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neodraka
Joined: 09 Apr 2006 Posts: 1 Location: Tennessee, USA
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Posted: Fri Apr 14, 2006 2:42 pm Post subject: Iran Leader: Israel Will Be Annihilated |
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http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060414/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iran_israel_2;_ylt=AsiFOodTBJpjkr3MC6ppWNVSw60A;_ylu=X3oDMTBiMW04NW9mBHNlYwMlJVRPUCUl
I'm really scared for the direction Iran is heading in ...... not to use an American English saying but lol, if you play with fire you're gonna get burned .... and that's pretty much what Iran's president is doing. Surely he knows Israel will defend itself if she is invaded .... and frankly, Iran won't win, because with the tone of nuclear ambitions etc., the US will be too scared that somehow Iran will use the bomb on Israel -- and the US won't have that. America will come to the aid of Israel whether it be just with supplies and weapons or, I see things, America will enter the conflict to defend its friend Israel. I really fear for the Iranian people for this move .... to use another American saying, I thought Bush had run America into the ground, but the Iranian President is surely doing a better job. Doh de doh de doh let's provoke the most powerful nation in our region and doh de doh de doh let's also provoke the most powerful nation on earth!! Yeah that's really gonna get you somewhere. God this is frustrating .... Iran, if you loyal citizens don't replace your government with a peace - loving one, then one day, when you actually Do make good on your threats to wipe Israel off the map, the whole civilized world will be there waiting -- and it won't be pretty. not at all.
Disclaimer: I love Iran and its people. One of the most horrifying things to me is that the beautiful Iranian people are again, being run into the ground by their president. My only motivation for this post is that I love the Iranian people's beautiful culture and socitey -- and I am very afraid that at some point in my life, because of the government of Iran, the country will be torn to pieces with American explosives or Israeli rockets or what have you. and i Really, Really dont' want that to happen. |
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cyrus Site Admin
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Joined: 24 Jun 2003 Posts: 4993
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Posted: Fri Apr 14, 2006 3:19 pm Post subject: |
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neodraka wrote: | http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060414/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iran_israel_2;_ylt=AsiFOodTBJpjkr3MC6ppWNVSw60A;_ylu=X3oDMTBiMW04NW9mBHNlYwMlJVRPUCUl
I'm really scared for the direction Iran is heading in ...... not to use an American English saying but lol, if you play with fire you're gonna get burned .... and that's pretty much what Iran's president is doing. Surely he knows Israel will defend itself if she is invaded .... and frankly, Iran won't win, because with the tone of nuclear ambitions etc., the US will be too scared that somehow Iran will use the bomb on Israel -- and the US won't have that. America will come to the aid of Israel whether it be just with supplies and weapons or, I see things, America will enter the conflict to defend its friend Israel. I really fear for the Iranian people for this move .... to use another American saying, I thought Bush had run America into the ground, but the Iranian President is surely doing a better job. Doh de doh de doh let's provoke the most powerful nation in our region and doh de doh de doh let's also provoke the most powerful nation on earth!! Yeah that's really gonna get you somewhere. God this is frustrating .... Iran, if you loyal citizens don't replace your government with a peace - loving one, then one day, when you actually Do make good on your threats to wipe Israel off the map, the whole civilized world will be there waiting -- and it won't be pretty. not at all.
Disclaimer: I love Iran and its people. One of the most horrifying things to me is that the beautiful Iranian people are again, being run into the ground by their president. My only motivation for this post is that I love the Iranian people's beautiful culture and socitey -- and I am very afraid that at some point in my life, because of the government of Iran, the country will be torn to pieces with American explosives or Israeli rockets or what have you. and i Really, Really dont' want that to happen. |
Quote: | God this is frustrating .... Iran, if you loyal citizens don't replace your government with a peace - loving one, then one day, |
Dear neodraka,
Welcome to activistchat FREE Iran open forum, we hear you and share your concern.
We declare the Iranian people as hostage to the Islamofascist regime and we don't consider this regime as an Iranian government. Iranian people
needs a lot of help from outside to get out of this big mess.
Hope president Bush Admin execute a correct strategy and option that does not kill all innocent Iranian people as hostage victims of Islamofascist.
We should remind you that Iraninan people and oppositions fought very
hard against Islamofascist regime in past 27 years for FREE Society and Secular Democracy with over 100,000 execution victims long before September 11 without much help from free world.
