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International-UN-NGOs

Behind the scenes of the Nobel Peace Prize

2023-10-08

Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited. Text taken from the Live Journal post of Russian military journalist Boris Rozhin. Commentary by Rozhin is in italics. [ColonelCassad] Interesting details about the new “Nobel laureate”. Intelligence services, drugs and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. Behind the scenes of the Nobel Peace Prize In 2003, Nargiz Mohammadi joined the Center for Human Rights, founded in 2000 by Shirin Ebadi, winner of the 2003 Nobel Peace Prize. He holds the position Vice President of the Human Rights Defense Center (DHRC). *** DHRC was established in Tehran in 2001. Ebadi received the Nobel Prize and Mohammadi got a job with her. The peculiarity is that Ebadi was an activist in the campaign to strengthen the legal status of women and this played a key role in the presidential elections in May 1997, which was won by reformist Mohammad Khatami and appointed Ali Shamkhani as Minister of Defense. Ebadi's human rights activities were aimed at demonstrating the cruelty of Khatami's conservative opponents in eliminating dissident intellectuals. Ali Khamenei pointed to the enemies of Iran, others specifically to the Israeli intelligence services, and Ebadi to the liquidation team from the Ministry of Intelligence (MOIS). So Said Emami, adviser to the Minister of Intelligence, was arrested and, under strange circumstances, passed away, hiding almost all traces. However, the story of the murder of Iranian-Kurdish dissidents in a Greek restaurant in Berlin (09/17/1992), the details of which were reported to German investigators by Abolghassem Mesbahi, a former Iranian intelligence officer who fled the country with the assistance of Emami, led to an arrest warrant for Ali Fallahian, an influential minister intelligence from 1989 to 1997 under Iranian President Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani. So Khatami, having become the president of Iran (when Bill Clinton began his second presidential term, replacing Secretary of State Christopher with Madeleine Albright, a protégé of Zbigniew Brzezinski), immediately weakened the position of his predecessors. Emami was Fallahian's deputy at MOIS and became an advisor to his successor Ghorbanali Dorri-Najafabadi. The investigation into the “chain of murders” with the participation of Shirin Ebadi led not only to the liquidation of Emami, but also to the resignation of Dorri-Najafabadi. Only then (in February 1999) did Khatami have his own intelligence minister, Ali Younesi, who later served as adviser to President Hassan Rouhani on political and security issues. So, Shirin Ebadi is a very special human rights activist. When it created its center in Tehran, Ahmadinejad was the mayor. But what could he do against Khatami's will? And so in 2003, Nargiz Mohammadi, born in Zanjan, got a job with Ebadi. Perhaps then the game of Ahmadinejad or Khamenei began to introduce “their human rights activist” closer to the “alien” Ebadi (who has been living in exile in London since 2009, because she called for the cancellation of the election results in which Ahmadinejad was re-elected). Or Mohammadi, like Ebadi, represents the Khatami/Shamkhani network. This interpretation is also possible. Once again: the flow of opium from Baluchistan goes by land from Iran through Armenia to Georgia, and then by sea to Odessa; the scheme strengthens the elites of southern Iran, but the influence of the Azerbaijani provinces in the West (West and East Azerbaijan, Ardabil, Zanjan) decreases. More recently, Ali Shamkhani was getting closer with the NKR and was in conflict with Azerbaijan. The Nobel Committee, at the request of unnamed VIPs, confirmed that the influence of the Azerbaijani provinces has weakened and those who criticize the excesses of the regime are winning? And then the multifaceted regime sent the advanced Ahmadinejad to Guatemala. First delayed due to security issues. And then he left with a beautiful woman without a hijab on the plane (maybe they were waiting for her?). Show that Azerbaijani provinces can respond brightly. Exactly in the same special field. Almost simultaneously with Ahmadinejad's detention at the airport, some media in Colombia reported that former President Alvaro Uribe would stand trial and could receive 12 years in prison. Uribe, who has ties to Medellin and the local cartel, is on the opposite side of President Gustavo Petro's stance on drug policy splicing. The author is transparently trying to hint that the Iranian special services continue to play Zubatovism with “special human rights activists” since the late 80s, using them as a tool to control the human rights agenda and internal squabbles. The version, of course, has only indirect confirmation, but it has a right to exist, although the very fact of working for another “Nobel laureate”, who was supervised by Iranian intelligence services, does not yet prove that the new “laureate” also worked for them. Well, regarding drugs, the United States tried to separate Balochistan from Iranian territory as part of the 2007 “Greater Middle East” plan, which would allow them to control drug production in Balochistan, complementing other important drug countries that are under US control - Colombia , Afghanistan (until recently), Kosovo, etc. Baluchistan, if the Americans managed to destroy Iran, would be an excellent addition to this strategy of controlling the main flows of drug trafficking.Official Iran officially scolded the award of this prize, calling it an example of Western interventionism and its interference in the internal affairs of Iran. More from RIA Novosti Biography of Nargiz Mohammadi Iranian human rights activist Narges Mohammadi was born on April 21, 1972 in Zanjan (Iran). She graduated from Imam Khomeini International University with a degree in physics. She worked as an engineer. While at university, she co-founded an organization called the Enlightened Students Group and was arrested twice. As a journalist, she wrote for various reformist magazines, including Payam-e Hajar. This publication was later banned. Mohammadi is also the author of political essays "Reforms, Strategy and Tactics" in Persian. In 2003, Nargiz Mohammadi joined the Center for Human Rights, founded in 2000 by Shirin Ebadi, winner of the 2003 Nobel Peace Prize. He holds the position of Vice President of the Human Rights Center (DHRC). In 2008, she was elected president of the executive committee of the National Peace Council of Iran, a coalition against war and for human rights. Nargis Mohammadi was first arrested in 1998 for criticizing the Iranian government. Her most recent arrest occurred in November 2021, just a year after her October 2020 release . She was released on health grounds in February 2022 but was arrested again seven weeks later. In total, Nargis Mohammadi was arrested 13 times, convicted five times and sentenced to a total of 31 years in prison and 154 lashes. Nargiz Mohammadi has received many awards and honors for her human rights activities. Among them are the International Alexander Langer Prize ( 2009 ); Per Anger Prize - an international award from the Swedish government in the field of human rights ( 2011 ); Prize of the Italian Foundation "Galileo 2000" ( 2015 ); City of Paris Award from the Mayor of Paris and Reporters Without Borders (RSF, 2016 ); Human Rights Award from the German City of Weimar (2016); Andrei Sakharov Award from the American Physical Society ( 2018 ); Reporters Without Borders Award borders" ( 2022 ). In 2023, she was awarded the UNESCO Guillermo Cano World Press Freedom Prize together with Nilufar Hamedi and Elaheh Mohammadi. On October 6, 2023, Nargis Mohammadi was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize "for her struggle against the oppression of women in Iran and for promoting human rights and freedom for all." The material was prepared based on information from RIA Novosti and open sources.

