Wednesday, November 28, 2012

Will Mashaei Reveal More?

When writing the last post "They Deceive, and to Appease God, they Pray”, I wasn’t quite sure who the Maddah [Shiite Mourning Ceremony Eulogist] in the vulgar audio I was writing about was, so I started listening to some of the other Iranian celebrity Eulogists whose video and audios are available on the internet. I think I can now say with 99.99% certainty it is the voice of none other than the Supreme Leader’s favourite eulogist, Haj Saeed Haddadian.

Here is the audio file of Haj Saeed Haddadian, when he spearheaded the attacks against Ahmadienjad’s Chief of Bureau and father of his bride,  Esfandiar Rahim Mashaei. In this audio, Haddadian describes Mashaei as the "penis of Ahmadinejad" and asks God to help him kill Mashaei that very night.



And with a huge apology to the Persian speaking readers, the vulgar audio file that was spread round the internet can be heard below. The voice and even the laughters and the delivery is all the same. This audio which is said to be secretly recorded and released on the internet, may well have been done so by Mashaei’s supporters and may be the first of many more in Mashaei-Ahmadinejad’s arsenal of embarrassing revelations of the rival factions for power bartering purposes in the next few months.



In the above audio file, the person who sounds very much like the Supreme Leader’s most favourite Eulogist, Saeed Haddadian, ridicules just about anything which is sacred in the Islamic Republic system, in front of a boisterous private party crowd using the most x-rated language.

Monday, November 26, 2012

They Deceive, and to Appease God, they Pray

Islamic Republic’s Most Famous Maddahs
having a Birthday Party
I had attempted to describe what a Maddah is, in a previous post and the nearest equivalent I could find was panegyrist or a eulogist with the added explanation that they have good voices and they sing/recite and praise the Shiite saints during the frequent Shiite mourning anniversaries.

They should be pious people, they certainly wear their piety on their sleeves to the extreme during their performances. As always from my personal experience, those who go the extra mile to display their piety to the public, arise my suspicions and my alarm bells start ringing. I find the most genuine spiritual people are those who keep their spirituality to themselves and find no need to show off with it. Iranian poet Hafiz has a famous poem on this topic:

On the pulpit, preachers, goodness display
Yet in private, they have a different way.
I have a question to ask of the learned in our midst
Why Confession-Priests, their own repentance delay.
Perhaps they don't believe in Judgement Day
They deceive, and to appease God, they pray

The mannerism of the Maddahs suggests they are nothing but louts making a few bob on the back of people’s religious beliefs. Today an audio file has been doing the rounds in the Iranian cyberspace. The audio file description posted on youtube suggests it is a secret recording of a famous Maddah [doesn’t name him] in a private party. The content of the audio, on a richter scale of vulgarness, is the maximum it can ever be. It is so vulgar that it may embarrass the listener for just listening to it even in private solitary.

The Maddah who sounds very much like Haj Saeed Haddadian, seen on the right in the photo above, makes the most vulgar jokes about the clerics, Iran’s ethnic groups, women and even the most sacred Shiite figures. It is like a Bernard Manning stand up to the power of ten mixed with some excellent singing voice which again sounds very much like the same old Haj Saeed Haddadian, one of Supreme Leader’s favourite Maddahs.

The question many people often ask, how much of that genuine pure religious and ideological convictions in the early days of the revolution remains after three decades of the Islamic Republic? The answer seems to be very little; even amongst the most “pious” pillars of the establishment. 

New Icon for Western "Progressives"

I would like to introduce a new heroic icon, Hojat-al-Islam Panahian, to the Western "progressive" intellectuals who admire the Islamic Republic as the beacon of the struggle against US imperialism.

It is said that Panahian is one of two people in Iran, whose words can be regarded as the very words of the Supreme Leader himself and this tireless cleric was speaking at the Tehran university five days ago.

In his inspiring speech to the university students he made the following avantgarde statements:


"They say our youth in universities must be mixed, yet in America itself they separate boys and girls with a curtain on the buses and say we are not animals to have sexes mixing together"


"See how evil the Zionists are? they kill human beings in the worst possible ways, but in their peak of hideousness they have an institution called Hollywood and Hollywood too wants to destroy human beings. Zionists even refer to humans as 'two legged animals'"

"It is haram for the appearance and facial features [of the faithful] to resemble that of the non-believers, when wearing a suit became fashionable in Iran, we didn't have a strong clergy otherwise it should have been declared haram from the start for sure"

"I have no idea why the house prices rise as more multi-storey buildings go up? We have many narratives that say get as close as you can to earth at night time."

"Over sleeping is from drinking too much and drinking too much is the result of over eating. Hence you can not pray, you become more atrocious at heart, your ability to think is reduced. They asked Ayatollah Behjat what can one do to sleep less and he replied sleep while sitting. His son showed me a chair and said that is his sleeping chair"








Saturday, November 17, 2012

Ayatollah Khomeini's Grand Daughter on Compulsory Veil

"Because I have lived both in London and in Toronto for a while, I am well placed to judge some of the differences between these two cities with Tehran. I know that a young girl in Tehran when she leaves home faces a lot more problems than that of a young girl in a city like Toronto. There, a young girl or an elder woman are no different to a man and no one bothers them and the safety level is high. When I say safety, I don't mean the dictionary definition of the word. I think Iran is safe and Tehran compared to other Metropoles is safe too, what I mean is the social safety and the safe keeping of the respect for values. A girl faces much more discourtesy in a city like Tehran than in a city where there is more freedom. I believe making the veil compulsory and the limitations put on women has caused this."

The above statement was made by Naeemeh Eshraghi, she is the grand daughter of Ayatollah Khomeini and she said this in an interview with the Jamaran website. She was 24 years old when Ayatollah Khomeini died.

