Tuesday, December 27, 2011

We Don't Need Virtual US Embassy Web 'Shite', Stop the Satellite Jamming

Well it did not take long for the latest "gift" by Hilary Clinton to the people of Iran, the Virtual Embassy Web Site/Shite, to prove absolutely worthless, as I predicted after it was announced. The so-called virtual embassy was blocked by the Islamic Republic internet censors within almost minutes. Just another totally useless endeavour by the US administration who just don't listen or listen but then chase their own tail in futile projects.

On the other hand, Islamic Republic's Achilles' heel, information for the people of Iran via satellite TV, the technology that can reach the majority of Iranian people is being ignored. The Islamic Republic government, with the help of technology acquired from the Russians, is preventing millions of Iranian viewers from receiving news and information, and yet it uses the same technology provided by Western satellite companies to propagate its false news, fabricated propaganda and forced confessions.

Satellite companies like Intelsat, based in Luxemburg with offices in Washington, is able to do business with the Islamic Republic despite the US embargo, because of a license from the Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control. Intelsat vice president and spokeswoman Dianne Van Beber justifies doing business with the Islamic Republic by saying "If a customer - Islamic Republic Broadcasting - is in good standing and in compliance with the terms of our agreement, then they have the right to broadcast their content". So there you go, I get hassled by illiterate Homeland Security airport staff when I go to US but the Islamic Republic state broadcasting is "in good standing".

Making satellite companies pull out from providing broadcasts for repressive states is possible as it was shown with the EU barring any broadcasting technical aid to Gaddafi.

It is not just an obscure blogger like me who is urging the West not to allow the Islamic Republic to go unpunished for breaking all international broadcasting conventions and apply similar measures that were applied with the Libyan broadcasting, but prominent Iranian opposition figures like Shirin Ebadi and Ali Akbar Moussavi Khoeini, who are quoted in this revealing article published in the Wall Street Journal, are too. In fact rather than repeating what is said in the WSJ, I urge people to read the article.

When you read the article please make sure you remain secure and steadfast in your chair,  as you read the comment by U.N Agency's Space-Services Department, Yvon Henri, in case you are overcome with an extreme attack of laughter and fall off your chair:
"
The interference "appeared to be emanating from Iran." Iran said it couldn't find the source of the jamming, according to the chief of the U.N. agency's space-services department, Yvon Henri. The agency urged Iran to keep trying to find it and to "eliminate it as a matter of highest priority.
"
Mr. Islamic Republic! Could you please try to find the source of jamming and eliminate it, please! :))

Saturday, December 24, 2011

Iranian Blogger, Siamak Mehr, Hands and Feet Chained in Court

Who would you expect to be chain bound, hands and feet, and surrounded by revolutionary guards special units as he is taken to appear before the revolutionary court? A dangerous criminal? In fact, the person you see hands and feet bound in the footage below is a gentle and polished man, who has lost a kidney as a result of tortures he has suffered in prison. He is Siamak Mehr, an Iranian blogger, whose articles have infuriated the religious dictatorship ruling Iran. He is charged with"insulting the Prophet of Islam" and "enmity with God", charges that could bring the death penalty.





"Dear Mitra,
 Remember I am not just a person, but I am also a notion. A notion which is deep rooted amongst Iranians, and I am extremely hopeful that finally we shall overcome this evil, this anti-human anti-freedom and anti-life source. Therefore never regard my physical destruction as the destruction of this flourishing notion" - Siamak Mehr's letter to his daughter. 

Farewell Havel

"Love and Truth Must be Triumphant Over Hate and Lies" - Vaclav Havel

Farewell to one of my all time heroes.

Friday, December 23, 2011

A Response to Seumus Milne'S Article in the Guardian

The last paragraph in Seumas Milne's latest article in the Guardian, 'War on Iran Has Already Begun', concludes in this way

Maybe it won't happen. Maybe the war talk is more about destabilisation than a full-scale attack. But there are undoubtedly those in the US, Israel and Britain who think otherwise”

Just in this paragraph alone, it is clear for an unbiased reader that Milne has conveniently forgotten to include the other side of the equation, i.e. 'those in the Islamic Republic' who are craving for a full scale attack. The entire article is in fact riddled with convenient half baked information, like the assassination of Iran's nuclear scientists just to name one, posed as facts to back up his ideologically motivated presentation.