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Syria-Lebanon-Iran

What else is Iran hiding?

2015-03-31

By Ali Alfoneh and Reuel Marc Gerecht Key bit: [WashingtonPost] The unfinished North Korean-designed reactor that was destroyed by Israeli planes on Sept. 6, 2007, at Deir al-Zour in Syria was in all likelihood an Iranian project, perhaps one meant to serve as a backup site for Iran’s own nuclear plants. We draw this conclusion because of the timing and the close connection between the two regimes: Deir al-Zour was started around the time Iran’s nuclear facilities were disclosed by an Iranian opposition group in 2002, and the relationship between Shiite-ruled Syria and Shiite Iran has been exceptionally tight since Bashar al-Assad came to power in 2000. We also know — because Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, the former Iranian president and majordomo of the political clergy, proudly tells us in his multivolume autobiography — that sensitive Iranian-North Korean military cooperation began in 1989. Rafsanjani’s commentary leaves little doubt that the Iranian-North Korean nexus revolved around two items: ballistic missiles and nuclear-weapons technology. In his memoirs, the bulk of which is composed of journal entries, Rafsanjani openly discusses Iran’s arms and missile procurement from North Korea. However, from 1989 forward, his entries on Pyongyang become more opaque — a change, we believe, indicating emerging nuclear cooperation. By 1991, Rafsanjani discusses “special and sensitive issues” related to North Korea in entries that are notably different from his candid commentary on tactical ballistic missiles. Rafsanjani mentions summoning Majid Abbaspour, who was the president’s technical adviser on “chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear industries,” into the discussions. Rafsanjani expresses his interest in importing a “special commodity” from the North Koreans in return for oil shipments to Pyongyang. He insists that Iran gain unspecified “technical know-how.”

