Iran Update

These events have been reported to World Threats.

Jan. 9 - More than 400 students gathered at the Tehran Azad University south unit to protest the detention of students. The same thing happened at Roodenhen’s Azad University. Students also boycotted their end of term exams at Karaj University.

Jan. 9 - The Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei, expressed his fear of the revolution to destroy the theocracy. He demanded a decisive confrontation of the regime’s forces with the revolutionaries.

He admitted to the crisis of the clerical regime and said: “the country has economical issues, scientific issues, political issues, international issues, security issues and the officials of the country are faced with hundreds of important issues. They have to manage the country; they have to make the country progress. The enemy wants to stop the wheels of the country by these events. We shouldn’t help the enemy. The enemy wants to stop the wheels of progress of the countries by these events. But the scientific wheel is progressing they want to stop it (read achieving atomic bomb).

Jan. 10 - The appointment of Pasdar Zolghadr, the deputy of General Headquarters of regime’s Armed Forces as the advisor of Judiciary is a step towards the massacre of political prisoners. Pasdar Zolghadr was appointed as the deputy commander of RCG in 1997.

In autumn of 2005 he was appointed the deputy of security and disciplinary department of Interior Ministry. In autumn of 2007 he was dismissed from this office and transferred to the General Headquarters of Armed Forces and at the same time was appointed by Khamenei as the deputy of this headquarter in Bassij’s affairs.

He is amongst the highest eight commanders of RCG that are counted as the commanders of suppression, terror and weapons of mass destruction and are in the list of sanctions of 1747 resolution (of Security Council).

Bagher Zolghadr is a theoretician of regime’s salvation. After Ahmadinejad’s victory in election he emphasized on terrorism as the main tool for regime of Supreme Leadership’s survival. He always pursued especial and terrorist operations in RCG.

Jan 9. - Six prisoners were hanged in Isfehan. These people were accused of smuggling drugs. However, we should remember that the regime has frequently hanged protesters under the guise of their being common criminals.

World Threats

Iran Update

These events have been reported to World Threats.

Dec. 22 - according to reports the government’s agents blanketed the area between Qoba Mosque and Mohseni St. in Tehran.

They were there to prevent people from gathering to commemorate the death of Ayatollah Montazeri.

On the night of Montazeri’s death the populace chanted slogans including “Moharam is the month of blood and Seyyed Ali (Khamenei) is overthrown”.

Dec. 22 - The regime will intensify its suppressive efforts during the days preceding Ashura especially the day before Ashura.

Pasdar Radan, the successor to command of the SSF, said, “everything is arranged and especially security measures are taken to execute order and security on the days of Tasuoa (the day prior to Ashura) and Ashura. In those days in cooperation with the Helpers of Moharam the order and security will be implemented in the mourning ceremonies and in the mourning groups.” The regime is paying special attention to prevent any demonstrations.

Dec. 22 - in Sirjan the public hanging of two men was protested. The people attacked the SSF and took the two prisoners away. One of them may have still been alive. Unfortunately the prisoners were recaptured in a few hours.

Videos of the December 21 demonstrations are available here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uPmJI9WiOg8
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ph7bpKN2dYc

World Threats

Iran Update

These events have been reported to World Threats.

Nov. 16 - Beginning at approximately 11:00 AM, about 300 Kurd students gathered at Tehran University to protest the severe suppression of Kurd activists and especially against the execution of Ehsan Fatahian and the impending execution of Shirkoo Moarefi.

They carried placards in Farsi and chanted slogans in Farsi. The gathering ended at 12:30 with the singing of Kurdish anthems.

Nov. 15 - The mullahocracy has admitted that Iranians strongly prefer the television broadcasts of Simaye Azadi (The Face of Freedom). Simaye Azadi is the channel broadcast by the PMOI and has been viewed in most Iranian homes.

Simaye Azadi is received via satellite. It is illegal in Iran for most people to have access to satellite broadcasts yet about 40 percent of Iranians have satellite antennas. This makes it almost impossible for the regime to control information.

Nov. 16 - In an escalation of the schism within the ranks of the senior clerics, the Fars News Agency has clearly admitted that the Iranian Government was responsible for the massacre that occurred at the Grand Mosque of Mecca during the 1987 Hajj.

In an article titled “Moshen Mirdamadi was responsible for the massacre of Iranian pilgrims in Saudi Arabia in 1987″ Fars wrote, ” Those who went on pilgrimage in 1987 witnessed the massacre of about 500 Iranians by the military and disciplinary forces of Saudi Arabia.

I, the writer of the article, was an eyewitness there and so far I hadn’t disclosed anything because of national security and some other reasons. Some radical students including Mr. Moshen Mirdamadi and his friend were amongst the group.

