December 2009
73 posts
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Andrew Sullivan's Posts Of The Year: Mousavi: "I... →
“We all followed them. It was, to my mind, easily the most significant event of the year: the seismic movement against the theocratic fascism of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, as they forced a fraudulent hack onto an unwilling populace despite a landslide victory for his foes. What the full consequences will be we still do not know. But this statement by Mousavi in June is as eloquent as...
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Iranian Police Chief: We'll Show 'No Mercy' →
Tens of thousands of hard-line government supporters turned out for staged, state-sponsored rallies Wednesday, some of them calling for the execution of opposition leaders and chanted “Death to Mousavi” as Iran’s police chief threatened: “We will take severe action. The era of tolerance is over. Anyone attending such rallies will be crushed.”
It’s good to...
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Jon Stewart interviews Ebrahim Yazdi's Son →
Youseph Yazdi, the son of key Iranian opposition figure Ebrahim Yazdi said that his father’s recent arrest on Monday would not deal a setback to democracy efforts there. “We continue as before. The government is using the tools of fear and intimidation, but the key is not to allow that to slow anybody down,” he told NPR.
Yazdi, 72 and struggling with cancer, was last arrested...
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The actions of a desperate regime →
Iranian intelligence officials have detained the sister of Nobel laureate Shirin Ebadi.
Ebadi said Monday that three men and a woman arrived at the Tehran home she shared with her sister, searched the house and seized Nushin Ebadi, 47, and her computer.
“They have detained her so I stop my work,” Shirin Ebadi, 62, told CNN’s Reza Sayah in a phone call from London. “She...
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“Since June, the people of Iran have come out to streets peacefully and have...”
– Josh Shahryar
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Ali Mousavi's Body Taken From Hospital →
Iranian authorities said Monday that they were holding the bodies of five slain anti-government protesters, including the nephew of the opposition leader, in what appears be an attempt to prevent activists from using their funerals as a platform for more demonstrations.
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Is this Iran's second revolution? →
With every fatal bullet, with every ill-directed teargas canister and every ill-advised arrest, the heirs to Ayatollah Khomeini and the Islamic coup d’etat of 1979 find themselves stranded ever more invidiously on the wrong side of history.
Those who rose up with fervent courage to bring down the Shah 30 years ago are now cast in his vacated role of national oppressor, with their own...
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Iran arrests key opposition figures in effort to... →
The Iranian authorities made a desperate attempt to cut off the resurgent opposition movement at its roots on Monday, making a string of arrests close to its leadership. A former regime foreign minister, three close aides to Mir Hossein Mousavi, the defeated presidential candidate, and two aides to Mohammad Khatami, the former president, were all taken away by security forces, according to...
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“The sins that you have committed today cannot be forgiven by God. If you don’t...”
– The other Presidential candidate, Mehdi Karroubi in his statement today:
“Even the Shah respected the day of Ashura and gave orders for people to commemorate it as they wished..”
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A Critical Weekend In Iran →
Andrew Sullivan:
It’s seasonally quiet in the West, but in Iran, this weekend could be the most important since the June Revolution began. It’s Ashura, the mourning festival that begins today and culminates tomorrow. Ashura symbolizes resistance to oppression to the last drop, and because Shia Islam identifies with the oppressed in that story, any government brutality in these days...
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NYT: Ahmadinejad Calls Nuclear Claims ‘a Joke’ →
He rejected the notion that a memo published last week by a British newspaper shows that Iran has been working on a trigger for a nuclear weapon, and said that the document was one of “a fabricated bunch of papers continuously being forged and disseminated by the American government.”
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Iran braces for protests as up to One Million... →
Hundreds of thousand of mourners, many chanting anti-government slogans, gathered in the Iranian city of Qom for the funeral today of the leading reformist cleric Grand Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri. Defying a heavy presence of security forces, the funeral became a rallying point for further protests against the disputed re-election of Ahmadinejad.
Pictures showed the defeated presidential...
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WatchSawyer and Ahmadinejad face-off on the fate of the hikers
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BBC: One of Iran's most prominent dissident... →
One of Shia Islam’s most respected figures, Grand Ayatollah Montazeri was also a leading critic of Ahmadinejad who issued a fatwa condemning Ahmadinejad’s government after June’s disputed election.
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Iranian Troops Seize Iraqi Oil Well: Official →
The deputy minister, Mohammed Haj Mahmoud, said Iranian troops seized oil well No. 4 Thursday night in the al-Fakkah oil field, located about 200 miles (about 320 kilometers) southeast of Baghdad. The oil field is one of Iraq’s largest.
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Twitter hacked by 'Iranian Cyber Army' →
Twitter was hacked overnight, leaving the millions who use the site tweetless.
Those who tried to access Twitter were redirected to a site that had a green flag and proclaimed “This site has been hacked by Iranian Cyber Army.”
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How easy is it to hike into the Islamic Republic... →
Three Americans arrested on the border between Iran and Iraqi Kurdistan will face trial on espionage charges, the Iranian foreign minister announced Monday. The group says they accidentally strayed into Iran during a hiking trip. Is it really possible to wander blithely into the Islamic Republic?
If you’re reckless. The mountainous region between Iraqi Kurdistan and Iran is fairly safe and...
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NYT: Credit Suisse, the second largest bank in... →
The bank removed information from American-bound wire transfers that would have signaled that the money originated in Iranian banks.
Two of the organizations that Credit Suisse facilitated transactions for were the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran and the Aerospace Industries Organization, both of which are designated as proliferators of weapons of mass destruction by the United States Office...
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Time Magazine | Person of The Year 2009: People... →
1. Neda Agha-Soltan
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Andrew Sullivan: Quote of the Day →
“It is ironic how [the] headscarf, which was traditionally seen as a symbol of women’s oppression … is now being used by men to show membership in a liberation movement.” - Peter Tatchell
Dish coverage of the headscarf protest here.
It should be noted that it’s illegal to cross-dress in Iran, just as it’s illegal to be a homosexual.
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Iran Makes Arrests Over Torn Khomeini Picture →
Iran has arrested several people over the tearing up of a picture of the Islamic republic’s late founder Ayatollah Khomeini during antigovernment protests in Tehran last week. The detentions were announced a day after Iran’s Supreme Leader gave a stern warning to the pro-reform opposition, accusing it of violating the law by insulting the memory of late revolutionary leader Khomeini.
“Those...
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The Daily Beast: Iran's New Crackdown on Women is... →
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Clinton advierte a Latinoamérica contra las... →
tragos:
El País, Washington - 11/12/2009
Hillary Clinton, warned Latin American countries today about “the possible consequences” of creating strategic alliances with Iran. “I can only say that it would be a very bad idea,” she said at a State Department conference.
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Guardian: Resilient Iranians still dream of a new... →
Six months on from what the defeated candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi calls a “coup d’etat” in which Khamenei reinstalled the hardline Ahmadickejad, this marathon confrontation is far from over. “Iran has totally changed since June,” said Poorya Farmarzi, a student. “Now you can smell blood when you go out, you can smell teargas, you can smell injustice. This...
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Profiles of defection: More than 4,200 Iranians... →
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NYT: Amnesty International Assails Iran’s Rights... →
Amnesty International said Thursday in their published report that human rights violations in Iran after protests against the flawed presidential election in June were more severe than at any other time in the past 20 years and should be “fully and independently investigated.” The report spoke of “many allegations” of torture, including rape, unlawful killings and other abuses, and said that...
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