First lets remind ourselves with just a few proponents of 'full-scale attack', some of the real warmongers Seamus Milne conveniently forgot to even mention.

Former head of the Revolutionary Guards, Rahim Safavi, now special military advisor to the Supreme Leader, in a conference held two weeks ago, in Lanjan, near Isfahan, said this:
We should confront the enemy with offensive actions and not just with words and slogans. Our enemies are like dogs with rabies and we should strike them in the head with a stick. We must adopt an offensive strategy”

Safavi's statements came a few days after Amirali Haji-Zadeh, the head of the Islamic Republic's aerospace, who said “A military attack on Iran is our wish”.
General Firoozabadi, the hugely overweight head of Iran's Combined Armed Forces, a medical doctor by training who has no military experience and was purely promoted to the rank of General by the Supreme Leader for his vulgar servility, resonated similar aspirations by saying “I thank God twice a day that I am getting closer to martyrdom”

And these are the words of Commander Naghdi, the head of Baseej militia, in a televised interview:
I tell you, if on this very day, the Islamic Republic attacked America, the Americans will not have the military capability to respond, they will stretch their hand out for negotiations saying come on lets somehow sort this out, not only they can't attack us but if we attack them they won't be able to respond either, really this is how it is, with what economy? With what public opinion backing do they want to attack?. ...I tell you the Baseej's most muted response to the slightest attack by the Zionist regime will be the liberation of the Quds(Jerusalem) nothing less for sure. ...for reasons of secondary edicts and some international considerations and the current priorities we are biding our time, otherwise everyone (Baseej Members) is counting down the moments for an excuse to come up, so we can go and finish off these Zionists'

Readers may be interested to know that the Iraqi born Commander Naghdi, was dismissed during the Khatami years for having been involved in a number of armed robberies, thirteen murders and several rapes and tortures. When Ahmadinejad became the president, Naghdi, a long time partner with Rahim Mashaei, the favourite deputy of Ahmadinejad and the father of his daughter-in-law, was reinstated in an official government position and became the head of the HQ in Fighting Smuggling Goods and Currency. It was like appointing Al-Capone as the head of tax collections. Ahmadinejad was soon forced to dismiss Naghdi, as part of a damage limitation exercise, after Naghdi's part in smuggling petrochemical commodities was exposed. The Supreme Leader, knowing Naghdi's capabilities in brutality and crackdown of peaceful protesters, appointed him as the head of the Baseej in order to contain the escalating post-election protests in 2009.

Such warmongering statements by Islamic Republic officials are of course nothing new. When Rafsanjani was still in the circle of the power brokers in Iran, he had said during a Friday sermon “Iran will be able to destroy Israel completely with just one nuclear bomb, but it will be much more difficult for Israelis to destroy all of Iran, as we are many more times the size of Israel”.

I am sure that Seamus Milne, nor the people in his niche market to whom his writings appeal to, have never even heard of a pamphlet titled “The Final Six Months”, widely distributed amongst the most zealous supporters of the regime for the last ten years. The prognostic pamphlet clearly spells out who is actually looking forward to the “final confrontation” and how the recent events in the region are all fulfilling the prophecy that requires the final confrontation.

Such warmongerings by the Islamic Republic officials are never mentioned by the likes of Seamus Milne. This is typical of those whose minds are seized by an ideology. Facts are put through a sieve and only those which fit within the beloved sacred ideology are strained while the rest just go down the sink hole. It is no wonder that with such blinkered visions, Seamus Milne believes Ahmadinejad won the elections and sees him as a popular hero 'who stands up for the country's independence, fights against elite corruption and uses Iran's oil to boost the incomes of the poor majority'.

