Recent Appearances...

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Recent Appearances...

Syria-Lebanon-Iran

Iran’s former president Mohammad Khatami and former premier Mir Hossein Mousavi have both called for political changes amid the protests triggered by the death in custody of Mahsa Amini

2023-02-06

[PUBLISH.TWITTER]

#Iran’s former president Mohammad Khatami and former premier Mir Hossein Mousavi have both called for political changes amid the #protests triggered by the death in custody of Mahsa Amini.https://t.co/1TkGBij8CC
— Al Arabiya English (@AlArabiya_Eng) February 5, 2023

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Syria-Lebanon-Iran

Former Iranian president Rafsanjani’s son freed after seven years in jail

2023-01-20

[IsraelTimes] Mehdi Hashemi Rafsanjani
... the fourth President of Iran. He was a member of the Assembly of Experts until he was eased out in 2011 He continues, for the moment, as Chairman of the Expediency Discernment Council. In 2005 he ran for a third term as president, ultimately losing to rival Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who was in Khamenei's graces back then. In 1980 Rafsanjani survived an assassination attempt, during which he was seriously injured. He has been described as a centrist and a pragmatic conservative without all that much reason. He is currently being eased out of any position of actual influence or power and may be dead by the end of 2012...
, 53, was convicted in 2015 of fraud, embezzlement and undermining national security, charges that he has previously denounced as ’politically motivated’.

A son of former Iranian president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani has been sprung after serving more than seven years of a 10-year jail sentence for fraud, Iranian media reported Wednesday.

Mehdi Hashemi Rafsanjani, 53, left Tehran’s Evin Prison late Tuesday, his lawyer Vahid Abolmaali said, quoted by the ISNA news agency.

State prosecutors said his release was "conditional," ISNA reported.

Hashemi Rafsanjani was convicted of fraud, embezzlement and undermining national security in August 2015, charges he had previously denounced as "politically motivated."

He had served as a bigwig in Iran’s oil sector in the mid-2000s, a period when Norway’s Statoil and French energy company Total were suspected of paying bribes to obtain access to the Islamic Theocratic Republic’s hydrocarbon reserves.

In 2018, a Gay Paree criminal court found Total guilty of "corruption of a foreign public agent" for payments made to Hashemi Rafsanjani for help in securing rights to the huge South Pars offshore gas field which Iran
Iran

...The nation is noted for spontaneously taking over other countries' embassies, maintaining whorehouses run by clergymen, involvement in international drug trafficking, and financing sock puppet militias to extend the regime's influence...
shares with Qatar
...an emirate on the east coast of the Arabian Peninsula. It sits on some really productive gas and oil deposits, which produces the highest per capita income in the world. They piss it all away on religion, financing the Moslem Brotherhood and several al-Qaeda affiliates. Home of nutbag holy manYusuf al-Qaradawi...
in the Gulf.

In 2009, Hashemi Rafsanjani aroused the anger of conservatives by forming a "vote protection committee" for that year’s presidential election.

He actively supported reformist candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi, whose allegations of large-scale fraud in favor of populist incumbent Mahmoud Short Round Ahmadinejad prompted mass protests.

Mehdi’s father, Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, served as president from 1989 to 1997 and was regarded as a moderate who supported improving ties with the West.

Earlier this month, Rafsanjani’s daughter Faezeh Hashemi was sentenced to five years in prison for "collusion against the security of the country."

She was arrested in September and convicted of inciting Tehran residents to join protests over the death in jug of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old Iranian Kurd, who had been arrested for allegedly violating Iran’s strict dress code for women.

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Syria-Lebanon-Iran

Iran approves release of protest leaders Mousavi, Karroubi: family

2018-07-30

[AlAhram] Iran's top security body has approved the release of opposition figures Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi

, under house arrest for seven years for leading mass protests in 2009, a family member told local media.

"I have heard that the decision to lift the house arrest was approved by the Supreme National Security Council," said Hossein Karroubi, son of the locked away
Yez got nuttin' on me, coppers! Nuttin'!
reformist, according to the Kalameh news website which is close to the family.

