Tuesday, April 24, 2007

More Pictures of Crackdown on Islamic Dress Code

Why do we let our mothers and sisters be humiliated in this way by these neanderthals?


See More:

http://iranews.biz/GALLERY/hhejabbb86-2-4%20(5).jpg



http://iranews.biz/GALLERY/heeejab86-2-3%20(5).jpg



"Iranian women have more rights and are better off now since the 1979 revolution" Elaheh Rostami-Povy, lecturer at SOAS university, London talking at SWP meeting on Iran, Feb, 2006.


Why do we let these Islamic Republic apologists walk without the Islamic head dress in the streets of London?



and for my friend, the Prague Reader, another apt quote from Havel:
"Without free, self-respecting, and autonomous citizens there can be no free and independent nations. Without internal peace, that is, peace among citizens and between the citizens and the state, there can be no guarantee of external peace. "

28 comments:

Anonymous said...

Nazy Kaviani has a great post on her blog:

If you can’t fix the economy,
If you can’t figure out the way to shine in a good light around the globe,
If your friends are the least loved people in the world,
If you don’t know what to do with the minds that think,
If you don’t like what those thoughts bring,
If you have problems with drugs, prostitution, and crime,
If you can’t create jobs to keep everybody decently alive,
It’s time for you to go to the perpetual Plan B,
Where you attack women on the street,
You frighten and insult them,
You degrade and humiliate them,
You drag them away with you to Vozara,
To be paraded through the frightened eyes of those standing by,
And their worried families,
You arrest young men with different hairdos,
You arrest young men and women holding hands,
You arrest young women walking about,
You shout at them, you talk down at them,
You scare and intimidate them,
Now you are safe again for a month,
Go on, enjoy it, your forced values will appear intact again,
For a month.
http://nazykaviani.blogspot.com/

My two cents: Acts of Desparation where obviously they have no control anymore.

The "bad hijab" campaign cannot cover up some bald realities. 1. Rising levels of serious crime
2. Unemployment, inflation and corruption.

The hijab huffing and puffing also illustrates, at a very basic level, the authorities' obsession with control - and the sense that, for all their secret policemen and all their rules and regulations, control is nevertheless lacking. The hijab campaign reflects a deep-rooted structural and economical problems with a system that does not know how to function or resists to navigate in an increasingly interdependent and homogeneous world of globalization. Either join the golbal economy and act as a nation or you will be doomed.

Anonymous said...

Hijab is a woman's pride. Loose women who wear no hijab have no pride in themselves. They are doomed.

Bardia said...

با درود بر پتکین عزیز
تصاویر برای کسانیکه ذره ای شهامت و حس میهن دوستی داشته باشند بسیار تکان دهنده است. این موارد و حتی بدتر از آنرا سالهاست که می بینیم و خشم آن را می اندوزیم برای روز واقعه، پس کسانی همچون تاریک خان یا بهتر است بگوییم « تاریک خوان » باید فکری به حال درماندگی خود بکنند و از این تاریک اندیشی بدرآیند که روز واقعه نزدیک است
برای شناخت دشمن، بهترین راه زندگی با اوست که ما همه آنرا تجربه کرده ایم و می دانیم که حجاب برای خود دشمن نیست و می بینیم که چگونه در پارتیهای بنام قرآن پارتی با چه سر و وضع ناهنجاری ظاهر میشوند. آری حجاب برای تاریک خوانها مفید و غرورانگیز است چرا که نمی توانند جلو چشم و افکار وحشیانه و ناپاک خود را بگیرند و از تاریک خوان چیزی جز این انتظار نمی رود. سر در برف نهاده اند و غافل از اینکه باد بهاری این برفها را آب خواهد کرد و چهره پلید و زشت او را آشکار خواهد ساخت

Anonymous said...

don't let a65hol#s like Tariq Khan insult the iranians

Azarmehr said...

I let him leave his comments so people can see how these neanderthals think.

Rancher said...

This is eerily similar to the life I just left. I was a prison guard and life in prison is similar to what you describe Iran to be like.

Anonymous said...

