Saturday, July 26, 2008

Mahabad Protests for the Release of Kurdish Activists

Video of people in Mahabad protesting for the release of Kurdish activists. Pictures of Hana Abdi and Ronak Safar zadeh from the Azarmehr Women's Association and Farzad Kamangar, see my previous post, can be seen carried by the crowds.

13 comments:

Winston said...

And the mainstream media are very quiet about this. It's shameful

Mehrtash said...

just as they were silent on the other protests in Iran. Nothing of the sort occurs by chance; silent for a reason.

Anonymous said...

What a weak protest. No wonder it wasn't covered by any respectable news outlet. you really think the IRI is going to respond to Kurdish demonstrators? Kurdish guerillas have killed hundreds of Iranian soldiers just in the past year, although not as many the Shah helped massacre (Algiers Accord) by supporting Saddams war against the Kurds.

barmakid

Azarmehr said...

'although not as many the Shah helped massacre (Algiers Accord) by supporting Saddams war against the Kurds.'

What are you on about kid? I fear another 'Tudeh Party was a Shah's YES party' or 'Stalin was a teenager during the Russian revolution' clanger has just been dropped by your ill informed but highly opinionated self.

Anonymous said...

Like I said, I mistook the Tudeh for another political party. But regardless, the Tudeh were harshly and inhumanely dealt with by the Shah. As far as my reference to the "yes" and "yes sir" political parties, I was on the money. Let me put it to you how a prominent Mid East Scholar and Author put it,

"That Shah dealt harshly with the groups that opposed him during the Mossadeq era. The National Front was disbanded, and its leaders, including Mossadeq himself, were imprisoned. The regime's security forces made a concerted effort to destroy the Tudeh party; its underground networks were uncovered, hundreds of its members were jailed, and dozens of its leaders were executed and tortured [sound familiar?:)]. In order to prevent the emergence of organized opposition, the Shah, with assistance from the US from and Israeli advisers , established an internal security organization, SAVAK, that became notorious for its pervasive surveillance operations and its brutal treatment of the political prisoners who PACKED Iran's jails. From 1953 to 1979, there was no political freedom in Iran. Although there were periods when limited expression was permitted, the overall picture was one of repression, manipulation and coercion. Elections to the Majlis were controlled, and the two-party system the Shah adopted to provide the appearance of democracy was so tightly restricted that Iranians referred to the two organizations as the "yes" and the "yes sir" parties."

So give it a shot, challenge me on the Algiers agreement. Inded I am higly opinionated, but I am also HIGHLY informed:)

peace,
barmakid

Azarmehr said...

Mid East scholar and author, my arse! I wouldn't give two bob for these academics who are mainly engaged in maintaining a niche market of armchair intellectuals to pay for their plagiarised writings.

I bet this author doesn't even know which groups made up the Natioanl Front and how ineffective of a non-organisation NF was in the first place.

For example do you know anything about the Zahmatkeshan Party, 'toilers Party' led by British agent, Mozafar Baghaii, one of the main partners in NF?

Apart from Dr. Fatemi, how many NF associates were executed? If NF was so brutally disbanded how come they were asked to become partners during Amini's reformist government in 1963?
But sadly rather than taking the opportunity, they felt more comfortable in remaining an opposition who every now and again would gather in each other's houses and write a pamphlet.
Even Mossadegh himself only received three years in prison. Compare this not even with purges of Communists during Stalin or Ba'athis members by Saddam, but how those Tudeh party members who fled to the Soviet Union were treated. I wonder how many memoirs of these Tudeh party members who fled to Soviet Union, their perceived utopia, this 'scholar' has read about, to compare the poverty, destitute, imprisonment and sometimes even murder of their own Iranian Communist lackeys with how NF members were treated? I recommend 'I am a wife of Tudeh Party member' and 'In the House of Uncle Joe' to your esteemed 'scholar' to compare repression in the USSR with that of the Shah.

The truth is NF members continued to be free and continued with their careers, many of them were university lecturers and many of them even had government posts, many became wealthy individuals az bazaaris and factory owners like Mehdi Bazargan, the head of the post-revolution provisional government.

What finally destroyed the NF was in fact none other than the Islamic Republic. Despite NF's all hard grovelling to Khomeini, see Sanjabi's disgraceful letter of submission to Khomeini, and also how Dr. Bakhtiar, long time veteran of NF, was expelled because he warned about the theocratic dictatorship being hundred times worse than that of the Shah. Yet the minute Khomeini felt he no longer needed NF stooges, he destroyed them completely, physically I mean and most of those who got away now live comfortably in US.

I myself come from a family of NF supporters and activists and my whole political thinking was structured by Dr. Bakhtiar, whom I still regard as one of the greatest secular Iranian politicians in the last century. What annoy me are people who had nothing to do with NF suddenly pretend to take up their banner, just because it suits their warped agenda, of justifying the mullahs by over exaggerating the problems during the Shah's time.

