Hashem Khastar, the Retired Teacher Who Should Have Been Released Last Week

Hashem Khastar is a dissident 55 year old Iranian teacher who was sentenced to two years imprisonment in 2009. He has spent the last two years of his sentence in Mashad's notorious Vakilabad prison. Poor hygiene conditions and serious overcrowding has been detrimental to his health and he has been denied any leave from prison. Yet this elderly retired teacher has stood resolute with his head held high. In July 2010, he wrote an open letter to the head of Iran's judiciary and described the appalling prison conditions in Vakilabad prison.

Four days ago, his sentence ended. He should have been released and family and friends were waiting for him outside the prison gates, but Hashem was not released. The judiciary have now opened a new file against him for the letter he wrote to the judiciary. Hashem now awaits a new trial and a new sentence.

Not only Hashem was not released, his local butcher friend, who had also come to greet him outside the prison upon his release, was also arrested.

Jailed Dissident Student Activist on Trial Again

Dissident Iranian student activist, Abdullah Momeni was jailed shortly after the election coup in Iran, in 2009. As well as a student spokesperson, Momeni also headed Karroubi's Free Citizen HQ.

He was sentenced to 4 years and 11 months prison and is currently serving his sentence in section 350 of Evin prison. Momeni has not been permitted to have his wife and children visit him in jail for the last 16 months. Prison authorities are also denying him medical treatments for his dermatological problems and hearing damage he has suffered since his incarceration in prison.

In September last year, Abdullah Momeni, managed to smuggle out an open letter addressed to the Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Khamenei. See the translation of the letter, published in EA, here

In the letter to Ayatollah Khamenei, Momeni was hoping that the treatment of prisoners of conscience in Iran may move the ageing Supreme Leader and says 'I decided to write a letter addressed to you, thinking that perhaps the news about detention centers does not reach you.'

Ten months after writing that open letter, not only the ageing Supreme Tyrant was not moved by what was happening to the best sons and daughters of Iran in jails, but instead Momeni now faces another trial for having dared to write that letter! Only in the Islamic Republic of Iran, writing a letter to the authorities in order to seek a more humane treatment for prisoners of conscience by a prisoner of conscience would result in the jailed person to face another trial.

The Supreme Leader has now proven beyond any doubt, that he is fully aware of the human rights abuses in Iran and that he himself is the Supreme Tyrant and the root cause of all the injustices in Iran.

Abdulla Momeni's brother was martyred in the war against Saddam. He voluntarily returned to the front after he recovered from an injury. As well as his own children, Abdullah also looked after his martyred brother's daughter.

Islamic Republic and Peter Rushton

On the Islamic Republic TV channels, including Press TV, Peter Rushton is introduced to the viewers as a Historian and a Political Analyst. Yeah right!

So, who exactly is this weirdo?

He claims to have a degree from Oxford university, but people I have spoken to, who were with him at Oxford, say he was a university drop out, who was kicked out and never finished his degree. While at Oxford, he did not show any Nazi tendencies, and was more into conspiracy theories, until he joined the BNP in the 90s. In November 2000, he travelled to Spain to celebrate the birth of the Fascist dictator, General Franco. Rushton remained a die hard member of the BNP until 2002 until he was expelled from the party for various accusations made against him, including that he was gay because of his effeminate behaviour.

Here he is as the guest speaker of Oldham BNP, talking about how Asian gangs have been attacking the white people:

After getting kicked out of BNP, Rushton joined a more extreme Nazi group, called the White Nationalist Party. 

Differences of personality caused a split in this party, a  usual trait in extremist groups, and Rushton joined the British People’s Party. Another White Supremacy group which use the Celtic cross instead of a Swastika in their meetings:

This regular guest on Press TV and other IRI state TVs, is now in the England First Party and is the associate editor of its magazine, Heritage and Destiny.

He is also the webmaster for the website of the notorious holocaust denier, (Lady) Michele Renouf, who is also another regular star of the Islamic Republic media.

http://www.jailingopinions.com/default.htm

Watch Michele Renouf and Rushton with the Supreme Leader’s special representative in London, Mohamad Saeed Bahmanpour on Islamic Republic’s state TV:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bXAWRlOrbwE

IR News Agency (IRNA), refers to Peter Rushton, the Nazi White Supremacist, as a “Peace Activist” :)))

So, Press TV continues to gravitate all kinds of weirdos like Lauren Booth and Galloway as well as White Supremacists like Peter Rushton and broadcast all kinds of inflammatory programs and OFCOM is ok with it. Amazing how at 'times of austerity’, some useful services are cut back and useless bodies continue to survive.

Press TV’s Marziyeh Hashemi talking to the White Supremacist, Peter Rushton on Press TV:
http://www.presstv.ir/detail/182849.html

and it is not a one off appearance:

http://www.presstv.ir/detail/188333.html

http://www.presstv.ir/detail/182991.html

http://www.presstv.ir/detail/183250.html

IRI's Moral Police Step up the "Battle Against Enemy"

It is summer again and the Islamic Republic's moral police is out in full force harassing those who digress from the strict observance of the Islamic dress code. The offence for not observing the Hejab code can be imprisonment or fine, but perhaps the humiliation is the most painful, especially when the "offenders" are with their children.