The Iranian regime, like all fanatical Islamists, are primarily motivated by a fear of female sexuality by a bunch of insecure men about their own sexuality. Controlling women is the alpha and omega of Khomeini's brand of Islamism in particular.

Tariq the entity: Women who wear hejab define themselves only in one way: A sexual organ who needs to be covered. Their only self-worth comes from being objectified by insecure men. That is not self-respect, dear lizard. That is the animalistic form of primal respect that any female primate (including apes, gorillas, and Chimps)can enjoy when they are in their estrus cycle.

To be viewed and have internalized yourself as cattles whose only use in life is to produce like rabbits and to become a possession of insecure man is nothing more than religous and sexual apartheid. When you are prisoners of your cultural and religous trappings, you will never taste freedom and self-respect for yourself or anyone else; hence the authoritarian nature of the most Middle Eastern societies.

Women who wear hejab especially in the West attract more attention and have more eyes on them than women with no hejab. And I've talke to so many of them and they all have said they enjoy the attention they get and that's why they wear it.

Hanif Leylabi said...

Rights mean more than covering your hair or not. Economic rights, education rights etc are more important. And these have improved vastly since 1979. Only the rich women have seen their rights fall as a whole.

Azarmehr said...

Hanif,

To say you are out of touch with reality and totally brain washed by SWP would be a huge understatement.
Whether you choose to cover your hair or not is just one of the basic rights of a woman and nothing to do with money.

Prior to 1979 I dont recall my female school teachers, or the nurses I came across having to wear a Hejab, are you saying that in 1979 Iranian teachers and nurses were part of the super wealthy?

There are tens of more examples I could put in front of you, like woman's worth as a witness, inheritance, divorce, right of custody to a child, exclusion from certain occupations etc. not to mention that after 1979 girls as young as 9 can be forced to wedlock. What's the use however, if you seriously believe women in Iran have more rights after 1979 than before, you have been seriously messed up by the SWP.

I mean they are even talking about allowing girls to study "suitable" subjects and you say women have gained more rights in education since 1979? Are you insane?
Go and see a therapist, it will do you good and bring you back to this world.

Anonymous said...

Hanif, the imbecile: What planet do you live in?

Women are being trafficked as young as 9 years old by the state of Islamic Republic and sold like slaves to Arab gulf states. Prostitution, drug addiction, and abject poverty have reached an epidemic proportion. People are selling their kidneys to make ends meet. The income per capita is still lower than it was in 1979 although the oil revenues are much higher. The oil revenues are pocketed by the mullahs and invested in Dubai and Canda for personal profit and are given to Arabs like you to buy your support and promotion of this most un-iranian regime.
You must be either one of those Lebanese welfare Kings or queens who waits for a handout from the treasury of Islamic republic to survive or an utterly ignorant idiot who thinks Islamic republic stands for anything decen or humane.

Shah never stoned any woman to death. Shah did not force women to get married at the age of 9. Khomeini legalized pedophilia in Iran. Most of the iranian women languishing in jails are these poor young women who were forced to get married at a young age and they grew up, they ended up killing their husband and now they are going to either be hanged or stoned to death. If this is what you call "improvement", the you're a disgrace to human race. During the Shah reign, 40% of the population did not live below poverty level. Do you even know how Iran looked like before the Shah? I bet an ignorant person like you will never want to find out.
Visit my website for facts and figure, I doubt you would do that because you're not interested in reality but to spread disinformation.

Anonymous said...

For hanif:

That the Iranian society is a misogynistic society is a well-researched fact. And it didn't start with the mullahs' reign either. In fact, the clerical status quo and establishment capitalized and exploited that to gain power and finally establish their islamic theocracy. Womens rights and issues have been raging for over hundreds of years.

