Posted on 07/17/2005 6:29:04 PM PDT by DoctorZIn
Top News Story
Iran police chief authorises use of bullets
Sat. 17 Jul 2005
Iran Focus
Tehran, Iran, Jul. 16 – Iran’s new police chief today called on the forces under his command to deal “decisively with criminals” and use live bullets if necessary.
“When a policeman is sent on a mission, his mind must be focused entirely on getting the job done”, Brigadier General Ismail Ahmadi Moghaddam said in the first flag-raising ceremony he attended after moving to his new command last week. “Using bullets is not the first way of dealing with criminals, but sometimes it is inevitable. If it becomes necessary, policemen must act in this way”.
Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s appointment of Ahmadi Moghaddam, a veteran paramilitary commander with a reputation for ruthlessness, was widely regarded as a move to place the law enforcement forces under the control of the Revolutionary Guards.
Reporters in Tehran said they saw Ahmadi Moghaddam outside Tehran University last Tuesday when State Security Forces charged at anti-government demonstrators. Dozens of peaceful protestors were injured or arrested.
In less than a week since Ahmadi Moghaddam has taken over as police chief, SSF agents have used excessive force in dealing with demonstrators in Tehran, Mahabad (northwest Iran), and Mashad (northeast Iran).
- Islamic Republic News Agency reported that the EU3 will present its comprehensive package to Iran in August. But the next round of EU-Iran human rights dialogue is foreseen for September.
- Tehran Times reported that UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, in Tehran said terrorism does not emanate from any particular religion or ideology and we all must agree how to define it and adopt a comprehensive convention outlawing it. Still no comment on Ganji.
- Iran Focus reported that a senior paramilitary police commander was killedlast night in the course of clashes between anti-government demonstrators and security forces in Iran’s Kurdish town of Mahabad.
- Iran Focus reported that Iran’s security forces have arrested dozens of Kurds in the town of Bukan, northwest Iran, in clashes that have been going on for three days.
- Iran Focus reported that an Iranian man arrested for taking part in an anti-government demonstration in Tehran on Tuesday died as he was trying to escape.
- Saul Singer, The Jerusalem Post lamented that Bush has yet to publicly meet with a single Iranian dissident or declare that regime change in Tehran is a goal of the US government.
- IranMania reported that Iran's hard-line poll watchdog insisted that the outcome of last month's presidential election was final saying, There is no reason for a recount.
- Reuters reported that Iran on Sunday accused U.S. and Israeli agents of tricking Iranian nuclear scientists abroad into giving away crucial information.
- Iranian blogger, Shahram Kholdi, S'CAN-IRANIC produced a Wanted poster for Saeed Mortazavi, the infamous Tehran Prosecutor.
- Michael Ignatieff, The New York Times said, The political task ahead for the liberal thinkers of Iran is to find a program that links human rights and democracy to the poor's economic grievances. I responded.
- Victor Davis Hanson, National Review said, Ever since September 11, there has been an alternative narrative about this war embraced by the Left. In this mythology, the attack on September 11 had in some vague way something to do with American culpability.
- Iranian blogger, Farah Karimi, Roozonline reported that a seminar in Berlin on the situation in Iran after the recent presidential elections in which some progressive thinkers proposed that regardless of who governs Iran, nuclear weapons are necessary for Iran’s national security.
- And finally, an Iranian blogger, Farideh Nicknazar, Iran Scan writing about Ganji, asked Why can‘t the student have sit-ins in front of Evin every day? Where are the thousands of students in Tehran? A friend responded.
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Doc There is a question I want you to answer:
Why should we read MKO stuff or waste our time reading stuff made by such a hated group while this terrorist cult has enough Media outlets such as Radio, TV, Papers, web sites ?
Hashimaping
Good video clip. I'll pass it around.
Thanks
Thank you, beautiful.
I publish all the news on Iran.
Not just those that I like.
EXCELLENT VIDEO CLIP! Thank you. It is so TRUE! I, too, will pass it around!
He is my favorite animator!
Sounds like they are trampling the people even more since the sham-elections.
No longer even the appearance of an elected, representative government.
July 18, 2005, 8:57 a.m.
Ganji’s Moment
The world watches as the “Iranian Havel” presses on.
By Rachel Zabarkes Friedman
Akbar Ganji is the Iranian journalist and dissident who for over a month now has been on hunger strike in Iran’s most infamous prison. Arrested in 2000 and ultimately sentenced to six years in jail for criticizing the regime, most notably in a series of articles he wrote implicating former president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani in the murders of several dissidents and intellectuals, Ganji has become a symbol both inside Iran and out of the Islamic Republic’s techniques of repression and Iranians’ resistance. He published a powerful letter from prison after starting his hunger strike, and is reported to have recently written another. Yet his health has been deteriorating, and some say the indomitable Ganji could be near his end.
Amir Abbas Fakhravar, a political prisoner who has known Ganji and observed him closely for years, said in a phone interview from Iran last night that Ganji is in “terrible shape.” Another prisoner, says Fakhravar, saw that Ganji experienced great difficulty walking, standing, and even seeing and hearing, and that he refused intravenous feeding, which he has not received for days. “If this carries on, within 24 hours he will die,” says Fakhravar. “He has the conviction to go all the way to the end.” (A report last night suggested Ganji had been taken from the prison infirmary to the hospital, but the circumstances of his transfer remain unclear.)
President Bush has called for Ganji’s release, as have the State Department, several U.S. congressmen, and the European Union. Yet the Iranian judiciary has so far insisted he will not be freed, demanding that he receive medical treatment under official supervision. An Iranian news service reported that Ganji declared this weekend he would no longer cooperate with prison clinic officials, after the judiciary made inaccurate statements about his condition.
“If anything ever happens to Mr. Ganji,” says Fakhravar, who was himself arrested for criticizing the regime and sentenced to eight years in prison, “a revolution will happen in Iran…. [Ganji] knows his blood will create real turmoil, which the country will never come out of.” He continues, “Ganji is not a member of a particular opposition group or party, but every group loved him and had respect for him. The whole society will rise up.”
Fakhravar is hardly sanguine about the reaction such a popular uprising would generate — after all, he knows how the regime treats its critics. Still, he continues to make his views known, and has in fact just published his second book, he says, The Scraps of Prison, written half in Farsi and half in English. “[Iranian president Mahmoud] Ahmadinejad is the naked image of the Islamic Republic, without any mask,” Fakhravar says. “By all means, they will beat the hell out of the people. We want the world to look at us, so we won’t be forgotten. If the regime sees so many eyes on it, it won’t be as hard on us.”
As though by way of example, Fakhravar mentions one individual in particular, Sweden’s Fred Saberi, whom he credits for helping to call attention to the plight of Iran’s dissidents and ameliorate their treatment, including by securing temporary releases from prison. Fakhravar feels the U.S. government is also paying attention. Asked how dissidents reacted to President Bush’s statement calling for Ganji’s release, he says, “As a matter of fact, it had the most wonderful reaction, and not just among the opposition. For the first time we really felt the U.S. government and the American people are behind the Iranian struggle — that the support was not just rhetoric.”
But is the Bush administration prepared to handle the fallout that could result from further mistreatment of Akbar Ganji? The test could come soon.
— Rachel Zabarkes Friedman is a former associate editor of National Review.
Not like the old days where tape recordings of a machine-gun firing is blasted through huge speakers on rooftops of buildings.
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,162781,00.html
That is not only France helping the Mullahs...
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