said. I could barely get out the words. I was lost in
thoughts about my mother, about Paola, about our unborn child. How could I have
put them in this situation? I was a bad son, I thought, a bad husband, a bad
father.
"Unless," said Haj Agha, pausing one more time. "Unless you
would be interested in a deal, Mr. Bahari."
Soon after my arrest, in addition to accusing me of working for various spy
agencies, Mr. Rosewater had insisted that I'd "masterminded the coverage
of the election by the agents of the Western media in Iran." This played
to a familiar fear. Ayatollah Khamenei liked to warn Iranians about a
"cultural NATO" as threatening as the military one—a network of
journalists, activists, scholars, and lawyers who supposedly sought to
undermine the Islamic Republic from within. Anyone on the streets of Tehran in
June would have known just how spontaneous—even leaderless—the post-election
protests had been. But Khamenei and the Guards clearly believed, or at least
wanted Iranians to believe, that they had been orchestrated by foreigners. They
called the plot a "velvet revolution" or a "soft
overthrow." "You are worse than any saboteur or killer," Mr.
Rosewater had raged on that first day. "Those criminals destroy an object
or a person. You destroy minds and provoke people against the Leader."
In Persian there is a very poetic word, jafaa, that
refers to all the wrongs you do to those who love you. According to Mr.
Rosewater, I was guilty of jafaa against Khamenei.
Now I was to repent.
The next morning I was brought to Haj Agha's office.
Cameras had been set up on tripods. Mr. Rosewater sat behind a curtain and fed
questions to reporters from three state-run media outlets. "Give your
answers as clearly and articulately as you can—of course, in your own
words," Haj Agha instructed me. I was to explain how a velvet revolution
was staged—by foreigners and corrupt elites, using the Western media—and how
only the wisdom and munificence of the Supreme Leader had thwarted this latest
attempt.
I tried to keep my answers as vague as possible, with what I hoped would come across
as ironic detachment. (A source in the old Intelligence Ministry told me later
that my soliloquy was "a case study in saying nothing.") Inside I
seethed as one of the "reporters" joked with Mr. Rose-water and tried
to help him devise tougher questions for me.
Evin Prison, July 4, 2009 (a few hours after noon
prayers) After the "confession," Haj Agha had promised, I would be
freed soon. But the next time I saw the burly Mr. Rosewater, he closed the door
to the interrogation room and for the first time started to beat me.
Some police manuals, even in the West, say that hitting a prisoner with a
closed fist constitutes assault, but an open-handed slap does not. Perhaps Mr.
Rosewater had read such a guide. His meaty palms slapped me hard across the
back of my neck and shoulders. "I thought we had an understanding,
sir!" I protested as I tried to protect my body.
"Move your hands, you little spy!" he screamed. "Understanding?
What stupid understandings could we have with a spy like you?"
The beatings would continue from that moment until late September. Mr.
Rosewater didn't beat me while asking me questions. He beat me before or after,
simply to show he was in control. He pretended not to enjoy it. At one point he
told me he beat me mainly because he was angry. "What you have done, Mazi, makes my blood boil. I don't want to raise my hand
against you, but what do you suggest I do with someone who has insulted the
Leader?" He claimed his own father had been a political prisoner before
the 1979 revolution, and the shah's torturers had pulled out his toenails so
brutally that he still couldn't walk properly. I should feel lucky, Mr.
Rosewater implied.
I did not. Once or twice a year I am felled by devastating migraines. Mr.
Rosewater knew that, from the medication I'd brought with me to Evin, and he took particular pleasure in pounding the back
of my head.
What I hated most, though, was when he called me "Mazi."
Only my close friends and family call me Mazi. The
nickname is familiar, affectionate. In his voice it sounded obscene. "I'm
really sorry, Mazi, that your days are
numbered," Mr. Rosewater would tell me. The next time I saw him, he
promised, I'd be standing on a chair with a noose around my neck. He would
personally kick the chair out from under me. I would not know the date of my
execution in advance. But, he assured me, it would
take place after morning prayers, around 4 a.m.
Weirdly, after long interrogation sessions Mr. Rosewater would sometimes start
to open up. He would appear to grow weary of screaming and hitting me, kicking
me, whipping me with his belt, and he would start rambling like a drunk
confessing to the bartender after last call. "Many of my friends have had
to divorce their wives," he told me one night. "We have to work late
shifts. We have to travel without much notice, and the job puts a lot of
psychological pressure on us. Not many women accept that. I adore my wife. I
kiss her hands and feet for understanding me and putting up with my job."
One night about a week before the holy month of Ramadan began, his cell phone
rang. It was Mrs. Rosewater. "Hello, dear," he said. "How are
you?" He had his hand on my neck. "How is the honeycomb?" She
must have been preparing food for the holidays. He moved his hand toward my ear
and started to squeeze it. "I know, it's lovely, isn't it? It's much
better than the one we had last year...I'm glad your mother liked it, too. How
is she, by the way...Well, darling, he is a doctor; he knows what he is talking
about…Wait a second." He hit the back of my skull as hard as he could and
yelled, "Didn't I tell you to write down the damned answers?" He
pushed my head down toward the chair's writing tablet. I started to write
again. He continued talking with his wife. "I don't know how long I'll be
here tonight. I may just sleep here. Don't wait for me for dinner." He
came toward me again. With a crack, his belt hit the writing arm of the desk.
"Write!" he roared.
London , November 2009 Any bruises had faded by the
time I arrived in London, but Paola was shocked by how thin I was. One of the
first things Mr. Rosewater had promised me was that he would send my skeleton
home. He was right. I lost 25 pounds in prison.
I quickly realized that to cope with the interrogations I needed to be both
physically and mentally fit. I probably exercised five hours a day in my tiny
cell. I did 500 sit-ups and 60 push-ups. I did yoga. I lay on my back, kicked
my legs up in the air, and bicycled.
For a while I was allowed to walk in the prison courtyard for 30 minutes in the
morning and 30 minutes in the afternoon. They put six or seven of us next to
each other, and we strolled back and forth with our blindfolds on. The guards
called it hava khori—literally,
getting fresh air. That was the only time I could see the sky, by raising my
head and squinting from under my blindfold. At first I
didn't know how one could walk blindfolded. But I quickly memorized the number
of paces between the walls of the courtyard. I even started to jog.
