Sunday
Jan312010
Latest Iran Video: Defending the Executions (30 January)
Sunday, January 31, 2010 at 0:06
An interview from Al Jazeera English in which a Tehran University academic declares that the executions of Mohammad Reza Ali Zamani and Arash Rahmanipour were absolutely justified and then says, "I don't know very much about this case." Indeed, the academic says that one of the two was a member of the Mujahedin-e-Khalq (MKO); all Iranian officials, including the Tehran Prosecutor General, have claimed that both were "monarchists".
(Note near the end of the interview the declaration by the academic that the father of one of the Kahrizak prisoners who died spoke to him and "is very satisfied with the way things have been conducted". That "father", Abdulhossein Ruholamini, launched a scatching attack on the Government's conduct last week.)
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E8Kt94eesHw[/youtube]
(Note near the end of the interview the declaration by the academic that the father of one of the Kahrizak prisoners who died spoke to him and "is very satisfied with the way things have been conducted". That "father", Abdulhossein Ruholamini, launched a scatching attack on the Government's conduct last week.)
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E8Kt94eesHw[/youtube]
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The Latest from Iran (30 January): Threat
Reader Comments (32)
This Marandi is NOT an "academic", he is a Khamenei spokesman that poses as an academic. His father (Alireza Marandi) is Khamenei's personal physician. He is the only person in Iran cleared to speak to foreign media.
He was also born in the US and UK educated. He claims he was in the Iran-Iraq war but I think he's a liar.
Will you please stop promoting Marandi as an "academic". You know well what he is, a paid propagandist for the Khamenei/Ahmadinejad regime.
Marandi, "I espeak goot ingilish, dhat is vy the eslamac republick has me spew this shit out of my mouth"
Bosco/Adam,
I can assure readers that, whatever readers think of Marandi, he did serve in the Iran-Iraq war was seriously injured on four occasions. And, as he holds a Ph.D. in English from the University of Birmingham and is a published scholar, I think he has to be acknowledged as an academic.
S.
Many people have been published and the word "academic" can be used quite loosely. Nonetheless you know that none of this justification of mass murder is in any sort of "academic" capacity. His "colleague" at Tehran U. was killed and many others have quit... he is just serving as the regime's puppet to oppress actual academics and make a mockery of the truth of the Iranian situation so that foreign observers are confused.
Adam,
I agree that no one should be able to hold up the qualification "academic" to justify opinions as grounded in indisputable fact or to rationalise oppression and cruelty. I trust EA readers to make the judgement on when academics are fulfilling the obligations of their profession rather than using the label to cover unqualified polemic.
S.
This is a sad day for Iran when the likes of Marandi go on the media and defend murder in such a low manner. He is petty fascist thug, and as with many "academics" in the Nazi regime he is a nobody and obeys orders. He does not have a conscience that is for certain. Just a petty fascist thug.
Shame! This petty thug only lies, why do you give him so much air time, do you not see he is lying, and only lying, why. Shame on this person. He has sold his soul and will have to answer for it. I am disgusted, totally.
Hossein,
My personal opinion is that it is best to confront these claims, not by ignoring them --- for they will always be spread as "truth" --- but by exposing, confronting, and refuting them.
S.
Please - for once and for all, this disgrace to academia *is* a professor and *was* gassed and shot during the Iran-Iraq war.
Let's focus rather on the twisted and often false messages he is sending to millions of viewers who don't know enough about the facts to doubt his words, and let's hold his interviewers accountable with e-mails if they don't point out his attempts at misinformation and outright lies during their programmes. Those who have watched Dr Marandi over the past couple of years will have noticed a progression in his comments to the English-language media from mostly fact to - as this video clearly shows - mostly fiction. The man has no compunction about lying through his teeth at the most respected interviewer, or even an audience such as that of the Doha debates. If you catch him in a lie or a deliberate distortion of the truth, please send your criticism and the real facts to the interviewer/host/programme and tell them to educate themselves before they allow this guy any face time with their viewers.
I see your point Scott, and agree with it. My point is that why do western media give the likes of him so much air time, and why is not a singly Iranian academic in Europe or in the UK or in the US given equal time. That baffles me. In this case Aljazeera seems to almost exclusively talk to him. I confess that I am simply disgusted by the level of of deceit in his words and with his collusion with the rest of the thugs. I am so sad to the depth of my being in face of the executions and the lies about them and then Jannati's call for more. What is going on. Has humanity sunk this low. Can we not do anything? Is this not a blatant abuse of fundamental human rights, and in fact more. Is this not murder? We have seen the state, the IR, torture, rape, and now kill. Enough. There was a time, I remember, when international organizations were all in uproar when a single abuse was seen, say in any of the totalitarian states, but now it seems those same organizations care less and are too afraid of their own swaying from fairness and give in to political correctness to such an extent that rapes and torture and murder by this barbaric state, the IR, seems to have less of the impact it should, that it must. Come, let us unite and rid the world from this scourge of humanity. Let us do away with the rapist state. If united and with resolve we can, but we cannot keep at the pas de deux of political correctness and imperialist guilt, outdated and no longer valid, and must act. Humanity will surely suffer if we don't.