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Syria-Lebanon-Iran

Iran’s Bogus “Election” Process

2013-05-24

Iranian authorities on Tuesday announced the approval of eight candidates who will be allowed to compete in the June 14 presidential election. The Guardian Council, which vetted the candidates, made sure that Iran’s next president will be a pliable servant of the Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. The regime hopes to repair its sagging popular legitimacy and avoid a rerun of the disastrous 2009 presidential election, which provoked widespread protests against vote-rigging when President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was awarded a second term. This time the authorities eliminated all candidates even remotely connected to the opposition Green Movement and approved only 8 of the almost 700 declared contenders. Among those eliminated was former President Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, a pillar of the 1979 revolution who had criticized the 2009 crackdown, and Esfandiar Rahim Mashaei, a protégé of current President Ahmadinejad, who is barred from seeking a third term. Both candidates were considered threats to the power of hard-liners backed by Khamenei. Six of the eight remaining presidential candidates are closely linked to the Supreme Leader. The frontrunner appears to be Saeed Jalili, a longtime adviser to Khamenei who now serves as Iran’s negotiator on the nuclear issue. Jalili is an uncompromising revolutionary who lost a leg in the Iran–Iraq war. A western diplomat noted that Jalili “specializes in monologue”—not dialogue. Other prominent hard-line candidates include Tehran Mayor Mohammad Qalibaf, former Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Velayati, and former Revolutionary Guard commander Mohsen Rezai. Two centrists were also allowed to run: Hassan Rowhani, an ally of Rafsanjani, and Mohammad Reza Aref, who served as vice president under former President Mohammad Khatami. Both of them will be sure to mute their criticism of the hard-line establishment candidates. After all, Mir Hossain Mousavi and Mehdi Karoubi, reformist candidates who protested the 2009 rigged elections, are still under house arrest.

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Syria-Lebanon-Iran

Hassan Rouhani announces his presidential candidacy

2013-04-12

Supported by prominent, influental figures in Iran Head of the Center for Strategic Research of Iran's Expediency Discernment Council and former secretary of the Supreme National Security Council, Hassan Rouhani has officially announced his candidacy for the upcoming presidential elections in Iran, Fars reported. According to some Iranian websites, reformist 'reformist' is not used here in the western political sense of the word... Rouhani is being supported by two of the prominent and influencal political figures in Iran - country's former presidents Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani and Mohammad Khatami. Well then he's just swell, isn't he... At the conference, where Rouhani announced his candidacy, children of former president Rafsanjani, Yasir and Fatemeh Hashemi were present, showing their support for the candidate. The eleventh election of the President of Iran is scheduled to be held on 14 June 2013 to elect the seventh President, successor of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who is barred from standing for a third term. No more Short Round. Somehow I don't think we'll have seen the last of him... Thus far, there are 17 political figures, who have expressed their will to participate in the upcoming presidential elections. Most of these 17 candidates are, in one way or another, connected to former (Mohammad Khatami, Ali Akbar Rafsanjani) and or current (Mahmoud Ahmadinejad) presidents. Others are MPs, members of Iran's Expediency Council, or former military commanders.