These pictures are taken from the Iranian press.

A mother is harassed in front of her young daughter for showing a few strands of hair under her scarf.

Good God! The sleeves are rolled up slightly above the wrist, how provocative!

How dare you show your toes in an Islamic country?

Moral police arrests ordinary women in the streets.

Socialist Disingenuity

Referring to Ayatollah Khomeini as the Imam Khomeini was a controversial issue. In Shiite theology, the Imams are the 12 descendants of the prophet, who are sinless and immaculate saints and so to have a 13th Imam was very much a touch and go issue bordering on heresy.

Especially since Khomeini only became an Ayatollah, when it was thought that after his arrest, in 1963, he faced execution and in order to save him from execution, Ayatollah Shariatmadari, a moderate and pacifist Grand Ayatoolah, promoted him to the rank of Grand Ayatollah to save Khomeini from execution.

Khomeini as ungrateful as ever, did not reward Ayatollah Shariatmadari after the 1979 revolution,  for having saved him from execution, but instead Ayatollah Shariatmadari's family were arrested and tortured. Shariatmadari himself was arrested, former Minister of Intelligence, Reyshahri, even mentions in his memoirs that he personally took part in beating up the elderly moderate Grand Ayatollah Shariatmadari who did not see eye to eye with Khomeni's rule of jurisprudence. Thus Ayatollah Shariatmadari who had promoted Khomeini to Grand Ayatollah overnight to save him from execution, was forced to appear on Iranian state TV and beg Khomeini for forgiveness.

I am not sure who elevated Khomeini to the rank of Imam, it may have even been the MKO, as I remember their newspaper always used to write Imam Khomeini in bold letters when they were trying unsuccessfully to endear themselves to Khomeini.

After Khamenei succeeded Khomeini as the new Supreme Leader, some sycophants also attempted to refer to Khamenei as the Imam, but to have a 14th Imam was just too much and never became acceptable in Iran. 

Socialist Unity, RESPECT's publication however, has no qualms in publishing an article that praises Iran's Supreme Leader obsessively and refers to him as an Imam. The article is written by Seyyed Mohamamd Marandi, a rich kid whose father is non other than Khamenei's personal physician. Mohammad Marandi, himself was born and educated in Richmond, Virginia in the good old US of A. 

 

Socialist Unity is thus praising an absolute dictator who is responsible for the murder, torture and imprisonment of Iran's trade unionists, students, intellectuals, writers, journalists, workers, teachers, human rights lawyers, minorities and.....

I piss on this 'Unity' and on these 'Socialists'.

 

'Do Not Become Arrogant, for Iran will Rear Many Like Me'

Most people in the West have heard of Leonidas and the battle of Thermopylae, but very few have heard of the Iranian commander, Ariobarzanes, and the way he resisted the invading army of Alexander at what became known as the battle of the Persian Gate. Following the Persian defeat at Gaugamela, it was left to Ariobarzanes to defend the Persian capital, Persepolis.

Alexander split his army and led 14000 of them towards Persepolis through the Persian Gates, the ancient name of a narrow pass way which connects Yassuj to Sedeh. There, Ariobarzanes along with his sister, Youtab and an army which numbered less than a thousand, managed to hold back Alexander's army by inflicting heavy casualties on Alexander's forces. Alexander finally outflanked and destroyed the defenders after a treacherous Iranian showed him a secret by-pass, through which Alexander could move his men.

Ariobarzanes, his sister, Youtab and his men fought to the very last and they became a legend in Iranian history and literature, symbols of Iranian patriotism.

Since the 1979 Islamic revolution however, the Islamic Republic has been hell bent on its anti-Iranian agenda. The regime fears all symbols of pre-Islamic Iran. In recent weeks, this anti-Iranian agenda has manifested itself in removing wall paintings that depicted the Epic stories of Shahnameh (Book of Kings) in Mashad, the removal of the statues of another Iranian legendary figure, Arash in Sari and now they want to remove the statue of Ariobarzanes in Yassuj.

The Revolutionary Guards, Commander of the province, Avaz Shahabifar and the local general prosecutor, Hojatol-Islam Moussavipour have claimed the statue of Ariobarzanes in Yassuj is an insult to the Islamic values and our war martyrs!!

This is why the picture of Yassuj youth above, surrounding the statute is so heartening in response to the threats to remove it. Iran's greatest poet, Ferdowsi who wrote the Book of Kings (Shahnameh) described Ariobarzanes's last words to Alexander in beautiful poetry which I will struggle to translate below:

'Know this Alexander
That after my death
You may be able to conquer the Persian gates
You may be able to put on the Persian crown
and sit on the Persian throne
But do not become arrogant
for Iran will rear many more like me'