"This decision will be presented to the (supreme) leader so that this case can be concluded," he said, adding that Ayatollah Ali Khamenei would have 10 days to veto the decision.

There was no official confirmation of the decision, but the reports come at a time when Iran's leaders are keen to unite conservative and reformist factions to face down increasing pressure from the United States and a worsening economic crisis.

Mousavi, 76, and Karroubi, 80, were reformist candidates in the controversial election of 2009, which was won by hardliner Mahmoud Short Round Ahmadinejad.

They claimed the vote was rigged, triggering months of mass protests, particularly in Tehran. Hundreds of thousands erupted into the streets in the biggest challenge to the system since the Islamic revolution of 1979.

The pair were sent to his room without trial in February 2011, along with Mousavi's high-profile wife, 66-year-old Zahra Rahnavard.

Hossein Karroubi said the security council had also agreed to lift restrictions on reformist figurehead Mohammad Khatami, who was Iran's president from 1997 to 2005.

The media had been banned from showing Khatami's face and strict limits were placed on his movements.

President Hassan Rouhani repeatedly vowed to seek the release of Mousavi and Karroubi -- a major plank of his election in 2013 and re-election last year, with their names frequently chanted at his rallies.

But despite Rouhani chairing the Supreme National Security Council, which is made up of government and military figures appointed by the president and supreme leader, there had been no sign of progress on their release.

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Syria-Lebanon-Iran

Iranian opposition leaders will 'regret' trial, says Iran's court chief

2017-08-24

[DAWN] Iranian opposition leaders have been "protected" under house arrest for six years and would regret facing trial, a court chief said on Wednesday, amid calls for them to be allowed to face justice.

"A trial will bring regret for these people... because the court and the system do not joke around with anyone and do their legal duty with determination, power and precision," said Mousa Ghazanfarabadi, the head of Tehran's Revolutionary Court.

Quoted by the Dana news website, he was responding to renewed demands that former presidential candidates Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi

finally face trial for their part in the Green Movement protests of 2009.

The protests, known as "the sedition" by hardliners, followed allegations of rigging in that year's election, which they lost to hardliner Mahmoud Short Round Ahmadinejad.

They were put under house arrest in early 2011 but have never been charged with a crime.

"Under house arrest, the heads of the sedition are protected and cared for," said Ghazanfarabadi.

He suggested that if Mousavi and Karroubi were set free, they may be harmed by someone trying to delegitimise the regime.

The demands of reformists to put them on trial "are not the words of sympathisers of the revolution," he added. "Those saying it may not be aware, but these are the words of foreigners."

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Syria-Lebanon-Iran

Khomeini Grandson Disqualified in Elections

2016-02-16

Seyyed Hassan Khomeini lost his appeal of the Guardian Council’s decision to bar him from running for a seat in the Assembly of Experts. A grandson of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, he is widely considered the heir apparent of the late revolutionary leader’s legacy. The young Khomeini’s long-anticipated entrance into politics could have important consequences. The 86-member Assembly of Experts, which will increase its membership to 88 this election, is the only constitutional body with the authority to appoint, supervise and dismiss the supreme leader. The group of clerics has historically served as a rubber stamp organization that has never seriously questioned the actions of Iran’s previous or current supreme leader. But the stakes are higher for the February 2016 election. The next assembly may be faced with the question of what to do should the 76-year-old Ayatollah Ali Khamenei pass away due to illness or old age.

Khomeini would likely have been popular with voters. He has spoken out against extremism and supported the nuclear deal, which was broadly welcomed by the Iranian public. At age 43, Khomeini is significantly younger than the mostly elderly members of the Assembly of Experts. The youth vote is increasingly important in Iran, where more than 60 percent of its 80 million people are under 30 years old. In addition to Khomeini’s revered pedigree, his family is connected to prominent reformists through marriage. His cousin, Zahra Eshraghi is married to former deputy speaker of parliament Reza Khatami, brother of former President Mohammad Khatami (1997-2005). Khomeini also has the support of Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, a former president who chairs the Expediency Council. In August 2015, Rafsanjani said it was Khomeini’s turn to come forward to “protect the revolution.”

