Free Republic

Berlin, 12 Oct. (IPS) To the dismay and anger of the families of the victims, a German court has decided to free an Iranian charged 11 years ago for the assassination of four Iranians in a Berlin restaurant, including the then General Secretary of the Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan (DPIK), two other members of the same Organisation and an opponent to the Islamic Republic. The Federal German Prosecutor announced on Wednesday that Mr. Kazem Darabi, the coordinator of the Iranian-Lebanese terror squad that assassinated Mr. Sadeq Sharafkandi, the General Secretary of the DPIK and three others on 17 September...

A federal judge Thursday ordered the detention of former Iranian President Hashemi Rafsanjani and eight others in connection with the 1994 bombing of a Jewish cultural center that killed 85 people, the judge's office said. A special prosecutor sought the order, alleging that the worst terrorist attack on Argentine soil was orchestrated by leaders of the Iranian government and entrusted to the Lebanon-based militant group Hezbollah. Iran's leading diplomatic envoy in Buenos Aires, Mohsen Baharvand, told The Associated Press that his government would oppose any efforts to detain Rafsanjani or other Iranian nationals. Baharvand, Iran's charge d'affaires, said the case...

The government for the first time yesterday said illegal immigrants on Algerian-flagged LNG tankers in Boston ``may have had indirect associations'' with the so-called millennium plot to blow up the Los Angeles airport.

An even more devastating terrorism charge could be laid on Iran's doorstep if intelligence reports linking Iran to al-Qaeda are confirmed. Insight has learned of new links between top Iranian intelligence officials and the al-Qaeda leadership that suggest direct Iranian government involvement in the Sept. 11 attacks on the U.S. mainland. Documents and information provided to this magazine by a recent Iranian defector, if confirmed as authentic, could open a new front in the war on terror. The defector, Hamid Reza Zakeri, says he worked in the intelligence office of Supreme Leader Ali Khameini and personally handled security at two...

Genocidal Islamic Fascist Republic of Iran - threatening annihilation at least since 1991.COLUMN ONE: Hezbollah: The Latin Connection : Bombings in Argentina and Panama prompt concern over the radical group's growing presence in the region. Experts say lax security and porous borders create a prime base for terrorists, by Tracy Wilkinson, Times Staff Writer, Los Angeles Times, August 04, 1994. The embassy's cultural affairs officer, Imam Mohsen Rabbani, rose. "Israel," he intoned in accented Spanish, "must disappear from the face of the Earth." He and a dozen speakers who followed quoted Iran's late Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini and called for unity...

TEHRAN (AFP) — Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad hit back on Wednesday after an ex-nuclear negotiator he accused of spying was cleared of espionage, calling for the publication of documents exposing the official. The Iranian judiciary the day before had cleared Hossein Moussavian on two counts of espionage and holding classified information, in direct contradiction of the government's accusations against the former atomic negotiator. "The full content of the negotiation of this ex-member of the nuclear negotiating team should be published," Ahmadinejad said after a cabinet meeting, according to the Mehr news agency. "It is very appropriate that the intelligence content...

And this is precisely why change to the Iranian regime will never come from within it. It cannot. Absolute dictatorial regimes – be they religious or otherwise – are structured for the purpose of perpetuating themselves. They are not democratic in nature, subject to the will of the people they rule or even of the people within them. Any true moderate or reformist influences will not enjoy a fair and equal opportunity to advance based on the merits of their ideas in the eyes of their peers. They will be silenced and stamped out as “heretical”. Iran desperately needs a...

Former Iranian president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani died in hospital in Tehran where he was taken after suffering a heart attack on Sunday, state media reported. State-run Press TV said Rafsanjani, 82, died despite efforts by doctors to save him. Residents said a crowd gathered outside the hospital where Rafsanjani was taken in the Tajrish neighbourhood in northern Tehran. …

Supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on Sunday hailed Iran's "glorious" elections for parliament and the Assembly of Experts, a powerful body that will pick his successor, declaring that the turnout showed "the brilliant face of religious democracy to the world." The Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC), meanwhile, called the election participation -- the regime reported a turnout of more than 60 percent -- "devastating for [Iran's] enemies," led by the United States. [...] Many international media outlets are highlighting the strong showing, in Tehran in particular, of so-called "reformists" allied to President Hasan Rouhani, characterizing it as a show of...

Iran considered pursuing a nuclear deterrent when it began its nuclear program in the 1980s, during an eight-year war with Iraq, a former president has been quoted as saying. Ayatollah Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani’s comments comes at a sensitive moment, as Iran implements an agreement reached with world powers in July aimed at curbing its nuclear program, to allay Western fears it was trying to build an atomic bomb. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the United Nations nuclear watchdog, is investigating whether Iran’s nuclear program ever had a military application. It is due to issue a report by Dec. 15....

