Friday, October 24, 2008

Bazaaris v Teachers

The recent strike by the wealthy Iranian bazaaris over the introduction of a 3% VAT, which led to an unprecedented climbdown by the Iranian government made me think about the unsuccessful strike by the Iranian teachers.

The Iranian teachers were asking for their pay rises which was passed as a parliamentary bill at the time to be implemented. They were not asking for anything illegal, they were simply asking for a parliamentary bill which was passed to be implemented, yet they got smashed. The teachers were beaten up, arrested and sacked. Yet the wealthy Bazaaris went on strike and refused to implement what was passed by the parliament and the establishment simply climbed down.

Are there any idiots out there who still think this is a government of the 'dispossessed'??

I have been Blessed with Another Son

He is 12 days over due but after some inducement and some stern talking to ;) the little fellow, after a lot of effort, finally decided to pop out this morning. This is my second son and now I have a proper dynasty, when I finally fall, my boys will carry the banner for a secular democratic Iran :))))

Joking aside, I promise never to indoctrinate my children, they will be free to choose and think however they want and I should not expect them to be passionate about the things I am passionate about. I do hope however that they will live in a free country, where they will not be persecuted for their beliefs and they will not have to look over their shoulder for what they say. I hope they will cherish and safeguard these privileges.

Giving birth is the greatest miracle of them all and those who protect and save lives have the most rewarding professions. I am going to catch up with some sleep.

p.s. I can't get to my old email, if you want my new email, just leave a comment with your email, I won't publish it and save it in my new mail box instead.

Monday, October 20, 2008

Children of Labour

Nothing upsets me more than seeing children distressed and unhappy. Every child should enjoy their childhood to the full. No child should ever be humiliated, hurt or have to endure such hard labour as seen in these pictures of Iranian children working in brick factories.

How can this be possible in a country with so much natural wealth and oil income?

They say a picture is worth a thousand words and these pictures are the answer to the pathetic claims by those who pretend to represent the working classes like the Socialist Workers Party with their pathetic Stalinist statistics and figures of how things have improved for the poor in Iran since the revolution blah, blah.... Makes your blood boil.


Wednesday, October 15, 2008

Useful Idiots in Khatami Spin Conference in Tehran

A religious apartheid rules in Iran today. A citizen's rights in Iran today are based on his or her religion and how far it is from the state's interpretation of Shiite religion.

If you are a male Shiite and accept the state's interpretation of the religion, you have more rights and privileges.

If you are a Shiite with a different interpretation than the state's official line, you have less rights and if you are a Sunni, Jew, Christian, Zoroastrian you have less and less rights and job opportunities. If you have no religion or are a Bahaii or Hindu or Buddhist etc. then God help you for you have no status as a person in the Islamic Republic. This is religious apartheid, make no mistakes about it.

Now just look at Khatami's remarkable ability at spin. Tony Blair and Gordon Brown should employ him, for Khatami will lick their spin doctors all over.

Khatami has managed to gather major useful idiots, ex-world leaders and religious figures included, to attend a conference on 'Religion in the Modern World'. During the conference Khatami has called for 'religious leaders of the world to try ways to create a peaceful co-existence and invite the world to establish peace and security'.

Where are these fancy phrases said? In the capital of a state where dissident Shiite Ayatollahs like Ayatollah Boroujerdi are tortured and imprisoned, the likes of Ayatollah Montazeri are under house arrest, many Shiite clerics were 'disrobed' during Khatami's term in the office purely because of political dissent, Sunni Muslims can not even have their own mosque in Tehran, Christian converts from Islam like Ramtin Soudmand are facing imminent execution right now and fact after fact which slaps the sheer hypocrisy of this spin conference and the useful idiots attending it, in the face.

Imagine if in South Africa during the apartheid years, a former apartheid president set up a conference calling for 'ways to create a peaceful co-existence between races of different colours', and speakers of international standing spoke about racial harmony in front of celebrated pictures of D.F. Malan, would you not have a belly ache from uncontrolled laughter?




















Mary Robinson speaking at the conference and providing propaganda for the Islamic Republic.


Iranian women could be arrested in the street for showing so much hair in public by the morality police, in front of their children.







Men of cloth always ready to deceive themselves and their followers.

Friday, October 10, 2008

Shiraz Students Jeer and Heckle Larijani

Iran's head of the Islamic Assembly, Ali Larijani was jeered and heckled by Shiraz university students at the Fajr Hall yesterday, where he was invited to speak by the hardline students. Herasat (Informers) agents at the university as well intelligence ministry operators were there in large numbers and had declared no placards or mobile phones were allowed to be carried into the hall. Everyone was searched before being allowed in. Once the students entered the hall, they saw Baseej students who had already occupied the front seats.

Despite all these measures, many of the dissident students managed to enter the hall and confronted the Baseej students by singing Yare Dabestani, the Iranian student solidarity anthem.