My true refuge, though, was music. Once, after a particularly brutal beating, I
swallowed three migraine pills and passed out. Two women came to me in a dream.
They had kind faces; in fact, they reminded me of my sister Maryam, who had
died of leukemia in February.
"Who are you?" I asked.
"Sisters of mercy," they answered.
They touched my forehead gently to soothe the pain. In the dream I smiled and
heard Leonard Cohen singing his song of the same name:
Oh the sisters of mercy, they are not departed or
gone.
They were waiting for me when I
thought that I just can't go on.
And they brought me their comfort
and later they brought me this song.
I woke humming those words, free of pain. From that moment Leonard Cohen became
the guardian of my universe. He was the secret that Mr. Rosewater could never
discover.
Revolutionary Courthouse, Aug. 1, 2009 (before noon) I was blindfolded as we
drove. Mr. Rosewater hadn't told me where we were going, but he had told me my
role. "Mazi, you can be a great service to
yourself and the country today," he'd said at one of the predawn
interrogation sessions he had begun to conduct ever since threatening me with
the noose. He slapped the back of my head. "You want to be free, don't
you?"
"Yes," I said quietly.
"So, all you have to do is repeat what Haj Agha taught you about velvet
revolutions, in a press conference." He smacked my legs until they stung.
"But this time we need names. We need to know who are the agents of the
velvet revolution. We need names, Mazi. No names means the noose. Understood?"
Waiting at the courthouse that morning, I had no idea that in another room more
than 100 bedraggled prisoners—many of them leading reformist figures and former
government ministers—were sitting in the dock as a prosecutor read out a long,
outlandish account of their roles in the supposed velvet revolution. Two of
them—former vice president Mohammad Ali Abtahi, and former deputy interior
minister Mohammad Atrianfar—were later brought out to
"confess" their roles to state-media reporters.
My turn came after lunch. We ate chicken kebabs and drank dough, a savory
yogurt drink similar to lassi. Mr. Rosewater gave me his drink, saying he had
to watch out for his blood pressure. "Names, Mazi,
names," he reminded me.
Again I didn't provide any. Of
course I knew several reformist politicians—any veteran Iranian
journalist would have. Many of them, in fact, had also been leading
revolutionaries; over time they had decided that the system they'd helped put
into place could survive only if it was modernized. That was heresy to the new
generation of Guard commanders. These hardliners emerged after the Iran-Iraq
War convinced that Iran had no friends abroad, only enemies—and was saddled
with a corrupt, impious leadership. In their view the old guard needed to be
purged from the system as thoroughly as the shah's cronies had been.
It was clear that Mr. Rosewater wanted me to implicate these reformists, to
link them to my media bosses in the West. Next to me on a dais sat another
prisoner: Kian Tajbaksh, an Iranian-American scholar
who worked for the Open Society Institute, run by George Soros, a particular
bogeyman of the Guards. The fact that the government had licensed both of us to
do our jobs only confirmed the Guards' suspicions about the Iranian
establishment. "Those who gave you permission are even guiltier than you
are," Mr. Rosewater said to me once.
When we finished, I knew what awaited me back at Evin.
In the interrogation room Mr. Rosewater beat me without saying a word. He
didn't have to explain.
Evin Prison, August 2009 Day after day, hour after
endless hour, the interrogations went on, growing surreal in their outlines of
nefarious conspiracy, then circling back to more concrete matters, like the
names and professions and opinions and connections of anyone I knew or might
know. Early on, Mr. Rosewater had demanded my e-mail and Facebook passwords, so
he had a very long list of contacts to grill me about, one by one. What did I
know about this journalist's links to foreign organizations or governments?
What was that one's take on events in Iran? And, if they were women, had I had
sex with them?
This last subject occupied Mr. Rosewater for several weeks. He was a young man,
perhaps in his mid-30s. Sometimes, I think, he used sex as a way to humiliate
me. But he also seemed genuinely curious about someone who had spent so much
time in the West. Once he asked me how I knew one lady friend:
"We met at a party," I said.
"A sex party?"
I was taken aback. "I don't know what a sex party is," I said
hesitantly. "I've never been to one."
"Yeah, right," he said sarcastically. He was convinced that any party
where women went unveiled had to be depraved. His professors, he said, had
taught him about free love in the West. "You can't tell me that you can't
just take any woman's hand in the Champs-Élysées and have sex with her."
He drew out the syllables in "Champs-Élysées," the way he had with
"New Jersey."
Such nonsense was draining. But at least the questions represented human
contact. Other times Mr. Rosewater would order the guards to lock me in my cell
for days. By the time they dragged me out, hollow-eyed, I looked forward to his
questions. Twice I seriously considered suicide by breaking my glasses and
slitting my wrists with the shards. I wondered how long it would take to bleed
to death.
Evin Prison, Sept. 17, 2009 (around 9 a.m.)
"It's very strange that no one has said anything about you yet," Mr.
Rosewater told me one day. "Don't you have any friends or relatives?"
I thought he was bluffing but couldn't know for sure. The prisoner's worst
nightmare is the thought of being forgotten. Then, one morning in September,
the friendliest of the prison guards—a man with whom I exchanged obscene
jokes—opened my cell door and said, "Mr. Hillary Clinton, you can go have hava khori now."
I was mystified. "Why 'Hillary Clinton'?" I asked him. "She
talked about you last night," he said, referring to comments the U.S.
secretary of state had made to her Canadian counterpart. I was ecstatic. This
meant there was international pressure to free me. I wanted to hug the guard. Instead I told him one of the funniest and most obscene
jokes I knew.
Early on I'd had conversations in my head with friends and colleagues, in which
I made suggestions about how to go about getting me released. As time went on
these seemed ever more futile. But in September, I began to see signs that the
Guards were under pressure to free me. First they
allowed me to call my mother, then to share an iftar dinner with her during
Ramadan. Then they let me call Paola—to warn her to stop giving interviews.
(Bless her, she knew that the message meant she should do more.) Mr. Rosewater
began claiming he wanted to free me before our baby was born at the end of
October, a key part of the publicity campaign on my behalf. Eleven days before
my release, I was moved out of solitary confinement and into a cell with four
leading reformists, including Atrianfar. We had TV.
