'Evin Becomes University, University becomes cemetery'

More than 500 Amirkabir university students took part in a protest against further burial of martyrs in the university campus by the government.

The tensions over the issue of burial of martyrs in the university last week has already led to 4 students being arrested and twenty being barred from entering the university grounds by the authorities. The arrested students are Hossein Tarkashvand, Majid Tavakoli, Ismail Salmanpour and Kourosh Daneshyar.

Students held placards which read:

'Evin Becomes University, University becomes cemetery'
'Pretend to praise the dead martyrs in universities, while the war veterans set themselves on fire'
'Dictator of our times, martyrs have become an excuse for you'

Several students have been called up to appear before the disciplinary committees and earlier this week, the intelligence ministry contacted families of several leading student activists and threatened them if they took part in any protests leading up to the burials.

Another War Veteran sets Himself on Fire

Only a few days after a war veteran set himself on fire in front of the Islamic Assembly, Iranian daily, Asre Iran , reports of another war veteran by the name of Hojjatollah Farzad, who carried out a similar action, this time in front of the Martyr Foundation and Veterans Affairs building.

He was taken to the Mottahari hospital after the incident but died as a result of his extensive injuries.
Farzad suffered from lung and kidney problems ever since he was exposed to the Iraqi chemical attacks on Iranian troops.

Meanwhile today, the Islamic regime buried the bodies of another four martyrs in Amirkabir university amidst protests by the students, who claimed the action was a politically motivated propaganda stunt by the regime.

Iran Documentaries on BBC

There were three Iran related documentaries on BBC last night. The third one, "Prostitution Behind the Veil", I couldn't watch the documentary to the end. I died a thousand times over when I was watching it. What has happened to our Iran?

Truth and Justice Blog

It gives me much pleasure to announce a new blog started by my loyal friend, Mehrtash Rastegar.

Mehrtash is a lawyer by training and he is also a national submission wrestling champion. Its nice to see that as one gets older, new blood is there to take over.

Another War Veteran sets Fire to Himself

Of all the things which upset me most, seeing mistreatment of war veterans must be right on the top of the list.

According to the Islamic Republic's Islamic Assembley website, the war veteran seen in this picture set himself alight outside the Majlis building earlier today, after his Majlis representative repeatedly refused to see him.

The website did not even say what the war veteran's name was, because of the extents of his injuries he is not expected to live.

A son of Iran who risked it all to defend against the aggression of Saddam's forces, could no longer put up with the officials who benefited from his courage and sacrifice.
تفو بر تو اي چرخ گردون تفو

Farhang Jahanpour, another Very Confused Academic

I just managed to get to the last session of a seminar on broadcasting to Iran, organised by the Next Century Foundation. The four panelists included former Iranian diplomat Mehrdad Khonsari, Foreign Office Spokesman Barry Marston, Journalist Nazanin Ansari and Oxford academic, Farhang Jahanpour.

I had never heard of Farhang Jahanpour before, but it wasn't long before he got into the meat of his speech that 'I got hold of the telephone receiver- gooshi dastam oomad', as we say in Persian, meaning I understood where he was coming from. Later when I got home and googled his name, sure enough it confirmed my radar for these kind of people is still well and truly tuned in. Amongst many pages that came back by the search engine, just being amongst the supporters of Iranians for Peace, a CASMII type sister organisation, was enough to confirm my trusted gut feelings.

Jahanpour started by saying how the 1979 Islamic revolution was so unpredictable for him and how he himself was surprised to be targeted by the militant students at the time as being an 'agent of Zionism'. In other words he was just as out of touch even then when he was in the middle of it all not to see the writing on the wall.

Then shortly after, the familiar script used by these people followed which starts off by talking about the greatness of Iran, the achievements of Iran in the past, the educated and cultured people of Iran etc. which no one can argue with but then suddenly while everyone's guard is lowered, discreetly equate all that with the current Iranian regime.