To clarify my point further posted the following excellent article by our fellow Activistchat member for your review.
Regards,
Cyrus
AmirN wrote: | Islamic Barbarian Theocracy: Invaders and Occupiers of Iran
I have come across some sentiment that depicts the current Islamic Regime as a foreign occupying force in Iran. The term “second Arabo-Islamic invasion of Iran” has gained popularity. Are these sentiments based on the truth, or are they baseless and just rhetoric?
Indeed, these barbarians can only be thought of as foreign invaders. They call themselves Iranians, but are they really Iranians?
What does it mean to be Iranian? It means to hold dear the traditions, ideology, and ways of life of Iran. It means to love Iran itself, and more importantly, the citizens of Iran.
As we all know, Iran (land of the Aryans) is a country with very old and deep rooted traditions, going back at least 4500 years. A nation which is that old cannot be expected to remain static. Change is of course inevitable in its history. But what type of change can be deemed acceptable and simply an evolution of a society, and what type of change is deemed unacceptable and antagonistic to the foundations of that society?
Those changes that act to advance a society, both technologically as well as morally, while staying true to the basic principles of that society will be considered acceptable and should be integrated into that society. Those that set a society back, either technologically or morally, and are antagonistic to the founding principles of that society must be considered unacceptable.
So, let’s examine Iran’s history from the perspective of who in our history was a legitimate Iranian regime and who was merely a foreign occupying force. Let’s review who merely brought changes that aimed to build upon and improve our existing Iranian culture, versus who brought changes that were designed to undermine and destroy the Iranian culture and Iran. As always, a historical perspective will help clarify the present circumstance.
The Achaemenians built upon the existing cultures of the Elamites and Medes. They accepted them as their own, stayed true to their tradition for the most part, and accelerated that society in an amazing way. There was technological, economic, military, as well as moral acceleration. Their impact was so great, and so positive, that they not only expanded Iranian culture but also became its primary defining feature.
After Alexander’s conquest, Iran fell under a foreign occupying force. The subsequent Seleucid Empire was obviously not Iranian, but Greek. They did not arrive with the intent of evolving Iranian culture, but rather to dominate it, use it, and overwhelm it with another culture: Greek. Some of the results were positive, in so much as Greek culture is as rich as ours and has much to offer. Nevertheless, since it set out to overwhelm and subjugate Iranian culture instead of simply enriching its foundations, it can be viewed only as a foreign occupation. Fortunately, it did not succeed.
The Parthians, another Iranian tribe, drove out the Seleucids and restored Iranian culture. They remained true to the spirit and culture of Iran, and did their best to make positive contributions. Though their contributions were limited (although it may have been more involved than we think, only because our historical records regarding this period are so relatively scant), because they were loyal to Iranian citizens and culture, they must be viewed as players in the advancement of the nation.
The Sassanids, second only to the Achaemenids in their service to Iran were also a major defining feature of Iranian culture and identity. They considered themselves the direct descendants of the Achaemenids, and obviously sought to preserve Iranian culture and identity while serving their nation. They took a great role in advancing the foundations of Iranian civilization in many different aspects.
Then came a major turning point in our history: the Arabic barbarian invasion of our Iran. This was the second of many foreign occupying forces to dominate Iran. With the Arabic invasion, Iran was again faced with an enemy from within which aimed to undermine its civilization and identity. The first factor used to destroy a national identity was an attack on its predominant religion: Zoroastrianism. With physical and economic coercion, the Arabic barbarians were able to convert a large portion of Zartoshdtis to Islam. The Arabic language and customs were also forced on the native Iranians. The ruling Umayyads and Abbassids were Arabic dynasties, with loyalties only to themselves, their Arabic tribesmen, and their Arabic culture and religion. Iran was to them only a commodity, used for its natural resources and its people. The moral system that the Arabs brought with them was much more primitive and barbaric compared to the system which already existed under the Sassanids. And those Arabs were clearly determined to wipe out as much as they could from the Iranian culture and collective memory. Magnificent artworks were destroyed, and the Arabs had themselves a good old fashioned “book burning.” You may recall the old Arabic edict “We need no other book other than the Quran.” Clearly, this invasion served as a devolution of Iranian culture. Fortunately, the Arabs did not completely succeed in their goal of destroying Iranian identity. It is noteworthy that Iran was the only nation to be dominated by Arabic rule for so long yet retain its identity as non-Arabic. Others were not as fortunate. One of the greatest of ancient civilizations, Egypt, never recovered from the barbarian invasion and has remained Arabic forever. In that respect, Egypt’s place in history remains very lamentable.