One disenchanted Iranian official
told me recently that the Guards blocked my release for weeks; Mr. Rosewater
was among the loudest calling for me to be tried swiftly and harshly. I doubt
he ever cared about the multilayered pressure campaign that NEWSWEEK and others
had put together on my behalf—the editorials and petitions, the diplomatic
démarches, the quiet personal efforts of world leaders. But there were Iranian
officials who also disagreed with my detention. Soon after the election they
might have been too hesitant or too powerless to do much. But by September,
with Iran on the verge of nuclear talks, they could make the case that I had
become a distraction. "You were more of a liability than an asset in
jail," the disenchanted official told me.
I still don't know what finally
broke the deadlock. A few years from now, after the Guards have consolidated
their position, I'm not sure anything would.
London , November 2009 I am nervous but exhilarated as I type out the words on my laptop:
Don't contact me anymore. I have never spied for anyone. I am not going to start by spying for you.
I send the e-mail to the address
Mr. Rosewater gave me. In the days leading up to my release from Evin he had forced me to sign documents saying I would
"cooperate with the brothers in the Revolutionary Guards" once
outside the country. He'd given me a list of names to report on, including most
of my Iranian friends in London and other Western cities. He'd given me the
e-mail address to use.
The night before I left the
country, he asked to meet me at a hotel in downtown Tehran. His glare was just
as menacing as on the day he arrested me. When the waiter told him our tea
would be delayed, that the water needed time to boil, Mr. Rosewater shot him a
spine-chilling look. The tea was ready within minutes.
We made awkward small talk. He had
brought a colleague with him, an older man whose voice I had heard occasionally
during interrogations. "We hope to have constructive cooperation with you
in the future," the man said soothingly. I smiled and nodded politely. Mr.
Rosewater was more blunt as he reminded me that the
Guards could find me anywhere in the world. "Remember the bag, Mr. Bahari. Remember the bag" were his last words.
I'm remembering something else
instead. In my dream, when the two sisters of mercy came to my aid, it was
comforting to think that one of them was Maryam, my own beloved sister. At the
time I wondered who the other could be. Now, holding my newborn daughter in my
arms, I know. Her name is Marianna Maryam Bahari.
Book Review: "Living in
[Iranian] Hell" by Gazal Omid Larry Kelley - 1/1/2006
Ghazal Omid, Iranian expatriate author of Living in Hell, a newly published autobiography
and political memoir, has caused quite a stir in conservative Iranian society
with her taboo-breaking style. She receives hate mail in the “God will send you
to the devil and you will roast in hell.” vein. Her response, “I’ll be sure to
pay you a visit.” She established her website, www.livinginhell.com, not just
to promote her book but also her cause—the liberation of Iran. The Iranian
government is retaliating by denying Iranians access
to her website and succeeded in temporarily shutting it down completely.
A disturbing truth about Ghazal Omid’s life is that it is the story of millions
of Muslim women. Her book begins with an account of her mother being sold by
her family, at age 14, into a loveless marriage to a heroin addict for $4000.
Abandoned after the wedding night, she was able, after one year, to secure a
divorce but her parents, Ghazal’s grandparents, “…treated her (mother) as an
outcast and would rather have seen her dead than divorced.”
Her story progresses to her roots and her mother’s second forced marriage, at
age 16, to a wealthy, middle age stranger who became her biological father. In
an almost poetic way she speaks of her own future and
others like her, making the point that little can be expected from a generation
whose fate and abuse was pre-ordained. Her father was a man with a dark secret.
He not only didn’t divulge that he had another wife and seven kids but had also
raped his sister, resulting in her death; a secret confessed by his own mother,
on her death bed, to Ghazal’s mother.
When Ghazal was twelve years old, she too was molested for over a year by the
youngest of her three adult brothers. Her mother blindly loved her deviant son,
refusing to learn of her daughter’s torturous molestation. Ghazal explains her
own helplessness, “She wouldn’t have believed me and could have killed me in an
“honor killing,” This level of male domination and cruelty meted out against
women and female children is still in practice, not only in Iran, but much of
the Middle East.
Astonishingly, despite the torment Ghazal went through, although she lost her
faith in God once, she returned to Islam. Now she is a defender of true Islam
and condemns its perversion as seen in many Islamic countries, including Iran.
She survived the Islamic revolution and the eight-year Iran/Iraq war. With her
home in a prime Iraqi target area, she and her mother would go to bed at night
expecting to be killed in bombing raids. She grew up in an oppressed society
that taught children to hate people of different cultures but refused to hate
someone she didn’t know. Because of her Islamic education and curious mind she was not poisoned by the propaganda of a government
that was imprisoning and killing its opponents by the thousands.
Ghazal, an outspoken woman at early age, was branded a subversive at her
mullah-controlled university because, like Rosa Parks, she refused to sit at
the back of the classroom and refused to be silent. During her university
years, she was abducted by the secret police from the streets of Isfahan, the
nuclear plant city. She escaped, temporarily, by jumping from the speeding
kidnap car. Seriously injured, she was rescued by people on the street but,
soon afterwards, was taken to prison and given a Hobson’s choice; sign a
document stating the abduction never happened or remain in prison until she
did. She describes the fetid prison conditions in which women and babies were
being held indefinitely. As Ghazal signed the document, she recalled that when
Galileo was forced to recant his theories about the universe, he left prison
declaring that, despite what he had just said, the earth was not flat and still
revolved around the sun. Ghazal vowed she would inform the world about a regime
that has killed more than 130,000 of its citizens attempting to silence them.
After the kidnapping, she received threatening letters and was watched
constantly.
Realizing she was marked for an orchestrated death sentence on trumped up
charges, a common occurrence, she fled Iran, thru France to Holland from where,
using a fraudulent Algerian passport, she flew to refugee status in Canada;
arriving alone, penniless and without language in an alien land. She describes
her life in Canada, her personal growth and learning North American culture to
bridge the gap between East and West.
She explains, without excusing, the origin of terrorism, its root in poverty
and cultural ignorance created by lack of education, resulting in misguided
suicide bombers.