Equal rights and its enemies in Iran:

http://fleetingperusal.blogspot.com/2007/03/history-of-khomeinis-misogynistics.html#links


Brief History of women's right movement:
http://www.payvand.com/women/

Iran�s Women�s Rights Movement and the One Million
Signatures Campaign

http://www.we-change.org/spip.php?article208

Islamic Republics' Jihadist and Whores:
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/HK21Ak01.html

Woman traficking in Iran is a state-run business venture run by the IRI:

http://www.uri.edu/artsci/wms/hughes/iran_sex_slave_trade

http://www.uri.edu/artsci/wms/hughes/refs_iran.htm

See Husband-killing on the rise in Iran. Also read the stories of some of these women here on the Amnesty International site. (Pedophilia is legal in Iran, the legal age of marriage is 13 for women). These 13-year old are forced to marry someone much older by their fathers or brothers because they are mostly poor. So once they grow up, they kill their husbands:

http://www.iranian.com/LeilaFarjami/2006/October/Male/index.html

http://web.amnesty.org/library/Index/ENGMDE131132006

The most tragic part is that their grandmothers and mothers in the 40',50's, 60's, and until 1978 had more rights than
they do now in 2007 before Sharia laws imposed by the mullahs.

See how women looked like before 1978 and after 1978 below:

http://fleetingperusal.blogspot.com/2007/04/iran-before-1979-after-1979.html#links

an iranian female blogger (forgot her name) said it best and more poetical than me: "there is now one generation of iranian women who don't know the feeling of the warm wind in their hair".

I will end this by this quote:

"Understand that the male psyche can not subsist without its female half-core; a stifled female Always means a Defeated Male. A Defeated Male means the endangered world we live in now."--Laila Farjami

Aryamehr said...

Hanif,

I wish the British Government had some responsible officials who would deport you to some Islamic hellhole where you could live happily ever after; you really have a sick and twisted mind which you seem to be very proud about.

Anonymous said...

SWP is a total disgrace and the other extreme of BNP. Both are made up of a grouping of inadequate minds.

Anonymous said...

What is SWP?

Azarmehr said...

SWP stands for socialist workers party, but there are hardly any workers in there:)

Anonymous said...

why don't we all go back to iran to defend our women?

Winston said...

Since when socialists and Islamists got together?

Rancher said...

Michelle Malkin shows why cell phones and bloggers will be the death of despots everywhere. You cannot hide what you are Iran.

Hanif Leylabi said...

There are more women in education than ever before. This is a fact that your irrational nationalism denies but the figures acknowledge.

The right to chose what to wear is a basic right, but not nearly as basic as the right to eat or read or write. Because I suspect you come from a middle class background and haven't known these hardships, things like hejab become the most important things to you.

Your teachers and nurses had degrees. How many working class women were in education in the 60s/70s? Hardly any!

In regard to other laws RE: equality, I agree. I have neevr said that there is not inequality and oppression or that the social liberties of women have decreased since the revolution. So don't try and say that this is my position.

Serendip - Where is the evidence of government complicity in trafficking?

Look at life expetency, literacy rate, mortality rate health care system etc. They have all imporved dramatically in the last 3 decades.

Yes there's drug abuse and prostitution. Like any capitalist state!

Serendib - Since when was I an Arab? And do you lot also have to b e so disgustingly racist all the time?

The Shah tortured political dissdents, quashed democracy and presided over a nation far more unequal than the modern day Iran.

aryamehr - If you aren't going to say anything remotely intelligent, don't say anything at all.

anon - Either explain ridiculous comments like that or just don't speak.

You should all boro to kun e amrika.

tempo dulu said...

Hanif - there are lots of prostitutes in communist cuba. Or doesn't that count?

Azarmehr said...

Hanif,

You are what I call a mushroom, kept in the dark and fed on crap. It looks like you have gone away, talked to your mentor Elaheh Rostami and then like a tape recorder regurgitated what she told you to say, for this is exactly the kind of crap the likes of Elaheh Rostami feed her gullible Western Leftist audiences.

If you want to know why prostitution is so widespread in Iran, just watch Dehnamaki's documentary.

Before 1979, many religious families in Iran, nothing to do with working class many of the super religious families in Iran were Bazaaris, middlemen and street peddlers, would stop their daughters from going on to further education, because they thought they would become corrupt. Once the Islamic revolution came about and the "cultural revolution" Islamized the universities, these families felt more relaxed about letting their daughters to go to universities - Read Shirin Ebadi's book on this. Yet this in itself has become a thorn in the side of the clergy and now they are blaming the ills of the society on too many women in universities, so they are talking about "sahmiehbandi jensi" - "gender allocation" in higher education. Don't you follow the news on Iran?

