Friday
Jun252010
The Latest from Iran (25 June): The Important Issues
Friday, June 25, 2010 at 9:04 
1650 GMT: Imprisonment and Abuse. RAHANA publishes the story, which we have been following for 24 hours, on an attack on Zoya Samadi, the daughter-in-law of imprisoned labour activist Mansour Osanloo.Intelligence Ministry agents reportedly accosted Samadi in public view, pulling off her headscarf, beating her, and dragging her by the hair. Handcuffed and blindfolded, she was taken to an undisclosed location for four hours and questioned for four hours, allegedly being told, "You must guarantee that if Osanloo is released from prison, he will never remain in Iran and that he will cease all activities.”
According to Osanloo's wife, Samadi was then left under a Tehran bridge. Her assailants warned, "You are not to inform anyone about this incident, nor are you allowed to file any form of complaint.”
NEW The Real Race for Iran: Human Rights v. Tehran’s Defenders (Shahryar)
Iran Special: Mousavi, Karroubi, and the Strategy of “We Are Still Standing (for the Revolution)”
The Latest from Iran (24 June): Persistence
1535 GMT: The Divergent Tale of Two Political Prisoners, Two British Universities. Ian Black in The Guardian has an interesting profile of the cases of Mohammad Jalaeipour, an Oxford University Ph.D. candidate re-arrested on 14 June, and Ehsan Abdoh-Tabrizi, a Ph.D. student at Durham University who was imprisoned in January and has spent more than 50 days in solitary confinement. Black compares the very different approaches taken by Oxford and Durham officials to publicity over the treatment of the political prisoners.
1525 GMT: Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Philosopher of Our Time. No, if you like your philosophy simple and to the point, then it might be best to leave behind today's Friday Prayer with global bodies that do not really exist and an Iranian unity that must be present even if it is not obvious. Instead, let's get our 21st-century Renaissance from the President via the Iranian Labor News Agency:
A long and black chapter in the history of humanity is coming to a close and an age of enlightenment is about to start. The arrogant powers have stood against the divine force throughout history and today the arrogant regime in the United States is the biggest obstacle against the cause of the prophets.
1500 GMT: Your Friday Prayer Summary. Hojatoleslam Kazem Seddiqi --- our favourite "women's breasts = earthquakes" cleric --- took the podium today.
No references to dangerous females this morning, however, as far as we know. Instead, Seddiqi was preoccupied with the recent UN sanctions against Iran, or rather, he was interested in the pronouncements of an invisible organisation: "This approach showed that the United Nations does not exist and that the Security Council is an 'anti-security' council."
If that's a bit too metaphysical to grasp --- ""It appears that you have yet to know the Iranian nation" --- Seddiqi was ready to use the international situation to whip up his own realities out of the Tehran air: "[The] Iranian nation will not only show resilience in the face of such sanctions but will also develop more resistance and solidarity."
0830 GMT: Political Prisoner Watch. Photojournalist Majid Saeedi, arrested last June, has been sentenced to three years in prison.
Shiva Nazar Ahari, human rights activist and member of the Committee of Human Rights Reporters detained since June 2009, has written a letter to her father: "You taught me not to break."
The families of detainees held in Gohardasht Prison, have written to Tehran Prosecutor General Abbas Jafari Doulatabi: "Don't allow more injustices against our beloved."
The Iranian Teachers Trade Association has issued a statement protesting the continued detention of its leading members.
0825 GMT: The Attacks on the Clergy. The five daughter of the late Grand Ayatollah Montazeri have issued a statement challenging the recent assault on the Montazeri house by pro-regime activists.
0755 GMT: We begin today with an analysis from Josh Shahryar, "The Real Race for Iran: Human Rights v. Tehran's Defenders".
"Western" headlines are likely to be on last night's US Congress vote for stricter sanctions --- the Senate by 99-0, the House of Representatives by 408-8 --- aimed especially at Iran's financial and energy sectors. Meanwhile....
Khamenei Tries to Hold It Together
Writing for Rooz, Mohammad Reza Yazdanpanah takes a look at this week's statements by Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and sees a Supreme Leader struggling to keep his flock together.