Her experiences are important for everyone to know about because one incident
in particular shows that the enemy we fear is already living among us and we
would not know it if 9/11 had not occurred. Ghazal describes her meeting with a
Canadian member of an al Qaeda sleeper cell. Near the end of Ramadan 2004, from
her adopted home in British Columbia, while sending out drafts of her now
published book, she received a peculiar instant message from a total stranger
asking her, in Arabic, if she were a Muslim, explaining that he was from India
but was Muslim and asked if he could meet her. After several days and much
persistent e-mail, she agreed.
Her mysterious dinner companion turned out to be a burly, well-dressed,
six-foot man with closed cropped beard and shaved head. He told her that he was
an engineer, owned a condo in Montreal and was traveling west for business. She
writes:
I sensed that he was not just a guy but also a guy with a big secret. Finally,
our conversation came around to politics. I must have looked stunned when he
said he had worked with Bin Laden when Russia occupied Afghanistan. He quickly
added that Bin Laden could not have had any part in 9/11. I asked him how he
could know that.
“I know the guy. He gave up his own life to help others,” he told me.
“At this point, I had a sensation as if my hair were standing on end. I
thought, my Lord, I have just allowed myself to be manipulated into meeting
with an al Qaeda member. As he continued to talk about Bin laden, his face
turned a reddish hue as he defended him with passion and anger in his eyes.
Next, I asked, “So who do you think was behind 9/11?” He said that it was all
CIA, trying to frame this wonderful man.
“What would you do if he ordered you to kill Americans or Canadians?” I asked.
He said with conviction and no hesitancy, “If Bin Laden ordered me to kill all
the Canadians or Americans I would do it.”
Ms. Omid has become an important spokesperson is in the vanguard of Iranian
heroines living in the West; women who openly advocate revolution and regime
change in Iran. This is a dangerous business, as the author’s meeting
illustrates.
I found Living in Hell an in-depth, enriching read with great descriptions of
history and culture and voluminous research that makes this book a must-read
political memoir. It is not only informative; it is painfully truthful. North
Americans will appreciate the freedom they have and what it is like to live in
Iran, as a woman. As we follow Ghazal’s struggle for survival and freedom, we
cannot help but become her allies. Her story transcends religion and ethnic
differences and connects the reader with the essence of human existence and it
is endearing because westerners are largely altruistic.
Iran's president: Israel must be 'wiped off the map'
The Associated Press
TEHRAN, Iran (AP) — Iran's hard-line
president called for Israel to be "wiped off the map" and said a new
wave of Palestinian attacks will destroy the Jewish state, state-run media
reported Wednesday.
President Mahmoud
Ahmadinejad also denounced attempts to recognize Israel or normalize relations
with it.
"There is no doubt
that the new wave (of attacks) in Palestine will wipe off this stigma (Israel)
from the face of the Islamic world," Ahmadinejad told students Wednesday
during a Tehran conference called "The World without Zionism."
"Anybody who
recognizes Israel will burn in the fire of the Islamic nation's fury, (while)
any (Islamic leader) who recognizes the Zionist regime means he is
acknowledging the surrender and defeat of the Islamic world," Ahmadinejad
said.
Ahmadinejad also
repeated the words of the founder of Iran's Islamic revolution, Ayatollah
Ruhollah Khomeini, who called for the destruction of Israel.
"As the imam said,
Israel must be wiped off the map," said Ahmadinejad, who came to power in
August and replaced Mohammad Khatami, a reformist who advocated international
dialogue and tried to improve Iran's relations with the West.
Ahmadinejad referred to
Israel's recent withdrawal from the Gaza Strip as a "trick," saying
Gaza was already a part of Palestinian lands and the pullout was designed to
win acknowledgment of Israel by Islamic states.
"The fighting in
Palestine is a war between the (whole) Islamic nation and the world of
arrogance," Ahmadinejad said, using Tehran's propaganda epithet for the
United States and Israel. "Today, Palestinians are representing the
Islamic nation against arrogance."
Iran does not recognize
the existence of Israel and has often called for its destruction.
Israel has been at the
forefront of nations calling and end to Iran's nuclear program, which the
United States and many others in the West say is aimed at acquiring weapons of
mass destruction. Iran says the program is for generating electricity.
White House press
secretary Scott McClellan said Ahmadinejad's comment "reconfirms what we
have been saying about the regime in Iran. It underscores the concerns we have
about Iran's nuclear intentions."
French Foreign Minister
Jean-Baptiste Mattei condemned Ahmadinejad's remarks
"with the utmost firmness."
Harsh words for Israel
are common in Iran, especially at this time of year, the end of the Muslim holy
month of Ramadan. In Iran, this Friday — the last Muslim day of prayer in the
Ramadan holiday — has been declared Quds Day, or Jerusalem Day. Rallies were
slated in support of Palestinians — and against Israel's occupation of parts of
the city and other Palestinian lands.
Other Iranian
politicians also have issued anti-Israeli statements, in attempts to whip up
support for Friday's nationwide Quds Day demonstrations.
But Ahmadinejad's
strident anti-Israeli statements on the eve of the demonstration were harsher
than those issued during the term of the reformist Khatami and harkened back to
Khomeini's fiery speeches. Ahmadinejad was a longtime member of Iran's elite
Revolutionary Guards, which even operates a division dubbed the Quds Division,
a rhetorical reference to Tehran's hopes of one day ending Israel's domination
of Islam's third-holiest city.
After his election,
Ahmadinejad received the support of the powerful hard-line
Revolutionary Guards, who report directly to supreme leader Ayatollah Ali
Khamenei.
Last year, a senior
member of the guards attended a meeting that called for and accepted
applications for suicide bombers to target U.S. troops and Israelis.
Iran announced earlier
this year that it had fully developed solid fuel technology for missiles, a
major breakthrough that increases their accuracy.
The Shahab-3, with a
range of 810 miles to 1,200 miles, is capable of delivering a nuclear warhead
to Israel and U.S. forces in the Middle East.
Iran bans foreign films Staff
and agencies
Wednesday October 26, 2005
A committee of Islamic clerics in
Iran, led by the country's new hardline president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, this
week banned foreign films in an effort to wipe out what they called
"corrupt Western culture".
Elements that were specifically
named as affronts to the government's vision of Iran's Muslim culture included
alcohol and drugs, secularists, liberals, anarchists and feminists.
The ban, which follows Mr Ahmadinejad's campaign promise to promote Islamic
culture and confront what he called a cultural invasion by the west, aims to
distance the state from the open cultural policies undertaken by former
reformist president Mohammad Khatami that encouraged cultural coexistence and
dialogue among civilisations.