Yet you dimwits and your treacherous pseudo-left string pullers like Edalat and Rostami, scraping the bottom of the barrel, use this to credit the regime with. Shame on you!

After 30 years of all the petro dollars that have gone into the regime's coffers, this bollocks is all you can come up with.

If you want to know when Iran really made fast progress, read about what happened during Reza Shah's reign and how much Iran advanced in 14 years of his rule. But the ideological barriers around your brain prevent you from saying that, don't they?

Hanif, you have a brain, stop sticking it into the mullahs arses, take it out, get some fresh air, see the wider picture and use your brain, and if you still think things are good in Islamic Republic, go and live there for a year.

Anonymous said...

For the mindless lefty who dutifully parrots what he's been fed by the Islamists. You're either a retard or extremely lazy to find things out on your own:
That the Iranian society is a misogynistic society is a well-researched fact. And it didn't start with the mullahs' reign either. In fact, the clerical status quo and establishment capitalized and exploited that to gain power and finally establish their islamic theocracy. Womens rights and issues have been raging for over hundreds of years.

Equal rights and its enemies in Iran:
http://fleetingperusal.blogspot.com/2007/03/history-of-khomeinis-misogynistics.html#links

Brief History of women's right movement:
http://www.payvand.com/women/
Iran�s Women�s Rights Movement and the One Million
Signatures Campaign
http://www.we-change.org/spip.php?article208
Islamic Republics' Jihadist and Whores:

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/HK21Ak01.html

Woman traficking in Iran is a state-run business venture run by the IRI:
http://www.uri.edu/artsci/wms/hughes/iran_sex_slave_trade

http://www.uri.edu/artsci/wms/hughes/refs_iran.htm

See Husband-killing on the rise in Iran. Also read the stories of some of these women here on the Amnesty International site. (Pedophilia is legal in Iran, the legal age of marriage is 13 for women). These 13-year old are forced to marry someone much older by their fathers or brothers because they are mostly poor. So once they grow up, they kill their husbands:
http://www.iranian.com/LeilaFarjami/2006/October/Male/index.html
http://web.amnesty.org/library/Index/ENGMDE131132006
The most tragic part is that their grandmothers and mothers in the 40',50's, 60's, and until 1978 had more rights than
they do now in 2007 before Sharia laws imposed by the mullahs.


I will end this by this quote:
"Understand that the male psyche can not subsist without its female half-core; a stifled female Always means a Defeated Male. A Defeated Male means the endangered world we live in now."--Laila Farjami
Milani, poverty:

http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/01/23/business/sanction.php

One out of 7 Iranians lives below poverty level. That is living on $1 a day.

Iran has the highest rate of Heroin addicts in the world. And Iran is not even a Capitalist society. With A GDP of less than $3000, you can't categorized yourself as a capitalist. Mexico has a higher GDP than Iran.
Why do you hate reading and seeking the truth for yourself.

Why don't you find out who brought the mullahs to power? Why don't do a comparative analysis on the economic indices of pre-revolution and post-revolution? And once you did that, you then compare the pre-revolution economic data and compare it to the Quajar Dynasty? You need to do these thing before you can be taken seriously by anyone with an ounce of intelligence.

Did you not go to college? Didn't they teach you in college how to do research?

I'm serious, if you have a problem doing some independent research on you own, I can help you when I can. For goodness sake, READ AND LEARN to use your mind independently and analysically instead of repeating nonsense.

Hanif Leylabi said...

indcoup - If you could explain to me how Cuba is Communist that'd be nice.

The richer you are in Iran the less religious you tend to be. Do you disagree?

Azarmehr, stop being a demagogue and listen to what I am actually saying. I have never said that I support the Mullahs or that things are 'good,' in Iran. I'm just showing the facts. Look them up for yourself.

Tories in this country say Briitain progressed under Thatcher. I say people grew poorer. This is where our interests are different.


Serendip - I'm not sure what relevance your links on women's rights have.


