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Monday
Sep142009

UPDATED Iran: Complete Text of Soroush Letter to the Supreme Leader

The Latest from Iran (13 September): Lull — Storm?

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SOROUSHUPDATE 13 September 2130 GMT: The Supreme Leader's represenative to the Islamic Revolution Guard Corps has called Abdolkarim Soroush an "apostate".

On Thursday we noted that the prominent Iranian political philosopher Abdolkarim Soroush had written an open letter to the Supreme Leader to express his conviction that Iranians would triumph over "the decline of religious despotism". Several readers  expressed their interest in the text. We initially posted a summary from Mir Hossein Mousavi's Facebook pages, but our excellent readers have now found another summary and a translation (originally on the blog page of the excellent HomyLafayette). The translation is posted, followed by the summary from the Mousavi team:

Celebration for the disappearance of religious despotism

The blood-stained wedding ended and the false groom left the bridal chamber.
The ballot boxes shook and the fiends danced in the darkness.
The victims stood watching in their white shrouds and the prisoners, their hands cut off, clapped.
And the world, one eye filled with rage, the other with hatred, bore off the groom.
The veil was lifted and blood flowed from the republic's porch.
The Devil laughed and then the stars were extinguished and virtue fell into a slumber.

Mr. Khamenei,

In this drought of virtue and justice, everyone has complaints against you, but I thank you.

Not that I have no complaints. I do, and many, but I have set them before God. Your ears have become so full of the praises and caresses of sycophants that they have no room for the voices of those with grievances. But I thank you greatly. You said, 'The sanctity of the regime has been rended' and it has been disgraced. Believe me, in all my life I had never received such good news from anyone. My compliments to you for announcing the misery and affliction of religious despotism.

I am joyous that finally the sighs of morning prayers have reached the celestial spheres and awakened the fires of divine vengeance. You were prepared to allow God to be shamed, to preserve yourself from shame. To have people turn their backs on piety and religion, but not turn their backs to your guardianship. That tradition and the path and truth be crumpled up, so that not a wrinkle would befall your leadership. But God did not want this. The pained hearts and muzzled mouths and spilled blood and cut hands did not want it and prevented it. The pure and the devout and the prophets did not want it. The deprived and the peacemakers and the oppressed and the righteous prevented it.

'The fairy hides her face as the fiend is about,' (NB Soroush is quoting a line from the beloved Hafez's ode number 64) this is the story of your republic of guardianship. Praise God that the veil of this fiend's false purity has been torn. His secrets have been disclosed, his hands opened, and his guilt placed before the sunlight. And the world has looked upon its naked form with anger and astonishment.

Mr. Khamenei,

I know that you are passing through bitter and hard times. You have committed an offense, a severe offense. I explained this offense to you twelve years ago. I told you to choose freedom as your method. Forget that it is virtuous and just, choose it as a method of successful governance. Is this what you want? Why are you doing things backwards? Why do you send denouncers and spies among the people to look into their hearts and pull words from their mouths through trickery, and then report lies and truths to you? Leave the press, political parties, associations, critics, teachers, writers... alone. The people will express themselves in a thousand ways and cast open their windows to you and help you in organizing the country and the system. Don't strangle the press. The press is the breath of society. But you took dead ends and weaving paths. And now your are under the spell of nothingness and have become the prisoner of a closed regime that you yourself created long ago, in which neither criticism, nor opinions, nor science, nor information flourish. You think that by reading confidential bulletins or listening to subservient advisers, you will grasp the reality of what is going on. Both the election of Khatami and the green election of Mousavi must be obvious to you, otherwise disdain and the charms of despotism would not have chased away the knowledge and shrewdness within you. And now, to make up for that sin, which is due to ignorance and despotism, you are turning to even greater crimes. You are washing blood with blood in order to regain purity.

Treason and fraud were not enough, you turned to murder and crime. Treason and crime were not enough, you added the rape of prisoners to everything else. Murder and rape and fraud were still not enough, you added accusations of spying and dishonor to the lot. You did not spare dervishes or clerics or writers or students. And in the end, you reward the killers and wrongdoers. Then you laugh in everyone's face and take a poor soldier to task for stealing an electric razor. (NB Soroush is referring to the student movement of July 1999 in Iran. Dormitories were raided, students beaten and arrested, and an unknown number of people killed. The death toll is generally considered to be at least four. The ensuing trial acquitted all police commanders and security officers, except for one soldier who was fined and imprisoned for stealing an electric razor from the student dorms, and a police officer who was jailed for assault.)

