The Latest from Iran (4 March): A Death Penalty Mystery

2200 GMT: The Dilemma. Paused when I read this statement from Trita Parsi: "Here is the central dilemma of Iranian policy: Iran's greens need time, but Washington does not seem to think it can afford to wait."

2150 GMT: Political Prisoner News. Reports that journalist Payman Aref has been released for ten days on a $100,000 bail.

2140 GMT: Today's Super Spy Case. Here is one to watch: Italian authorities have rounded up five Iranians and two Italians (according to Associated Press, the BBC says two Iranians and five Italians), with two more Iranians being sought, on charges of sending arms to Iran in violation of the international embargo. Amongst those detained is the Rome correspondent of Iranian state television, Hamid Masouminejad.

NEW Death, Confusion, and Clerics in Iran: The Case of Mohammad Amin Valian
NEW Iran Film Special: Watching Shrek in Tehran
Iran: Today’s Rafsanjani Watch — Clarity or Confusion?
Iran Interview: The State of Tehran’s Nuclear Programme (Cirincione)
The Latest from Iran (3 March): Love and Hate

2045 GMT: Waging Soft War for the Regime. From Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty:

A controversial reporter with the ultraconservative Kayhan daily has been praised as Iran's first soft-war hero.


Payam Fazlinejad, who was attacked last month by unknown assailants, was described as Iran's first soft-war "janbaz" (someone who sacrifices his or her life) during a conference titled "The Celebration of Eight Months of Cyberwar" held in Tehran earlier this week....

Following the attack on Fazlinejad, the head of the semi-official Fars news agency said that Fazlinejad's writing had shed light on the true nature of the "sedition" movement and that as a writer he's been fighting in the soft-war sphere against those opposed to the Iranian establishment. He suggested that Fazlinejad's attackers are those who have been damaged by his writings.

At the ceremony, Fazlinejad, who appeared with his head bandaged, blasted the Green Movement, which he said has a "Freemason" nature and added that former President Mohammad Khatami is also a Freemason....

Following last year's disputed presidential vote, Fazlinejad has often referred ironically to the opposition press and dissidents as "nato-cultural," in an allusion to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.

1800 GMT: Undermining Khamenei (While Backing Him). Abbas Salimi-Naeem, a right-wing politician and Head of the Office for Research and Documenting Iranian Contemporary History, has declared, "Hashemi Rafsanjani has problems with the election engineering that has been drawn up by the Supreme Leader."

On the surface, that is another attack on Rafsanjani and defense of Khamenei. But it is yet another public statement that raises the allegation, denied by the Supreme Leader and his inner circle, that he was involved with rigging of the election.

1410 GMT: Today's Clerics --- What Matters, What Doesn't. The Supreme Leader has used a meeting with Iran's top officials on the occasion of the Prophet Muhammad's birthday to put out some ritual phrases: "the endless oppression by the criminal Zionist regime against the innocent people of Palestine...the fake Zionist regime [is] a dangerous tumor...continuous efforts of the US, Britain, and other enemies of Islam to cause discord among the Islamic Ummah".

Meanwhile, we have a special analysis by Mr Verde of significant clerical moves, which may pose a problem for Ayatollah Khamenei beyond the Zionist tumour and enemies of Islam, over the reported death sentence on post-election protester Mohammad Amin Valian.

1240 GMT: So There. Iran's ambassador to the International Atomic Energy Agency, Ali Asghar Soltanieh, has warned, "Iran's proposal for a simultaneous exchange on Iranian soil of our low enriched uranium for fuel enriched to 20 percent is still on the table but it will not stay there forever."

1150 GMT: Sanctions Watch. Amidst the current surge in activity for economic measures against Tehran, Nobel Prize laureate Shirin Ebadi has spoken out: "We oppose military attack on Iran or economic sanctions because that's to the detriment of the people."
1120 GMT: Economy Watch. Time magazine notes the significance of the economic issue for the Ahmadinejad Government:

Labor unrest and economic anxiety may not be among the headlines coming out of Iran since the controversial presidential election of June 2009, but they could turn out to be critical factors in the fate of the Islamic Republic. Indeed, the regime is so sensitive about the country's well-being that it has been obfuscating economic statistics — or simply not reporting them.

1100 GMT: The Detained Director. Peyke Iran reports the release of almost all those detained in the Monday night raid by Iranian security force on the home of prominent film director Jafar Panahi. However, Panahi, his production manager, and documentary maker Mohammad Rasoulof are still imprisoned.

0900 GMT: Political Prisoner Watch. Payvand has a useful round-up of recent developments. These include the detention of Hessam Firouzi, human rights activist and physician to several political prisoners, and his neighbour after raids on Firouzi's home. The security forces also went through the home of Firouzi's nephew, who has been missing since January.

As we noted yesterday, Mohboubeh Karami, member of the One Million Signature Campaign, has been charged with "disturbance and participation in gatherings." This is her fifth detention.