Iran is a capitalist society. I'd love to hear yopu explain how it's not! And you do know that a higher GDP doesn't necessarily mean richer people. China's GDP has increased massively in the last decade but their inequality has grown just as fast.

Azarmehr said...

Hanif,
when you said you were not well, were you in a mental hospital?
"The richer you are in Iran the less religious you tend to be."

Do you know nothing about Iran at all? Do you know anything about Islamic Coalition Society of Bazaaris WHO ARE RUNNING THE COUNTRY? You think the likes of Rafsanjani, Badamchian,Asgaroladi etc. are proletariats?

You have not given any facts at all and each time you run away from answeing others? Your facts are shit fed to you by the likes of regime's agents like Elaheh Rostami.

All your actions all your illogical statements are in support of the Islamic Regime, how are you against the regime? You do nothing and say nothing other than bolster the regime.

Yes Islamic Republic is a capitalist society, state capitalist with the most amount of intervention by state, so what? You seem to be more against a democratic capitalist state than a medieval state capitalist state.

Anonymous said...

Thank you Azarmehr for that scathing retort. Capitalism is referred to free-market economy. 80% o industries in Iran are state owned. That in and of itself does not fit the conventional definition of true Capitalism. Iran's system by definition is called Oligarchy.

Internationalist sloganeering and moralistic denunciations of what you perceive to be tyranny (i.e. capitalism) are emotionally-driven responses to a system you don't understand. You presume that what, because people have to work for their pay, that this is the "elites" taking advantage? Your mistake is that you are too emotional about what is not an emotionally-based system. "Caring about people" is not a required part of the capitalist system, true, but yet it plays a significant role. US comapnies who truly mistreat their customers, for example, wont be in business long. Surely you wouldnt argue with that basic tenet. And if employees are mistreated, in whatever fashion, they cannot or will not provide or produce a competitive product or service. It is axiomatic that if a company mistreats others, it will not attract or retain good quality employees. Therefore, the best companies are the ones that treat the most people the best. So while capitalism does "not care about people", because it cannot express such emotion, it behooves companies to act in such a fashion.
And by the way, you cannot divorce coprorations from america! How many people work for some type of corporation? Do you think they want to risk losing their income for some sort of "new world order"? How about all the people who have their retirement money and pension plans invested in companies thru stocsk, mutual funds, etc? Will they want to abandon a lifetime of saving? Make no mistake that there will always be some individual corporations that violate the public trust, ie Enron and Worldcom. These should be taken down. But you cannot throw out the entire system just because there are some imbalances and cyclical market ups and downs here or there. The vast majority live VERY good lives within the system you so despise. Ask Peruvian how they have benefited. And that is exactly why unlike other Latin American countries they were not fooled by a leftist presidential candidate precisely because they had been fooled once before by a left-leaning socialist president who could not deliver on any of his promises.

Perhaps now you will complain about third world peoples and how the US corps "exploit" them? This is very simplistic thinking. No US corp can force people from another country to work. They do so because their own countries have done such a poor job with their economic development that the US corps offer the greatest (only?) oppurtunities. The irony is that if these workers demanded wages on par with US incomes, it would be a completely unviable situation economically. The US companies would be forced to shut down their overseas operations, and once again the third world people would be left with no oppty.

And what you dont want to recognize is that by employing such people, we are giving them a chance to build real wealth. Afterall the US wasnt always so wealthy. People built it up over time. The same can happen overseas.
And of course Hanif "caring about porletariat" can take many forms. Some would argue that capitalism is "tough love" as it rewards those who achieve, and punishes those who do not. Thus while it may not be a chartiable system, it is fair overall. Is it "unkind" to punish a wayward child, to encourage them to correct wayward behavior? Some might argue that it is actually more unkind to allow a child to be undisciplined, and to reward them unconidtionally. Capitalism is not perfect, but it seeks to apply such standards. This might not seem "nice" on the surface, but it is far away the most successful system, and offers humanity the best chance to find out why we are all here in the first place.
The sad irony is that if it weren't for the technological and industrial advancement of Western cultures to extract and refine the oil and create and develop markets, industries,and innovations for oil related services and products, countries like Iran and Saudi Arabia will only be depositing camel and donkey excrement on top of their oil fields and the population would be dirt poor. To this day, Iran has not and cannot refine its own oil because it can't build refinaries without the help of foreigners. All of the oil infrastructure in Iran are antiquated (build by the Brits and American years ago) and are running inefficiently, leaking and causing loss of millions of barrels of oil and millions of dollars each day...