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Israel-Palestine-Jordan

Netanyahu holding elections so he is free to deal with Iran in September-October

2012-05-05

Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is calling early elections so that he and his government will be free to deal with Iran's nuclear program this September-October, one of Israel's best-informed political commentators said on Friday night. Netanyahu is set on Sunday to announce that he is dissolving parliament and calling elections for September 4 -- a year ahead of schedule. In the weeks immediately after that vote, said well-connected commentator Amnon Abramovich on the top-rated Channel 2 news, Netanyahu will head a transition government at home and have no need to worry about voter sentiment, and he knows that President Barack Obama will be paralyzed by the US presidential campaign. Netanyahu has shocked the nation in the past few days by indicating that he will be calling elections a year ahead of their scheduled date in October 2013, leaving analysts baffled as to his reasoning. Speculation has focused on differences among the various coalition parties over legislation on national service for ultra-Orthodox Israelis, and over elements of the national budget. After the September elections, which all polls show Netanyahu winning easily, he will head a transition government for several weeks while a new coalition is formed. During that period, Netanyahu "will not be beholden to the voters," But Abramovich said that the dramatic decision to bring the elections forward relates to Iran. After the September elections, which all polls show Netanyahu winning easily, he will head a transition government for several weeks while a new coalition is formed. During that period, Netanyahu "will not be beholden to the voters," and will be free to take decisions on Iran that many Israelis might not support, Abramovich said. Furthermore, he will still have his trusted Defense Minister, Ehud Barak, at his side. Barak is seen as unlikely to fare well in the elections, and may not even retain his Knesset seat, but would retain the defense portfolio until a new coalition is formed. And finally, said Abramovich, the September-October period would see Obama, who has publicly urged more patience in allowing diplomacy and sanctions to have their impact on Iran, in the final stages of the presidential election campaign, with a consequent reduced capacity to try to pressure Israel into holding off military intervention. Obama, "on the eve of elections, won't dare criticize Israel," said Abramovich. From Netanyahu's point of view, "the conditions would be fantastic." He noted that a transition government is prevented by law from taking dramatic policy decisions -- except in critical circumstances, and drew attention to comments from Barak in a newspaper interview Friday in this regard. "The political-security system will make decisions as needed, even under challenging circumstances," said Barak about the impact of elections. "We must separate the issue of Iran from the subject of elections." Barak also said of the Iranian nuclear drive: "The moment of truth is approaching." Netanyahu has been repeatedly drawing parallels in recent weeks between the Iranian nuclear threat to Israel and the Holocaust, has said sanctions are not working, and warned that he will not allow Israel to have to live in the shadow of "annihilation." He has also indicated that a decision on military intervention in Iran will have to be taken within months. Barak, for his part, has stated repeatedly that confronting Iran before it achieves a nuclear weapons capability, however complex, will be far less challenging a prospect than confronting a nuclear Iran. In the interview Friday with the Israel Hayom daily, Barak recalled a speech given in 2003 by the then-Iranian president Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, who, said Barak, spoke of Israel as being "so small and vulnerable that it is a 'one-bomb' nation. "If one bomb were dropped on it, this nation would not return to its former glory," Barak quoted Rafsanjani as saying. "After the exchange of blows, Rafsanjani said, Islam would remain and Israel would not remain as it was. He also noted that there need not be any clear markers on the bomb as to where it came from. It could be transported in a shipping container that arrives at some port and simply explodes." Added Barak: "I do not delude myself. The moment of truth is approaching. We have to decide what to do about this if the sanctions and diplomacy fail... "Some say let's trust the world... I say that in the end we can deal with Iran now or deal with a nuclear Iran that poses a far greater danger... If it obtains a nuclear weapon, it will be very hard to bring it down. Now they are trying to seek immunity for their nuclear program. If they achieve military nuclear capability, for arms, or a threshold in which they can assemble a bomb within 60 days, they will acquire another form of immunity -- for the regime." Barak recalled Israel being caught off guard in 1973, when it was attacked in the Yom Kippur War and sustained heavy losses. "What happened in 1973? The entire cabinet was blinded and we were forced to pay the price on the battlefield." The defense minister also used the interview to castigate several ex-intelligence chiefs and former prime minister Ehud Olmert, who have criticized what they argue is the government's misguided handling of the Iranian threat, and who have warned that the Netanyahu-Barak duo may be leading Israel into a regional war with dire potential consequences. Said Barak: "You can trust me when I say this: In the history of the state, there has never been such as orderly decision-making process."

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Syria-Lebanon-Iran

Iran Authorities block Rafsanjani's website

2011-12-31

It says something about the make-up of the Mad Mullahs™ that a rabid dog like Rafsanjani is in trouble... TEHRAN: The website of former Iranian President Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani has been blocked after an order from the government, his office confirmed Friday. Mohammad Hashemi, Rafsanjani's younger brother, told the semiofficial ISNA news agency Friday that a company providing services to the site told Rafsanjani's office that it was ordered to cut it off. He said it was not yet clear which authority ordered the site to be blocked. Rafsanjani, president from 1989 to 1997, supported opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi in the disputed 2009 presidential election that led to re-election of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Since the election, Iran has blocked dozens of opposition websites, including the website of former reformist President Mohammad Khatami. Opposition members believe Ahmadinejad's re-election was fraudulent. A conservative website accused Rafsanjani's website of seeking to create rifts within the hard-line camp ahead of March 12 parliamentary elections. Registration of candidates for the election ends Friday. The country's major reformist groups are staying out of the race, claiming that basic requirements for free and fair elections have not been met.