'When you impose sanctions and you talk about carrot and stick, the Iranian people equate carrots and stick to being called a donkey'. What? So what happened to those educated and clever Iranian population? Surely they can distinguish between what is aimed at the regime and what is aimed at the people, or is it just his ilk who constantly try to blur the two distinct entities of Islamic Republic and Iran?

'If you keep threatening to invade Iran for three decades, the Iranian people will stand up to you. Its time the West accepted the Islamic revolution as a fact.'
What? Who has threatened to invade Iran? All US administrations since the Islamic revolution have gone over board to appease the Islamic Republic. High ranking US offcials referred to Khomeini a saint or as Iran's Gandhi, Madelene Albright apologised to the regime about the 1953 coup as if the clerics were the victims of the coup, even Bush's administration only talked about changing the behaviour of the Iranian regime - by using a website! - and not regime change! After 9/11 Jack Straw telephoned Khatami and referred to the Islamic Republic as UK's partner in the war against terror! Even Israel sold much needed arms to the Islamic Republic during the Iran-Contra affair. So who exactly is talking of invading Iran apart from the Islamic regime which is only using it as a pretext to crack down on freedom in Iran and regime apologists who use the threat of invasion to excuse their unwillingness to criticise the Islamic regime as well as the Leftist professional revolutionaries in the West who like using it as an excuse for a demo and a march? Who in Iran is worried about an imminent attack? Nobody!
The fact is Iranians are still pouring into Tehran to live there, they are not running away from there to safer places because they think someone is about to invade. More are worried and more are dying as a result of Tehran air pollution and road accidents than any anxiety about an invasion.

'Iranians look at nuclear power as a source of pride and greatness'
What? Where has this academic been? How many more placards must the protesting workers, teachers, women and students hold which mock the official regime slogan 'Nuclear energy is our inalienable right' for him to realise Iranians want much more basic needs as their inalienable rights.

Are Jahanpour type academics simply confused or is their perception of reality simply a page in the book in their library? The sad thing is they pose themselves as 'Iran experts' and seem to influence the policy makers, yet they have no contact with the people in Iran, their world of reality is the four walls of their library.

After the conference ended, Jahanpour approached me and politely shook hands with me, saying 'I am a victim of this regime, I lost everything after the revolution'. To which I replied, 'So what? lots of people like you have become turncoats just to get back what they lost. ' I wish I knew at the time that Jahanpour was with the CASMII sister organisation, 'Iranians for Peace', so I could have given him another one of his co-members, Dr. Akbar Etemad as a vivid example.

Pictures that the Correpsondents did not Broadcast

Thank God for blogs, for if we had to rely on Western Mass Media correspondents, we would never know about what goes on behind the official images.

See pictures that the 'Correspondents' did not report from the 30th anniversary rallies of the Islamic Revolution. Street peddlers using the opportunity to sell their goods and of course the free food parcel handouts which always ensures the dispossessed remain dispossessed but turn up at these rallies.
See more:
Ghorresh Blog

and this one shows foreign students in Tehran who have been made to march. Most Iranian girls showing this much hair and this much make up would normally be arrested by the morality police, but on this occasion whatever bolsters the rent a crowd numbers goes!

30 Years After the Islamic Revolution in Iran

MKO Revolutionaries Guard the Barricades 30 Years ago

'I will give you spirituality, no one shall remain homeless in this country, the dispossessed will have free telephone, heating, electricity, bus services and free oil at their doorstep..'
Ayatollah Khomeini's Promises 30 Years Ago at Behesht Zahra Cemetery.

Thirty years on, the reality is very different from those promises made by Ayatollah Khomeini. Not only Iranians didn't get free telephone, heating, electricity and bus services, but the standard of living for Iranians compared to the other oil producing countries in the region drastically deteriorated.

Soon after the mass executions of the former regime officials, the revolution started devouring its own children. One by one former supporters of the revolution which were no longer required were eliminated. The MeK, seen in the above picture guarding the barricades to the Prime Minister's Palace, the Communists, the remnants of Mossadegh supporters in the National Front, the more liberal Islamists and right up to even those amongst the Shiite clergy who did not want to toe the line, one by one fell victim of the revolutionary elimination process.