Is Seamus Milne even aware of the level of corruption by Ahmadinejad's cronies? Has he even heard about the recent $3Bn banking scandal, the biggest fraud in Iran's history, by Ahmadinejad's associates? Milne's illusions of Ahmadinejad being the hero who champions the poor are fantasies too familiar by Milne's predecessors of Western useful idiots about other tyrants in the past.

Milne's blinkered outlooks and one sided analysis cast doubts on the genuineness of this former public school boy turned Marxist tyrannophile, in opposing war. Is he concerned about a military confrontation like most people are? or is his one sided exploitation of the issues just a means to serve his ideology?

Perhaps Seamus Milne too is craving for a large salary from Press TV like former Saddam Hussein sycophant, George Galloway, with whom he has repeatedly shared a platform.

Sunday, December 18, 2011

United We Will be Stronger

With the Syrian protesters on Saturday:
I was privileged to be given the chance to speak to our Syrian friends


And its all about these children like Ayub, for a better future for them, so they don't have to look over their shoulder when they speak their mind


With the other Iranians at the protest:


Syrians remember their fallen


Saturday, December 17, 2011

"The Wall Street Uprising" and Iran's Prisoners of Conscience

Ever since the Wall Street protests started, the Islamic Republic has been at full force to claim ownership of it. The "Wall Street Uprising" as the regime calls it, is yet another manifestation of the 1979 Islamic revolution. Friday Prayer Sermon leaders have time and time told the faithful in the Friday Prayers that the "Uprising" will be the end of America and the Islamic Republic will emerge victorious. Ayatollah Janati, who thanked God when his MeK son, Mohammad Hossein, was killed by the regime, said in one of his sermons, "The Wall Street Uprising was because of the Islamic revolution and the annual Qods marches throughout the cities in Europe and abroad, sowed the seeds of this uprising by raising awareness about the Islamic revolution". There have been solidarity marches with the Wall Street Protesters and even a website has been put up by the Baseej to support this "uprising". Iran's Minister of Intelligence, Heydar Moslehi, told the people in Iran that America has filtered Facebook and Twitter and slowed down the internet speed in order to contain the Wall Street movement and of course Press TV can't get enough footage of the Wall Street "uprising" and images of police brutality against the protesters.

But amidst all this pomp and ceremony for Wall Street protesters by the Islamic Republic, they have been ignoring another development in the Wall Street movement. The Wall Street protesters not only have not shown any sympathy for the Islamic Republic, they have actually been holding posters of Iranian prisoners of conscience. Campaign 99, are a group of Iranian activists who are raising awareness among protestors at Occupy Wall Street Movement on the situation of political prisoners and the
on-going repression of dissidents in Iran.

“The idea is simple ...”  says Campaign99.  “We have decided to talk with 99 people engaged in
Occupy Wall Street Movement around the world. We will listen to each person's narrative of why
s/he has joined the Occupy Wall Street Movement. Then we will narrate the life story of an Iranian
prisoner of conscience for that person.  After this mutual exchange of stories, we will ask the person
to send a message to and make a poster for that Iranian prisoner. While s/he is holding the poster,
we take a picture. This is for global solidarity.”

Below are some pictures of the Wall Street "uprising" Press TV will rather not show, but why is the Western Press not showing them either?

Wall Street protesters holding a Free Arya Aramnejad poster:


Wall Street protester holding a picture of Iran's imprisoned secular Ayatollah Kazemeini Boroujerdi:


Wall Street protester, Joseph, holding a poster of Hossein Ronaghi Maleki, who is on hunger strike right now:


See more pictures here : http://www.facebook.com/Campaign99


Monday, December 12, 2011

Sacked Worker Throws His Shoe at Ahmadinejad

Ahmadinejad was commemorating the second anniversary of the death of his former interior minister, Ali Kordan, in Sari, North Iran. The very same minister who was disgraced when his Oxford PHD qualification was found out to be absurdly fake.

Some out of work textile workers managed to enter the room and raise a banner, which increased the tensions during the speech and minor scuffles broke out.

As Ahamdinejad was praising the memories of his fraudster interior minister and ranting on about his plans to bring economic prosperity to all Iranians, a sacked textile worker who was owed months of backdated wages managed to sit close to the podium and throw his shoe at Ahmadinejad. Three security agents immediately seized the worker and started working him over until law enforcement forces managed to rescue the poor unemployed worker.