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Syria-Lebanon-Iran

Iran opposition figures 'detained'

2011-03-01

[Al Jizz] Two prominent Iranian opposition figures, who fiercely criticised the government and called for protests, are said to have been moved to "safe houses" outside the capital Tehran, after being held under house arrest for almost two weeks. According to the International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran (ICHR), Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi were moved, but it is not known exactly when. An "informed source" also told the ICHR that Mousavi and Karroubi's detention location is not a prison. Meanwhile, ...back at the ranch... the head of the Iranian parliament's National Security Commission has said that Mousavi and Karroubi were "escorted" by security forces. Alaeddin Boroujerdi also denied they were under house arrest, and told Italian newspaper Il Manifesto that "they also committed certain illegal acts such as organising protests without a permit, and for this they may become subject to prosecution". The two men had been reportedly nabbed secretly without being summoned or charged, and their contact with the outside world was effectively cut. The ICHR added they received reports that the powerful Iranian Revolutionary Guard was responsible for their transfer. Mousavi and Karroubi's reported detention comes after the country's former reformist president called on the authorities to release them. Mohammad Khatami posed the question on his website on Saturday, as to why "people like Mr Mousavi and Mr Karroubi, and their wives, who have had a glorious past in the revolution and the Islamic republic, and who are loyal to the revolution and the Islamic republic, be sent to his room?" "Such action pushes people who are against the regime and who don't care for Iran ... to manipulate the feelings of our youths." He also told the country's holy mans and university professors that he "hopes that with the start of the Iranian New Year [March 20] we will see the end of the house arrest, the end of restrictions, the release of the prisoners and the creation of a safe and free climate ... in which the people's vote will be decisive". 'No longer present' It was the first time Khatami had called for the release of Mousavi and Karroubi. Karroubi, Mousavi and their wives were under house arrest and living in complete isolation, their homes under surveillance and cut off from the outside world, according to their websites. However, The infamous However... one of Karroubi's neighbours told the ICHR that security forces were no longer present on his street, further cementing the speculation that he was moved to another location. "I am certain that they are no longer inside their home. All the windows are broken and nobody is home," the neighbour said. Khatami's comments came after the websites of Mousavi and Karroubi, who are steadfastly opposed to Mahmoud Short Round Ahmadinejad, the president, had posted calls for new protests on Tuesday to demand their release. The call to demonstrate was posted on Kaleme.com and Sahamnews.org and issued by the Co-ordination Council of the Green Path of Hope, an umbrella group backing the two leaders. "We invite everyone to protest on Tuesday... against the continued restrictions and house arrest imposed on the movement's leaders," the group said in a statement posted online. It also said the protests would be held in key squares and streets of Tehran and provincial cities. Clashes between demonstrators and security forces killed at least two people on February 14. 'Anti-revolutionary' But a massive deployment of security forces thwarted another protest in Tehran on February 20. Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, a former president who had indirectly backed Mousavi in the 2009 elections, condemned the February 14 protests, state media reported on Saturday. The protests, the first to be held since February last year, angered the authorities who accused Mousavi and Karroubi of treason, according to opposition websites. Officials have also branded anyone who supports the two men as "anti-revolutionary". Mousavi and Karroubi led a string of protests in Iran after Ahmadinejad's controversial re-election in June 2009, which they claim was rigged. Khatami, once a prominent figure of Iran's holy manal government, who served two terms in office between 1997 and 2005, has turned into a vocal critic since Ahmadinejad's re-election.