The result of all this elimination is in tens of thousands of Iranian lives with its climax in 1988 when thousands of political prisoners, who had survived earlier bloodbaths, were massacred.

The emasculation of the powerful Iranian army after the revolution, which up till then had stopped Saddam Hussein's every aggression on the Iranian soil, emboldened the Ba'athist regime to invade Iran. Over a million Iranians were killed and maimed in an eight year war that was unnecessarily prolonged with no tangible gains for either side.

Millions of Iranians who could not tolerate the new repressive Islamic measures left the country which resulted in the biggest exodus from Iran ever since the Arab invasion thirteen centuries ago and the brain drain continues today.

Not only no spirituality was gained but the country has suffered a rapid moral decline. Government's own figures show an alarming rise in prostitution, drug addiction and crime. At one point the school children were even asked in their classrooms to snitch on their parents and friends if they seemed to deviate from the revolutionary guidelines.

Not only the political freedoms we seeked did not come about, even our personal freedoms were taken away. We were told what to wear, what to drink, what to eat, what to listen to and what to enjoy and what not to enjoy.

Iranian instinct for survival and resourcefulness however has fought back. Bit by bit Iranian women have fought for their rights and the restoration of the rights they had before the revolution. Their resistance has meant that the Ayatollahs have been unable to push Iranian women to the status of Saudi women.

The young, the students and the intelligentsia have seen the errors of the past generations, they no longer think the same as their previous generation. Technology makes them even more aware of what they are missing and how their counterparts enjoy life and freedom in the rest of the world.

The workers, the teachers and the dispossessed are no longer swallowing the false promises and waiting for free goodies to be delivered, they are demanding their rights and their leaders remain defiant in jail.

After thirty years of elimination and brainwashing to destroy the Iranian identity and our joyous culture, the struggle continues. Our country has seen even worse and more savage invaders than these and has survived. This dark era will just be a storm in the tea cup in the Iranian history.

There are many things which are hindering the Iranian nation however, whereas thirty years ago it was the Iranian Left who helped the Ayatollahs to take over the power, now it is the international Left which is helping the clerics remain in power, the 'useful idiots' and the spineless Western leaders who see no further than their short term interests, the proxy terror groups in the region and the unscrupulous turncoats are all desperately hand in hand trying to keep this antiquated regime on its life support but it will be all in vain. Iran will survive and Iran will come through victorious as it has throughout the past.

Vali Nasr to advise Holbrooke and Obama?

I was trying to catch up with the news on Iran today after being away for a week and I sincerely hope this news I came across is not true:
Foreign Policy Cable

It suggests that Vali Nasr is to advise U.S. Afghanistan/Pakistan envoy Amb. Richard Holbrooke and I also heard today that Vali Nasr has been asked to advise Obama on Iran!

Not surprisingly I see the name of Laura Rozen as a tag to the article who seems well pleased about the appointment of such an "Iran expert". If all this is true, it spells a big disaster, it means the Islamic Republic has got its foot right inside the White House! I wanted to leave a comment at the end of the article but others seem to have done it before me.

Your Daughter is not Fit to be a Doctor in this Country

Dr. Zahra Bani-Yaghoub was a graduate of school for gifted children. She had obtained the impressive 23rd position in the overall national exam entrance into the Iranian universities. She was also a graduate of Tehran Medical university.

After graduation, rather than taking up a high salary job, she had volunteered to work in the impoverished poor provinces of Iranian Kurdistan.

Zahra came from a religious family background and her father was imprisoned during the Shah for political activities, but none of this protected her from the terrible fate that was awaiting her in the Islamic Republic.

The 27 year old Zahra was arrested while walking in a Park in Hamedan along with her fiancee by the Islamic Republic's religious observance patrol. The next day, her father was called and told to come to Hamedan. Her father asked to speak to his daughter but permission was refused.

When Zahra's parents arrived at the religious patrol headquarters, they were subjected to humiliating insults. The illiterate thugs told Zahra's father, 'Your daughter is not fit to be a doctor in this country'.

