Iranazar.net

It was with much delight when I was contacted about the formation of a new Azeri group, dedicated for the unity and integrity of Iran.

I have added their website to the links section on my blog. With so much balderdash gibberish by a handful of secessionist agitators, it was time true sons and daughters of Azerbijan got together to maintain the long tradition of Iranian Azeris safeguarding the integrity of the Iranian frontiers.

I hope we can be worthy sons and daughters of Babak Khorramdin, Sattar Khan, Baqer Khan and all our forefathers before us who have passed down our Iranain Azeri heritage.

Life in the Islamic Republic Again

When I published the post, Life in the Islamic Republic, someone put an apt comment that I should also put the clip of Ahmadi-Nejad's lies in his interview on state TV, before he became a president.

So here is the clip again with Ahmadi-nejad's lies as the voice in the background. I hope all the "useful idiots" duped by Ahmedi-Nejad's spins will learn from watching this, how easily and blatantly the Islamic Republic officials lie.



Here is a translation of what Ahmadi-Nejad is saying:

"Really is the problem of our government, the hair style of our children? Our children like to have any hair style they want, what has it got to do with me and you? You and I should deal with the fundamental problems of our country. Meaning the government should improve the economic conditions, stabilise the situation in the country, provide psychological security, support the people. Our people have different tastes, with different traditions, different styles, different ethnicities. The government must serve everyone. Why do we humiliate the people? We humiliate the people as if our most pressing problem in the country was what hair style the youth liked and the government does not allow it. No! is this fit for the government? Is this worthy of the people? This is an insult to our people. Why do we disregard the people? Is our most pressing problem that our girls wear such and such clothes? Is this our country's present problem or our people's problems? People have different tastes."

So on that basis best of luck to all those who trust the Islamic Republic in negotiations, because they need it!

Hamas Denies the Rocket Route is through Egypt

Iranian daily, Entekhab, quoted Ahmad Yussef, Hamas's political adviser, denying to reporters in a press conference in Gazza that Iranian built rockets reach Hamas through intricate underground tunnels from Egypt. "Iranian rockets in fact reach us through the Mediterranean Sea" Yussef finished his statement with.

So no denial that Hamas's rockets come from Iran, just a question of how they reach Hamas :))

Even the Iranian daily can't hide its displeasure with Yussef's claim and finishes with this paragraph:
" سخنان این دشمنان دوست نما که روزگارشان با بیت المال ایرانیان سپری می شود، قرابت بیشتری با سخنان مقامات صهیونیسم دارد تا ایران.اما نکته مهم آن است که گروه حماس و اعضای بلندپایه اش از اعلام این دست اخبار چه قصدی داشته و چه هدفی را دنبال می کنند."

translated:
"Statements made by such enemies who pose as our friends and their daily lives passes with the hard earned money of the Iranian people is more in tune with statements made by Zionist officials. The important question however is, what is the intention of Hamas and its high ranking officials from making such statements and what purpose do they pursuit?"

Well that is the result of not making a sound judgement on what is in our national interest!

KDPI Spokesman in US?

I was trying to write about something completely different, but googling for some references led me to this piece of trash post on Pajamas Media, which I had not come across before. Sometimes one is critical of other institutions and managements but it is important to go on the record and not let other unsavoury characters hijack one's arguments and opinions.

So here it is for the sake of going on the record and making it clear where I stand. I may disagree with lots of things in VOA Persian management and programs, but Sheila Ganji is 100% right when she says the lingua franca of Iran is Persian. As I have often said there is no Persian ethnic group, but Persian is the common language of the Iranian people, period.

Every paragraph in this twaddle post on Pajamas Media, contains several factual errors on par with a school boy's homework essay.

Shahriar Ahy, for example, is not an ultra-nationalist monarchist who despises the ethnic minorities!!! Ahy in fact has helped many Kurdish human rights activists and was instrumental in bringing together representatives of Iran's ethnic minorities in several conferences. Gatherings that I felt were a waste of time for entirely different reasons and thats another matter outside the scope of this post.


There are so many factual errors in the Pajamas Media post, I don't even know where to begin. For example, Ahy did not accompany Reza Pahlavi to the “Democracy and Security International Conference” that was held in Prague and in fact one of my criticism of VOA Persian has been not having provided due coverage for the event.

And just have a look at the last paragraph, just to make the school boy essay bulkier and contain a few more words, Ahi's name is mentioned once as Shahriar Ahy and again as Shahrir Ahi!

Hassan Zarezadeh Ardeshir mistyped as Sassan Zarezadeh Ardeshir, is included in a list of supposedly ultra nationalist Persian fascist monarchists. In fact Zarehzadeh Ardeshir is an Azeri himself. You could accuse him of many things but not of being an ultra nationalist monarchist!