I was amazed by God's patience.

[...]

I knew that bereaved mothers and fathers were weeping behind closed doors and asking God, Save us from this place of oppression and send us succor. [...] The prisons were temples where worshippers genuflected day and night, and prayed -- and are still praying -- to God for the collapse of the guardianship.

When Neda Agha Soltan was martyred, her chest pierced by oppression's bullet, I wailed to God, Do You not hear the voice of the people? (NB Neda means voice in Farsi) As Jesus said on the cross, I asked 'Father, why have You forsaken us?' [...]

Until that day when I heard that forced admission, I mean those life-giving words, 'The sanctity of the regime has been rended.' It was as if the words had come from You, God. I knelt and thanked You. [...]

Mr. Khamenei,

I want to tell you that the page has turned and the regime's fortunes have shifted. It has been disgraced. [...] Even God has turned His face and taken His light from you. Those acts you committed in secret places and behind curtains have been revealed. [...] Even the path of repentance has been closed to you. Religion will not intercede in your favor, you who have lost legitimacy. The green Iran will no longer be that black Iran of devastation. This movement's whiteness and greenness have taken precedence over the blackness of your tyranny. The earth and water and fire and clouds and winds... are aligned against you on God's orders.

For years, your cohorts and agents, under the umbrella of your protection and guardianship, savaged the people like hungry jackals and took safety and justice away from them. [...] They took them prisoner, like an invaded tribe, trampled their rights, plundered their freedoms, broke their dignity, subjugated their thoughts, and turned their religion upside-down. They started producing sanctities as if in a factory and sold superstition as religion. They shoved their treasonous hands into the people's ballot boxes. They placed the universities under the supervision of the uneducated. They filled a house of woes called the Islamic Republic's radio-television with lies and insults and gave the nation lessons on how to despair and be slaves. They created fake and extravagant gatherings and sold lies to the world about how the people loved the regime of the Supreme Leader. In prisons and houses of death, they murdered, raped, committed injustices, assaulted, and tortured to an extent unseen even during the Mongol invasion. They trampled the law and encouraged the science of ignorance and fanaticism. They lifted up the benighted and pushed down the wise. They took joy from the young and dignity from elders. They created colorful ayatollahs and obtained heavy fatwas from them. [...] Their psychosis about imaginary enemies created daily crises. People were imprisoned and ridiculous confessions were placed in their mouths and horrendous punishments were meted out. [...]

[These acts] lit a blaze in the conscience of the people that burned the house of the guardianship. The post-election protest was neither a military exercise, nor sedition, nor the Zarrar Mosque -- a term you have coined in your mint and employ often. (NB The Zarrar Mosque, mentioned in the Koran, was built by religious hypocrites to tempt the true Muslims.) It was an outburst of honor over plunder. The people, with awakened consciences, defended their vote, their elected choice, their rights as citizens, and their freedom of thought in a calm and collected manner against those who would plunder their vote and rights and freedom. The thieves were up in arms, but we heard God's laughter. He was satisfied with us. He had heard our prayers and had disgraced the murderers and the wrongdoers. Taraneh Mousavi's death was the death knell of tyranny.

Mr. Khamenei,

...

The green movement has been established with determination to create a green Iran. This movement has found its green martyrs, green poets and poetry, its green literature and arts and phrases. It is the fruit of 20 years of efforts on the part of intellectuals and activists in the political and cultural spheres. You are wasting your time trying to break it with your militarism.

This lion is not one that you can escape/There's no escaping the curse of God [Soroush is reciting from the mystical poet Rumi. The two lines immediately preceding this quote are: 'You bark like rabid dogs/You deny the Koran's truth'.]