The website also sees a continuing challenge to the legitimacy of Khamenei's leadership in a year of statements by clerical and opposition figures.
The Battle Within
The Vice Speaker of Parliament, Mohammad Reza Bahonar, has given a speech warning of the danger to the establishment from "radicals" --- and he doesn't mean "radicals" of the Green Movement.
Mostafa Pourmohammadi, former Minister of the Interior, is worried about the threat to Iran from "lawlessness" --- but whose lawlessness does he mean?
Defending Political Parties
It looks like there is a twist in the tale of the attempt to ban Iran's reformist political parties such as the Islamic Iran Participation Front and the Mohajedin of Islamic Revolution.
Mostafa Pour-Mohammadi warns against lawlessness as one of the country's biggest dangers.
The conservative Morteza Nabavi has noted that President Ahmadinejad himself came to power through a political party, and key judiciary official Mohammad Javad Larijani has argued that party activities should be developed beyond elections, as they guarantee the future of the Islamic Republic.
Parliament (and a Cleric) v. President
Ayatollah Mahdavi Kani has denounced this week's demonstrations by Basij and students in front of Parliament, challenging the Majlis attempt to defy President Ahmadinejad and assert its control of Islamic Azad University.
Meanwhile, we have gotten information of how heated the debate was inside the Parliament, with heated exchanges and heckling, insults, and even reports of a "fist fight".
tagged Abbas Jafari Doulatabi, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Ayatollah Hossein-Ali Montazeri, Ayatollah Mohammad Reza Mahdavi Kani, Ayatollahn Ali Khamenei, Committee of Human Rights Reporters, Ehsan Abdoh-Tabrizi, Hojatoleslam Kazem Seddiqi, Ian Black, Iran, Iran Elections, Iranian Teachers Trade Association, Islamic Azad University, Josh Shahryar, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Mansour Osanloo, Mohammad Javad Larijani, Mohammad Reza Bahonar, Mohammad Reza Jalaeipour, Morteza Nabavi, Mostafa Pourmohammadi, Rooz, Shiva Nazar Ahari, The Guardian, Zoya Samadi in Middle East & Iran
Abbas Jafari Doulatabi, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Ayatollah Hossein-Ali Montazeri, Ayatollah Mohammad Reza Mahdavi Kani, Ayatollahn Ali Khamenei, Committee of Human Rights Reporters, Ehsan Abdoh-Tabrizi, Hojatoleslam Kazem Seddiqi, Ian Black, Iran, Iran Elections, Iranian Teachers Trade Association, Islamic Azad University, Josh Shahryar, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Mansour Osanloo, Mohammad Javad Larijani, Mohammad Reza Bahonar, Mohammad Reza Jalaeipour, Morteza Nabavi, Mostafa Pourmohammadi, Rooz, Shiva Nazar Ahari, The Guardian, Zoya Samadi in Middle East & Iran
Reader Comments (15)
"Regime Repeating Saddam’s Injustice Against Me"
In an exclusive interview with Rooz, Momeni’s wife Fatemeh Adinehvand said that the Iranian regime was repeating the injustice that Saddam Hossein inflicted on her by killing her husband.
http://www.roozonline.com/english/news/newsitem/article/2010/june/25//regime-repeating-saddams-injustice-against-me.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.roozonline.com/english/news/newsitem...
Iran will not send aid ship to Gaza
The Islamic Republic News Agency quoted Hossein Sheikholeslam, secretary-general of the International Conference for the Support of the Palestinian Intifada, as saying: "The Iranian ship carrying humanitarian aid will not go to Gaza."
http://edition.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/meast/06/24/iran.gaza.aid.boat/?fbid=0C4V7Vkqyqp" rel="nofollow">http://edition.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/meast/06/24/i...
And what do you all make of this?