They intended to get a hold of one of the loudspeakers of the mosque after the march that was from one of Mecca’s squares towards Haram. They wanted to speak anti US words and other stuff from there but the Saudi Arabian police discovered their plan.

Informed people say that was the reason for the harsh acts of the police then. We expect that Tehran’s prosecutor’s office forms an investigation group to see into the behind the curtain issues of the event of 1987. This must be clear how some people who talk about reform now laid the ground for such massacre in 1987 by their radical acts.”

Nov. 15 - The regime has hanged two prisoners in Hamadan.

Link of Protest Gathering in Tehran University for Ehsan Fallahian’s execution - Nov. 16:
http://www.youtube.com/watch_popup?v=RT-78e1_pQg

Link of Slogans written in streets in Tehran by people:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q4rpjCK9K08
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mG5wG8f-cW4

Analysis. I remember when the events happened at the Grand Mosque. It was a glorious mess and caught the Saudis totally by surprise. They were not happy and, most of all, not prepared to handle such an event.

The rumor at the time was that the Saudi government brought in the French anti-terrorist group to handle the situation. Had this become known at the time, there would have been big problems for the Saudis throughout the Islamic World.

Non-muslims are not allowed in the City of Mecca much less the Grand Mosque.

This admission that the Iranian government was behind this event will not sit well with the Saudis and probably not with the rest of the countries in the Middle East.. But it is another button pushed.

World Threats

Iran Update

These events have been reported to World Threats.

Ali Akbar Hashimi Rafsanjani, the head of the Assembly of Experts and the Expediency Council, revealed that his statements supporting Khamenei were false.

The FARS News Agency, which belongs to the RGC, quoted Rafsanjani as saying, “Honorable Ayatollah Khamenei is unique in leadership and the best person for the Supreme Leadership is he”.

The Regime has hanged 14 people in the last 14 days. three of them were women.

Davood Farbacheh Ardebili is to be hanged for the crime of “fighting against God”.

More than 2000 journalists and reporters have been fired since the presidential election. Four hundred others have either left Iran or are attempting to leave Iran.

The organization Reporters Without Borders reports that those in jail are denied legal representation and their lawyers are not allowed to see the evidence against them.

Show trials and forced confessions are still proceeding across the country. Some people are being tricked into confessing with the promise of lighter sentences. In the case of Nasser Abdolhosseini, 22, he confessed based upon the promise of a lighter sentence. He was then sentenced to death.

Anti-regime graffiti is still appearing all over Iran.

Three Special Security officers were killed in Hajiabad township in Hormozgan Province in a clash with demonstrators.

Criminal prisoners in Evin Prison are being allowed to attack political prisoners. An imprisoned cleric named Roghani gave the sermon at a prayer service. He called the political prisoners monafeqs (hypocrites) saying that whoever killed them will be rewarded in this life as well as in Heaven. In Islam, a hypocrite is a person who accepts and then rejects Islam. He is more loathed than the unbeliever.

Zahra Jabari, 35, is on a hunger strike in Ward 209 of Evin Prison protesting her undetermined status. She is not doing well according to her mother.

An unknown man attempted to immolate himself in front of the Parliament building.

Source: World Threats

Engaging With Iran Is Like Having Sex With Someone Who Hates You:Tehran's latest bid to run down the clock.

By Christopher Hitchens

“Living in the Islamic Republic,” wrote Azar Nafisi in her book Reading Lolita in Tehran in 2003, “is like having sex with a man you loathe.”

This verdict has gathered extra force and pungency as the succeeding years have elapsed and as more women have been stoned, hanged, beaten, raped, and silenced.

Lately has come the news that Iranian men in prison are being raped, too, for trying to exercise their right to vote. And now the U.S. government has come to a point where it must ask itself: What is it like to enter negotiations with a man who loathes you and who every Friday holds public prayers that call for your death?

Last Friday brought the news that the Obama administration had accepted an offer from Tehran, delivered the preceding Wednesday, for the holding of what the New York Times called “unconditional talks.” It was further reported that the administration had spent “less than 48 hours” deliberating whether to respond to the invitation, which yields the interesting if minor detail that this must have been the most significant decision taken by Obama’s people on or about the eighth anniversary of the attacks of Sept. 11.

Well, I am all for talks without preconditions, and I have said several times in this space that I think we should offer the Iranians cooperation on a wide spectrum of topics, especially the very pressing one of helping to “proof” Iran against the coming earthquake that could devastate its capital city.

There may even be areas of potential interest in our having common enemies in the Taliban and al-Qaida. But things have changed a little since the president and his secretary of state were sparring over the word unconditional during the primaries.