The fading fear of the people and the vanishing legitimacy of the concept of Supreme Leadership are the greatest achievements of the revolt of honor over plunder. The slumbering lion of courage and resistance has been awakened. Neither usurpation by the military, nor rape committed by the corrupt; neither dust thrown in the eyes of humanity, nor hot air to puff up the [regime's] ragged clothes; neither dependence on animal savagery, nor attacks on human sciences [Soroush is referring to a recent speech by Khamenei in which the Supreme Leader voiced concern about human sciences taught in Iranian universities because they instil secularism.]; neither the flattery of flatterers in your pay, nor the poetry of poem-selling fools; none of these will bend the back of the resistance. Religious tyranny has been besieged by blasphemy and religion, and it is time to cut it down in the green fields of the movement. We have asked this of God and God is with us.

There is no sweeter proof of your turning fortunes than the fact that all your celebrations have become mourning ceremonies. And whatever tweaked your mirth once, now brings you tears and tremors. The universities whom you wanted to kiss your feet, now provoke your nightmares. Street demonstrations, the usual gatherings, Ramadan, Moharram, the Hajj, and mournful prayers have all become curses which work against you. [The regime has had to cancel one event after another to prevent protesters from using the ceremonies for their own ends.]

We are of a fortunate generation. We shall celebrate the disappearance of religious despotism. A moral society and a government beyond religion are the beacons of our Green nation.

We shall cherish and esteem freedom, that same freedom which you did not value and unto which you heaped injustices. You were sold fascism and told that freedom is whimsical and permissive....If you had allowed the press to be free, it would have divulged corruption and the corrupt would not have dared engage in their misdeeds. If you had allowed people to criticize you, you would not have fallen into the abyss of dictatorship and the corruption of power. The people's true words would have dispelled your daze of ignorance. They are the schools of the nation, not "enemy bases". And what would have been so terrifying if the doors of those schools had been kept open and you had been able to learn there?

We will cherish religion, that same religion that you made a tool of your power and in whose name you gave lessons in slavery and melancholy. You did not understand that joy and freedom walk alongside true faith....and that religious power corrupts both religion and power. Governing a joyous, free, informed, and nimble people is an achievement, not lording over a bound and dejected nation.

I ask myself who I am writing this for? For a regime whose luck has turned?...And then I recall the words of God:

When some of them said: "Why do ye preach to a people whom Allah will destroy or visit with a terrible punishment?" Said the preachers: "To discharge our duty to your Lord, and perchance they may fear Him." (Sura 164 "The Heights")

God, bear witness. I who have spent a lifetime longing for religion and teaching religion, distance myself from this despotic regime's oppression, and if I once aided the evil-doers out of error or sin, I ask for your forgiveness and absolution. Oh God of wisdom and virtue, accept our prayers...and leave not your friends in the hands of enemies.

Call the winds to tear away despotism's tabernacle and call fire to burn the roots of oppression. Call the seas to drown the pharaohs and the earth to bury the qaruns (NB According to the Koran, 'Qarun was a man from the people of Moussa, but he oppressed them.') Call the clouds and the rains that they may rain grace and justice and joy and compassion upon this persecuted people, and that this barren land of the oppressors may become the flower field of the just.

Abdolkarim Soroush

The Mousavi Facebook summary

Abdolkarim Soroush, a prominent Iranian writer and resercher, and famous Islamic intellectual has harshly criticized Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and predicted the downfall of his regime in an open letter.

In a letter to Ayatollah Ali Khamenei [the supreme leader of the Islamic Republic] Abdolkarim Soroush, the reformist writer and intellectual, has predicted that the opposition will celebrate the “downfall of religious dictatorship”in Iran.

Mr. Soroush in this letter issued on Wednesday September 10th has considered the decay of legitimacy of the Supreme Leader as the greatest achievement of post-election events. He writes: “getting over the fear by citizens and decadence of Supreme Leader’s legitimacy were the greatest achievements of this honorable protest against the incursion and it wakened bravery and resistance [in the people].”

Abdolkarim Soroush who had endorsed Mehdi Karroubi (one of the reformist candidates in the presidential election) writes:”we are a prosperous generation. We will celebrate the decay of religious dictatorship. An ethical society and a non religious government are shining in the future of our honorable people.”

Following the results of the presidential election in Iran protests were held in Tehran and some other cities. According to the judiciary officials during these peaceful protests four thousand people were arrested.