Interestingly one of the previous VOA Persian program guests has been the Czech born widow of Abdolrahman Ghassemloo, the previous leader of the Kurdish Democratic Party of Iran, who was murdered by the Islamic Republic assassins in Vienna. Mrs. Ghassemloo spoke the lingua franca of the Iranian people beautifully and it was a very enjoyable program.

Finally let me tell you that since reading the article, I have talked to the KDPI office in Paris. Not only they were shocked at such accusations against the likes of Shahryar Ahi, they did not even know who Ali Ghaderi, who claims to be the KDPI spokesman in US, is!

Islamic Police Chief of Tehran Caught in Brothel

Iranian poet, Hafez, has a verse which can often describe those who overdisplay their piety on their sleeves. The verse loosely translated, as best as I can:

"The pious who display these gestures in the public
Once in their own privacy, do what they preach others not to"

Islamic Police Chief Commander Reza Zareii, responsible for last year's campaign against "thugs and hoodlums" and Hejab observance, was arrested after having been caught in middle of group sex with six prostitutes.


The women who were arrested alongside Police Chief Zareii said he had asked them to perform prayers while naked!

Police Chief Zareii was often referred to as the 'capable arm of the supreme leader'

Life in the Islamic Republic

This clip posted by Kamangir shows the infringement on personal liberties and unnecessary humiliation Iranians face on a daily basis. The boy has done nothing wrong other than to have a hair style that the authorities don't like. This sort of thing never gets reported by the correspondents but thanks to youtube, perhaps the "useful idiots" can now get a glimpse of what goes on in an Iran run by Ayatollahs.

Some More Pics from Osanloo Day

International Day for Osanloo

The International Day for Osanloo today surpassed all my expectations. Never in the last 28 years have I ever witnessed such an organised and truly international day of action for an Iranian dissident.

I bumped into Owen Tudor, TUC's international secretary, in the park cafe just outside the Islamic Republic embassy in London. He introduced me to two delegates from the Federations of Independent Trade Unions of Russia with 28 million members, who had come to London for the event. I was asking Evgeny Sidorov, the international secretary of the Federation, about the Soviet years and he was telling me how the union was operating in those years, when Owen interrupted us and showed me an email he received on his blackberry, "45000 leaflets were handed out for Osanloo in Japan, demonstration in support of Osanloo in Lahore, and even in Ethiopia...". I was pleasantly surprised at the extent of this day of action and I was glad to be a small part of it as I was glad to see members of CIS who had turned up to support the efforts of the international trade unions.

A red double decker bus with huge posters of Free Osanloo, kept driving past the participants and more importantly past the Embassy of the Islamic Republic. This is just what we should do, we should reach out to the world and mobilise the international public opinion in support of the pro-democracy movement in Iran.

It was an exceptional day, despite all the best efforts of well funded Islamic Republic apologists and promoters, the dissidents in Iran are not forgotten.

March 6th - Mansour Osanloo Day

A demonstration will be held outside the IR Embassy in London on March 6th from 12:30 to 13:30, while across the UK thousands of transport workers will be leafleting passengers in Birmingham, Bristol, Cardiff, Edinburgh, Leeds, Liverpool, London, Newcastle and other locations.

The Nationwide protests are in recognition that Osanloo is a prisoner of conscience in Iran for trying to organise an independent trade union.

A red double decker routemaster bus will be visiting London protest sites throughout the day. It will be at the embassy demonstration and will host a photo opportunity outside Portcullis House, Bridge Street, London SW1A (this event not yet confirmed, but planned to take place from 10:30 to 11:00), where union leaders and MPs (TBC) can be photographed next to it with the Houses of Parliament in the background.

The campaign is being supported by the TUC unions Aslef, GMB, RMT, TSSA, Unison and Unite, as well as Amnesty International, which has declared Osanloo a prisoner of conscience.

For more information, click on:

International Transport Workers' Federation

National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers

Protest at Amnesty International Hosting Tritta Parsi

Iranian ex-pats including ex-political prisoners in LA protested at Amnesty International hosting Tritta Parsi. The youtube clip below shows the reaction by Iranians when they were told only AI authorised camera is allowed to film the event.

I think the audience rightly protested that all cameras should be allowed to film the event so that the public know what was being said in the meeting. I really can not understand why AI (LA Branch) wanted to ban other cameras from filming? After all this was a public event and it does not make sense for AI to have sole rights on reporting what was said!!