How A Regime Change In Iran Would Transform The World
Melik Kaylan (courtesy of the War Drums Beating section of http://Forbes.com" rel="nofollow">Forbes.com)
Imagine how regime change in Iran would utterly transform the world. So many knotty, insuperable obstacles all overcome in one stroke. Let us consider the benefits. They are so glaring that you can be sure President Obama and his advisors have chewed on them at some length.
http://www.forbes.com/2010/06/24/iran-nuclear-weapon-oil-opinions-columnists-melik-kaylan.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.forbes.com/2010/06/24/iran-nuclear-w...
Catherine,
Interesting and quite a provacative article. From a geopolitical standpoint it makes sense but it only makes sense if you detract the lives lost due to a conflict. Ironically I think we could also find an article along the same lines before the second Iraq war started. It does make you wonder what motivated the writer to publish such an article?
Thx
Bill
Meant to say subtract not detract in my post to you. Edit was not working for me.
Bill,
What struck me as so idiotic about the author's assumptions is that he takes it for granted that the new people in power after a regime change would necessarily be clones of the leaders of western governments! :-)
The official name of “Reporters and Human Rights Activists News Agency” has been changed to “Human Rights House of Iran”.
http://www.rhairan.in/en/?p=4684" rel="nofollow">http://www.rhairan.in/en/?p=4684
Iran's Musavi Tiptoes Across The Rubicon -- Maybe
By Robert Tait
He has been accused of weak, indecisive leadership of Iran's political opposition and of harboring a naive sentimental loyalty to a political system that has brutally suppressed his followers. But now supporters of Mir Hossein Musavi believe he may at last have crossed the Rubicon from loyal but critical insider to outright opponent of the Islamic regime after a year of hesitancy, ambiguity, and equivocation.
Read on: http://www.rferl.org/content/Iran_Musavi_Tiptoes_Across_Rubicon_Maybe/2082500.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.rferl.org/content/Iran_Musavi_Tiptoe...
Iran is ready for planned U.S. sanctions targeting fuel imports, analysts say
By Thomas Erdbrink and Colum Lynch
Washington Post Foreign Service
As Congress prepares to target Iran's vital fuel imports as part of its most far-reaching sanctions package yet, observers say the Tehran government has already done much to deflect the impact of the new U.S. measures.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/06/23/AR2010062303770.html?wprss=rss_world" rel="nofollow">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/ar...
WitteKr,
Especially for you, Press TV's latest: 'Ahmadinejad heralds age of light' :-)
http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=131953§ionid=351020101" rel="nofollow">http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=131953&sec...
@ The Battle Within
Tabnak, not really a Reformist site, sharply attacks the latest protests in front of the Majlis, asking, "Why do some groups invade the streets whenever they want to impose their demands, and do not stop before achieving them? This development will leave nothing from the system's republican aspects in the near future". http://www.tabnak.ir/fa/pages/?cid=105849" rel="nofollow">http://www.tabnak.ir/fa/pages/?cid=105849
Wonders never cease ;-)
@ The Battle Within # 2
Khodnevis has published a nice short comment on the Majlis, once meant to represent the people and manage the country's affairs -- emphasis on "once"!
http://tinyurl.com/2wldd4n" rel="nofollow">http://tinyurl.com/2wldd4n
Thank you, Catherine! I missed that one... So the age of enlightment, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Age_of_Enlightenment" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Age_of_Enlightenment, has finally reached AN!
But fun aside... scary, sounds very sectarian again.
By the way, I'm missing reflections here on Michael Jacksons' death one year ago. Didn't his untimely demise kill western attention for Iran as well?
An analysis anyone? How a dead pop idol hijacked a Twitter revolution (that never was - so some say).
Attn: Sarcasm, irony or general lampoonery may be present in this post...
Osanloo's Daughter in Law brutally tortured
http://theflyingcarpetinstitute.wordpress.com/2010/06/25/tehran-bus-workers-syndacate-leaders-family-member-brutally-tortured/" rel="nofollow">http://theflyingcarpetinstitute.wordpress.com/2...
WitteKr,
Michael Jackson's untimely death was mourned in Iran as well. Last night German TV aired one of his famous shows, which reminded me of a text from Tehran. The author describe how his son lighted two candles, one for the killed protesters and one for Jacko.
May they all rest in peace...
Arshama