As soon as Larijani arrived and started his speech, the students shouted, 'Ceremonial Majlis (parliament), we don't want, we don't want'. Larijani continued by praising Islamic Republic's advances in nuclear technology and said Iran is the only country in the region who has managed to stand up to America's bullying. At this point one of the students got up and shouted 'We have heard these kind of historical fictions before, why don't you talk about the current conditions, the 28% inflation, Kordan's fake PHD certificate, suspension and expulsion of students and what happens to those who oppose the government in Iran?'.

After Larijani finished his speech, the students were told only written questions will be answered. This agitated the students further and they started booing Larijani. Students started shouting, 'Kordan where is your certificate? Majlis where is your supervision?'

Larijani tried to calm the students by saying, 'When Kordan had submitted his certificate, Majlis had no idea it was a fake.' This answer once again agitated the students and one of them got up and said, 'Kordan was your deputy for years, when you were the head of state broadcasting. Kordan has lectured at our universities with fake PHD certificate for years, how could you have not known?'. Larijani replied, he didn't know about his fake certificate when he was the head of broadcasting. This reply prompted even more jeers from the students and they demanded to be able to go behind the podium and ask their questions verbally.

One of the students with the help of others managed to reach the podium, grab the microphone and say, 'I am not addressing you as the head of the Majlis, because I have no regard for such ceremonial titles when a parliament's candidates were filtered and hand selected by the Guardian Council. ' The brave student carried on saying 'I despise three things, number one; Mahmood Ahmadinjad, for his lies and his deceits...' Baseej students at this point launched towards the student and did not let him finish what he was saying. This resulted in complete mayhem and while the Baseej students were shouting 'Death to hypocrites' , other students shouted back by saying 'Death to lackeys' and 'Shame on this government of deceit'. Some of the Baseej got hold of the microphone and shouted 'Champion Ahmadinejad, the Darling of the Young Generation', which even made Larijani laugh out loud. Finally Larijani pleaded for calm and asked the Baseej to back off.

Next written question was regarding the new plans for segregation of sexes at universities, and Larijani answered 'Why do you always want boys and girls to be together?' Students once again erupted and demanded Larijani to apologise. Larijani replied 'I apologise if anyone was offended by what I said.'

At the end, when the students left the hall, they joined some 500 other comrades who were locked behind the doors and had not been allowed to enter. They started singing the student solidarity anthem again and moved towards the main square opposite the Fajr hall and shouted slogans like 'Free all political prisoners', 'Incompetent Majlis, Shame on You'

Thursday, October 09, 2008

Ayatollah Boroujerdi's Support

It is now two years since the arrest of Iran's dissident cleric, Ayatollah Boroujerdi, and the brutal attack on his supporters outside his house. Shiite cleric, Ayatollah Boroujerdi, is against political Islam and wants the clerics to go back to mosques and not be involved in government. He believes clerics mixing in politics and government will undermine and damage the religion itself.
In the last two years, the Islamic Republic has used all manners of inhumane torture methods to get Ayatollah Boroujerdi recant in public and beg the Supreme Leader for forgiveness, but the ailing dissident Ayatollah has resisted so far, saying he prefers death with honour, making him even more popular and saintly amongst his followers.

On the anniversary of Ayatollah Boroujerdi's arrest, I came across this footage on youtube, which shows the extent of his support and the level of devotion towards him by his supporters amongst Iran's most religious sections of the society. It is no wonder the regime fears the religious dissidents more than anyone else. Shame the men of cloth around the world have so far shied away from calling for the release of Ayatollah Boroujerdi. Perhaps those silly Quakers and Mennonites who chose to dine with Ahmadi-nejad or the American TV presenter, Larry King, should have asked Ahamdi-nejad why has the regime arrested Ayatollah Boroujerdi and killed so many of his supporters. Instead millions of viewers had to watch Ahmadinejad go unchallenged when he ranted 'Iran is the freest country in the world!' and yet this is how they treat even a high ranking Shiite cleric and his religious followers who refuse to toe the regime's interpretation of Islam.

Watch the footage here:

Wednesday, October 08, 2008

Al-Quds Counter Demo on Youtube

See the Al-Quds march and the counter demo to Al-Quds on youtube.
This footage was also posted on Megavideo.

Part I:



Part II:



As you can see from the footage, VOA correspondent was there with a professional camera woman and a report of the events was made, however the Islamic Republic infiltrated VOA Persian, for reasons which I will write about later, decided not to show any of it. Instead in the program which was supposed to show the Al-Quds report, 14 million Iranian viewers watched reports on how Eid Fetr is celebrated in Karachi [one of VOA Persian's favourite places for their copy and paste reports], the Munich beer festival, wine making in Argentina, couple of cat walk fashion shows and a preview of Battle of Seattle, where those who took part in anti-globalisation riots were introduced as heroes and American patriots.

Tuesday, October 07, 2008

Mollah Hassani on Freedom and Human Rights

Hojjat-ol-Islam Mollah Hassani, the representative of the Supreme Leader in Western Azerbijan province of Iran and the Friday prayer leader for Oroumieh, made some interesting comments during a session held by Islamic Human Rights Commission in the 7th District yesterday.