Tritta Parsi has always refrained from criticising human rights abuses in the Islamic Republic saying that the NIAC's role is not about highlighting human rights abuses. So why then speak at an AI meeting?

Watch the Iranian woman in the film who is calling the protesters Israeli lackeys!
As we say in Persian, "what has Mr. Goodarzi got to do with Mrs. Shaghayegh" :)

The Destroyed Generation

"I am from the destroyed generation of the revolution, I always ask myself what happened that within a few months it was suddenly bad for me to ride a bicycle as a girl. I was thrown out of school for not wanting to wear a headscarf." Parvin Ardalan, Iranian dissident and campaigner said in an interview with the Sunday Telegraph.

Yet a typical argument made by Islamic Republic promoters is that "women in Iran unlike women in saudi Arabia can drive cars and do this and that".

The point is to compare the situation of the Iranian women before and after the revolution in Iran, and not with that of women in a different country.

For example, a quote from Imran Shafi:
"President Khatami appointed a woman as his Vice-President; in Saudi Arabia, women are not even allowed to drive, let alone participate in political life"

Imran Shafii is a Foreign Affairs Committee "Specialist" at House of Commons!

Aziz was Buried Today

Aziz was buried today in a cemetery in North London. So many of us come to this world and go without leaving a footprint, but Aziz was one of those who did leave a footprint.

I was glad that his burial was as he wanted it to be. His coffin was draped in the Iranian Sun and Lion flag. After his coffin was lowered to the ground, his family then poured some Iranian soil in his grave. I too had brought some Iranian soil with me, it was from the Gardens of Fin, where Iran's great secular Prime Minister, Amirkabir was murdered. It was my last contribution to a man whose judgement and insight, I trusted so much when it came to Iranian affairs.

Each person who could, then took turns with the shovel filling up the grave until Aziz's coffin was fully covered. Then came the many bouquets of flowers from family and friends, many of them in the green, white and red of the Iranian flag's tri-colours.

Once all the flowers were laid, a speech was made by a family friend celebrating the life of a courageous man who stood by his principles and helped anyone he could, without expecting any favours in return. A man who was praised by friend and foe for his honesty and loyalty.

When the speech was finished, we sang the Ey Iran anthem, and finished with the shouts of Payandeh Iran (Long Live Iran).

There was no religious ceremony, it was the way Aziz wanted it.

During the speech, my mind wondered off to all the memories I have of Aziz. His famous humourous one-liners and also his serious side. In the background I could hear his beloved daughter's cries "Baba, why aren't you answering me any more?" and I asked myself who will I turn to for advise now? Who will have Aziz's wealth of practical experience that I could trust as much, now that Aziz is silent?

As I walked away from his grave, I met with Aziz's daughter-in-law. Like most his family members, she thanked me for my previous post on Aziz and said "We were Aziz's relatives but you were his son from politics" and another friend of Aziz shook my hand and said "Aziz was so proud of you, he told me once, see that Potkin, he is one good demonstration why Iran will never die" I was so touched by those comments, I nearly lost my composure and quickly walked away.

Aziz was one of those few older generation Iranians who did not try to hinder the younger activists and instead whenever he could, he would promote them and give guidance. He loved being amongst the younger generation and his footprints will be visible for many years to come.

Aziz's Funeral Tomorrow

Azizollah Esnaashari's funeral will be held tomorrow, 27th Feb - 10 am, at:

Hendon Cemetery
Holders Hill Road
NW7 1NB

My Two Seconds Worth on ListeningPost

I appear for only two seconds. As you can imagine, I said a lot more about Gunaz TV and all that separatist nonsense:



I showed Simon Ostrovsky, the presenter of the program, my post on Gunaz TV, and his strange remark was, "very divisive!" whatever that means?!

But perhaps he answers the likes of Ahmad Obali and Sabri Tabrizi by showing that Aliev's realm is no utopia for Iranians to embrace by any means.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_QkXemnUAe8

Aryashahr Residents Shout 'Islamic Government we Don't Want'

Around 200 Aryashahr residents in Tehran reacted angrily, after a girl who was stopped by the Islamic Guidance units for inappropriate Hejab, resisted arrest. The Guidance units started beating up the young girl when she started resisting arrest and their brutality stirred the crowds who came to the girl's rescue.

Islamic Guidance units, faced with angry protests, drove away from the scene in a hurry, forgetting to take one of their colleagues, who was duly set on by the angry protesters. As the crowds got bigger and bigger, they started shouting "Islamic Government, We don't want, we don't want" which can be clearly heard on the youtube clip.