I wonder when and how Marandi changed fronts (if he ever did?). I just read his furious tirade 'Reading Azar Nafisi in Tehran' (written five years after it had been published) and find it quite interesting ('Orientalized Orientals') how he wants to fight 'misleading' memoirs of spoiled, uninformed, westernized Iranian females now living in the West. His academic merits are meager anyway, his position at Tehran University is an assistant professor, not more. His present role as a mouthpiece of the murderous regime is disgusting and his continuous presence on each and every channel obnoxious given the fact that his is pretending the same lies time and time again.
I thought he was assistant professor for North American studies last year when CNN(?) interviewed him, whatever we all know he is part of the IR propaganda machine.
Why we should believe Marandi has served in Iran-Iraq war? We do not have access to the war records in Iran. If Marandi talked about his war stories over a cup of coffee why should anyone believe him? This sorry shell of a man does not know the difference between truth and lie. Furthermore, are we to measure one’s intellectual honesty by having publication? Marandi is a joke not a scholar.
Watch Marandi get clobbered on Inside Iraq by no-nonsense host Jasim Al-Azzawi and fellow guest Issam al-Chalabi; the former Iraqi oil minister. As he gets increasingly flustered, his already high-pitched voice turns into a child-like whine. When confronted with the facts, unlike during the softball interview on the executions, he shows his true nature and plays the racist card with the Iraqi guest and the victim card, whining about his war wounds, as if that had anything to do with the topic: What was behind Iran's seizure of the disputed oil well and what does the incident tells us about relations between Baghdad and Tehran?
http://english.aljazeera.net/programmes/insideiraq/2010/01/20101914233059689.html
Megan,
Trust me, as someone who has known Marandi for years. He did serve in the war.
S.
Hossein,
Unfortunately, there is a certain amount of undeclared support for the IRI among the Left in Europe and that could explain why the likes of Marandi (petty thugs as you rightly call them) are given so much air time. This is due to anti americanism: a lot of people prefer dictators (even if they deny it) to what they term "american imperialism".
"And those of you who have some sort hostility towards your own government, I think should sort it out without scapegoating foreign countries."
Marandi
http://english.aljazeera.net/programmes/insideiraq/2010/01/20101914233059689.html
From his webpage: "Honorary research fellow in the Department of American and Canadian Studies, University of Birmingham"
Sorry, Prof. Lucas, as an academic, I would seriously revise that decision. You may be colleagues (the Leveretts are even 'friends' of him), but this disgraceful individual should not be allowed to decorate his CV with this kind of honours.
@ Submitto
Thanks for the video. I don't know how Marandi can say he is not a representative of the regime, while he acts as an spokesman on so many subjects.
@florence
"undeclared support for the IRI among the Left in Europe"...
Marandi is in fact the mouthpiece of Iran and the fact that one would see him in every news channel is because he is the only person the govt. allows foreign media to interview be it left or right.
Here's a video of CNN's Fareed Zakaria interviewing Marandi. Fareed says that it is very difficult to interview other pundits.
note: skip to 9:13
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T3SIQs4D5hY
It is quite enjoyable to see how Prof. Marandi's heroic record during the war which is beyond dispute has to be disparaged over and over again by those who disagree with his message. The fact that he supports the govt. apparently means that nothing in his life can in any way be construed as positive. This is quite in line with the inmature views of many green supporters. In contrast supporters of the Govt. have no problem recognizing that Mousavi and even the traitor Montazeri did much good in the past and contributed greatly to the Revolution and the establishment of the IRI.
What does it show when foreign medias can only have the same person since July ! And he continually talks about 'foreign interference'
It is quite boring to continually see and hear that same person and voice that begins each sentence with 'well'..
These medias could refuse and say they want someone else.
In any case, in this video he's giving the twist on events that 'Iranians' don't have any sympathy for the executed because they are part of terrorist organizations and they confessed. Other 'reformists' are OK, but now it is proved that the Green movement is terrorist based and not legitimate. What a pathetic political statement through this boring mouthpiece !
Samuel,
You are attacking a straw man. Nobody is against Marandi because of his views. Marandi is a disgrace not because I disagree with him, but because we all know that his job is to provide a smoke screen for Khamenei/Ahmadinejad's fascist regime to continue murdering Iran's dissidents, academics, and young people.