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Syria-Lebanon-Iran

Iran's tottering regime is fighting for its very life

2009-12-31

Emile Hokayem The popular movement in Iran is rapidly transforming from protest into uprising. Since the death of its spiritual mentor, Grand Ayatollah Hosein Ali Montazeri, there have been the most intense and violent confrontations yet with the Iranian security forces. The question is whether it will become a revolution; and if so, when. Judging from the slogans -- Marg bar dictator (Death to the dictator), once a rarity, is now heard as often as Allah-u-Akbar, a rallying cry intended to deny religious legitimacy to the regime -- and the unrelenting mobilisation of the Green movement, the tipping point may not be far away. " Many observers expected the movement, a disparate mix of opposition groups that has taken to the streets since the fraudulent presidential elections of June 12, to lose momentum after the initial protests " Many observers expected the movement, a disparate mix of opposition groups that has taken to the streets since the fraudulent presidential elections of June 12, to lose momentum after the initial protests. Repression, intimidation and disorganisation would lead to resignation among the movement's followers. Some argued that because it was bourgeois (for which read illegitimate and superficial) and apparently confined to urban areas, it did not reflect any genuine popular desire to shake the system. In fact, the protesters were the ones rejecting the democratic return of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to the presidency. The opposition's leaders -- under constant surveillance, cut off from their base and with no plan (or intention) to overturn the system put in place by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini -- could be punished, perhaps even lured back. The regime could count on Iran's rural poor, who had benefited from the largesse of Mr Ahmadinejad's populist policies, and on the republic's committed security apparatus. That expectation and these assumptions have proved wrong: the depth of discontent with the nature and workings of the regime clearly cuts across social and regional divides. It may seem to be on a roll in the Middle East, boasting of regional political successes against the US and technological prowess in its nuclear programme, but there is something rotten at the heart of the Islamic Republic. " The best gift for Tehran would be the perception that the world is indifferent to its internal convulsions and the promise of the Green movement, but ratcheting up the pressure could achieve the same negative result. The opposition itself is calling for targeted sanctions that would focus on the security structure, and for diplomacy that would prioritise human rights over security issues " The demonstrations have now spread to the entire country, and anger at the security forces has overcome fear. Poor, it turns out, does not mean blind or stupid. The underprivileged can see that their lot has not improved during the Ahmadinejad years, and that cash handouts are a stopgap measure that cannot compensate for the corruption and mismanagement that plague Iran's economy. Extraordinary reporting and footage on YouTube, Twitter and Facebook, the main means of communication with the outside world, are evidence of that. A few days ago a crowd attacked Bassiji militiamen and released two men from the gallows. Demonstrators overwhelmed policemen, and then proceeded to protect them. Faced with a potential loss of legitimacy, the regime could resort only to force. In recent weeks, the reaction has ranged from the petty (stripping the former president Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani of some of his titles and seizing the Nobel medal from Shirin Ebadi) to the criminal (the murder of the opposition leader Mir Hosein Mousavi's nephew, the killing of a young doctor who refused to whitewash the evidence of a prisoner's death). In addition, the regime has intimidated Iranians abroad, allowed torture and rape in prisons and ordered thugs to destroy the offices of senior dissident clerics such Grand Ayatollah Yousef Sanei. This behaviour is an indication more of desperation than of confidence. With little popular or religious support, the leadership finds itself at the mercy of its security apparatus. There is a significant consensus among Iran-watchers that the management of the crisis is now solely the responsibility of the Revolutionary Guard force, which has the most to lose from political upheaval. The commanders of the Bassiji and Pasdaran forces have issued the starkest warnings, deliberately conflating opposition protests and foreign pressure. These are signs that the regime can escalate its response in coming days, from declaring martial law and intensifying repression to jailing the opposition's principal leaders -- Mir Hosein Mousavi, Mehdi Karroubi and Mohammad Khatami. Yesterday, pro-regime demonstrators in Isfahan and Hamdan even demanded their execution for treason. Not everyone in decision-making circles would welcome such aggravation. There are many conservative politicians, still loyal to the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who question the merits of supporting Mr Ahmadinejad at any cost and are concerned by the militarisation of the regime. The loyalty of the security forces, especially the police and the regular military, cannot be assumed. And the memory of the fall of the Shah in 1979 is never too far away. Just as the international community has no business encouraging or provoking regime change in Iran, it should now refrain from unwittingly extending a lifeline to a government under duress. If the Islamic Revolution falls, it should be under the weight of its own contradictions and failures. Just as the international community has no business encouraging or provoking regime change in Iran, it should now refrain from unwittingly extending a lifeline to a government under duress. If the Islamic Revolution falls, it should be under the weight of its own contradictions and failures. Fixated on the threat of Iran's suspected nuclear ambitions, Washington is having a hard time navigating Iranian politics. Barack Obama finally spoke on Monday of Iran's iron fist. In fact, the US can undercut the opposition by doing too much to engage Tehran; with, for example, the ill-advised idea of sending Senator John Kerry on a mission there. The best gift for Tehran would be the perception that the world is indifferent to its internal convulsions and the promise of the Green movement, but ratcheting up the pressure could achieve the same negative result. The opposition itself is calling for targeted sanctions that would focus on the security structure, and for diplomacy that would prioritise human rights over security issues. It may achieve the former, but not the latter as long as the opposition does not define what the broad tenets of its foreign policy would be if it came to power. And that, of course, is expecting far too much from a movement that as yet has no political platform on either domestic or foreign matters.