The entire program came to a halt and even the promised lunch to the pupils, who had been shuttled in to build up the numbers, was cancelled.

Meanwhile useful idiots in the West continued to praise Ahamdinejad as the champion of the workers in Iran.

Friday, December 09, 2011

Remembering the Martyrs of the Ashura Uprising Two Years Ago

If Ashura is known by Shiite Muslims as the day of the uprising against tyranny, no other Ashura was as symbolic as the one in Iran two years ago. It became the peak of the protests by the Iranian people against the tyrant of our times, the "Supreme Leader", Ali Khamenei. For the first time in years, on the anniversary of Ashura, the people in Iran did not suffice to just carry out the traditional symbolic rituals to mark the day but actually went out on the streets and battled against all odds with the mighty forces of evil.

One of the brave who fell on the anniversary of Ashura  two years ago, was Amir Arshad Tajmir, son of the well known Iranian state Radio and Television presenter, Shahin Mahinfar.

"He had chosen his path, he took part in all the rallies and was with the people and alongside the people in their struggle and died with integrity and with his head held high" Shahin Mahinfar says about her late son.

"He had tried to rescue two girls on the day who were being beaten up by the security forces. I told him not to go out on that day, he said I am going for my country. I told him you are my country and he said don't be so selfish mom, your country is the 70 million people of Iran, and I am going for them." Shahin describes her last conversation with her beloved son and continues "One of the girls whom Amir  was trying to rescue came to his graveside once and told me everything. The girls were getting beaten up and the crowds were booing the security thugs, but Amir said booing won't do any good, lets try and help them. Having said that, he went and pushed one of the security agents. A law enforcement car then ran over Amir from behind.."
Amir fell but they couldn't just leave it at that. They were furious that someone had dared to fight back security forces who were beating up two female protesters.

"Another law enforcement force vehicle then drove over his body, not once but three times, my beloved Amir was ran over three times, his body was crushed, they killed him three times. I don't know what to call them? I believe even animals have honour but these ..." Shahin describes the last moments of the son she raised and her contempt for her murderers.

"I am proud I brought up a good kid like Amir, an Iran lover who loved his people, a young man with integrity. He has made me feel proud, but I feel my back is broken with sorrow. Amir's father and I are both proud of him, he gave his life to save two others. He was my son and he is gone now, but these days every young person whom we meet, tell us they are our Amir. We gave one Amir and we got thousands back. I still hear his voice on the night of Yalda, when he whispered in my ear, 'I love you mom'. It was as if he knew he was saying it for the last time." Shahin continues with pride and with pain and asks the unanswered question:
"what was the crime of our kids? All they wanted was freedom and prosperity for their compatriots. Two years have gone by but he is resurrected in my mind every second, they keep killing my child in front of my eyes and I can do nothing about it. But I am not the only one, I know there are many more mothers like me, I just ask sometimes, does God never hear the cries of mothers like us? In all these years, does he not hear the cries and the curses of so many mothers? Where is that just God they taught us about?"



Wednesday, December 07, 2011

Eagerness for Crisis and Conflict

The regime we know as the Islamic Republic of Iran is imploding. The parallels with the writings on the wall which pre-announced the collapse of the Soviet Union are even more striking in the case of the Islamic Republic. The mismanagement of the economy, the astronomical levels of corruption, the international isolation, the factional in-fighting, the widespread popular discontent, the social catastrophes, the high levels of nepotism, the lack of support for the establishment by the society's elite and the intellectuals and the list goes on. The leaders of the IRI Co. also know this, only the most optimist delusional regime fanatic imagines the show will go on for much longer.

So what are the leaders of the IRI planning to do, to prolong their livelihoods? They look back at their track record of just over three decades and how generating crisis after crisis has saved them. One of those generated crisis moments was the US embassy hostage taking in 1979. Until then, the provisional post-revolutionary government included liberals and moderates and there was some naive cheerfulness similar to what we see today in Tunisia and Egypt.