First, it has become ever clearer that Iran’s uranium-enrichment and centrifuge program has put it within measurable distance of the ability to weaponize its nuclear capacity. Second, it has become obscenely obvious that the theocracy is prepared to govern by force alone and to employ the most appalling measures to remain in power without a mandate.

So it would be nice to know, even if no “conditions” or “preconditions” (this seems like a distinction without much difference) are to be exacted, whether the administration has assured itself on two points. The first of these is: Do we seriously expect the Islamic Republic to be negotiating in good faith about its nuclear program? And the second is: What do we know about the effect of these proposed talks on the morale and the leadership of the Iranian opposition?

One presumes that the Mahmoud Ahmadinejad regime had its own reasons for firing off a five-page document proposing negotiations and including Britain, France, Russia, Germany, and China—the much-stalled group of countries that have conducted business with Iran so far—in the offer. The letter was sent out in the same period that the Russian government opposed any further sanctions on Iran for noncooperation, in the same period that Ahmadinejad announced that Iran would never halt its nuclear fuel production, and in the run-up to Ahmadinejad’s next appearance at the podium of the United Nations toward the end of this month.

Might it be possible—you will, I hope, forgive my cynicism—that this latest initiative from Tehran is yet another attempt to buy time or run out the clock?

Read more here,,,,

Source: Slate

H/T: DF

6 Mousavi supporters reportedly hanged

By SABINA AMIDI, SPECIAL TO THE JERUSALEM POST

As the Iranian authorities warned the opposition on Tuesday that they would tolerate no further protests over the disputed June 12 presidential elections, a report emerged of the hangings of six supporters of defeated candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi.

A supporter of pro-reform leader Mir Hossein Mousavi, flashes victory signs during a gathering near Ghoba Mosque in Teheran, Sunday.

Speaking after Iran's top legislative body upheld the election victory of incumbent Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, sources in Iran told this reporter in a telephone interview that the hangings took place in the holy city of Mashhad on Monday. There was no independent confirmation of the report.

Underlining the climate of fear among direct and even indirect supporters of Mousavi's campaign for the election to be annulled, the sources also reported that a prominent cleric gave a speech to opposition protesters in Teheran earlier this week in which he publicly acknowledged that the very act of speaking at the gathering would likely cost him his life.

"Ayatollah Hadi Gafouri said that the Imam [Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini] never wanted [current supreme Leader] Ali Khamenei to succeed him. He even went to say that the Islamic republic died the day the Imam did," one source said.

Other criticisms from senior clerics over the regime's handling of the elections and subsequent protests included a report from a Persian news agency, which on Tuesday quoted a senior cleric from the city of Esfahan, Ayatollah Seyyed Jalaleddin Taheri-Esfahani, defending Mousavi against the regime's criticisms.

The ayatollah was quoted as saying: "Is it a case of justice to see that an honorable and modest Seyyed [a descendant of the household of the prophet Muhammad], who until the last moments of Khomeini's life was a dear and close companion of that grand leader, is now considered to be a rioter and an agent of arrogance who must be punished?"On Monday, witnesses said thousands of policemen and Basij militiamen carrying batons were deployed in Teheran's main squares to prevent any recurrence of the opposition protests. Drivers who so much as shouted "Allahu Akbar" or beeped their horns had their windows smashed by the Basiji and riot police.Women police, better known as the Sisters of Zeynab, are also now out in force, the witnesses said.

"Some people are still going out into the streets, but there is despair and sadness," said one source. "Now we are told that [pro-Mousavi] green bands are illegal, which is ironic because it symbolizes the color of Islam."

On Monday, the daughter of former president Hashemi Rafsanjani, spoke a gathering of opposition protesters in Teheran's Enqelab Square, sources said. "Mrs. Faezeh Hashemi arrived and tried to give the people some words of encouragement," said one, "but the police broke up the rally within minutes."

He added, "My nephew saw one of these Sisters of Zeynab beat down an elderly woman with no mercy. When he tried to intervene, saying to her, 'Miss, she is like your grandmother,' the woman turned around to get a Basiji to deal with him."

Mousavi's Facebook page is still carrying messages aimed at quashing the notion that he is caving in. "He did not give in to the Guardians Council," runs one new message. "Mir Hossein Mousavi is not under house arrest, he is not about to leave the country, he is under strong pressure to end this, but he always said he will stand up for the people's will to the end! He is from and with the people."

Amid the talk of despair and quashed protests, one defiant reformist supporter told this reporter: "The regime wants the world to think they have won. Don't believe it... Even if this regime is about to collapse, they would not let anybody know until their final hour."

Source: Jerusalem Post