So, I have taught you a brief history of NF, now enlighten us, how did the Shah support Saddam in the massacre of Kurds?? :)))))))

The Shah, armed and supported the rebel Kurds and even gave refuge to Mostafa Barizani, when Saddam continued to claim the Arvand river for himself and made continous incursions into Iranian territory. When the Algiers accord was signed, as part of teh deal, the Shah stopped arming the Kurdish rebels. He acted in Iran's national interest. The Algiers accord was totally in the interest of Iran's national interest. Hardly the same as 'helped Saddam in the massacre of Kurds!!'
At the time the Soviet Union armed Saddam, so I would say it was teh USSR that helped and armed Saddam to massacre the Kurds.

Winston said...

This kido is full of crap himself. LOL

Anonymous said...

How did I know you were going to respond by denouncing scholars and regurgitating your archaic presuppositions:)?

Honestly though, you kind of sound, umm...naive (to put it nicely) when you eschew scholarly work and instead elevate some other point of view. It is healthy to question sources and authors because ultimately they are human beings susceptible to interpreting information through the prism of their own experiences and presuppositions. But it's something else to just shun information without even knowing where it's coming from.

And about the National Front; no one said that the National Front was dealt with violently by the Shah (as you notice the author simply said they were disbanded and their leaders imprisoned). And yes, Mossadegh was released and exiled.

The violence and inhumanity was more of a factor with the Tudeh. But enough with the Tudeh and the Shah's human rights violations. Lets talk about the Algiers Accord.

Are you really trying to refute me by arguing that the Russians deserve more of the blame and that they were more inhumane than the Shah? I am not Russian and I am not posting on a Russian blog, we are talking about our nation's politics and history - Russia is not a standard of comparison. This aside from the fact that Russia and the Shah deserve an equal share of the blame for exacerbating the conflict - it doesn't matter who's side they were on.

This was a Cold War conflict, and nothing less: Saddam and his baathist/socialist regime being supported by Russia and the Kurds being supported by Iran via the U.S. And that's the problem, the Shah ignorantly involved himself in such a conflict that Iran had no place getting involved in; He eagerly embroiled himself in the regional Cold War disputes which were inherently counterproductive to the real interests of Iranian society.

As far as the Shah helping massacre the Kurds, allow me to present an example. If the United States, after all these years of supporting Israel militarily and politically (basically sustaining their state) was to suddenly leave them on their own and disallow sanctuary to any of their political refugees, wouldn't they be blamed for facilitating the ensuing genocide of Jews? Just like they were blamed for the massacre of Kurds and Shia in Iraq after they told them they would back them up if they rebelled, but instead did nothing and let Saddam annihilate them.

And just as the U.S. and Russia decried, so did the Shah: "It's in our National Interest"!! Well, that's exactly what the IRI is saying when they proclaim their support for Palestinians or Hezzbolah in Lebanon.

Their is no fundamental difference in the Shah supporting Kurdish separatists in Iraq than the IRI militantly supporting Palestinian statehood. In both cases, the professed "national interest" is in reality not the national interest and is in fact counterproductive to the real and earnest interests or Iranian citizens.


The IRI has unfortunately one-upped the Shah in getting embroiled in the European-manufactured and American-maintained Mid East geopolitical hodgepodge. Thus, they are bound to suffer the same fate as the Pahlavis and all monarchs before them: inherent transience.

It's funny that we have never had a government that allowed us to refer to Iran as Iran (in politics). We always refer to Iran by the ruling government at the time, subtly acknowledging that we have never had a government that embodied and pursued the collective will of its citizens.

It's always: "The Pahlavis did this!" Or "the Islamic Republic does this!" When is it just going to be "the Iranians?"

be salamat,
barmakid

Azarmehr said...

Since when have the Kurds appointed you as their advocate? especially after the silly comments you have put on this post???

Anonymous said...

Silly? I don't know why you would call my comments silly; or why you would say that I am advocating the Kurdish cause. In fact, I do know why you would say that: Because you never read what I write!!! :))

Anonymous said...

These Kurds are separatist and should be crushed, along with the fake Baluchi, Ahvazi and Azari groups. I hate the IRI, but these are worst. They want separatism and Iranians should be with whatever government against these foreign conspiracies.

Azarmehr said...

Really? How are Hana Abdi and Ronak Saffarzadeh, separatists?

How do you make an ethnic group want to remain part of Iran? by crushing them and killing them or by building a prosperous free Iran where everyone would want to be part of it?

Anonymous said...

"How do you make an ethnic group want to remain part of Iran? by crushing them and killing them or by building a prosperous free Iran where everyone would want to be part of it?"

Iranian is the first and only identity. Kurdish, Ahvazi, Baluchi and the other "ethnic groups" are all secessionist. Why have a Kurdish women's group when these people are Iranians? Iranian is first and only.

The Arabs are worst. They should go back to the desert. They are not Iranian what are they doing? Iranians should support the regime and crush these ethnic movements because they want to destroy the Iranian nation. You are a traitor. You are friends with the PDKI who support these "Ahvazi" Arabs, Saddam's friends. I celebrate the day when Iran will be cleansed of Arabs and their friends!