Hassani said 'Human Rights is what Allah says. Is women's freedom in the West, human rights?Freedom means prostitution and betrayal! Death to such Human Rights! A human who does not obey Allah and succumbs to animal instincts, is not a human, is an animal, there should be no human rights for them. He who shouts Freedom, Freedom, does not have any brains,...
What Allah has ruled for us is our human rights, other than that we do not accept'

Regarding those who had been arrested in the month of Ramadan for having been caught eating in public, Hassani said 'they deserved their punishment, as long as it was according to the Sharia laws.'
Hassani finished by wishing more success for the Islamic Human Rights Commission in their future endeavours.

Read more about who Mollah Hassani is here, how he shopped his own Marxist son to be executed and how the UK Home Office granted him a visa to preach in UK.

Friday, October 03, 2008

Export of the Islamic Revolution to Africa

There is no need to write much here. The pictures explain everything. While the Iranian population are struggling to make ends meet, this is how Iranian mullahs spend the country's petro Dollars. The Islamic Republic's handwriting is all over the images. These are not just pictures of simple religious ceremonies, these are pictures of organised paramilitary forces, yet another arsenal of human ignorance at the disposal of the Iranian mullahs for their global ambitions. This is how small terror groups become terror movements.





Thursday, October 02, 2008

Reza Shah, The Saviour of the Constitutionalist Revolution

Dr. Mashallah Ajudani is an acclaimed Iranian researcher and historian, a former Iranian university lecturer and a former member of the scientific committee of Isfahan university for almost seven years. After the so called cultural revolution in the Islamic Republic, he was one of hundreds of secular university lecturers who were eventually intellectually cleansed from Iran's universities in the years after.

Having been forced to flee Iran, Dr. Ajudani settled in London, where he is now the director of the Library of Iranian Studies in Acton. The Library was set up and is run entirely by donations from the Iranian community in UK. It has more than 20,000 books and manuscripts and busts of key figures of Iran's rich cultural heritage sculpted by Iranian sculptor, Mahmoud Mohammadi, provide an extra sense of pride and joy to Iranian ex-pats who visit the library.

During his youth, Ajudani was swept by the Marxist ideology which had gripped the young Iranian intellectuals at the time and spent five years in prison under the Shah as a sympathiser of the Fedayeen Khalq Marxist guerrilla organisation. In prison he met many of the major Iranian dissidents at the time and he was dismayed at their superficial knowledge of Iran's history and society.

He has researched and written many books in exile on Iran's contemporary history. His first book, Iranian Constitutional Revolution and the Antecedents to the Velayat Faqih Theory, is now a text book in contemporary Iranian history and very popular and influential amongst the university students inside Iran.

In his book, Ajudani brilliantly demonstrates how Iran suffered from two dictatorships, a political one and a religious one, and while the Iranian intellectuals targeted the political dictatorship in the country, they often ignored or simply dared not to tackle the much more repressive and deep rooted religious repression which made it impossible for any true long lasting political emancipation and ultimately led to the tragic 1979 Islamic Revolution.

Dr. Ajudani often comes across as curt and temperamental, he does not suffer fools gladly and doesn't have time for the customary Iranian adulation and flattery but in terms of his vast knowledge, expertise and first hand knowledge of the Iranian society, there are not many I know who can match him. Its a shame that he is not better known amongst non-Iranian circles and the think tanks, for if he was, the likes of pseudo Iran experts like Vali Nasr, Ansari, Setareh Sabety, Soraya Sepahpour, Elaheh Rostami, Peoples(?) Baroness Afshar and such like, mostly offsprings of the former regime's political figures by the way, would never dare raise their heads in public as Iran experts.

In a recent interview with the Iranian website, gooyanews, Ajudani courageously names Reza Shah, the founder of the Pahlavi dynasty, as the champion of Iran's constitutional revolution that took place 100 years ago. Reza Shah has been the bogey figure for the Iranian Left and he is often accused by them for having 'terminated' the democratic aspirations of the constitutional revolution. Ajudani, however points out that Reza Shah achieved two other major aspirations of the Constitutional Revolution, a competent central government at a time when Iran was being torn to pieces by local warlords and tribal leaders, and the rapid modernisation of Iran's backward society. In less than 20 years, Reza Shah managed to transform Iran into a more compatible country with the modern world. Modern school system instead of the seminaries, universities, modern secular judiciary, national rail way, industry, banks, emancipation of women, the creation of Iran's middle class, limiting the influence of the clerics and so much more were also aspirations of the constitutional revolution which were largely achieved during Reza Shah's reign.

Ajudani points out that the constitutional revolution was already dead and buried after the second Majlis (parliament) was annulled and Iran was divided into two spheres of influence, the British and the Russians at the start of the WWI, social insecurity and anarchy, famine and sheer mass poverty and the imminent threat of fragmentation of Iran, meant the desire for a competent central government and modernisation of the society became the more urgent priority for Iranians. Shame I don't have time to translate all of the interview but I really wish the likes of Ajudani were better known in the West and his writings were translated into English.