Another religious patrol officer told Zahra's father while laughing, 'If you want to know about your daughter, go to the police station, no better still go to court and no even better still go to the coroner'.

Somehow Zahra while being detained for walking with her fiancee in the park had been killed in custody of the religious patrol. More than a year later, Zahra's family who took part in the revolution still have no idea what happened to their daughter. They were even threatened not to pursuit her case.

In just about any other country, Zahra would be regarded as an asset, she would be protected and rewarded. In the Islamic Republic of Iran an illiterate religious police thug can decide and tell her father 'Your daughter is not fit to be a doctor for this country'

بدرود پدر

همواره ميگفتي نيرومند باشم و سستي از خود نشان ندهم ولي نميدانستم بي تو اينچنين دشوار باشد
...

Khavaran Cemetery Must be Preserved

According to Amnesty International, between 4500 to 10000 Iranian political prisoners were massacred in 1988 over a period of just two months. The relatives of the victims were not allowed to have the bodies of their loved ones or hold a funeral, instead the bodies were taken in meat trucks and dumped in places like Khavaran or what the regime referred to as La'nat-Abad [The Damned Place], a cemetery used for burying non-Muslims.

The mass burial at Khavaran was only accidentally discovered by an Armenian priest who had become curious as to why stray dogs kept digging there for bones.

Although the useful idiots across the West, who are always ready to march in support of terrorists and brutal dictators, thought the massacre was not worthy of a protest, even the successor to Ayatollah Khomeini at the time, Ayatollah Montazeri, could not stay silent and wrote a protest letter, which promptly resulted in his removal from the position of successor to the Supreme Leader.

Now, twenty years later, the Islamic Republic can not tolerate families of those victims who come to Khavaran to console their sorrow. Mothers and fathers, brother and sisters, sons and daughters who just hold pictures of their loved ones and plant trees and flowers to say we have not forgotten our victims. But thats too much for the Islamic Republic authorities, they want to demolish Khavaran altogether.

Imagine, if the Israelis decided to mass execute the Palestinian prisoners they hold, 5000 to 10000 prisoners over two months, then dumped their bodies in meat trucks and buried them somewhere unknown. What would be the international outcry? Somehow the Iranian blood does not stir the same emotions and the pain of Iranian mothers and children does not count for much with these 'progressive peace activists'.

BBC Persian TV

Its nearly a week since BBC Persian TV started its broadcasting. Apparently its the talk of the town in Tehran and everyone is asking 'Did you watch BBC TV last night?' from one another. The truth is that the Islamic Republic state TV is so boring, bland and overtly indoctrinating and evangelist (State Shiite evangelism that is) that any half professional run TV will be different and amusing to watch for the Iranians inside Iran. How long the novelty will last, is another matter however.

My initial reaction to BBC Persian TV broadcasting was that at last VOA Persian will have some level pegging competition other than the state run TV in Iran. At last the VOA Persian program makers and editors will have to stay on their toes and no longer be able to make decisions based on their personal envies and preferences as to who can be invited or otherwise on their nauseating talk shows and interviews.

The Islamic Republic state reaction to BBC Persian TV has been anger and fear along with accusations of espionage and a plot to bring about a velvet revolution, or soft overthrow, as they call it. Sort of thing one would expect from the Iranian government, for they seem to be scared of everything including their own shadow as we say in Persian when we want to describe a paranoid person.

So how has the BBC TV been so far? I haven't had much time to watch the programs but from what I have watched, my first impression was that at least the BBC is making original television programs. I have often said VOA Persian TV is not TV but another radio station. They have no programs other than news and interviews and some irrelevant copy/paste programs from other sources.
BBC on the other hand has some fresh original ideas that can be classed as TV programs and not just news and interviews. As for the 'soft overthrow' that the Iranian regime is worried about, I just fail to see any signs of it. I watched a reconstruction of water boarding torture used in Guantanamo prisons, the devastation of Gaza by the Israelis, more grave news about the financial crisis in US and Britain, and so on. Just the sort of thing the Iranian state TV wants to show to the Iranian public but in a less evangelist way and with better looking presenters, and since the BBC is also hosting the likes of pro-Rafsanjanis liars like Massoud Behnoud, I can safely advise the Iranian government that they should have no worries at all. The UK government on the other hand should have a lot more to fear from PRESS TV and the messages it is sending to the English speaking Muslims, that's for sure!

