Iran:We wonder whether Iran is entering a tunnel in the run-up to 22 Bahman (11 February, the anniversary of the 1979 Revolution) with an escalation of arrests and reports of detentions of family members of activists. Persian2English has posted a list of 56 political prisoners at risk of execution. At Friday prayers Ayatollah Kashani repeated his “unveiled threat” to protesters not to ruin 22 Bahman “for the rest of us”.
Persian2English reported that more than a thousand relatives of detainees gathered outside Evin Prison to commemorate Arbaeen, the 40th day of mourning after the religious occasion of Ashura. Demonstrators offered prayers and chanted “Allahu Akhbar (God is great)”.
The grandson of Ayatollah Khomeini, has written to the head of Iran Broadcasting to complain about the “censoring” of his grandfather’s speech. Ayatollah Khomeini’s words have allegedly been adjusted to present a more favourable view of the Government in the run-up to the anniversary of the 1979 Revolution.
Two high profile detainees (Hassan Rassouli and Abolfazl Ghadiani) were released on Thursday night on bail.
Zahra Rahnavard, the wife of Mir Hossein Mousavi, has issued a statement demanding the freeing of all political prisoners before 22 Bahman.
British Foreign Secretary David Miliband has issued a forceful statement on his blog on the post-election crisis, supporting protesters’ calls for human rights, democracy and the fundamental freedoms which “are not western prerogatives, but universal rights to which we are all entitled”.
We have new claimed video of protests in the southern city of Lars from Monday to Thursday.
Although one website (the students at Amir Kabir University) remains down, a new Green website Mizan Khabar, has been launched.
An Italian company has announced it will cease trading with Iran. We note with derision one American commentator’s agitated video “rant” about Iran’s rocket launch. Another video post shows the damage and injuries caused during the siege at Qoba Mosque in Shiraz yesterday.
All the latest news, with links to our stories and other news media sites, can be found in our live weblog.
Afghanistan: We’ve posted Anand Gopal’s moving article for TomDispatch, which tells the story of a young government employee to open eyes to America’s secret prisons in Afghanistan.
Israel and Syria: Israeli and Syrian officials have issued conflicting statements on the chances of an immediate peace between the two countries.
One quiet, wintry night last year in the eastern Afghan town of Khost, a young government employee named Ismatullah simply vanished. He had last been seen in the town’s bazaar with a group of friends. Family members scoured Khost’s dust-doused streets for days. Village elders contacted Taliban commanders in the area who were wont to kidnap government workers, but they had never heard of the young man. Even the governor got involved, ordering his police to round up nettlesome criminal gangs that sometimes preyed on young bazaar-goers for ransom.
But the hunt turned up nothing. Spring and summer came and went with no sign of Ismatullah. Then one day, long after the police and village elders had abandoned their search, a courier delivered a neat, handwritten note on Red Cross stationary to the family. In it, Ismatullah informed them that he was in Bagram, an American prison more than 200 miles away. U.S. forces had picked him up while he was on his way home from the bazaar, the terse letter stated, and he didn’t know when he would be freed.
This week Josh Mull (“UJ”), both in his guest blog and in his comments, has offered valuable insight into the complexity of local groups and insurgencies in Afghanistan and Pakistan. I’ve now discovered an analysis by Steve Hynd (“Cernig”), which I think is an excellent introduction to the political, economic, and social dimensions beyond the label “Taliban”. It’s reprinted below this report from Al Jazeera:
Taliban: What’s in a Name?
Two years into the Iraq war, moderately well read Westerners already knew that the insurgency there wasn’t monolithic. Honest reporting repeatedly made clear that Al Qaeda, Sunni militant groups of various varieties and Sadrists didn’t see eye to eye and often worked at cross purposes even while all were hostile to America and its allies. Read the rest of this entry »
I’ve just read this piece by Anand Gopal which eloquently makes the point that has worried me for some time, namely that the challenge to the Government and the military presence in Afghanistan is far more complex than a single movement labelled “Taliban”:
Who Are the Taliban? The Afghan War Deciphered
If there is an exact location marking the West’s failures in Afghanistan, it is the modest police checkpoint that sits on the main highway 20 minutes south of Kabul. The post signals the edge of the capital, a city of spectacular tension, blast walls, and standstill traffic. Beyond this point, Kabul’s gritty, low-slung buildings and narrow streets give way to a vast plain of serene farmland hemmed in by sandy mountains. In this valley in Logar province, the American-backed government of Afghanistan no longer exists.
Iran: We wonder whether Iran is entering a tunnel in the run-up to 22 Bahman (11 February, the anniversary of the 1979 Revolution) with an escalation of arrests and reports of detentions of family members of activists. Persian2English has posted a list of 56 political prisoners at risk of execution. At Friday prayers Ayatollah Kashani repeated his “unveiled threat” to protesters not to ruin 22 Bahman “for the rest of us”.
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