Many experts and officials say the
ban will only cause Iranians to turn to the black market for western videotapes
or to foreign satellite television broadcasts. It is understood that the ban
will have little effect on cinemas where few Western films play anyway, but it
could dramatically change television, where all channels are controlled by the
state and overseen by religious hardliners.
State-run television has hitherto
shown foreign films after censoring many scenes deemed immoral or offensive.
Films considered hostile to the Islamic values preached by the ruling
establishment are already banned altogether.
"This new ban appears to be part
of a campaign to push Iran back to the 1980s and to impose the same
restrictions that were only just eased under Khatami. But it will be impossible
to take Iran back to the 80s again," said international relations
professor Davoud Hermidas Bavand.
Under President Khatami, Iran's 70
million citizens, more than half of whom are under 30, enjoyed growing social
and political freedoms and were exposed to western popular culture through
satellite television. The dishes are officially banned but tolerated by
authorities. Many residents in Tehran hide them under tarpaulins or disguise
them as air-conditioning units.
Western music, films and clothing
are widely available in Iran, and hip-hop tunes can be heard on Tehran's
streets, blaring from car speakers and music shops. Bootleg videos and DVDs of
films banned by the state are widely available on the black market.
Already, the state-run television
station in the holy city of Mashhad in north-eastern Iran has reported that
police closed several video clubs last week on grounds that they were offering
films inconsistent with Islamic culture.
Iran blasts Muslim countries for
ties to Israel
Friday, 7th October 2005
Iran Focus
Tehran, Iran, Oct. 07 – A senior Iranian cleric blasted on Friday fellow Muslim
countries for having ties to the state of Israel, accusing them of “betraying
Islamic people and society”.
At the Tehran Friday prayers sermon, Guardian Council chief Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati vowed that Tehran would continue to stand against
the “Jewish enemy”.
“Today, Israel calls on them (Muslim countries) to make their relations public
and they are in this path. The vulgar action of the Pakistani President in
America was for this purpose”, Jannati, who heads the
country’s top vetting organ, said.
“I believe that the development is the publicising of
[their] relations. The only country that can stand up to Israel and the
plundering, evil forces, and fight against injustice and violation of values
and the Holy Quran is the Islamic Republic of Iran, and I am sure that such a
thing is possible”, the Guardian Council chief added.
He called on Muslims to rise to Jihad, adding that the Islamic Republic must
never give in or appease the “enemy”.
Iran police kill Ramadan offender
Monday October 17, 2005
TEHRAN - Iranian police have been
accused of shooting and killing a motorist after he failed to stop when spotted
eating during the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan, a press report said.
The victim, identified as 22-year-old Seyed Mostafa,
was shot dead in Tehran on Saturday.
He was also playing loud music with his car stereo, the government Iran
newspaper said.
"Even if the police claim is right, is eating during the fasting month
punishable by death?" the victim's brother was quoted as saying.
The report did not say if the family would press charges against the police,
who have been actively enforcing a dawn to dusk Ramadan ban on public eating,
drinking and smoking as well as a wider campaign to crack down on "lawless
elements".
Iran's Final Solution Plan
by Daniel Pipes
New York Sun
November 1, 2005
"Iran's stance has always been clear on
this ugly phenomenon [i.e., Israel]. We have repeatedly said that this
cancerous tumor of a state should be removed from the region."
No, those are not the words of Iran's
president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, speaking last week. Rather, that was Ali
Khamenei, the Islamic Republic of Iran's supreme leader, in December 2000.
In other words, Ahmadinejad's call
for the destruction of Israel was nothing new but conforms to a
well-established pattern of regime rhetoric and ambition. "Death to
Israel!" has been a rallying cry for the past quarter-century. Mr.
Ahmadinejad quoted Ayatollah Khomeini, its founder, in his call on October 26
for genocidal war against Jews: "The regime occupying Jerusalem must be
eliminated from the pages of history," Khomeini said decades ago. Mr.
Ahmadinejad lauded this hideous goal as "very wise."
In December 2001, Ali
Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, a former Iranian president and still powerful
political figure, laid the groundwork for an exchange of nuclear weapons with
Israel: "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 anything in
Israel but the same thing would just produce minor damages in the Muslim
world."
In like spirit, a Shahab-3
ballistic missile (capable of reaching Israel) paraded in Tehran last month
bore the slogan "Israel Should Be Wiped Off the Map."
The threats by Messrs. Khamenei and Rafsanjani
prompted yawns but Mr. Ahmadinejad's statement roused an uproar.
The U.N. secretary-general, Kofi Annan,
expressed "dismay," the U.N. Security
Council dubbed it "verbal terrorism," and a unanimously condemned
it, and the European
Union condemned it "in the strongest terms." Prime Minister Martin of Canada
deemed it "beyond the pale," Prime Minister Blair of Britain
expressed "revulsion," and the French foreign minister, Philippe Douste-Blazy, announced that "for France, the right
for Israel to exist should not be contested." Le Monde
called the speech a "cause for serious alarm," Die Welt London Sun
headline proclaimed Ahmadinejad the "most evil man in the world."
The governments of Turkey, Russia, and
China, spoke against Mr. Ahmadinejad: "Palestinians recognize the
right of the state of Israel to exist, and I reject his comments." The
Cairene daily among others, expressly condemned the statement. Maryam Rajavi
of the National Council of Resistance of Iran, a leading opposition group,
demanded that the European Union rid the region of the "hydra of terrorism
and fundamentalism" in Tehran. Even the Palestinian Authority's Saeb
Erekat Al-Ahram
dismissed his statement as "fanatical" and spelling disaster for
Arabs.
Iranians were surprised
and suspicious. Why, some asked, did the mere reiteration of long-standing
policy prompt an avalanche of outraged foreign reactions?
In a constructive spirit, I offer them four
reasons. First, Mr. Ahmadinejad's virulent character gives the threats against
Israel added credibility. Second, he in subsequent days defiantly
repeated and elaborated on his threats. Third, he added an aggressive coda
to the usual formulation, warning Muslims who recognize Israel that they
"will burn in the fire of the Islamic umma [nation]."