The committee formed by Mehdi Karroubi and Mirhossein Mousavi to follow up the status of the detainees has reported:”in these protests 72 people are killed, while according to the latest report released by the government officials in Iran only 36 people are killed.”

People’s Religion and the Supreme Leadership

Mr. Soroush has clearly accused the Supreme Leader of demanding power and writes:
“You were willing to sacrifice God’s prestige for yours. You would be fine if people turned their back to religion and prophecy but as long as they didn’t do it to your leadership.”

Quoting Khamenei on his post-election remarks saying:“The respect of the regime is damaged and its prestige is ravaged”, Soroush writes:”believe me I had never heard such great news in my whole life!”

In this open letter Soroush says that he had advised the Supreme leader 12 years ago to take the path of freedom as a “method” and decline the supremacy and justice [of his position].

Regarding the suppression of media and political and social activists Soroush writes: “you took the wrong path and now you are trapped and have become victims of the closed system that you created a long time ago in which you could not tolerate any criticism, opinion, science or news.”

This religious thinker, who lives in exile due to the pressure from radicals and is currently teaching in a university in the USA, has accused Ayatollah Khamenei of “crime” in addition to “fraud”.

Soroush writes:” you started the crime as if your betrayal and fraud were not enough; since betrayal and crime did not suffice, you added the rape of prisoners, since that was not yet sufficient you accused them of espionage and dishonor; you did not even have mercy on the dervishes, the religious figures, writers or students and killed them all.”
He is pointing at the reports that have been released in the past months regarding murder, torture and rape of the protesters during the post-election events in Iran.

Soroush, who used to collaborate with the “Cultural Revolution Campaign” in the beginning of the Islamic Revolution regime, says:”God! I hold you witness; I, who have always been concerned about the religion and have taught religion, seek refuge from the injustice of this dictatorship; if I have ever mistakenly and unconsciously assisted the tyrants I seek forgiveness and salvation from you.”
Monday
Sep142009

Israel-Palestine: Still Awaiting the Mitchell-Netanyahu Meeting

dsadIsraeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's scheduled meeting with the U.S. Mideast special envoy George Mitchell was postponed to Tuesday to allow the Israeli leader to attend the funeral of Air Force pilot Capt. Asaf Ramon, who was killed in a training accident.

At the critical meeting, both sides are expected to focus on the timetable and essence of the settlement freeze and on further steps, including Arab concessions for "normalization" of relations with Israel, before the UN General Assembly meeting later this month.

In advance, Mitchell met with Israeli President Shimon Peres, Defense Minister Ehud Barak and Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman. The US envoy reiterated the Obama Administration's motto of "two states for two peoples" and its call for the normalization between Israel and Arab countries:
While we have not yet reached agreement on any outstanding issues, we are working hard to do so, and indeed the purpose of my visit here this week is to attempt to do so.

While the suggestions that we have finalized and reached agreement on a range of issues [are] inaccurate because they are premature, we hope they will be accurate in terms of moving forward in the very near future.

Netanyahu said earlier on Sunday that differences remain with the U.S. over the conditions necessary to resume peacemaking. These included the timetable on a settlement freeze --- Israeli wants a six-month freeze that can be extended in return of positive steps from Arabs; the Americans are demanding at least nine months --- and whether Israel can construct public buildings in the name of "natural growth. The Prime Minister said he hopes to narrow the gaps between the two sides in the next meeting with Mitchell.

Meanwhile, Netanyahu met with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak in Cairo on Sunday evening to discuss regional peace initiatives and the status of kidnapped IDF soldier Gilad Shalit. "All sides --- Israel, the Palestinians, Arab nations and the international community --- must do their part in advancing the peace process," was the statement from Netanyahu's office after the meeting.
Monday
Sep142009

Latest Iran Video: The Allegations of Detainee Abuse

The Latest from Iran (14 September): Countdown to Friday

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This video is presented by the Iranian film director Reza Allamehzadeh and features testimony by a former detainee of abuse and rape. We are trying to get an English translation.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GhKs4lZBkyE[/youtube]
Monday
Sep142009

Iran: The Protest Goes On

NEW Iran: English Translation of Judiciary Report on Karroubi Allegations
NEW Iran: The Soroush Letter to the Supreme Leader
The Latest from Iran (13 September): Lull — Storm?