After the Arabic occupation, the Saffarids retained control over Iran. They identified themselves as Iranians, sought to regain Iranian culture and tradition, and aimed to serve the citizens of Iran instead of using them as a commodity for a foreign power. Yaqoub Saffarid made it a point to restore Persian language by making it the mandatory language of his court. The fact that we don’t speak Arabic today is owed to the Saffarids and none other than Ferdowsi. The Saffarids kept the language alive long enough for it not to be completely extinguished, but were not able to completely restore it. However, they played a very important role, because they kept it alive long enough for a genius like Ferdowsi to come along centuries later and use it in such a way that only an epic poem can do. In doing so, he ignited a flame in all common Iranians to regain their language.
A multitude of different dynasties followed, most of which were foreign: Turkish, Mongol, Uzbek, etc. The vast majority of these had no interests in building upon the existing Iranian culture, and again, can only be viewed as foreign occupying forces with only self serving motives.
The Saffavids followed, which served a very important role. Their role in Iranian identity and culture was very ambivalent. They wished to promote an Iranian agenda and revive Persian culture. In that, they were quite successful. But in pushing for Persian unity, they used Shiite Islam as a tool. Forced conversions were implemented, as well as religious persecutions. Because of them, islam was here to stay. Since islam is clearly a foreign ideology and not at all conducive to Iranian culture and identity, as well as morally inferior to the original Iranian way of life, this act of the Saffavids had very clear anti-Iranian results. Hence the ambivalence of the Saffavids to truly serving Iranian identity and culture. Nonetheless, the Saffavids cannot be viewed as a foreign occupying force, and overall served the Iranian purpose.
A number of other mediocre dynasties followed :Afshar, Zand, Qajar, which were Iranian and clearly not foreign occupiers. Though Iranian, their contributions to Iran (with the exception of a few noteworthy individuals such as Amir Kabir) were minimal to none. It was a time of great incompetence and stagnation, which left Iran greatly vulnerable again to foreign interests in the twentieth century.
Enter the Pahlavi dynasty: the greatest Iranian dynasty since the Sassanids. The Iranian patriotism and service of this father and son to the Iranian nation, culture, and identity is unquestionable. After a millennium and a half, they were the first to truly recognize the important role that our pre-islamic heritage and civilization serve in our identity. They sought to rebuild Iran where the Sassanids had left off. They catapulted Iran forward by two centuries in a matter of half a century. The manner by which they served the traditions, culture, and citizens of Iran can only be viewed as a great evolutionary step forward. Unfortunately, their efforts were halted, undermined, and greatly reversed with the Revolution.
This was more a Revolution from without than a Revolution from within. Regardless of its origins, the result was obvious: a ruling theocratic Islamic regime from hell. Power was handed to Islamic Mullahs, people whose only intellectual interest is the religion that spurted from an Arabic, tribal, nomadic way of life. A religion which developed and has remained in medieval times. The mullahs and their Islamic followers’ allegiance is understandably only to themselves and their ideology which binds them to Arabo-Muslims. Their education (if you can call it that) and upbringing had always been in relation to this foreign religion, which can only identify with the Arabic mentality and cause.
Their upbringing is Arabic, their thoughts are Arabic, their traditions are Arabic, their culture is Arabic, their religion is Arabic, their clothes are Arabic, their language is Arabic, and unfortunately, their morality is Arabic.
Are we really surprised that their allegiance is Arabic?
Now let’s review part of the role that this theocracy has played in the last 27 years.
1. Changed the national flag. The lion and sun, which is unrelated to monarchy but represents ancient Iran, was replaced with the double swords of a Sikh symbol. What’s a Sikh symbol doing on our flag?
2. Implemented religious persecution of any minority non-islamic (and even sometimes Islamic) religious group.
3. Persisted on the use and knowledge of the Arabic language, while de-emphasizing Farsi. Coercing students to learn Arabic if they wish to get an education.