Khomeini kept a relatively low profile until 2002, when a university professor was sentenced to death for insulting Islam. Professor Hashem Aghajari argued that each generation should be able to interpret Islam on its own. Khomeini reportedly protested the sentence with about 1,000 students in November 2002. Khomeini has spoken out against military interference in politics. He also criticized the disqualification of nearly 2,000 candidates from running for parliament in 2008. Most of them were reformists. Khomeini’s comments prompted a harsh reaction from conservatives, who accused him of corruption.

Khomeini reportedly supported reformist presidential candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi in 2009. Khomeini reportedly went on a trip outside Iran before Ahmadinejad’s August 2009 inauguration ceremony. Conservative publications criticized Khomeini’s move and interpreted his absence as opposition to the election results. Khomeini also met with political prisoners Alireza Beheshti and Mohammadreza Jalaeipour shortly after their release in 2009, which also suggested sympathies with the reformist camp.

In June 2010, Khomeini spoke at a ceremony marking his grandfather’s death. But his speech was cut short by hardliners chanting “Death to Mousavi!” and shouting slogans in support of Iran’s current supreme leader. The incident may have been the first time a Khomeini family member had been insulted in a public venue.

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Syria-Lebanon-Iran

Ledeen: Unscrewing Inscrutable Iran

2014-10-08

For those who deny the existence of "moderate Muslims"

On the other hand, there is a great man, Ayatollah Hossein Kazamani Boroujerdi, about whom I have written many times. The son of a famous ayatollah, Boroujerdi attracted a mass following when he advocated freedom of religion (and non-religion) and called for the traditional Shi'ite separation of mosque and state (FOOTNOTE: for those who deny the existence of "moderate Muslims," his example suggests you should do more study and think more deeply). When the regime arrested him several years ago, his followers blocked the roads taken by the security forces in a desperate attempt to save the ayatollah.

Boroujerdi has been treated atrociously in Evin, and his family and supporters have been warning for many months that his health was failing. Now they are telling us that he has been transferred to a cell that is typically used for prisoners about to be executed.

I can well imagine the frustration of the hollow men atop the Iranian regime. They've had Boroujerdi arrested and tortured, they keep hoping that he'll finally die. But he won’t -- his will to live is extraordinary. And unlike Jahanbegloo, he's remained defiant, and has even smuggled letters and, I am told, the manuscript of a devastating critique of the Islamic Republic, to the outside world.

I don't think the Rouhani/Khamenei regime, which has killed substantially more Iranians than Ahmadinejad in his prime, is going to execute Boroujerdi, any more than I think they will take any formal action against the arrested Green leaders, Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi. I think the tyrants fear these men, who have inspired millions of Iranians to reject the regime and plan for its removal.

(more at the link)

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Syria-Lebanon-Iran

Influential Iran MP Urges Opposition Leaders Be Tried

2013-12-30

[An Nahar] An influential Iranian politician on Sunday urged the judiciary to end the house arrests of opposition figures Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi

and to put them on trial.

"The protracted house arrests without trial lack legal or religious justification," conservative MP Ali Motahari told parliament in remarks carried by the ISNA news agency.

Mousavi and Karroubi have been held incommunicado under separate house arrests since February 2011 for orchestrating massive, unprecedented street protests sparked by a disputed presidential election two years earlier.

The protests turned deadly when authorities resorted to a heavy-handed crackdown in which thousands of protesters, reformist activists and journalists were jugged
You have the right to remain silent...
.

Motahari slammed the judiciary for not having resolved the issue already, more than four years after the 2009 election of Mahmoud Short Round Ahmadinejad as president for a second term that Mousavi and Karroubi claimed was rigged.