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IRAN GREENAt the risk of whipping away the cloak of objectivity, a personal note to start this analysis. One of our excellent readers commented on our updates yesterday, "We wish that there is a major backfire by overplay from the Ahmadinejad side. However I fear that this is more a case of play (carrot and stick) and that the backfire will over time [dwindle]."

It's a vital caution. Amidst the Government's attempt to break opposition once and for all, there is an inclination to seize upon and exaggerate any scrap of news as an indication that it has not succeeded. Yet, reviewing all the weekend scraps, I can only assess....

The Government has not yet succeeded.

The big play this weekend was the report of the three-member judiciary panel (published in a separate entry) looking to bury the initiative of Mehdi Karroubi on detainee abuse. This was not a denial of the claims of beatings and rapes; it was a damnation of the cleric for wasting everyone's time with lies and slanders.

Perhaps the most important signal of the report lies not in its content, which is more polemic than critique, but in its politics. Unless Sadegh Larijani, the head of judiciary, publicly rebukes his own officials, we can now assume that he is on-board (if not sanctioning) the effort to quiet Karroubi. If those conservative and principlist MPs who were critical of the Government between late July and the start of September over detentions, fuelled by the case of Mohsen Ruholamini, are now acquiescent, then President Ahmadinejad and his allies will have surmounted a major challenge. The regime can now offer token concessions on investigations --- a few officials reprimanded for Kahrizak prison, a prominent prisoner released on bail --- while maintaining control of the process. It is no coincidence that this weekend the Government announced, on short notice, the next Tehran trial for today.

This, however, is not the end of the story. For the critical group within the Establishment was only one of five challengers to the Government's legitimacy. There is also 2) the anger of senior clerics; 3) Hashemi Rafsanjani; 4) opposition leaders such as Mehdi Karroubi; and 5) "the movement". And it is far from certain that Ahmadinejad has put down the threat from any of these.

As with so much else in this crisis, the use of sledgehammer rather than scalpel by the Government carries risks. Mir Hossein Mousavi put out the statement that resistance continues. More importantly, Mehdi Karroubi and his communications network, back up and running, did not disappear this weekend. Indeed, the regime, by shutting off the possibility that Karroubi can work within the system to get redress and justice for victims, pushes the cleric back into the streets of confrontation. And it also "succeeded" in bringing a limited but significant response from Hashemi Rafsanjani: if Karroubi is touched by detention, then the former President comes out against the Government

Undoubtedly, the hope of the regime is that threat will suffice to choke off that possibility of opposition. Mousavi's chief advisor Alireza Beheshti is released, even as another activist on the Reform Committee investigating detentions is arrested, with the stated or unstated injunction that he best behave himself. The arrest order for Karroubi is announced but not implemented. Outlets like Norooz are targeted by cyber-attack.

But here's the little problem for the Government. All the raids, trials, and threats have not silenced part of its population. There is no way, given the restrictions on the public, to assess the size of that wave of dissent --- not just the "Green" wave but also those who did not support Mousavi or Karroubi but have now turned against the regime because of its tactics, not just the election protestors but those who have tired of the economic and social downturns and tensions. But, for anyone shrewd and dedicated enough both to respect the voices of Iranians and to make the most of "new media" and "social media" (Are you listening, Roger Cohen? Because, for all your good work, your column last week on Iran and new media was a travesty.), the wave can still be felt.

On its own, that public wave cannot dislodge the Government. Even with the public catalyst of a Karroubi to lead it, it probably cannot surmount the force used against it. However, if Karroubi remains a presence and if senior clerics continue their challenge to the legitimacy of the Presidency (note Ahmadinejad's sledgehammer reaction yesterday with the threat of court proceeding against Ayatollah Sane'i, which follows the Supreme Leader's attempt to quash a letter from the Grand Ayatollahs), then the wave will come ashore again and again. That in itself is a long-term development that takes the Islamic Republic beyond the simplicity (stated in comments on our updates) that the regime took care of Grand Ayatollah Montazeri in 1989 and it can take care of Karroubi. It makes the challenge of 2009 far greater than the demonstrations of 1999.