This directly targets the Palestinians and
several Arab states, but especially neighboring Pakistan. Just a month before
Mr. Ahmadinejad spoke, the Pakistani president, Pervez Musharraf, stated
that "Israel rightly desires security." He envisioned the opening of
embassies in Israel by Muslim countries like Pakistan as a "signal for
peace." Mr. Ahmadinejad perhaps indicated an intent to confront Pakistan
over relations with Israel.
Finally, Israelis estimate that the Iranians
could, within
six months, have the means to build an atomic bomb. Mr. Ahmadinejad
implicitly confirmed this rapid timetable when he warned that after just
"a short period … the process of the elimination of the Zionist regime
will be smooth and simple." The imminence of a nuclear-armed Iran
transforms "Death to Israel" from an empty slogan into the potential premise
for a nuclear assault on the Jewish state, perhaps relying on Mr. Rafsanjani's
genocidal thinking.
Ironically, Mr. Ahmadinejad's candor has had
positive effects, reminding the world of his regime's unremitting bellicosity,
its rank anti-Semitism, and its dangerous arsenal. As
Tony Blair noted, Mr. Ahmadinejad's threats raise the question, "When are
you going to do something about this?" And Mr. Blair later warned Tehran
with some menace
against its becoming a "threat to our world security." His alarm
needs to translate into action, and urgently so.
We are on notice. Will we act in time?
12-08-2005
TEHRAN (AFP)
Iran's hardline President Mahmoud
Ahmadinejad triggered new international outcry by saying the "tumour" of the state of Israel should be relocated to
Europe.
His remarks were greeted with
outrage from Germany, Austria, Israel and the United States, at the forefront
of an international campaign to prevent the Islamic regime from acquiring
nuclear weapons.
Ahmadinejad, who in October said
arch-enemy Israel must be "wiped off the map", said that if Germany
and Austria believed Jews were massacred during World War II, a state of Israel
should be established on their soil.
"You believe the Jews were
oppressed, why should the Palestinian Muslims have to pay the price?" he
asked in an interview with Iranian state television's Arabic-language satellite
channel, Al-Alam.
"You oppressed them, so give a
part of Europe to the Zionist regime so they can establish any government they
want. We would support it," he said, according to a transcript of his
original Farsi-language comments given to AFP.
"So, Germany and Austria, come
and give one, two or any number of your provinces to the Zionist regime so they
can create a country there... and the problem will be solved at its root,"
he said.
"Why do they insist on
imposing themselves on other powers and creating a tumour
so there is always tension and conflict?"
Ahmadinejad, a straight-talking former
commando who swept to the presidency after a shock election win in June, is no
stranger to controversy.
"Unfortunately
this is not the first time that the Iranian leader has expressed outrageous and
racist views towards Jews and Israel," said Israeli foreign ministry
spokesman Mark Regev.
"I hope that these outrageous
remarks will be a wake-up call to people who have any illusions about the
nature of the regime in Iran."
Israel's views were echoed by the
United States, its closest ally.
"It just further underscores
our concerns about the regime in Iran. And it's all the more reason why it's so
important that the regime not have the ability to develop nuclear
weapons," said White House spokesman Scott McClellan.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel
said Ahmadinejad's combative suggestion that Israel was "totally
unacceptable" and Austrian Chancellor Wolfgang Schuessel,
speaking after a meeting with US President George W. Bush, called the remarks
"an outrageous gaffe, which I want to repudiate in the sharpest
manner."
German Foreign Minister
Frank-Walter Steinmeier said the EU's nuclear diplomacy is "not made
easier by the fact that Mr Ahmadinejad comes up with
new ideas, that the people of Israel could move to Germany and Austria, to
resolve the Middle East problem".
Italian Prime Minister Silvio
Berlusconi also condemned the remarks.
In Ahmadinejad's interview, he
referred to the Holocaust as a matter of belief, and raised the issue of
revisionist historians -- who attempt to establish that figures on the number
of Jews killed by the Nazis are wildly exaggerated -- being prosecuted in
Europe.
"Is it not true that European
countries insist that they committed a Jewish genocide? They say that Hitler
burned millions of Jews in furnaces... and exiled them," he said.
"Then because the Jews have
been oppressed during the Second World War, therefore they (the Europeans) have
to support the occupying regime of Qods (Jerusalem).
We do not accept this."
The Holocaust was Nazi Germany's
systematic slaughter of an estimated six million Jews between 1933 and 1945.
Official Iranian media frequently
carry sympathetic interviews with Holocaust revisionists, and the regime itself
also refuses to recognise Israel.
Ahmadinejad also proposed "a
referendum in Palestine for all the original Palestinians" to decide on
the future of what is now Israel, the Gaza Strip and West Bank.
But he said "the best solution
is resistance so that the enemies of the Palestinians accept the reality and
the right of the Palestinian people to have land."
He was speaking in the Muslim holy
city of Mecca in Saudi Arabia where he was attending a summit of the Organisation of the Islamic Conference.
After calling for Israel to be
"wiped off the map" in October, Iran was chastised by the UN Security
Council and drew fierce condemnation from the West -- already alarmed over
Iran's nuclear ambitions and ballistic missile programme.
A scheduled visit to Iran by UN
Secretary General Kofi Annan was also called off as a result of the remark.
Ahmadinejad's tone has also been a
major departure from his pro-reform predecessor Mohammad Khatami, who had eased
anti-Western rhetoric and sought to bring Iran out of international isolation
by calling for a "dialogue among civilisations".
TEHRAN, Iran (AP) -- Hard-line President Mahmoud
Ahmadinejad has banned Western music from Iran's radio and TV stations,
reviving one of the harshest cultural decrees from the early days of the 1979
Islamic Revolution.
Songs such as George Michael's "Careless
Whisper," Eric Clapton's "Rush" and the Eagles' "Hotel
California" have regularly accompanied Iranian broadcasts, as do tunes by
saxophonist Kenny G.
But the official IRAN Persian daily reported
Monday that Ahmadinejad, as head of Iran's Supreme Cultural Revolutionary
Council, ordered the enactment of an October ruling by the council to ban
Western music.
"Blocking indecent and Western music from
the Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting is required," according to a
statement on the council's official Web site.
Ahmadinejad's order means broadcasters must
execute the decree and prepare a report on its implementation within six
months, according to the newspaper.