Naeemeh Eshraghi was also asked if she wears a chador, to which she replied:

"Yes, I wear the chador, I personally like the chador and have a positive outlook about it, but in truth, I find it difficult. When a woman is is draped from head to toe in black, it isn't visually appealing, it is also very uncomfortable and it can cause accidents for the person wearing it, but chador is the tradition in our household and as the grand daughter of the Imam Khomeini, if I don't do this, I would be breaking the tradition and I don't like this. Also the chador in our household is very symbolic and I don't want to transgress from this. I think if someone is related to a great man like Imam Khomeini, who is known by everyone from the East to the West, the most honourable man I have seen in my lifetime, it creates a commitment in you and this commitment for me could mean doing things contrary to my personal preferences"

Thursday, November 15, 2012

Hassan Nasrallah, the Nemesis of Iranian Bloggers

From Sattar Beheshti’s last post on
his blog
Sattar Beheshti, the Iranian blogger, who was killed under torture in the Islamic Republic dungeons had probably never met Omid Mir Sayafi, another Iranian blogger who died in prison in 2009, but nevertheless there seems to be a link between them; that of referring to Seyyed Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of Lebanon’s Hezbollah, on their blogs.

Omid Mir Sayafi, was not a political activist, he wrote about music, mostly Persian classical music on his blog; except on one occasion, when he wrote  “Mr. Khamenei love me as much as you love Seyyed Nasrallah’s son’.

Sattar’s last post on his blog carried a picture of Nasrallah and quoted Hezbollah’s leader “If it wasn’t because of Iran’s help, Lebanon’s reconstruction would not have come about with such swiftness”. It then showed pictures of Lebanese beauty contesters in their bikinis and juxtaposed it with the desperate poverty of Iran’s children. The picture asked what most Iranians ask themselves, “why should so much of our wealth and resources be given to the Hezbollah, when our own children need it most? Why is there not the same urgency to help Iran’s recent earthquake victims who are still homeless and facing the cold? Why can’t we enjoy life like the party going Lebanese do?”

We don’t know who the interrogators and the torturers who dealt with Omid and Sattar were but it seems any critical mention of Nasrallah infuriates them so much that they end up killing their prisoners. Nasrallah seems to be so revered by Islamic Republic torturers that any “balsphemous” mention of him by Iranian bloggers can lead to their death in prison.

Thursday, November 08, 2012

Blogger Sattar Beheshti is Confirmed Dead

Iranian blogger, Sattar Beheshti, was buried yesterday in Rabat Karim cemetery. Close relatives who were allowed to attend the burial, said they managed to see a glimpse of Sattar's face, as he was buried. Islamic Republic security agents watched over the burial.

There was a glimmer of hope that Sattar had not died but that hope was dashed away as his family confirmed he was buried.

Another hero is fallen and the evil still prevails in Iran.

Fate of Iranian Blogger Still Not Certain

He was a simple labourer from a poor neighbourhood in South Tehran, who spent his earnings by looking after his elderly ill mother. Most of his wages would be spent on buying medicine for her.

Sattar Beheshti also loved his country and he was enraged by the injustices he saw around him. In his blog, My Life for My Iran, he questioned why Iran's wealth and resources should be spent for the Hezbollah in Lebanon? He juxtaposed the pictures of Lebanese party goers and the desperate poverty of Iranians living in a rich country full of natural wealth and resources on his blog.

On his last post he reported how Islamic Republic's security forces had been threatening him.
"They have sent me a message saying, tell your mother she will soon be wearing black because you don't shut your big mouth. I tell them but I am not doing anything, I only write what I see and hear and they tell me I will die and no one will know or hear about me" and Sattar continued on his last post:
"As an Iranian I say, I can not remain silent in the face of so much sorrow, you are destroying the country, I will not remain silent even at the moment of my death, stop this tyranny and we will then close our mouth"

Cellmates at Evin prison, section 350, reported he was badly hurt after one of his interrogations. "His body looked like he was crushed".

Nine days later after his arrest, his brother-in-law received a phone call "Go and buy a grave and receive his body. Prepare his mother for the news".

The family has been devastated since, only nine days after security forces had burst into Sattar's home and ignored his mother's please to at least give Sattar time to put his shoes on, the family were faced with this menacing phone call.

In their desperation, all the family could do was to tell the opposition media outside Iran and the news spread quickly across the cyber space which prompted another call to the family, mixed in with the usual cocktail of insults and profanities, Sattar's sister was told "Why did you talk to anyone? Why did you say he is dead? he is on hunger strike, but he will wish he is dead soon"

As at the time of writing this post, it is still not certain if Sattar is dead. His family have still not been able to see Sattar's body, but have been told that he is already buried.

Such is the cruel games the Islamic Republic play. They are not happy with just killing and torturing a dissident, they want to torture his family too.






Friday, November 02, 2012

Is the German Ambassador in Iran for Real?

Here is a state TV report about the recent visit to Iran by the German delegation. While members of the German delegation seemed camera shy and shunned talking to the state TV cameras, the German ambassador to Iran was more than happy to oblige. In fact he seems to go the extra mile and praise the religious tolerance in the Islamic Republic!

Is the German ambassador for real? Is he really not aware of the religious apartheid in Iran? Does he not know that in the Islamic Republic of Iran, the rights of a citizen is based on his or her religion? That a citizen's religion, can exclude him or her from many professions and official posts?

Does the German ambassador to Iran even realise that some religious minorities like the Bahaiis don't even have any rights in Iran, and that they can not receive higher education? 

Does the German ambassador to Iran know where he is? It may be that what he said is reported differently by the state TV, but then again the ambassador should know better that the state TV will only broadcast what they can use as good propaganda and if he is mis-reported, he should put the record straight.