4. Attacked ancient Persian cultural monuments and archeological sites. If not for the resistance of brave Iranians, Persepolis would have been demolished by now.
5. Insisted by coercion on naming Iranian newborns using foreign Arabic names instead of proud Iranian names, by refusing to issue birth certificates to those with purely Iranian names.
6. Attempted to suppress the ancient traditions of Nowruz and Chaharshanbeh Souri commemorating the Persian new year. Fortunately, this was yet another unsuccessful and pitiful attempt to subdue Iranian culture.
7. Falsely changed history books, giving misinformation to young students regarding Iran’s history. Deceitfully and purposefully depicted the Iranian nationalists, patriots and kings as tyrannical while glorifying and legitimizing the barbarian Arabic invaders and their descendants as heroes.
8. Neglected Iran’s citizens and infrastructure, while using its natural and human resources to achieve their goals: self-serve, and propagation and support of Arabo-Islamo-Fascism and terrorism.
Let’s also not forget that Khomeini barely spoke any Farsi; Arabic was his first language. He always called for propagation, preservation, and expansion of Islam; he never said a caring or positive word about Iran. The only times he mentioned Iran was in relation to how it could serve Islam and the Islamic agenda. Iran has been made Islam’s commodity since 1979.
Have the current ruling mullahs behaved any differently than the Umayyads or Abbassids? Are they any less a foreign occupying force? Have they tried any less to destroy Iranian culture, identity and heritage? Have they oppressed and terrorized the legitimate Iranian citizens any less? Have they used Iran’s human and natural resources in order to serve a foreign interest and ideology any less?
The name Islamic Republic of Iran is a misnomer. There is nothing Iranian about this regime, and these terrorists should not be allowed to use the word “Iran” to describe their regime. From now on, I refuse to refer to this illegitimate, tyrannical, barbaric, immoral, and foreign occupying force as “IRI,” and will simply refer to it as “IR,” or the Islamic Republic (and even the term Republic is a misnomer, since this regime is not represented by its people). |
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Posted: Fri May 19, 2006 6:06 pm Post subject: |
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Iran Eyes Badges for Jews
May 19, 2006
National Post
Chris Wattie
Human rights groups are raising alarms over a new law passed by the Iranian parliament that would require the country's Jews and Christians to wear coloured badges to identify them and other religious minorities as non-Muslims.
"This is reminiscent of the Holocaust," said Rabbi Marvin Hier, the dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles. "Iran is moving closer and closer to the ideology of the Nazis."
Iranian expatriates living in Canada yesterday confirmed reports that the Iranian parliament, called the Islamic Majlis, passed a law this week setting a dress code for all Iranians, requiring them to wear almost identical "standard Islamic garments."
The law, which must still be approved by Iran's "Supreme Guide" Ali Khamenehi before being put into effect, also establishes special insignia to be worn by non-Muslims.
Iran's roughly 25,000 Jews would have to sew a yellow strip of cloth on the front of their clothes, while Christians would wear red badges and Zoroastrians would be forced to wear blue cloth.
"There's no reason to believe they won't pass this," said Rabbi Hier. "It will certainly pass unless there's some sort of international outcry over this."
Bernie Farber, the chief executive of the Canadian Jewish Congress, said he was "stunned" by the measure. "We thought this had gone the way of the dodo bird, but clearly in Iran everything old and bad is new again," he said. "It's state-sponsored religious discrimination."
Ali Behroozian, an Iranian exile living in Toronto, said the law could come into force as early as next year.
It would make religious minorities immediately identifiable and allow Muslims to avoid contact with non-Muslims.
Mr. Behroozian said it will make life even more difficult for Iran's small pockets of Jewish, Christian and other religious minorities -- the country is overwhelmingly Shi'ite Muslim. "They have all been persecuted for a while, but these new dress rules are going to make things worse for them," he said.
The new law was drafted two years ago, but was stuck in the Iranian parliament until recently when it was revived at the behest of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
A spokesman for the Iranian Embassy in Ottawa refused to comment on the measures. "This is nothing to do with anything here," said a press secretary who identified himself as Mr. Gharmani.
"We are not here to answer such questions."
The Simon Wiesenthal Centre has written to Kofi Annan, the Secretary-General of the United Nations, protesting the Iranian law and calling on the international community to bring pressure on Iran to drop the measure.