And if the other element, a Mr Hashemi Rafsanjani, decides to make his own move? Well, then long-term development becomes the renewal of short-term challenge.

Qods Day is four days away.
Sunday
Sep132009

Iran: English Translation of Judiciary Report on Karroubi Allegations

Iran: The Karroubi Letter to The Iranian People, Part 1 (14 September)
The Latest from Iran (14 September): Countdown to Friday

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KARROUBI3We reported yesterday on the damning response of the three-member panel (Deputy Head of Judiciary Ebrahim Raeesi, Attorney General Gholam-Hosein Mohsen Ejeie, and President of the Presidential Body of the Judiciary Ali Khalaf) to the allegations of detainee abuse brought by Mehdi Karroubi. Evan Siegel of Iran Rises has translated and posted the report.

The conclusion? "Not only is there no evidence indicating the rape, as claimed by Mr. Karoubi, and the claims raised are without documentation and empty of truth, but the claims and documents presented are all forgeries and assembled to deceive public opinion."

His Eminence Ayatollah Larijani (May his lengthy grandeur increase!)
Honorable President of the Judiciary

Greetings.

In the aftermath of Mr. Mehdi Karoubi’s sending a letter to Your Excellency alleging the persecution and rape of some persons arrested during the riots of the recent months and the forwarding of this letter to the Tribunal for earnest pursuit and it hereby announces its findings:

After the arrival of Karoubi’s letter, he was immediately summoned to come before the Attorney General to be present at the Tribunal to present explanations and submit documents concerning the claims.

Mr. Karoubi was present at the appointed time at the Tribunal at the Attorney General and then he answered the question of the whereabouts of his claims and documents concerning the rape of some persons arrested in the recent riots as follows:

I have heard matters in this regard and as a result of pressure and psychological discomfort, wrote a letter to Mr. Hashemi Rafsanjani. After ten days, I posted it on a website and published it.

In response to the question, “Who were the people whom you had in mind and how did you pursue this issue?” he replied:
1. Taraneh Mousavi

I have not seen Taraneh Mousavi or the members of her family, but have heard from people connected with Mr. Mir Hosein Mousavi and the members of a committee that Mr. Mousavi and I had formed,2 and I had no certainty but went purely by what I had heard, and have no documentation in this regard.

2. A Sh

At first, I had heard from members of our party, the National Trust Party, that this individual had said that three people had put me in a car and took me to another neighborhood. There, there were other people who blindfolded me so I could not see anyone and recognize anyone, and subject to repeated beatings. I was raped as I stood with my hands tied behind my backs and hung from the ceiling so that my feet barely touched the ground. I called this person and heard his statement and then one of the members of the National Trust Party put his statement on a CD, a copy of which I turned over to you.

Mr. Karoubi was then asked, “On what day and in which riot was A Sh arrested?”

Mr. Karoubi replied, “I do not know. I did not ask. But he was not arrested during a demonstration or a clash.” He said that she was alone on Jordan Street and three people put him in a car and carried him off.

* A third person who did not claim that she was raped. “I did not see her and have only heard about her from people connected with the National Trust Party and Mr. Mir Hosein Mousavi. This individual, for her part, was not in a demonstration or a clash, but said that several people had arrested her and subjected her to such severe beatings that her head and face and many of her limbs were l wounded. Her family photographed her and all her limbs and I [Karoubi] have presented a copy of these pictures to you.”

* Ms. M A

This lady was introduced to me by members of the NTP and I spoke to her. She made no claim to having been raped, but said that from the first day of her arrest, they carried her off to the Intelligence [?] Administration and there, subject to beatings and insults and when she responded, they tore off her clothes and put their hands on her body.

* Someone else, named S[aideh] P[uraqayi]

This lady was the son of a martyr and several members of her family had been martyred and were supporters [presumably referring to the family] of Mr. Mousavi who would call out “Allahu akbar” at night with her mother. They came and arrested her in her home and then subjected her to a beating and, after several days, secretly buried her, while the lower part of her body was burned with acid. Some of Mr. Mir Hosein’s people went to her home and I have heard that Mr. Mir Hosein Mousavi participated in the funeral ceremony, and it was agreed that I would go to their home, but did not have the opportunity, but my son searched for them.

Read rest of report...