The Word of God says... “I will destroy the archers of Elam [Persia]— the best of their forces. I will bring enemies from all directions, and I will scatter the people of Elam to the four winds.. I will destroy its king and officials," Jeremiah 49:35,36,38. For more than two decades, this ministry has joined others in warning of a U.S. led coalition against the Islamic nations of Iraq, followed by Iran--the Goat vs. the two-horned Ram in Daniel 8:1-8. Iraq’s defeat by the American-led coalition commenced on March 19, 2003, at Shushan Purim—the day Purim is celebrated in Jerusalem....

Now the Iranian constitution requires a new president to be elected, and Rafsanjani’s entry into the contest radically alters what was previously seen as a contest between rival conservative groups. Not that Rafsanjani currently is more than a relative moderate – currently, because in his time he has veered sharply from side to side across Iran’s political spectrum; and relatively moderate because, although he now favours a domestic free market, privatization of state-owned industries, and a moderate position internationally, he is still sought by the Argentinian government for ordering the 1994 bombing of a Jewish centre in Buenos Aires in...

Iran’s former president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, who registered on Saturday for next month’s presidential election, is disliked among regime hardliners for criticizing the crackdown that followed Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's disputed re-election in 2009. This pragmatic moderate, who in 2011 lost the post of head of the Assembly of Experts that supervises the activities of supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has never hidden his intense opposition to Ahmadinejad who beat him in the 2005 presidential election. … Rafsanjani—president from 1989 to 1997—is considered to favor rapprochement with the West. He played an important role in the election of the reformist Mohammad Khatami,...

TEHRAN – Tehran Prosecutor General Abbas Jafari Dolatabadi announced on Wednesday that a 125-page indictment has been issued for Mehdi Hashemi, the son of Expediency Council Chairman Ayatollah Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani. Judiciary spokesman Gholam Hossein Mohseni-Ejeii had previously said, “As soon as the indictment is issued, efforts will be made to hold the court hearing.” Mehdi Hashemi was released from prison on December 17 on a bail of 100 billion rials ($8,156,606). He faces charges of inciting unrest after the 2009 presidential election.

Human Rights Travesty By Kenneth R. Timmerman FrontPageMagazine.com | July 23, 2007 If human rights abuses were ranked like baseball careers, Iran’s ruling clerics and the mighty midget they’ve installed as president would deserve honored places in the 21st Century’s Hall of Shame. On July 10, Iran’s Interior ministry confirmed the sentence, handed down ten days earlier by a court in the north of the country, condemning a man to death by stoning. If you’ve never witnessed a stoning (and most of us haven’t, I trust), you can get a flavor for the barbarity of this Koranic punishment from a...

Hitler's Muslim Nephew Comes to New York September 24, 2007 FrontPageMagazine.com Kenneth R. Timmerman What was New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg thinking? Apparently the former Democrat believed that escorting Iran’s Hitler-wannabe president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, to the site of the September 11 memorial at Ground Zero would generate a terrific photo op. “Here I am with world leaders,” that type of thing. After all, Bloomberg has already made his appearance at the “World Leaders Forum” at Columbia University, so he was in the zone. And last year, U.S. News & World Report crowned him as one of America’s “best leaders.” But...

The daughter of influential former Iranian president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani was taken to prison late on Saturday to serve a six-month sentence for "spreading anti-state propaganda," Iranian media reported. Faezeh Rafsanjani, a former member of parliament, was convicted in January and sentenced to jail.

Iran ex-president's website 'shut down' (AFP) – 20 hours ago TEHRAN — A website belonging to Iran's former president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, who has criticised the current regime, has been shut down, his brother told the ISNA news agency on Friday. "Yesterday (Thursday) evening, the company that provides the services made contact to tell us that they had been ordered to stop providing us the service," Mohammed Hashemi was quoted as saying. "Fifteen minutes later, the site was no longer accessible," he added. "We are going to see on Saturday who gave that order." He explained that Iran's internet surveillance...

TEHRAN, Iran — The daughter of former Iranian President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani has been brought to trial on charges of making propaganda against the ruling system.

Americans can't ignore recent developments. The publication of an alleged Iranian document in Perfil, the Argentinian daily newspaper, has touched off an issue no American can ignore. The document claims that the governments of Argentina and Iran had reached an agreement to freeze the investigation into the 1994 AMIA (Asociación Mutual Israelita Argentina) bombing that killed 85 people — and that the two countries were discussing and considering trade agreements with an estimated value of $1.2 billion.Argentina’s Foreign Minister Hector Timerman, who traveled to Israel on Wednesday, April 7, for a two-day visit, sidestepped the issue, raised by both the...