Human rights activist and blogger Behzad Mehrani was taken into custody and at least two more activists were arrested in Isfahan.

0645 GMT: The chatter this morning continues to be over the possible death sentence handed down on 20-year-old university student Mohammad Amin Valian, detained after the Ashura demonstrations of 27 December.

Iranian authorities have still offered no confirmation (or denial). However, the office of Grand Ayatollah Nasser Makarem-Shirazi, who was accused of handing down the fatwa that led to Valian's sentence, has issued a denial. An anonymous visitor to Makarem-Shirazi's website wrote, "Many news organizations are reporting that an unjust execution sentence handed down to a student from Damghan is based on a decree by Ayatollah Makarem-Shirazi. Please clarify whether this is true."

The reply from the website operators: "We have definitely not issued any fatwa [decrees] with regard to such people and this is the mischief of some sites. God willing, you’ll act according to Islamic criteria and not rush to judgement. May God’s kindness encompass everyone. Also we know that some youth have acted violently under the effects of certain emotions. These people have to be guided and if they have no links to corrupt groups they should be pardoned."

Meanwhile, a much different, if tangled, story plays out on the international front. The US is trying to set up a push for a UN Security Council resolution for tougher sanctions, with a flood of stories yesterday about a firm line from Europe and assurances that China was coming around to the American position.

However, Brazilian Foreign Minister Celso Amorim, meeting US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on her Latin American tour, has offered a firm rebuff in their news conference:

We think with our own mind. We want a world without nuclear arms, certainly without proliferation. It is not about simply bending to an opinion that may not be true. We can't simply be taken along. We have to think with our own head.

Brazil holds one of the 10 rotating, non-veto seats on the Council.

Comments

[Arshama]

Catherine,

@ Mike Shuster's article

More Mystery: According to Khabar Online, Pakistan ministery of interior has announced that Rigi's Pakistani ID card is a fake, he also was not arrested on Pakistan's soil: http://www.khabaronline.ir/news-47314.aspx

Perhaps an alien ;-)

[Bill]

Publicola,

"live and let live" is something I strongly believe in yet you would be hard pressed to find this "golden rule" in Islam. Many will state:

1) Q 2:256 "Their is no compulsion in religion" : Sounds great but all four schools of Sunni jurisprudence and the Shia Twelver school clearly state this has been abrogated by latter verses. Some of those verses condone offensive force to spread faith sort of debunking no compulsion. Even the whole concept of a dhimmi while not overt compulsion is clearly a type of coercion to get one to convert.

2) Q 5:32 "...if any one slew a person - unless it be for murder or for spreading mischief in the land - it would be as if he slew the whole people: and if any one saved a life, it would be as if he saved the life of the whole people..." : Again sounds great but notice the "..." or the fact when given orally to a non Muslim audience they never read the whold verse or the one following it. They leave out the most critical piece " We ordained for the Children of Israel..." Wow it is actually a warning specifically targeting the Jews. In verse 5:33 you then find out what happens to those who break this law--they get crucified!!

3) Islam means peace: The word is actually sourced from "Aslama" which means to submit. The peace is technically correct but it comes with a condition and that condition is you must submit. It is why they divide the world into Dar Al Islam(Land of Islam or Peace) and the Dar Al Harb(Land of War or infidelity.)

In summary you have to keep in mind from a puritanical standpoint the greatest evil in Islam is disbelief. While most Muslims trully believe in "live and let live" it doesn't appear that their scripture does. Personally I see this as the crux of the issue as to how the Islamic world deals with everyone else. They simply have an issue because the ideology of their scripture, in my humble opinion, fosters a negative disposition on the non believer. It is sort of hard to get along let alone "live and let live" with non Muslims when this negative worldview is propogated within Islamic scripture. It is why you hear people in the Islamic world speak of "spreading the revolution or Islam"--they trully believe we are lost and are doing us a favor despite what we may believe--to them their is only one truth/one answer and it is Islam.

Thx
Bill

(PS as a side bar my two best friends are Shia. We have debated this point several times and like me they agree this is a foundational issue with Islam. It is why they both like Grand Ayatollah Sanei because he has chipped away at this divide by making statements like non Muslims can make it to paradise if they follow their religions faithfully.)

[Greeny]

Megan,

Re. (#21): “What confused me was the Green head-band of protesters in the Photo and the word “Ya Hossein” on the head band.”

This was when the regime was trying to hijack the Green movement with its pathetic “Sabz-e Alavi” gimmick. That failed. That’s why they had to turn Tehran into a military camp on 22 Bahman.