"This is terrible," said Iranian
guitarist Babak Riahipour, whose music was played
occasionally on state radio and TV. "The decision shows a lack of
knowledge and experience."
Music was outlawed as un-Islamic by Ayatollah
Ruhollah Khomeini soon after the revolution. But as the fervor of the revolution
started to fade, light classical music was allowed on radio and television.
Some public concerts reappeared in the late 1980s.
Western music, films and clothing are widely
available in Iran, and hip-hop can be heard on Tehran's streets, blaring from
car speakers or from music shops. Bootleg videos and DVDs of films banned by
the state are widely available on the black market.
After eight years of reformist-led rule in
Iran, Ahmadinejad won office in August on a platform of reverting to ultraconservative
principles promoted by the revolution.
Since then, Ahmadinejad has jettisoned Iran's
moderation in foreign policy and pursued a purge in the government, replacing
pragmatic veterans with former military commanders and inexperienced religious
hard-liners.
He also has issued stinging criticisms of
Israel, called for the Jewish state to be "wiped off the map" and
described the Nazi Holocaust as a "myth." (Full story)
International concerns are high over Iran's
nuclear program, with the United States accusing Tehran of pursuing an atomic
weapons program. Iran denies the claims.
During his presidential campaign, Ahmadinejad
also promised to confront what he called the Western cultural invasion and
promote Islamic values.
The latest media ban also includes censorship
of content of films.
"Supervision of content from films, TV
series and their voice-overs is emphasized in order to support spiritual cinema
and to eliminate triteness and violence," the council said in a statement
on its Web site explaining its October ruling.
The council has also issued a ban on foreign
movies that promote "arrogant powers," an apparent reference to the
United States.
The Associated Press.
Europeans Oppose 'Scientific'
Debate on Holocaust: Iran
2005-12-18 CRIENGLISH.com
Hardline Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's
view that Jews were never massacred during World War II is
"scientific", Iran's foreign ministry has insisted.
"The type of response from the Europeans to the theoretical and scientific
debate of Mr Ahmadinejad has no place in the civilised world and is totally emotional and
illogical," foreign ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi
said Sunday.
"What Mr Ahmadinejad expressed was scientific
debate, and the reaction surprises me," he told reporters. "The
reaction from European officials is a sign of their total, blind support for
the Zionists."
Ahmadinejad has caused international outrage with a series of anti-Israeli and
anti-Jewish remarks, in the course of which he has said Israel was a "tumour" that should be "wiped off the map"
or moved to Europe.
On Thursday he said the Holocaust -- during which an estimated six million Jews
were killed under Nazi Germany -- was a "myth", and that Israel
should be moved as far away from the Muslim world as Alaska.
"The Europeans should get used to hearing other opinions, even if they
don't like them," Asefi said.
(Source: AP)
Cradle of the
apocalypse
TODAY The Sun brings you a chilling frontline report from deep inside the nuclear powderkeg of Iran.
Chief Foreign Correspondent Nick Parker and photographer
Ray Collins secretly slipped into a country that is defying the world in its
determination to develop nukes.
They found ordinary Iranians terrified at the
prospect of fanatical president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad getting his hands on the
bomb.
Our men also got close to the secret complex
that has sparked world outrage — the uranium enrichment plant at Isfahan.
By NICK PARKER Chief Foreign Correspondent
IN Iran's bleak and forbidding
landscape Iranians fear their fanatical leader is plotting a nuclear
apocalypse.
Yesterday I got within a mile of
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s doomsday factory — and found a nation filled
with dread.
In the capital Tehran, one woman
shuddered at the prospect of the zealot getting his hands on a nuclear bomb.
The 35-year-old bookseller warned:
“He could soon have his finger on a nuclear button.
“We all tell ourselves the unthinkable
could never happen — and that he is not lying when he says Iran has no need of
nuclear weapons.
“But how can we trust a man who has
told the world he is on a mission from God?” A former soldier sipping tea in a
café put it more bluntly.
The former lieutenant declared: “We
fear we have elected a madman.”
The white-haired 55-year-old — a
veteran of the bloody war with Iraq — said: “He won the election promising us
better everyday lives.
“But now he seems obsessed with
provoking America and the West.
“Many ordinary people are worried
by his religious mania — he can’t wait for the apocalypse.”
Blacksmith’s son Ahmadinejad, 49,
has declared Israel must be wiped off the map. He has told followers to prepare
the way for the return of the revered “Hidden Prophet” — known as the Mahdi.
According to Islam, the Mahdi will
bring justice to the whole world.
But he will not come back until the
earth is rocked by a period of terror and catastrophe.
Many in Iran fear their president
is out to cause just that.
He has already triggered global
outrage by breaking UN seals on his uranium enrichment plant at Isfahan.
Ahmadinejad claims Iran simply wants nuclear fuel.
"Most people here — especially
young people like me — want to forget the past and build better relations with
other nations.
“But we’re heading back to the dark
ages now.”
Photographer Ray Collins and I got
within a mile of the top secret Isfahan nuke base
after sneaking into Iran as tourists.
Our driver was too terrified to
take us all the way. He explained: “This is as far as anyone dare go. Any
further and we might not come back.” In the distance the base’s stark 10ft high
perimeter fence was clearly visible.
Troops regularly patrol the wasteland
around the complex.
Yesterday grey unmarked trucks
rumbled along the track leading to the plant, which is close to a peak called
Shah Mohammad.
Our driver told us: “The nuclear
base workers and its scientists never come into the local town.They live and work on the base. Its secrets stay
behind the wire.”
The plant lies just six miles from
the historic city of Isfahan — an architectural gem with glittering
mosaic-covered mosques and minarets.
Its citizens are proud of their
centuries-old record of religious tolerance. Armenian Christians and even a
community of 3,000 Jews live in relative peace among the Muslim majority.
But these days, despite the smiles
of conscript soldiers we spoke to, a tangible sense of foreboding grips the
city.
One Jewish trader — a 50-year-old
who gave his name as Isaac — said: “Our greatest fear is a strike on the
nuclear plant by America or Israel.
“It could contaminate the whole
city. Ahmadinejad is risking all our lives by taunting his enemies.”
Armenian Christian Vahick, 42, who runs a souvenir stall across the Zeyandeh river, said: “We all have much to fear from this
man.