Carter's hapless administration and lack of resolve to deal with the situation, and his clueless advisors who were referring to Khoemini as a new Gandhi, meant the hostage taking went on for 444 days. The result was a total take over of power by Iran's hardline clerics who saw their moment and seized the complete power.

The eight year war with Iraq also helped the hardliners ruthlessly destroy all dissent and opposition to the religious dictatorship.

Three decades have gone by and a new generation of young Iranians look with bemusement at the actions of the previous generation and ask why their parents led their country and their future into such abyss? The days of the gullible Carter administrators in the West also seem to be over and good riddance too. Only two groups seem entrenched in a time capsule and imagine things are the same as they were thirty years ago. The ruling Iranian clerics and the Western tyrannophiles.

What dismays me about the Western tyrannophile useful idiots is not that they want to stop a military conflict, who in their right mind wants that? It is the fact that they are barking up the wrong tree and they can't see who is beating the drums of war. I am pretty sure not one of them is even aware of a pamphlet called the Final Six Months, widely distributed amongst the Baseej militia. The pamphlet is a prophecy of a huge imminent conflict which will bring about the return of the Lord of All Ages, the Hidden Imam.  The recent events in the region have partly fulfilled the prophecy according to the pamphlet. The uprising in Yemen, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia and the conflict in Iraq were all meant to have happened and soon there will be more.

The enthusiasm for a conflict is all too apparent in the statements made by the head of Baseej, Commander Naghdi, just like the former head of IRGC, General Rahim Safavi, they are not talking about preparing for defence, they are talking enthusiastically about taking the initiative to attack:



'I tell you, if on this very day, the Islamic Republic attacked America, the Americans will not have the military capability to respond, they will stretch their hand out for negotiations saying come on lets somehow sort this out, not only they can't attack us but if we attack them they won't be able to respond either, really this is how it is. With what economy do they want to attack? with what support from their own people do they want to fight? with what support amongst the international public opinion? with which high spirited army? They are surrounded by us every where.The Americans are surrounded everywhere in the world by the Hezballoahi troops, where ever they make a move. Their fifth navy fleet is in Bahrain, their air base is in Qatar, they are surrounded by us every where, in Kuwait...I tell you the Baseej's most muted response to the slightest attack by the Zionist regime will be the liberation of the Quds(Jerusalem) nothing less for sure. I mean whatever happens, the Baseej members are counting the seconds, based on what is written in Imam Khomeini's thesis, its not as if it is a secret, every Muslim is duty bound to go to wherever Muslim land is occupied and join the uprising and he does not even require the blessing of the local Imam, This is a fatwa, but for reasons of secondary edicts and some international considerations and the current priorities we are biding our time, otherwise everyone is counting the moments for an excuse to come up and go and finish off these Zionists'

Sunday, December 04, 2011

'US Has Filtered Facebook and Twitter and Slowed Down the Internet'

If there was ever an Olympic event of 'lying through your teeth with a straight face', the Islamic Republic officials would always be the top candidates for sweeping the gold medals. Last week however, they must have broken their own world records. There were numerous outrageous lies uttered by the elite members of the establishment, but amidst all the news of the attack on the British embassy and the mysterious explosion in Isfahan, one super outrageous lie by the Islamic Republic's intelligence ministry, Heydar Moslehi, which made the newspaper headlines in Iran, went unnoticed in the West: "US has filtered Facebook and Twitter"

The Iranian minister of intelligence, Heydar Moslehi, speaking at the Baseej National Conference, told the devoted Baseej members:

"The internet and the social networks which were created by the enemy have now become their own nemesis. Obama stated twice in the Congress and once in his public speeches that social networks were created to confront the Islamic revolution with. Fortunately these plans have been defeated. Because today as a result of the Wall Street uprising, social networks like Facebook and Twitter have been filtered in the US. The internet speed also for security reasons, has been drastically reduced by the American government, in order for them to be able to manage the Wall Street movement"

You would have thought even the brainwashed Baseej would be able to verify the above claims, but then again the Baseej doesn't ask questions, it just obeys orders, is kept in the dark and fed on crap.