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Syria-Lebanon-Iran

Iran detainees dismiss 'under duress' confessions

2009-08-04

Two prominent Iranian detainees, Mohammad-Ali Abtahi and Mohammad Atrianfar have dismissed claims that their confessions have been extracted under pressure. Abtahi, a close aide to former president Mohammad Khatami, and Atrianfar -- a senior advisor to former president Ayatollah Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani -- told Iranian television on Sunday that allegations that drugs had induced their confessions are an insult to the intelligence of Iranians. The two reformist figures pointed out that they were treated humanely while in detention. Meanwhile, the two detainees once again rejected claims that the presidential election was rigged in favor of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Abtahi also said that it's impossible to plagiarize eleven million votes -- the margin with which incumbent President Ahmadinejad was re-elected. They further admitted that the post-election unrest was aimed at staging a velvet revolution in the Islamic Republic. According to the country's defeated presidential candidate Mir-Hossein Mousavi, "medieval torture" was used to force confessions in the Revolution Court. The former Iranian President Mohammad Khatami also rejected the trial as a "show," saying the confessions are invalid and un-constitutional. "What they called a trial... was against the constitution, regular laws and rights of the citizens," Khatami said. The second hearing of the trial is scheduled for Thursday, one day after President Ahmadinejad is to be sworn in for his second term before Parliament.

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Syria-Lebanon-Iran

Iran opposition leader, wife visit slain man's family

2009-07-15

Reporting from Beirut — Iran's leading opposition figure and his wife emerged Tuesday night to pay their respects to the family of a 19-year-old man slain during recent weeks of violence, according to witnesses and reports on news websites. Mir-Hossein Mousavi and his popular wife, Zahra Rahnavard, visited the family of Sohrab Aarabi in Tehran, paying tribute to the teenager whose death and whose mother's desperate weeks-long quest to find her son have emerged as a symbol of the protest movement against President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Photographs posted on the Gooya website showed the couple swarmed by supporters as they approached the family's home in the city's north-central Apadana district. Mousavi has been relatively quiet in recent days as authorities successfully put down protests that erupted when Ahmadinejad was declared the winner of their election faceoff last month. But Mousavi plans to forge a new reformist political front that would challenge the country's dominant conservatives, and will have most of the rights given to a political party, his top aide Ali-Reza Beheshti said Tuesday. "Establishing the front is on the agenda of Mir-Hossein Mousavi, and we will announce the relevant news in the near future," Beheshti, the son of a famous cleric, told the semiofficial Iranian Labor News Agency, or ILNA. Hundreds of thousands of Mousavi's green-clad supporters took to the streets last month in displays of civil disobedience, asserting that the June 12 election was rigged. Mousavi could build on the momentum created by the so-called green wave to create a formidable force. Reformists have tried for years to break through Iran's legal and political restrictions and fend off ideological challenges and accusations of complicity with the West to obtain and exercise power. The Islamic Iran Participation Front, a reformist political grouping, has been operating for years without gaining influence. Unlike a party, a front cannot call political rallies. But Mousavi's new organization could gain political muscle with the help of Ayatollah Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, a powerful cleric who is a pillar of Mousavi's support. Rafsanjani said he would endorse Mousavi's plan for a "united moderation front," according to Mohammad Hashemi, his brother. "He had even formulated the charter to a certain extent, but this front did not materialize for certain reasons," he told ILNA. At least one prominent conservative, Habibollah Asgaroladi, head of the decades-old Islamic Coalition Party, endorsed the creation of a Mousavi-led political group. "Establishing a party to voice one's ideas and political perceptions is a wise move," he said, according to the website of the state-owned Press TV channel.

