The Latest from Iran (14 March): False Strategies, Real Conflicts

1910 GMT: More on the Universities Purge (see 1145 GMT). The Revolutionary Guards get in on the act, with Yahya Rahim-Safavi, the former commander and current advisor to the Supreme Leader, declaring, "The universities aren't in good shape today, missing from them are revolutionary forces and experts who are beholden to the Imam, the Supreme Leader, and the Constitution."

Rahim-Safavi, speaking at a conference organized for the "cultural experts" of the IRGC, said, "The goal of soft war is to change the culture, values and beliefs of the youth....Our weakness is in this very issue of culture, which our enemies have identified before we did. Therefore we must battle against and overcome the attacking culture with our soft and cultural power."

NEW Iran: The Opposition’s Campaign in the US — Sequel With Revelations and A Lesson
NEW Iran: Connecting the Dots — 5 Signs of Regime Trouble
NEW Iran Letter: “I Am Still Alive to Tell the Story” (Shams)
Iran Special: Zahra Rahnavard on Women’s Rights and The Green Movement
Iran: The Opposition’s New PR Campaign in the US
Iran Analysis: Rafsanjani’s “Finger in the Dike” Strategy
The Latest from Iran (13 March): Settling In

1830 GMT: Let's Make Up a Cyber-War. More regime propaganda --- the Revolutionary Guard has briefed the Parliament on the nefarious cyber-plot of the opposition around Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi, bringing in names like the filmmaker Mohsen Makhmalbaf and human rights activist Ahmad Batebi. (There's a video as well.)

After the briefing, the head of Parliament's National Security Committee said Human Rights Activists in Iran had fabricated a list of killed protesters and passed it to Mir Hossein Mousavi.


1725 GMT: Political Prisoner Watch --- One Who Did Not Remain Silent. Emad Bahavar, head of the youth branch of the Freedom Movement of Iran, has been re-arrested.

Bahavar was arrested earlier this year and released after a short period. However, instead of refraining from criticism of the regime, he wrote a long, incisive analysis of "The Hardliners' Project".

On Wednesday, after Bahavar had appeared in court to defend his case, security forces raided his house without a warrant, threatened his family, and confiscated personal possessions. Bahavar was re-arrested when he went to court to protest the illegal behaviour.

1705 GMT: Political Prisoner Watch. The former Chief Executive Officer and founder of Persian Blog, Mehdi Boutorabi has been arrested.

1700 GMT: We've posted an update and an analysis of this weekend's "opposition campaign", which proved to be far less than a campaign, in the US.

1530 GMT: Political Prisoner Watch. Tehran Prosecutor General Abbas Jafari Doulatabadi has confirmed that Iranian-American academic Kian Tajbakhsh has been released for 15 days on $800,000 bail.

1525 GMT: Really, They Are All US-Sponsored "Cyber-Terrorists". Fars continues the propaganda overload attacking human rights activists with an "analysis" claiming that the Bush Administration and the CIA launched a $400 million campaign in 2006 for a cyber-battle against Iran.

This is a convenient pretext for Fars to lump together all the "bad guys" --- the Mujahedin-e-Khalq, monarchists, Baha'is, and human rights activists --- as traitors. Named groups includes Human Rights Activists in Iran, Nobel Prize winner Shirin Ebadi's Center for Defense of Human Rights, and the Human Rights Committee and the One Million Signatures campaign for women's equality.

1515 GMT: Stopping the Fire Festival. As our readers have noted, the Supreme Leader has turned on one of Iran's national ceremonies, Chaharshanbeh Souri, as an event “void of religious roots and cause of great harm and corruption".

Chaharshanbeh Souri, which takes place on the eve of Iranian New Year, is an ancient Iranian pagan festival with the building of bonfires and symbolic gestures and chants. These summon the fire to burn all sickness and lend its energy to a healthy new year.

1500 GMT: Back from a family break (Happy Mother's Day to all those celebrating in Britain) to go on Rafsanjani Watch.

Looks like the former President Hashemi Rafsanjani has continued his careful prodding of the Government, this time with attention to state media. He urged Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting (Seda va Sima) not to operate as “a gang”, warning that it would lose the trust of the public if it did so. He added that IRIB needs to assume a more “national” approach and pay more attention to people.

1145 GMT: Purge the Universities!

Press TV, from Islamic Republic News Agency, reports that up to 130 Iranian members of Parliament have written the Minister responsible for higher education, Kamran Daneshjoo, calling for strict action to be taken against proponents of secularism in universities throughout Iran.

The legislators warned Daneshjou of the activities that were carried out in universities by "certain individuals who are hostile toward the Islamic system". They insisted, "The cultural message of the [1979] Islamic Revolution is the most important topic that university professors and the elite must seek to promote....Activities of individuals, who feel enmity toward the Islamic establishment, are unacceptable. What is more, nowhere in the world are resources and opportunities generously handed out to those who seek to bring down the establishment and the principles that society is governed by."