Watch the people spontaneously shout "Islamic Government, We don't want, we don't want"
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=8jGhsaJdyQU

Azizollah Esnaashari Died this Morning

Azizollah Esnaashari, the man who introduced me to Dr. Bakhtiar, died this morning in Ealing hospital. He was my political mentor in many ways and one of the few of the old generation who stood up to the Ayatollahs' take over of Iran.

Esnaashari lost his father at the age of 10, being the eldest son and in order to support his family, he started working in Isfahan's tea houses. Years later by hard work, he managed to save enough money to buy the tea house he worked in. During the oil nationalisation years, his tea house became a debating place for different political groups and he took an active part in the protests that led to the nationalisation of Iranian oil industry.

After the events of 1953, Esnaashari became a successful businessman, and because he was trusted in Isfahan's business community, he was forced the unwanted task of courier for the religious levies paid to the Shiite Ayatollahs by the Bazaari merchants in Isfahan. This also meant he had to travel to Iraq several times and hand over the payments to the likes of Ayatollah Khoeii and also Ayatollah Khomeini.

Here he saw at first hand the hypocrisy of the Ayatollahs and despite his religious upringing, became totally disenchanted with organised religion.

During the mass frenzy of 1979, Esnaashari opposed the religious leadership of the revolution and stood by his long time friends and secular dissidents to the Shah, Dr. Bakhtiar and Dr. Boroumand, and joined them in the National Movement of Iranian Resistance led by Dr. Bakhtiar.

Esnaashari, is the only one ever reported to have stood up and opposed Ayatollah Khomeini to his face.

Both Dr. Boroumand and shortly afterwards, Dr. Bakhtiar were assassinated in 1991 in Paris by the agents of Hashemi Rafsanjani and with the collusion of the Miterand government.

Esnaashari however remained loyal to his friends and to his principles and opposed the Islamic Republic until the last day of his life.

I will remember many of his qualities, his courage, his loyalty in friendship, his honesty, his dislike of ideologies, his tolerance of different opinions and his sharp Isfahani humour.

My fondest memories of him will be when I used to go to his house in Ealing. Often his house would be full with different people and passionate political debates would take place. I will remember how he waited and listened until the other side finished their arguments and he would then start with
"I am not an intellectual like you lot, I am just a tea boy, I had to leave school and work from the age of 10, but..." and with that 'but' he would continue to demolish the shaky arguments of the academics and the intellectuals and those who know politics only through reading books.

I am proud to say that my political mentor was a tea boy who never finished school but he knew his country and his people better than the Iranian intellectuals of the previous generation.

Farewell Aziz, thanks for all you taught me. Sorry you couldn't be buried in Iran.

They are Safe at Last

Remember the 5 Iranian dissident refugees who were beaten savagely by the Turkish police in the border town of Van and then dropped at the border with the Iraqi Kurdistan?

At last they are safe and finally been given asylum by a democratic European government. Arya (Abolfazl) Ajorloo, Ali (Mahan) Alemzadeh, Mojtaba Vatanpoor, Alireza Ranjbar and Pejman Piran's long years of suffering in the Turkish border town of Van and their almost daily ill treatment by the corrupt Turkish authorities has finally come to an end.

I wish them all good fortune in their new homelands and hope they will be good citizens who will positively contribute to their new host countries and communities.

My sincere thanks to our friends in the Kurdish Democratic Party of Iran for the kind and generous hospitality they showed the five during their stay in Irbil.

Arch Idiot of Canterbury

What a monstrous idiot this Dr. Williams is? He reminds me so much of Seyyed Hossein Nasr type advisers during the Shah's reign and how they constantly tried to appease the Islamists.
An example to let you know what I am talking about was when more than 400 innocent people, women, children and whole families were charred to death, when the Islamists set the cinema Rex on fire in Abadan.

Rather than bringing the culprits to a public trial and ceasing the opportunity to show the country the indiscriminate savagery and cruelty of the Islamists, the Shah's imperial advisers were more keen on not rocking the boat in case they upset the Islamists and the regime lost the chance of negotiation with them!

Dr. Williams's remarks resonates the same recollections in me of posturing gestures by spineless officials who inch by inch gave more grounds to the radical Islamists.
In their naive innocent goody goody minds they think they are "avoiding conflict in the interest of harmony", but in fact what they are doing is giving ammunition to the extremists who then say to the faithful, look how much we have achieved, look at how much they are conceding, its our strength that is making them retreat and thus making the extremists even more popular.

IRI Event at SOAS is Cancelled

My previous post on the Embassy of the Islamic Republic of Iran, hiring SOAS university facilities to celebrate the 29th victory of the Islamic Revolution, got some worthwhile publicity.
Iranvajahan, Harry's Blog and the Spectator all picked up on it. Soon the whole thing snowballed into a spontaneous protest by Iranians and non-Iranians. Decent people who could not remain silent for a British university to let its facilities be used as a platform for the very same regime that imprisons students and academics in Iran, protested using sound reasoning and rational arguments.