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Syria-Lebanon-Iran

After a long absence, Rafsanjani to lead prayers

2009-07-13

Reporting from Beirut -- A powerful cleric who has been a driving force behind the opposition movement challenging the reelection of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad will lead Friday prayers this week after a two-month absence that was considered a sign of conflict within the Iranian establishment. The semiofficial Iranian Labor News Agency reported Sunday that Ayatollah Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani will deliver the nation's weekly keynote religious sermon. Rafsanjani, who chairs powerful boards that oversee the office of the supreme leader and adjudicate disputes between government bodies, is the highest-profile backer of opposition candidate Mir-Hossein Mousavi, who lost to Ahmadinejad in an election marred by allegations of vote-rigging. Mousavi's Facebook page said that he and his ally, former President Mohammad Khatami, would attend the prayer sermon. The Facebook page invited supporters who poured into the streets in recent weeks to attend, though Mousavi's website carried no such announcement. News of the return of reformists and moderates to the official Friday prayer ceremony could serve as a challenge to hard-liners, led by supreme leader Ali Khamenei, on their home turf. Alternately, it could be a sign that the two sides have brokered a truce in their continuing political conflict. The election and subsequent demonstrations, attended by hundreds of thousands of Iranians, have led to numerous deaths and arrests. On Sunday, news websites and human rights groups reported the killing of Sohrab Arabi, a 19-year-old who was apparently shot in the chest by government security forces or allied Basiji militiamen during a June 15 demonstration and had been missing since. His funeral is to be held today. On Sunday, Maj. Gen. Hassan Firouzabadi, army chief of staff, blamed such deaths on unruly demonstrators. "The rioters, armed with weapons from the U.S., Israel and England, opened fire on people in a futile attempt to accuse the police and the Basiji, with the cooperation of foreign media," Firouzabadi said in an open letter addressed to Imam Mahdi, a venerated Shiite Muslim who disappeared hundreds of years ago and whose messianic return, it is believed, will herald a new age. "Our security forces never used any arms and they were beaten up, injured, martyred and crushed under wheels," he wrote in the letter, published in multiple news outlets. "On the other hand, the rioters mourned their fake dead." Meanwhile, five Iranian officials described as diplomats by Tehran arrived in the capital Sunday after spending 30 months in U.S. custody in Iraq after their arrest early in 2007. They were freed after U.S. forces handed them over to Iraq in recent days. Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki said the Iranian government was entitled to sue the Bush administration "for this savage act."

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Syria-Lebanon-Iran

Toppling Saddam Encouraged Iranians - MSM says it was O's Cairo Speech

2009-07-08

The U.S. invasion and liberation of Iraq from the regime of Saddam Hussein may have been one of the important forces behind the uprising of Iranian citizens after their failed elections, according to British pundit Christopher Hitchens. Hitchens, a liberal who nonetheless was one of the strongest supporters of the war in Iraq, wrote in the online magazine Slate that reformist forces in Iran have been studying the rebirth of Iraq since the invasion. They even refer to it as a “liberation,” a term not commonly used among political forces in the Arab world. But Persian Shiite clerics have been vocal in their denunciations of the regime headed by Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei for years – a fact not often discussed in the mainstream media. One of the leaders of this group, though a junior cleric, is Sayeed Khomeini, the grandson of Ayatollah Khomeini, the radical founder of the Islamic Republic. Khomeini, as well as former Iranian President Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, have developed an important relationship with Iraqi religious leader Ayatollah Ali Husaini Sistani, a long-standing opponent of the Khamenei regime. “Certainly when I interviewed Sayeed Khomeini in Qum some years ago, where he spoke openly about "the liberation of Iraq," he seemed to hope and believe that the example would spread,” Hitchens writes. “One swallow does not make a summer. But consider this: Many Iranians go as religious pilgrims to the holy sites of Najaf and Kerbala in southern Iraq. They have seen the way in which national and local elections have been held, more or less fairly and openly, with different Iraqi Shiite parties having to bid for votes (and with those parties aligned with Iran's regime doing less and less well). They have seen an often turbulent Iraqi Parliament holding genuine debates that are reported with reasonable fairness in the Iraqi media.” Meanwhile, Hitchens adds, Iranians have seen their own leaders treat citizens as children and put “on a ‘let's pretend’ election. “Iranians by no means likely to take their tune from Arabs—perhaps least of all from Iraqis—but watching something like the real thing next door may well have increased the appetite for the genuine article in Iran itself.”

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