Look at the photo:
All the people you see are men. Unlike the ones in this photo, the Greens are real people and half of them are women.
Look at how passive the three policemen in helmets are (under the Rome Street sign). Also look at the policeman around the corner. They are just there to show that police was there, as to create the illusion of it being a real demonstration. The IR police are usually massed in much higher numbers when real people are demonstrating. And they don’t stand around watching. They beat people, tear gas them, arrest them and kill them.
Look at how all these people look like copies of each other. Real people look different from one another. These look like soldiers whose uniforms are made to look like civilian clothes.
Look at how they are using sticks to tear down the street name. Normal people don’t use sticks to destroy public property. IR thugs do. They also use their sticks to beat people.

[Catherine]

Bill,
What do you think of the new 600-page fatwa against all terrorists by Sheik Tahir ul-Qadri?
Sheikh issues fatwa against all terrorists
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/sheikh-issues-fatwa-against-all-terrorists-1915000.html

There are lots of other news articles on this too.

[Rev. Magdalen]

Ange thank you for telling about the baby dove! I hope these troubles soon all fall away and Iran rises up to take her rightful place among the nations again.

[Bill]

Catherine,

I think it is wonderful news. I have read many articles on it but not the Fatwa itself except for some bits. I believe it centers around a Muslims covenant given to state he or she lives within and the edict of never attacking civilians(of which there is much to back this up in Islamic Scripture.) I have to read more to get a really good feel for it but that is going to require me getting a weekend to do it. In my humble opinion it is a huge move in the right direction because it takes away one of the main motivators. However having said that it still does not answer the question of how Islam views the world visa via believer and non believer.

The reality is how one thinks of another person is a key motivational deteriminent on how that person is going to react to them. If that person has been innoculated from childhood to regard the other in a negative light they are going to be that much more prone to "attack" them per say regarding an grievance. After reading the Quran, a Hadith source(Buhkari), and the Sira I have come to the conclusion Islam clearly does place the other in a negative light(because of our disbelief.) As I have said many times it is kind of hard to get alone if the other really does not think of you to highly. If you have not read any of the aforementioned works I highly encourage you. Don't take my view as truth you owe it to yourself to find out yourself.

Sorry if I am not being PC but this is something I strongly believe needs to be addressed. The fact remains that these issues are largely unique to the Islamic world--no other religious group has these issues but instead have found a way to peacfully coexist. Don't you find it quite odd that the issue always seems to be Islam this or Islam that today? There's a reason and yes the West shares the blame but so does the divisive ideology that permeates Islam.

Thx
Bill

[Publicola]

@ Bill,

thanks for your detailed, rational, insightful, informative and friendly response !

In my view you, and the references (Quran) quoted by you, are correct.
Thus there is only (a piece of) hope for a development of Islam and its reading/interpretation of Quran towards tolerance and open-mindedness !

This hope is not unjustified, considering
that till two or three years ago there was still a religiously tinged civil war going on in Northern-Ireland,
that it took Christianity more than thousand to thousand-fivehundred years from being established as a state religion and at that moment showing its intolerant side (in 380 AD Emperor Theodosius I enacted a law establishing Christianity as the official religion of the Roman Empire)
through the Thirty Years' War (1618–1648), one of the most destructive conflicts in European history,
down to the Age of Reason and Enlightenment
down to our times
to become somehow tolerant and compatible with modern, rational and democratic thinking.
Having said that, there should also presumably be a way that Islam will be rationalized and purified of its intolerant elements via reason, enlightenment, rational thinking and with the help and support of theologians who acknowledge, recognize, and know
that this will be the only sensible way to maintain or acquire the respect and respectability necessary for any religion pursuing a less frictional, perhaps even frictionless and continued existence within modern society.

Time will tell - and I'm not sure if we will live long enough to see that ?

[Catherine]

Bill,
Thanks for your reply - and Publicola too. If either of you find the English version of the Fatwa, which according to the article I cited is supposedly available online, I'd like to know where to find it too.

Personally, I think over time we're going to see the emergence of two maJor streams of (sunni) Islam: a more rationalist and tolerant form developing in regions of the world that are politically, economically, scientifically, socially and educationally more developed, while tendencies that are more fundamentalist, obscurantist, extreme and intolerant will dominate in less developed regions of the world. You can see the same trend in Catholicism: compare the viewpoints, beliefs and traditions of American catholics to their French, then Irish, then Portuguese, then Mexican and Philippine counterparts. This is a broad brush stroke, admittedly, but I think the overall stage of development of the economic, scientific and socio-political context within which a religion is practised eventually ends up having considerable influence on those aspects of the religious beliefs/practices which either coincide or do not coincide with the dominant assumptions of that context.

As for Shia Islam, it's hard to speak about Iraq right now, as it is in such flux, but in stable Iran, which is like a developed and an underdeveloped country (in the ways mentioned above) rolled in one depending on the locale, you also see the two streams alongside each other, the Sanei's and Montazeri's juxtaposed with the Mesbah Yazdi's and Ahmad Jannati's.

As Publicola says at the end of post 33, "Time will tell – and I’m not sure if we will live long enough to see that "

[Publicola]

Dear Catherine,

thanks for your informative response.

Nice posting, with which I wholeheartedly agree !