Muslim hotel boss Shah, 58, said:
“A lot of people here are terrified by what Ahmadinejad is doing because the
nuclear site is so close to the city.
“If his enemies bomb the place who
knows what could be released into the air.”
Israel — which bombed Iraq's
French-built Osirak nuclear reactor in 1981 — has
already warned a similar strike on Iran may be ordered.
But destroying the nuke site will
not be easy. Locals said much of it has been built deep underground to protect
it from even the most powerful “bunker buster” bombs.
Experts fear Iran could develop a nuclear
weapon within two years. That would leave the region at the mercy of a maniac
who first paraded his fanaticism in a bizarre maiden speech to the UN General
Assembly last September.
In it, Ahmadinejad appealed to God
to “hasten the emergence of your last repository, the promised one, the perfect
human being, the one that will fill this world with justice and peace.”
He later declared that he felt
himself surrounded by a radiant light during his rambling address begging for
the Mahdi’s return.
And in a video distributed two
months later on an Iranian website, he said: “For 27 to 28 minutes all the
leaders did not blink.
“It’s not an exaggeration because I
was looking.”
In reality UN delegates had simply
been left agog at his crackpot performance. Recently Ahmadinejad’s rantings
have taken an ever more sinister twist.
When 108 people died last month on
a military plane which crashed in Tehran, he gave a clue to the extent of his
fanaticism. He said: “What is important is that they have shown the way to
martyrdom which we must all follow.”
In Isfahan — which has seen its
tourist trade plummet — hotelier Shah told how he feared for his family’s
safety.
He said: “It is ironic that a place
in Iran where Jewish people can live in peace is at the centre
of this international crisis.
“We are praying to all our Gods
that Ahmadinejad stops this madness.”
· An
Israeli MP has called for Iran to be banned from soccer’s World Cup in Germany
after Ahmadinejad claimed the Holocaust was myth.
Iran opens
exhibition mocking Holocaust
TEHRAN, Iran -- An exhibition of cartoons
about the Holocaust opened this week, reflecting Iran's response to last year's
Muslim outrage over a caricature of the Prophet Muhammad in a Danish newspaper.
The display, showing 204 entries
from Iran and abroad, was strongly influenced by the views of Iran's hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who drew
widespread condemnation last year for calling the Holocaust a "myth"
and saying Israel should be destroyed.
One cartoon by Indonesian Tony Thomdean shows the Statue of Liberty holding a book on the
Holocaust in its left hand and giving a Nazi-style salute with the other.
Masoud Shojai,
director of the host Caricature House, said a jury looked through 1,200 entries
received after the contest was announced in February by the co-sponsor, the Iranian
newspaper Hamshahri.
It came following worldwide
protests by Muslims against the Muhammad cartoons published by the Danish
newspaper Jyllands-Posten. Many Muslims considered the cartoons a violation of
traditions prohibiting images of their prophet.
Hamshahri said it
wanted to test the West's tolerance for drawings about the Nazi killing of 6
million Jews in World War II. The entries on display came from nations
including United States, Indonesia and Turkey.
About 50 people attended the
exhibition's opening on Monday.
"I came to learn more about
the roots of the Holocaust and the basis of Israel's emergence," said
23-year-old Zahra Amoli.
The exhibition runs until Sept. 13
and the winner will receive $12,000. The exhibition hall is next to the Palestinian
Authority's embassy, which was Israel's diplomatic site in Iran before the 1979
Islamic Revolution.
Iran Near Bottom Of
Religious Freedom Ranking
The U.S. State Department's annual report on
religious report says Iran is "of particular concern," criticizes
Uzbekistan and Afghanistan, but reserves some praise for Turkmenistan.
PRAGUE, September 16, 2006 (RFE/RL) -- For the seventh
year in a row, the U.S. State Department's annual report on religious freedom
around the world, designates Iran a "country of particular concern"
for imprisonment and harassment of people based on their religious beliefs.
John Hanford, the State Department's ambassador
at large for religious freedom, said at the launch of the report, on September
15, that the purpose of the report is to "spur debate in other countries,
hold governments accountable to their international commitments, speak out on
behalf of the persecuted, and in the end, provide a sense of how well we are
living up to our own ideals."
The report says that the eight "countries
of particular concern" -- countries that in Washington's view are the
worst violators of religious freedom -- are Myanmar, China, North Korea, Iran,
Sudan, Eritrea, Saudi Arabia, and Vietnam.
Considered slightly better are 12 other
countries where religious freedoms are far from secure. They are Afghanistan,
Brunei, Cuba, Egypt, India, Israel and the occupied territories, Laos,
Pakistan, Russia, Sri Lanka, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan.
Uzbekistan is faulted for
"outrageous" crackdowns on Muslims, which Hanford says included a
further tightening of a religious law and increased harassment of worshipers.
"Such abuses are particularly
unfortunately where, as in Uzbekistan, they undermine a long-standing societal
tradition of religious harmony," Hanford said. "Uzbekistan also
provides an example of how governments often choose to use repressive registration
laws as a means of restricting non-approved religions or simply to outlaw
certain faiths entirely."
While the situation in neighboring Turkmenistan
is also seen as grave, Hanford did note a modicum of progress. He said that
"where previously only two religious groups were allowed legal status,
we've now seen nine new religions and denominations allowed to register, an
opening upon which we hope that government will continue to build."
Attitudes in Russia toward Jews and Muslim
ethnic groups have become more negative in the past year, the State Department
says. But Moscow is also praised for reacting quickly to an attack on a Moscow
synagogue this January.
In Afghanistan, the report says decades of war
and years of Taliban rule have contributed to a conservative culture of
intolerance.
Nonetheless, Hanford says the government of
Afghan President Hamid Karzai is "seeking to uphold constitutional
guarantees of religious freedom, despite a long-standing culture of
intolerance."
The State Department's annual review of
religious freedom around the world is required by the U.S. International
Religious Freedom Act. In all, the survey covers 197 countries and territories.
Countries in the lowest ranking may be hit with U.S. sanctions if they do not
improve.
The Iranian authorities on September 16
dismissed the report as "political" and "lacking legal
proof."
In a statement, Foreign Ministry spokesman
Mohammad Ali Hosseini also said the report "pursues a U.S. foreign policy
agenda and is of no value."