Of course, the demand of the MPs for "serious and decisive" action against "the enemies of the Islamic establishment," "proponents of secularism," and "those who work to weaken the government" is a political set-up for the regime to get rid of unacceptable professors and limit scholarships and overseas education to only "proper" students. Last week Daneshjoo used a speech to denounce "deviant" academics.

0920 GMT:~Khomeini in the Cold. Looks like the regime is going to continue treating the family of the late Ayatollah Khomeini as too dangerous to acknowledge, given their criticisms of the Government. The memorial service for Khomeini's son Ahmad has been cancelled due to "mausoleum repairs". Most ceremonies at the Khomeini site since June 2009 have been postponed.

0915 GMT: Two Sunday Specials for You. We feature a defiant weblog from released detainee Foad Shams, "I Am Still Alive to Tell the Story", and Mr Verde has an analysis of 5 Signs of Regime Trouble.

0910 GMT: A Lament for the Election. Eshagh Jahangiri, the Minister of Industries and Mines in the Khatami Government, has declared that, after the Presidential vote on June 12, the chances of progress were lost for Iran.

OK, he would say that as he's a reformist, right? Yes, but the location of the criticism...the not-so-reformist Khabar Online.

0900 GMT: No More Satire --- Iran's Changing Flag. Remember a couple of months ago that we posted a comedy story about the apparent changing of the colours in Iran's flag, removing Green for Blue?

Well, look likes we might have to replace our satire warning for a label that this is Very Serious. From Khabar Online:

At the last session of Iran's Guardian Council in the current Iranian year (ends on March 20) held today, the speaker of the entity, Abbas Ali Kadkhodaei, answered the questions raised by the journalists.
He said that if a trustable evidence is provided on the national flag color change at the recent state ceremonies, the council will probe the issue."

"The rules are transparent on this case and must be abided by all executive bodies. If it's true, those organizations which have committed such act should be questioned," he maintained.

Recently at some ceremonies held by the government, the green stripe on the Iranian flag had changed to blue or black, including one attended by the President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad staged a in Tehran for the head of the state-funded Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA). At the ceremony in a graphic design behind Ahmadinejad, the green stripe of the country's national flag had turned to blue.

0650 GMT: I thought at one point on Saturday that the main story might be an opposition initiative to sway American opinion, with a purported spokesman for Mehdi Karroubi holding forth to US journalists in a press conference and private talks.

That proved a fizzle, however, as the "former senior aide" primarily offered a distracting thesis of an Ahmadinejad-Khamenei split and got little coverage from a nuclear-focused (obsessed?) US media. The New York Times, for example, prefers a tangential thinkpiece by David Sanger, and The Washington Post is also off on a Tehran and the Bomb story.

Still there's an important lesson for the Green Movement here in the diversion and possibly damage of those claiming to be "spokesmen" for the opposition, when they are in fact expressing primarily personal opinions, and how they could built up as Green representatives by a media started of significant information from inside Iran. We'll have an update later today.

So what were the real stories? Well, there is what appears to be a regime strategy to break the opposition through the "revolving door" of releasing some detainees --- with the threat that they go back to prison if they step out of line --- and taking new prisoners with declarations of terrorists front groups and agents for the US.

On Saturday, a number of high-profile prisoners, notably journalists and the Iranian-American academic Kian Tajbakhsh, were reportedly freed. At the same time, the campaign to break human rights organisations was declared with the propaganda of media like Fars and Kayhan, with their announcements of dozens of arrests of campaigners linked to the "terrorist" Mujahedin-e-Khalq and Washington, and the attack on the websites of Human Rights Activists in Iran.

The latest statement from the Revolutionary Court declares that those arrested belong to a group called “Iran Proxy,” which is accused of
“downloading national databases, infiltrating and sabotaging internet sites, resisting government filtering efforts, creating secure spaces for users of internet networks, creating secure telephone lines and data for interviews with Radio Farda, Radio Zamaneh and television networks of Voice of America”. The Court alleges, in a reference to a campaign to distribute anti-filtering software so Iranians can access the Internet, “Members of Iran Proxy in Iran were in receipt of significant salaries in Iran in order to distribute over 70 thousand proxies through the internet.”

Then, however, there is the news of pressure on the Government, not through manufactured rings of secret US-backed agents but through members of Parliament. The  story of the battle between the Majlis and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad over the President's budget and subsidy reform plan seems to have attracted little notice. But, after the President appealed to the Supreme Leader and then gate-crashed the Parliament and still lost the vote on his proposal, it is a sign of Ahmadinejad's authority in jeopardy.

Comments

[Cameron]

gunni, Setting aside the fact that you did not address my point....actually Mahdi is not a redeemer either. He is not the son of god. He is just another man who has been "hidden from view for his safety" until blah, blah.

Also Mahdi does not cause the big catasrophe as your note could imply, rather comes after the same type of armagadden as described by christians to rid the world of violence and bring peace.

...one + point for muslims for not spending hundreds of years in seminaries after their leader's death to promote him from man to god in order to justify the rest of their evolving story line.