The issue remains a sensitive, polarizing issue in the Islamic republic despite Ahmadinejad's term ending in August when his successor Hassan Rouhani was sworn in to office.

"This crisis will not be resolved as long as one side is not allowed to speak for and defend itself, while the other side continues to mount accusations," said Motahari, the son of a prominent revolutionary ayatollah.

"The only solution ... is the public trial of Mousavi and Karroubi, and also Ahmadinejad," he said, arguing that the latter had mishandled the crisis.

Prosecutor general Gholam Hossein Mohseni Ejei however dismissed Motahari's remarks, arguing that those who had leveled "big lies" against the establishment in 2009 had committed a "major sin".

Motahari also warned, in separate remarks carried by the official IRNA news agency, that "the establishment will have to pay a hefty price, should Mousavi and Karroubi die while under house arrest".

Both men are suffering health problems, according to reports.

Motahari's comments come as pro-reform and more centrist factions urge Rouhani to work towards ending the detentions of political prisoners, including Mousavi and Karroubi.

Rouhani, a reputed pragmatist and a self-declared moderate, and some senior administration officials, have hinted at wanting to end the tensions sparked by the 2009 upheavals.

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Syria-Lebanon-Iran

Khatami urges release of all Iranian political prisoners

2013-09-27

[Al Ahram] Former reformist president Mohammad Khatami has called for the release of all political prisoners in Iran, notably opposition chiefs Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi

, a newspaper reported on Thursday.

"We're happy with the (judiciary's) announced pardon of 80 prisoners but we ask: 'Why this number?'" the reformist daily Etemad quoted Khatami as saying.

"Let's say it's all of them, apart from those who have committed crimes," he added.

Last week, the authorities freed around 15 reformists, journalists and lawyers, notably prominent rights lawyer Nasrin Sotoudeh.

They have also announced pardons for 80 others rounded up in connection with anti-government protests claiming massive fraud in the 2009 re-election of president Mahmoud Short Round Ahmadinejad.

Dozens of others are still behind bars, though legal authorities have not said how many.

"Everyone must make an effort to end the house arrests... This is in everybody's interest," said Khatami, referring to Mousavi and Karroubi, who have been kept incommunicado since February 2011.

Both men were candidates in the 2009 presidential election and spearheaded the protests its outcome.

On Wednesday, Intelligence Minister Mahmoud Alavi said more prisoners would be released within a month, without giving a number.

Newly elected President Hassan Rowhani, who has the backing of reformists and moderates in the Islamic republic, has pledged to work for political and cultural liberalisation.

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Syria-Lebanon-Iran

Iran Replaces Hardline Top Security Council Secretary

2013-09-11

[An Nahar] President Hasan Rowhani Tuesday appointed decorated admiral and ex-defense minister Ali Shamkhani to replace hardline Saeed Jalili as secretary of the key Supreme National Security Council, media reported.

The SNSC is responsible for dictating defense and security policies under guidelines set out by supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and for marshaling the country's resources to confront domestic and foreign threats.

Until now, it has been heavily involved in Iran's showdown with world powers over the country's nuclear ambitions, particularly under Rowhani's predecessor, Mahmoud Short Round Ahmadinejad.

It is expected that the SNSC's direct involvement will be reduced but not eliminated after Rowhani last week tasked the foreign ministry with taking lead on future nuclear talks.

Jalili, who lost to Rowhani in the June 14 presidential election, acted as the SNSC's secretary since 2007 in a period talks between Iran and so-called P5+1 group of world powers failed to produce a breakthrough.

His performance in the talks and inability to make concession was criticized during the presidential campaign.

While being replaced as SNSC secretary, Jalili is not expected to leave the council, as he, along with Rowhani, are both special representatives of Khamenei to the council.

Shamkhani, an ethnic Arab, was reformist ex-president Mohammad Khatami's defense minister for two four-year terms until 2005.

His record also includes serving as head of the now-abolished ministry for the Revolutionary Guards under then premier Mir Hossein Mousavi in the 1980s and commanding Iran's naval forces in the 1990s.

