January 2010
37 posts
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BBC: Iran tries 16 people over Ashura Day protests... →
Iran’s state news agency said five defendants were accused of “waging war against God” and being “corrupt on earth” - both crimes punishable by death under the Iranian legal system.
The others, the agency reported, were accused of “gathering and conspiring against security, propaganda against the system and seeking to harm security by inciting unrest and...
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Iran Executes Two Protesters →
Mohammad Reza Ali Zamani (37) and Arash Rahmani Pour (19) were executed on 28 January. According to his indictment, Zamani’s conviction for the capital crime of Mohareb, or “taking up arms against God,” was based on his membership in the pro-Royalist group, Anjoman-e Padeshahi-e Iran, and on allegedly meeting in Iraq with United States operatives and receiving money from a source based in the US,...
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Two German Diplomats Have Been Detained and... →
Iran’s state media reported today that two German officials have been held since December, as well as aide to opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi.
Germany’s foreign ministry said it had no knowledge about any diplomats being detained and dismissed accusations that German diplomats had a hand in the demonstrations and clashes last month, which left eight people dead.
News of the...
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Spiegel: Activist Gets One-Year Prison Sentence... →
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British Museum in battle with Iran over ancient... →
The discovery of fragments of ancient cuneiform tablets – hidden in a British Museum storeroom since 1881 – has sparked a diplomatic row between the UK and Iran. In dispute is a proposed loan of the Cyrus cylinder, one of the most important objects in the museum’s collection, and regarded by some historians as the world’s first human rights charter.
The Iranian government has...
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Guardian: Iran's Republic of Fear →
Iran’s clerical regime governs by a simple formula: he who is the most frightening, wins. “Victory by terrifying” is a trope that is present in many of supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s speeches. Indeed, it is a reliable guide to his political philosophy. This view was not invented by Khamenei, but rather is drawn from the Qur’an and the Shia tradition. The...
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Reporters Without Borders Accuses the Iranian... →
“Following arrest, journalists are held in secret locations in extremely harsh conditions and with long periods of solitary confinement, in flagrant violation of their most fundamental rights,” said the Paris-based press freedom watchdog. “These incommunicado detentions, which can be regarded as forced disappearances and crimes against humanity, are violations of international law. The...
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Iran prosecutor calls for death penalty against... →
An Iranian prosecutor called Monday for the death penalty against five protesters arrested during the Ashura protests. The five were accused of having ties with Iran’s exiled and armed opposition, the People’s Muhajideen, and charged with “Moharebeh” or being enemies of God, which is punishable by death under Iran’s Sharia-based law.
“I ask the court for...
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Iran sentences Azeri rights activist to jail,... →
A court in Zanjan has sentenced an Azeri rights activist to six months in prison and 50 lashes, the website of the Association for the Defense of Azerbaijani Political Prisoners in Iran reported on Thursday.
Yashar Hakampour was charged with publishing and disseminating lies and slander and insulting official government institutions by sending news outside the country and setting up a “critical...
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Iran's Women of War
tragos:nybooks:
Haleh Esfandiari
Zahra Rahnavard waving to supporters during a campaign rally for her husband, Mir Hussein Mousavi, at Haydarniya Stadium, Tehran, June 9, 2009 (Getty Images)
It is entirely appropriate that two women have become the iconic symbols of Iran’s protest movement. Thanks to cell phones and the Internet, millions of people around the world saw footage of the...
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LAT: Three Charged in Iran Smuggling Plot →
Three men, including an Iranian-born chemical engineer living in Glendale, have been charged with exporting sophisticated materials into Iran that could be used in a nuclear weapon. Authorities say that the men violated federal law by deliberately mislabeling and shipping high-grade vacuum pumps to the United Arab Emirates, which were later rerouted to Tehran. Customs officials uncovered the plot...
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BBC joins international protests against Iranian... →
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NYT: Bomb Blast Kills Physics Professor in Tehran →
PARIS — A remote-controlled bomb attached to a motorcycle killed an Iranian physics professor outside his home in northern Tehran on Tuesday, state media reported, blaming the United States and Israel for the attack. One state broadcaster, IRIB, quoted a Foreign Ministry spokesman as saying that “in the initial investigation, signs of the triangle of wickedness by the Zionist regime, America and...
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NYT: Iran Court Opens Trial of 7 Baha'is on Spy... →
Since 1979 when Islamic clerics came to power, the Iranian government has banned the Baha’i religion, founded in the 1860s by Baha’u’llah, a Persian nobleman considered a prophet by the Baha’is. The 7 members of Iran’s Baha’i minority went on trial today on charges of spying and acting against the country’s national security.
The international...