When the Police Run Away

What do you do when even the police run away? Watch this video:



From what I can work out from the footage, it looks like the militant Islamists chase the British police, from the Haymarket all the way to Green Park. Watch the silly Leftist girl without a scarf, she thinks because she is wearing a bright vest, she is the steward and the Muslim militants will listen to her, little does the useful idiot know that she is just another Kaffir to them.

Soon at this rate, it won't just be the police who will be on the run, those Leftists who went along these marches with the Islamic militants, the spineless politicians who constantly appease them, the academics who host them and glorify them in the UK universities, the journalists who always take up their cause and the churchmen who want Sharia in UK will also be on the run and it will be too late for them to realise what dimwits they have been.

The Human Spirit in Hospital

I was visiting in hospital until the early hours of the morning. There was a Jewish doctor wearing a couple as well as a heavily bearded Muslim doctor on duty in the ward. It struck me how amidst all that calamity and misery you would expect from a hospital ward, how ideal some other things were.

The two doctors got on well with each other and despite their obvious religious affiliations there were no religion related issues. They just pulled their sleeves and helped patients regardless of their race or creed. I won't go as far as the words in John Lennon's song, 'imagine'. I can never imagine a world without a religion. There will always be many people who find comfort in spiritualism and until there is death, there will be religion for some people and many will feel more comfortable with a particular set of customs and life style, but wouldn't it be nice to imagine a world where no one tried to convert another person, or discriminate or hate another person or conquer others because of their religion and there was no hidden agendas other than the pleasant human spirit which let people live their life and choose for themselves for how they want to worship or not worship. Imagine that!

'Death to Peace Lovers'

In a previous post I wrote admiringly about the democracy in Israel which allows Israeli Arabs and Israeli Jews to demonstrate peacefully against Israel's current offensive in Gaza and asked the question, imagine what would happen if a demonstration against Hamas took place in Iran? Little did I know that what I should have also asked was imagine if a non-government sanctioned demonstration happened in the Islamic Republic, even if it was against the Israeli offensive!!!

For today 'Mothers of Iran for Peace' gathered in Palestine Square in Tehran at 11:00 am. Their objective was to demonstrate against the Israeli offensive in Gaza and express sympathy with the women and children of Gaza. The gathering however was immediately broken up by the regime's thugs who were shouting 'Allah Akbar, Khamenei Rahbar!' and more revealingly 'Death to Peace Lovers!'. The thugs attacked the women which included Iran's renowned poetess, Simin Behbahani. Clearly demonstrating the Iranian regime can not tolerate any unofficial gathering.

Does that leave any doubt in any sane person's mind what the Hamas and more importantly their financial backer, Islamic Republic of Iran's objective in Gaza is?!!

Useful Idiots, stop being pawns of Hamas and the Iranian regime, understand what the Hamas and Islamic Republic's agenda in Gaza is. You have everything to lose if you don't wake up soon.

Raising 'Awareness'

This weekend London was once a again the scene of Gaza related demonstrations. On Saturday morning, Islamic Republic funded Press TV, almost entirely committed all its airtime to churn out the crowds in UK and Europe to demonstrate for Gaza by continuously showing pictures of dead and injured children. It was pure moral blackmail. The message was clear, if you did not join the demos later outside the Israeli embassy in Kensington, you had the blood of the Gaza children on your hands.

It was not just moral blackmail however, former British Intelligence officer, Annie Machon was on Press TV to tell the UK Muslims how hard done they were and how much they were discriminated against, just to get the Muslim blood boiling further.

Curious as to why some British citizens would turn out to support Hamas and how much they know about Hamas, I tried to talk to as many people as I could on the demo route in the short time I had on Saturday. To my first question, 'why are you joining this demo today?', probably 9 out of 10 people I talked to, straight away replied with the cliche answer, 'I want to raise awareness about Gaza!'. Yet when I had a chance to hold a dialogue with them, it soon became apparent that they themselves needed some serious awareness about what is going on in Gaza, what Hamas is all about and the Middle East in general.