"The world should not ignore this," said Rabbi Hier. "The world ignored Hitler for many years -- he was dismissed as a demagogue, they said he'd never come to power -- and we were all wrong."
Mr. Farber said Canada and other nations should take action to isolate Mr. Ahmadinejad in light of the new law, which he called "chilling," and his previous string of anti-Semitic statements.
"There are some very frightening parallels here," he said. "It's time to start considering how we're going to deal with this person."
Mr. Ahmadinejad has repeatedly described the Holocaust as a myth and earlier this year announced Iran would host a conference to re-examine the history of the Nazis' "Final Solution."
He has caused international outrage by publicly calling for Israel to be "wiped off the map."
Iran does not yet have nuclear weapons, but Tehran believed by Western nations to be developing its own nuclear military capability, in defiance of international protocols and peace treaties.
The United States, France and Israel accuse Iran of using a civilian nuclear program to secretly build a weapon. Iran denies this, saying its program is confined to generating electricity. |
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Posted: Mon May 22, 2006 6:20 pm Post subject: |
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Interesting article by Dr. Milani, in response to an article by Edwin Black from SF chronicles.
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Abbas Milani's response to SF Chronicle
Date: Tue, 31 Jan 2006 11:31:11 -0800
A Response to Mr. Black
Abbas Milani
Even for acclaimed investigative journalists like Mr. Edwin Black, few things are more dangerous than the temptation to conflate fact and fiction, to traffic in hackneyed shibboleths, and to write half-truths based on scant knowledge. His defamatory diatribe against the nation of Iran, published in the San Francisco Chronicle of January 8, 2006, is replete with half-truths, gross misstatement of facts and a defiant disregard for known but inconvenient facts of history. To chronicle every factual error and faulty accusation in the piece would require an essay much longer than the original piece. If nations could have their day in libel court, Mr. Black would now be looking for a whole bevy of lawyers to answer the many libelous accusations he has made against the entire nation of Iran.
The trigger for Mr. Blacks attack was Mr. Ahmadinejads odious comments about wiping Israel off the map, and his even more shameful denial of the Holocaust. Surely those comments deserve to be thoroughly condemned. The regime in Iran must be made to understand that the world community has zero tolerance for such anti-Semitic ranting. But it would be a tragic mistake to fall into a racist trap when condemning Mr. Ahmadinejads racist words, and that, unfortunately is precisely what Mr. Black has done in his essay.
He claims that if we look at Irans Hitler-era past we will discover that Iran and Iranians were strongly connected to the Holocaust and the Hitler regime. The facts of history are just the opposite of what Mr. Black has claimed. As early signs of the murderous Final Solution became visible, the Iranian government of the time convinced the Nazi race experts in Germany that Iranian Jews had lived in Iran for over twenty five hundred years and were fully assimilated citizens of Iran and must be afforded all the rights of such citizens. The Nazis accepted this argument and the lives of all Iranian Jews living under the Nazi yoke were saved. An account of this episode can be found in the History of Contemporary Iranian Jews, published by Center for Iranian Jewish Oral History. Moreover, as I have recounted in my book titled Persian Sphinx, Iranian diplomats in Europe and elsewhere offered hundreds of Iranian passports to European Jews and thus saved their lives. And when the Nazi killing machines began their slaughter of innocent Polish Jews, 1388 Jews, including 871 children were moved to Tehran where they lived in relative safety till they moved to Israel. Again the History of Contemporary Iranian Jews has provided an account of what are called Tehran Children.
Mr. Black goes on to claim that Iran and its leaders were not only aware of the Holocaust, they played both parts the country offered escape routes for refugee Jews but only in exchange for extortionate passage fees. The man responsible for the transfer of Jewish refugees in Iran who went on to become Israels ambassador to Iran--has an entirely different story to tell.