All these religious books from thousands of years ago are amazing works of fiction, as only George Carlin could articulate!

No disrespect to our religious readers as I used to be one of you.

[gunni]

Cameron, you are right - no disrespect to religious believers who are also readers on EA. For sure we can describe the negativ impacts of Christianity to societies very clearly - and there are some positiv aspects, too. From my point of view a much more broader discussion about the impact of Islam is needed. - So - Iam not sure about your thesis - I think - a much more sharper look to the framework and the basics of Islam will give us more answers.

[Bill]

gunni & cameron,

Interesting points raised by both. Frankly the aspect of death vs life respective to religions is not one I have spent a great deal of time pondering. However, as Gunni pointed out it is an important one to understanding the each other's worldview respetive to life it self. To look at this from a big picture I can think of no better example than what a marytr is to each.

Christin marytr: Is one considered to follow the example of Jesus in offering up their lives as a sacrifice to bring about the Kingdom of Heaven. Central to that kingdom is the unconditinal love for all.

Islamic marytr(Shahid): It is used as a title for Muslims who have died fulfilling a commandment, or waging war for Islam. By extension a Shahid gets a free pass to paradise by doing so.

At a cursory glance you can argue they look the same if you don't know the details about the Shahid in Islam. But the "devil" is in the details. The Christian is trying to bring heaven to earth(life) and Shahid is about obtaining death to get to heaven. The other details is the fact a Christian marytr is almost exclusively used within a non violent context. The Shahid is almost always used in the context of battle. Shahids often invoke Quran 9:112, "The Believers fight in Allah's Cause, they slay and are slain, kill and are killed It is often why you hear Jihadists state the love death more than we love life. The Muslim Brotherhood's motto that ends with " Dying in the way of Allah is our highest hope" best portrays this mindset. Another aspect of this is Islam's predisposition to predestination.

While Christians often believe this it is not central to their faith and the evidence is the advance of science in the west. Islam on the other hand clearly places great importance on predestination. It is why you often hear "Allah willing" or nutjobs saying a earth quake or natural disaster was Allah's doing for bad behavior. When one believes in predestination life then becomes somewhat secondary since everything is already planned out. The central pursuit for a Muslim then becomes how to get to paradise and following the perfectly laid out plan to do so(the Quran and Hadith.) Incidentally this is why the Islamic world lags so far behind the rest of the world in human development--why bother when everything is already figured out?

When you take all this into context puritaniclly speaking Islam places more value on the afterlife than Christians do. To a Muslim life is only the testing ground for getting to paradise. The Christian, on the other hand, is concerned about making Heaven on Earth by following Jesus' example. Big difference wouldn't you say?

As for religion being fairy tails, there is a lot to be said for that. My only retort is essentilly a intentional nonsensical quote from Benjamin Franklin " The Way to see by Faith, is to shut the Eye of Reason." My religion is personal one based on faith. In my mind that "personal choice" is the major hang up in Islam. As much as they say "There is no compulsion in religion" evey other action and numerous vesrses clearly says it is not. Instead it is all over ruled by the commandment "all must submit to Allah" which is the golden rule in Islam(for persepective look up the concept of abrogation in Islam.)

Again please find out for yourself these are just my views reflecting my studies into the subject.

Thx
Bill

[gunni]

Hi Bill,
Thanks - your "little" comment is amazing - please keep on writing - maybe
"for testing the ground for getting to paradise". :) (This was a try to make a joke) I`am going to save your writings in a special file - I really hope you can agree.
I will comment it later - maybe at the next right moment.
Best regards
gunni

[rezvan]

Bill - What a lot of tosh. But continue to indulge in your half baked opinions, you are only letting yourself and your country down. To date the neocon/zionist/wahabi alliance that dominate, despite Obama, US policy towards Iran have only got it wrong time and again. They fail to understand the sophistication of Muslim beliefs, motives and the Islamic notion of 'taqwa' which is the principal bond of respect and devotion given by the laity to the ulama of distinction. Islam requires every individual believer to do his own research and come to a reasoned understanding on Tawhid (One God for all of creation), Adl (a God who is Just), Nabuwwah (Prophecy and Revelation as a means whereby God communicates to human beings via Prophets and Apostles), Imamah (Divinely appointed Guides of which there were 12) and Qayamah (Day of Judgement). Only after logical acceptance of these do any of the furoo (duties) incumbent upon a believer become necessary.

The objectives of Islam are simple - to seek to bring all human beings in worship and submission to our Creator and thereby create a peaceful and just world. Islam as practiced by the Prophet was a pragmatic faith with the sole purpose of elevating the human condition. By taking isolated verses of the Koran, Muslim beliefs or events from the Seerah and presenting them the way you do is a distortion of the reality. BTW, the Shi'ites do not regard Bukhari with much credence and consider many traditions in them as being fabricated. They have their own Hadith compilations. Just shows how half baked your self education of Islam is. If you are not careful the cake you are baking might become a splodge!Learn your recipe first!

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