His appointment comes as Rowhani, who took office last month, has expressed a desire to improve strained ties with the Arab world, particularly tarnished over Tehran's support for the regime of Syrian Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad
Before going into the family business Pencilneck was an eye doctor. If he'd stuck with it he'd have had a good practice by now...

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Syria-Lebanon-Iran

Iranian arrested opposition leader Karroubi may be released

2013-07-18

Iranian opposition leader Mehdi Karroubi may be released in the near future, ISNA quoted Rasoul Montajabnia, the vice president of the Etemad Melli political party as saying. Karroubi, who has been under house arrest after he protested the results of 2009 presidential election, is the president of the Etemad Melli political party.

Some measures have been taken towards releasing Karroubi, Montajabnia said. He also added that certainly these measures will bear fruit and Karroubi will resume activity in the political party.

After the presidential elections in May 2009, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's rivals Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi claimed large irregularities in the results. Millions of Iranians also protested against the results.

According to the official results Mousavi gathered 13 million votes against Ahmadinejad's 24.5 milion votes. Mousavi and Karroubi have been under house arrest after the elections.

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Syria-Lebanon-Iran

Iranians chant 'death to dictator' at dissident's funeral

2013-06-06

[Ynet] Tens of thousands attend Isfahan funeral of pro-reformist holy man Ayatollah Jalaluddin Taheri; demand release of green movement leaders

Video at link.

Tens of thousands of Iranians attended on Tuesday the funeral of a senior dissident holy man, in what became Iran's biggest anti-government protest in years, the BBC reported.

Mourners at the funeral in Isfahan rolled their eyes, jumped up and down, and hollered poorly rhymed slogans real loud against the government and Supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, including "Death to the dictator."

The BBC reported that pro-reformist Ayatollah Jalaluddin Taheri, who died at the age of 87 on Sunday, was a vocal opponent of the hardliners in power in Iran and had resigned from his position as Isfahan's Friday prayers leader in 2002 in protest against the country's political and economic situation and what he described as the broken promises of the revolution.

In his resignation letter, which was ignored by the conservatives-controlled official media, he said he could not remain silent on the "tangible realties...and the suffering of people."

Taheri denounced "life-long powers; mafia-type gangs...that act under the name of religion and authoritarian fascists...walking up the ladder of religion and riding on the back of political camels."

The protesters also called for the release of all political prisoners, including Mehdi Karroubi and Mir Hossein Mousavi, the two top leaders of the reformist green movement who are under house arrest in Tehran - BBC reported.

According to reports, the protesters also chanted "Free Karroubi and Mousavi" and "Down with the dictator."

Police did not intervene in the protest.

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Syria-Lebanon-Iran

Iran Arrests 7 Election Campaigners

2013-06-03

DUBAI -- Iranian authorities have arrested at least seven people who attended a campaign meeting for a reform-leaning presidential candidate, an exile-based Iranian opposition website reported Sunday. Kaleme.com says police made the arrests at a gathering to support candidate Hasan Rowhani in northern Tehran on Saturday.

It said the arrests were made after many participants chanted slogans calling for the release of Mir Hossein Mousavi, an opposition leader and candidate in Iran's disputed 2009 elections who has been under house arrest for more than two years.

Rowhani is one of eight candidates cleared by the Islamic Republic's constitutional watchdog, the Guardian Council, to run in this year's June 14 elections.

Most other approved candidates were hard-liners, while their most charismatic challengers were disqualified.

What a coincidence...

Meanwhile, a council of advisors to influential former reformist president Mohammad Khatami has urged Rowhani to unite with the other major reform-leaning candidate. The statement, carried on Khatami's personal website, expressed hope that Rowhani and Mohamed Reza Aref could form a "united front" to field a single nominee.

Aref's star has been rising since his performance in a Friday debate, restoring some energy to the movement after their main candidate, former president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, was disqualified by the Guardian Council.

If you think Rafsanjani is a 'moderate'...

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