He writes; As the Shah of Iran had particular affinity for the Jews, the military and bureaucratic institutions of the country spared no effort in helping refugees reach Israel. (Moir Ezrys Yadnameh, vol. 1. p. 52). He goes on to say, countries like Bulgaria, and Rumania asked for great sums of money from Israel in order to set their Jewish population free. But the Iranian government never asked for any money. (p. 60) with little to besmear the people of Iran with, Mr. Black eventually performs a conjurers trick. In the middle of the narrative, he introduces the notorious figure of the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem and then the Iranian nation is blamed for every step taken by that despicable figure. But as an acclaimed investigative journalist, Mr. Black should know that Iran was at the time of World War II about eighty-percent Shiite, and that Muftis are unique to the Sunni sect of Islam. Considering the long simmering tension between Shiites and Sunnis, and between Persians and Arabs, an Arab Mufti, would be hardly a popular character in Iran.
Mr. Blacks story about Reza Shah and his affinity for the Nazis and his decision to change the name of the country to Iran suffers from revealing errors of omission and commission. Contrary to Mr. Blacks claim, Reza Shahs affinity for Germany predates the rise of Nazis by almost two decades.
During World War I, when Reza was just a colonel in the Cossack Brigade, he contacted German embassy in Tehran and solicited their help in fighting British and Russian encroachments on Iran. He was wooed by the Nazis who agreed to sell him the steel factory he coveted and considered a sine quo non of progress and modernity. Nevertheless, according to the British embassy reports from Tehran in 1940, the total number of German citizens in Iran from simple technicians to sinister spieswas no more than a thousand.
Even when Mr. Black writes about the issue of the countrys change of name, he gets it only half right. He writes; So intense was the Shahs identification with the Third Reich that in 1935 he renamed his ancient country Iran. But Iran has been called Iran for over twenty-five hundred years. Reza Shah was not to rename his country; he asked the world not to call it Persia, but to use the countrys own name for itself. It was, as I have written elsewhere, a mistake. But it was not a wholesale recreation of a country,s identity that Mr. Black insists.
After mixing fact and fiction about the Nazi era, Mr. Black conveniently overlooks the next thirty-seven years and jumps to Mr. Ahamadinejads time.
Here are a few facts that were overlooked.
Iran was the first Moslem country in the world to establish diplomatic and economic ties with Israel. Throughout the fifties, sixties and seventies, Iran supplied oil to Israel, and after the rise of Nassers Pan-Arab nationalism in the Middle East, Israel, along with Irans secret police, operated a radio station in the Southern provinces of Iran and beamed their anti-Nasser message to the entire Arab world. David Menashri, one of the most eminent Israeli scholars of modern Iran, calls the sixties and seventies the Golden Age of Iranian Jewry when Jews enjoyed almost total cultural and religious autonomy, experienced economic progress and had no less political freedom than their Muslim counterparts. (David Menashri, The Jews or Iran: Between the Shah and Khomeini, in Anti-Semitism in Times of Crisis, ed. by Sander L. Gilam and Steven Katz, p. 356) He adds that, On per capita terms, they may well have been the richest community in the world. (Menashri, p.358). But these facts are inconvenient for Mr. Black and forfeiting his responsibilities as an investigative journalist, he includes in his narrative only those facts and fictions that fit the tortured image he wants to give about Iran and Iranians.
Inside and outside Iran, the Iranian people are held hostage by the theocratic regime and leaders like Ahmadinejad. It is bizarre to hold the hostages responsible for the sins of the hostage takers. It is grossly unjust to fabricate a false past for the hostages and hold them responsible not only for the vices of their hostage takers, but also for crimes they never committed. Sadly, Iranian history, like the history of almost every other nation, is not free from the blemish of anti-Semitism.
The Bible tells us of the time when Esther was the queen of Persia, and the demonic anti-Semitism of the vizier, Haman threatened the lives of Iranian Jews.But Esther succeeded in saving her peopleand thus the feast of Purim. The bible is also replete with praise for Cyrus, the Persian king and Gods anointed and Chosen ruler, who liberated the Jews from their Babylonian captivity and helped rebuild Jerusalem. Mr. Blacks rendition of Iranian history overlooks the Esthers of the past and focuses his angry gaze only at Hamans.
Abbas Milani is the Director of the Iranian Studies Program at Stanford
University and the co-director of the Iran Democracy Project at the Hoover Institution. |
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Posted: Tue May 23, 2006 3:22 pm Post subject: |
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http://www.nysun.com/article/33126
A Vote of Thanks Is Expressed By Iranian Jews
May 22, 2006
The NY Sun
Eli Lake
CAIRO, Egypt -- A leading spokesman for Iranian Jews is thanking the world for its outcry over a report that the mullahs were readying legislation that would require Jews and other religious and ethnic minorities to wear distinguishing markers.