While we were planning to turn up to the event and hold posters of the latest detained students in front of the Embassy delegates during the event, emails started reaching me that the event has been cancelled.

The email read,
"I write on behalf of Professor Paul Webley, Director and Principal of the School of Oriental and African Studies. Thank you for your email expressing concern over this week’s scheduled event.
I would like to inform you that the event has been cancelled on procedural grounds.
Please contact me with any further questions"

Which was also posted on Harry's Place. Yet I was still not convinced, for I was also getting reports that the event is still shown scheduled and unaltered on the Embassy's website. People who rang the embassy to enquire were also told the event was to go ahead as planned.

In the back of my mind, I was suspicious that perhaps this was the administration's plot to keep us away from the event. For this reason I did not want to say anything until I turned up at SOAS myself and saw with my own eyes that there is no Embassy event at SOAS. My main difficulty was to decide what to tell those who were planning to come from outside London.

Well tonight I can confirm that the celeberation of the 29th anniversary of the victory of the Islamic revolution in Iran is not held at SOAS. When we turned up outside the Brunei gallery, some dipstick holding the poster upside down told us that the event had changed to the Imperial Hotel in Holborn. He was reluctant to say he worked for the embassy at first until his position changed to "I am sort of connected to the embassy but I do cultural work only". We told him it cannot be pleasant to work for an unpopular regime that represses its people, and again he said "But I only do cultural work"

I was told there were eight people in total who had turned up for the new venue at the Imperial hotel, which was soon reduced to five. The three artists Ali Nassirian, Hossen Yari and Golshifteh Farahani who had sold out their principles to promote the religious dictatorship in Iran must have felt so humiliated standing in front of an audience of just handful of embassy employees. A bitter experience for all artists who sell out and let their talents be exploited by repressive states.

The most difficult task now however is to convince the impotent Iranian media, that this is news worth reporting. It will hearten the combatants inside Iran and it will show them that any human rights abuse by the regime inside Iran can cost the regime outside of Iran.

My sincere respect for all those who did not remain silent and reminded a British university that while there are detained students in Iran and while there is "intellectual cleansing" going on in Iran's universities, there shall be no comfort zone for the Islamic Republic in an academic establishment outside Iran.

From SOAS we had to dash to the Listening Post studios who make programs for the Aljazeera English TV. They were doing a piece on Azeri ethnic issues in Iran, we did our bit to make sure there will be a voice against any separatist claptrap and that Azerabadegan was, is and will be an integral part of Iran. We shall see how much will be edited and included.

IRI Uses SOAS as a Propaganda Platform Again

Last year the SOAS Administration claimed they were unknowingly duped by the Islamic Republic embassy in London, who used the university facilities as a platform for their propaganda and disinformation, by holding a "symposium" as a pretext for an official celebration of the Islamic Revolution in a British university.

Well if you could give the SOAS Administration the benefit of the doubt last year, a repeat of the same "symposium" makes it impossible and cretinous to do so this year. For once again, an invitation by the Cultural Centre of the Embassy of the I.R. of Iran, accompanied by a poster with the heading "In Praise of the 29th Anniversary of the Victory of the Islamic Revolution", has been sent out to embassy staff and associates for a 3 day event, 6-8th February at the Brunei Gallery, SOAS, with the usual reception starting at 6:30 pm.

At a time when only recently, 43 Iranian students, across Iranian universities, have either been arrested or abducted by the Islamic Republic agents, it is a travesty of common decency and human values for the SOAS university to allow this cultural facade by the Islamic Republic to be held in a British university.

I shall be ringing SOAS on Monday to make sure they are aware that the Islamic Republic embassy is behind this "symposium". If so, I believe the (ab)use of university facilities for a foreign embassy's propaganda activities is in fact illegal as I was told by the SOAS administration last year.

The event will be attended by three turncoat Iranian actors who have continously served and praised the Islamic Republic, but in no way do they represent the decent mainstream Iranian artists who only recently, during the Fajr film festival, protested at even more increasing government control and censorship by Ahmadi-Nejad's government.

For further information to enquire as to why a British university is allowing its facilities to be used by representatives of a religious dictatorship that has for three decades repressed students, academics and artists in Iran, refer to the following:

SOAS Principal Paul Webley:

email: pw2@soas.ac.uk
Tel 0207 898 4014
Fax 0207 898 4019

SOAS Conference Office:
020 7898 4918