Meaning of Money and wealth:

http://www.drkenner.com/money_and_wealth.htm

more on capitalism and "imperialism" later...

Hanif Leylabi said...

Serendip - No that is not capitalism. That means that ebfore the advent of the free market we were nto a capitalist world? Well we were. Iran is largely state capitalist with some privatisation.

Serendip - Employees are unfairly treated because they receive a tiny wage while the boss receives a large profit. This is the tyranny of capitalism whethere there are limited workers' rights or not (and obviously it's better if there are)

Serendip - More than half the world live on less than 2 dollars a day and 50 000 people die every day from poverty? Just because you are your middle class friends have done well from the system doesn't mean everyone else has. That's why you can't understand why most Iranians hate the Shah. Because you cannot relate to the majority of them because you have conflicting class interests.

People have no choice to work because if they dohn't they die of starvation. It's pretty simple. They work long hours, in bad conditions for low pay and die early. You say this is giving them a chance to rebuild their wealth? When they can't even afford shoes? And when their country's assets are being sold off to private companies? You really are a joke!

Oh and your racist crap again. The great white western intellectuals who amde all the technologies. Give me a fucking break. The nuclear technology that killed hundreds of thousands in Japan, who enslaved tens of thousands of black people while their own people live in squalor? Who have killed over 2.5 million Iraqis in sanctions and war and have displaced abother 2 million?

You live on a different planet to the rest of us.

Azarmehr said...

The problem is Hanif, more people have died and suffered under Communism. Mao is now said to have been responsible for the death of some 70 million of his people. You try to get out of this in a clever way by saying oh China was not really Communist and you have no examples of better system that has as yet materialised.

In the same way I can say, come with me to planet-x, things are so good there, no one is exploited and no one pays taxes, would you believe me? I doubt it.

The whole fundamental of Communism is wrong because it bases the emancipation of the world on the shoulders of one class, the working class, who can never be in government because then it wouldn't be working class. Its a theory that contradicts itself.

Marx wrote all that stuffsome 200 years ago, things have changed, things ahve moved on, you need to move on too.

As for Serendip being middle class, I have no idea what she is, but are you working class? How did you end up in UK from Iran? Were your parents rich or refugees? none of this matters any way, but you make me laugh in that you seem to think the majority of working class want Communism. They Don't !
Thats why you dont have many workers in SWP :)

Hanif Leylabi said...

azarmehr - You are being incredibly simplistic. Yes, Mao was responsible for tens of millions of deaths and no he wasn't a communist.

I want a DIFFERENT world to the one we have now. You seem to think no one should have any aspirations beyond what already exists. How is this a bassi for progression.

We do not put things in terms as simplistic as yours. Our ideas are based on the theory of many great people such as Marx, Lenin and Trotsky combined with the experience of these people and others during revolutionary situations such as the October Revolution, various putsches in Germany and the Paris Commune.

Again you are being soooo simple!. The working class leads the struggle because of the power they have e.g. striking

They do not take over the government, but smash it and replace it with workers councils. Where's the contradiction in being a worker and attending meetings to vote on things in collective decision making and representation?
And the period of the dictatorship of the proletariat is a temporary one.

As Tony Cliff said, Marxism wouldn't be Marxism if it didn't evolve and change. Marxism has been built upon by Lenin, Luxembourg, Trotsky, Cliff and others. We learn through struggle and the struggles continue. The same contradictions exist in society now as when Marx was a revolutionary.

If we are going to be technical about it, I'm a student and am classless. My father comes from a middle class Iranian background (and his similarly crap views on Iran as you do) and my mother is from a British working class background.

When have I ever said or given the impression that the majority of the working class want communism? Revolutionaries will always be in a minority in the class maybe even up until the days of insurrection!

The SWP is massively working class as anyone who actually knows anything about members will know.