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Christopher Hitchens: The Death of Theocracy →
Tehran’s thugs cannot last.
The term “theocracy” trips readily enough off the tongue and is an accurate description of a system where mortals claim the right to dominate other mortals in the name of God. But it is also a word that has uncomfortable implications for those who hope to stay out of the “internal affairs” of other societies. The Iranian theocracy, and the...
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Rights group asks Iran to free 'mourning mothers' →
The U.S.-based International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran has denounced the unlawful detention of the 33 mothers detained during a weekly vigil for their children killed or missing in the country’s postelection violence and called for their immediate and unconditional release. The group said nine of the jailed women received emergency medical treatment after they were rounded up by...
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What is the best thing the American government can... →
There’s much debate about the role of the American government specifically and the West in general as to the best course of action in Iran, but there are a few things we can all agree on:
America needs new advisers.
Sanctions will fail unless they target oil and gasoline. Petrodollars are the lifeline of the Iranian regime and pay the salaries of the Revolutionary Guard. Take away their...
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LAT: Iran's opposition spreads to heartland →
For months the spotlight has been concentrated on the capital: Not only do international news organizations remain in Tehran, but the constant hubbub in the metropolis of 12 million makes it easier for protesters to head into the streets and then make it home without being identified by security forces. But in smaller cities such as Birjand, the police, intelligence officers and allied militiamen...
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Guardian: Iranian opposition leader Mehdi Karroubi... →
Pro-government demonstrators opened fire yesterday on the car of former presidential candidate Karroubi as he was leaving a building in Qazvin, 90 miles west of Tehran. Some 500 people had been demonstrating outside the building, where he had been staying since the day before. Karroubi’s website described the demonstrators as armed and said police were unable to disperse them.
...
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NYT: Iranian Diplomat Quits to Protest... →
Mohammed Reza Heydari quit his job at the Iranian Embassy in Norway and is considering asking the Norwegian authorities for help. Mr. Heydari would be one of the only Iranian officials to publicly resign over Iran’s crackdown on opposition demonstration. “It was the Iranian authorities’ treatment of demonstrators the week after Christmas that meant I could not in good conscience continue.”
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Ahmadinejad's website was unobtainable today after...
Those trying to enter saw this message:
“Dear God, In 2009 you took my favorite singer Michael Jackson, my favorite actress Farrah Fawcett, my favorite actor Patrick Swayze and my favorite voice Neda. Please don’t forget my favorite politician Ahmadinejad and favorite dictator Khamenei in the year 2010. Thank you.”
Guardian
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Guardian: Iran bans contact with foreign... →
Authorities in Iran intensified their campaign to blame the country’s political turmoil on foreigners today by banning contact with more than 60 international organisations.
The intelligence ministry said the blacklist included thinktanks, universities and broadcasting organisations identified as waging a “soft war” aimed at toppling Iran’s Islamic system.
It forbade...
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First real laugh of the day →
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Iranian Filmmakers Keep Focus on the Turmoil →
Iran’s government cannot silence the filmmakers. It keeps trying. Films are censored. Directors are prohibited to leave the country and prohibited to return home, forced to cancel projects and threatened with punishment if their films are too probing or too critical of life in the Islamic Republic. But the films keep coming, and so do the filmmakers. Bahman Ghobadi’s latest work, No One Knows...
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Telegraph: US to exploit Iran unrest for sanctions... →
President Obama plans to focus fresh sanctions on Iran’s Revolutionary Guard, the military force that oversees its pursuit of nuclear weapons. Tehran has not been daunted by previous sanctions but an Obama administration official said the current turmoil in Iran granted “a window to impose the first sanctions that may make the Iranians think the nuclear program isn’t worth the price...
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Iranian soccer official resigns over email to... →
A high-ranking official of the Iranian Football Federation (IFF) has been compelled to resign after a Happy New Year greeting was accidentally sent to the Israel Football Association. In a statement quoted by the Fars news, the IFF said that messages of congratulations are sent each year to all members of FIFA except the Zionist regime.
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AFP: Iran issues 'ultimatum' to West over nuclear... →
“The international community has just one month left to decide” whether or not it will accept Iran’s conditions, Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki was quoted as saying on state television. “This is an ultimatum.”
Tehran had already rejected a proposal by the IAEA to ship most of its low-enriched uranium to Russia and France for processing into fuel for the research...
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Iran opposition leader Mousavi 'ready to die' for... →
Responding to government pledges to execute its political opponents, Mousavi told the Islamic regime that it would not be able to suppress the Green Movement even if the government killed him or Mehdi Karroubi, a fellow opposition leader. He said Iran faced a “serious crisis” and warned that killing more protesters would merely strengthen the opposition.
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