None of the people in the demo I spoke to knew anything about Hamas's support for Saddam Hussein for example and that Hamas had declared three days of mourning after the Iraqi dictator was executed. Not one knew about the Iran-Contra affair, when Islamic Republic purchased weapons from Israel or when I asked them about the 'Black September', none of the young ones knew anything about how several thousand Palestinians were killed by the previous Jordanian King. I asked some who were older, why they had not taken to the streets when hundreds of thousands of Chechens were murdered, thousands more had become refugees and their entire cities were flattened into the ground by Putin's air force, and they didn't seem to have an answer, occupation of Chechnya and the massacre of Chechnyan Muslims was Russia's God given right it seemed.

I heard afterwards that some of the demonstrators had then attacked some of the shops and businesses in Kensington, including smashing the windows of a Starbucks Coffee shop, terrifying innocent bystanders and children, I suppose smashing shop windows was presumably to 'raise awareness' too!

Probably 6 out of 10 people I spoke to said their knowledge of Gaza was from watching the news on BBC television alone. Those of us who follow Iran news will know how badly informed BBC news coverage can be and talking of television coverage, I just didn't get to talk to anyone long enough to ask them what they thought about the Hamas TV, Al-Aqsa's porn blooper, when apparently a Hamas TV station technician who was bored with broadcasting the Gaza images on 7th Jan went on a Polish porn channel for 6 minutes before realising that it was all being broadcast live on Al-Aqsa TV :))

See: http://www.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/story/0,22049,24891122-5012895,00.html

Death to Everyone

This is such a classic and it reminds me so much of the illiterate thugs that raided the universities in Iran during the 'cultural revolution'.

In this clip, the mob leader with the tannoy shouting the slogans, warms up the flock with the usual 'Death to Israel' and 'Death to America' to begin with but then his zeal takes over his brain cells and he shouts 'Death to Palestine'. Few of the mob twig on and start laughing but the rest simply repeat the leader and shout accordingly 'Death to Palestine'.

Absolute classic :))

The Real Strength of Israel

Israel's strength is not just its air superiority or its sophisticated weaponry or its well trained army, Israel's real strength is its democracy.

This is a picture of Israelis Jews and Israeli Arabs, demonstrating against the Gaza war. This is why we want democracy for Iran, it will make us truly strong.

Be fair, what would happen if a demonstration against Hamas took place in Iran? What would happen to those who took part in the demo?

Imagine if Jews living in an Arab country demonstrated in favour of Israel's actions to stop Hamas rockets. Imagine if a small group of Gaza residents demonstrated against Hamas and asked Hamas to negotiate with Israel, what would happen to them?

Attack on Shirin Ebadi's House

The 61 year old Iranian lawyer and Noble Peace prize winner suffered another attack on her home after her offices were shut down by the Iranian authorities. More than 150 Baseejis demonstrated outside her house accusing her of siding with the Zionists! Demonstrators shouted 'Israel commits crimes, Ebadi Supports Zionists' and sprayed her house with graffiti.

Shirin Ebadi says the police were just watching and not dispersing the demonstrators while they were damaging her house and she is now scared to go back to her house.

It is mind boggling how these organised thugs could accuse her of being a Zionist. As soon as Ebadi won her Noble Peace prize, she described the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as an unjust war between those with sticks and those with advanced sophisticated weapons. So much so that most Iranian dissidents accused her of taking up the Palestinian cause more than that of the Iranian people. As soon as the current conflict started Ebadi's office condemned the state of Israel.

Neither BBC television nor the Islamic Republic Press TV reported these attacks and intimidations, yet such attacks clearly demonstrate how the Islamic Republic is using the current conflict between Hamas and Israel for its own political gains.

Those 'useful idiots' in the West who have been demonstrating 'in support of Gaza' have no idea how they are being manipulated for the political games of the Iranian regime.