While the legislation considered in the Iranian parliament, the Majlis, so far does not create a dress code for Iran's Christians, Jews, and Zoroastrians - an echo of Nazi laws that required Jews, homosexuals, Gypsies, and communists to wear distinctive armbands and badges - the spokesman, Sam Kermanian, said yesterday that he suspected early reports of this kind may have been a trial balloon.
"I am not sure if we have the whole picture. The person who originally reported this, Amir Taheri, is someone with fantastic credibility. In my heart, I think there must have been something that triggered this," Mr. Kermanian said.
Mr. Kermanian, who is the secretary-general of the Iranian American Jewish Federation in Los Angeles, spent hours over the weekend on the phone with Tehran trying to determine the accuracy of a report in the New York Post by Mr. Taheri and a stronger piece in Canada's National Post that said the proposed regulations would require Jews to wear special badges, evoking memories of the yellow Stars of David that Jews were obliged to wear in Nazi Germany.
The National Post story turned out to be incorrect. Over the weekend, the representative of Iran's Jewish community in the Iranian legislature, Maurice Motamed, denied that the proposed dress code changes would require minorities to wear distinctive clothing or badges. The chairman of the parliament's cultural committee, Emad Afroogh, also told wire services that the initial reports of such restrictions were "worthless."
A summary of the legislation that appeared on the Majlis Web site contained no specific language designating special dress codes or markers for minorities, either. Nonetheless, the regime in Tehran has been more brutal to its opponents in recent months. A video surfaced over the weekend of the leader of Iran's striking bus drivers, Mansour Osanloo, discussing and showing the results of his torture, including a gash on his chin and a hole in his tongue, at the hands of his jailors earlier this year. The torture of Mr. Osanloo was first reported by The New York Sun in March.
A Canadian-American reformist philosopher, Ramin Jahanbegloo, also remains in prison after being arrested at the Tehran airport on April 27 despite increasing international pressure.
Mr. Taheri, for his part, is sticking to his story. In a May 20 dispatch for the New York Post, Mr. Taheri wrote that the new Iranian law would envision separate clothing guidelines for ethnic and religious minorities, to "enable Muslims to instantly recognize non-Muslims so that they can avoid shaking hands with them by mistake."
An Iranian-American anti-regime activist living in New York, Banafsheh Zand-Bonazzi, said the formal legislation does not contain language on the special insignias, but added that Mr. Taheri was correct in saying this measure is being discussed and considered.
"I have spoken to quite a few people and it is a subject being discussed," she said. "This is about being able to decipher who is who, so they can pinpoint the dissidents who make trouble for the regime and determine what ethnic group they come from."
Some who fear that President Bush may be planning a land war against Iran, or at least the aerial bombing of its suspected nuclear facilities, pounced on the fact that the central claim of the National Post story has not been confirmed. On his Web log yesterday, the former president of the Middle East Studies Association, Juan Cole, called the original National Post story a "black psy-ops operation," implying it was deliberately planted to demonize President Ahmadinejad.
But the prospect of a dress code for non-Muslims in an Iranian theocracy is not so far-fetched. Iranian religious leaders historically mandated dress codes for non-Muslims. The country's current constitution already carves out special status for non-Muslims, prohibiting them from obtaining senior posts in either the army or government. Muslims in Iran officially enjoy preference over non-Muslims in gaining admission to universities.
A national ordinance enacted in 2000 and 2001 requires all non-Muslim butchers, grocers, and purveyors of food to post a form in the window of their place of business warning Muslims that they do not share their faith. At the time it was put in place, the code was defended on the grounds that it enforced Islamic dietary law.
Yesterday, Mr. Kermanian said he was grateful for the outpouring of international support after the report of the badges legislation first surfaced. "Our community was heartened to see so much international support on the subject," he said. "And considering the anti-Semitic environment in Iran, which exists due to government-sanctioned propaganda, this sort of support is a matter of great comfort to us now." |
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Joined: 26 Feb 2004 Posts: 1672
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Posted: Tue May 23, 2006 3:41 pm Post subject: |
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Ramin Etebar, MD" <retebar@cox.net> Add to Address Book Add Mobile Alert
To: "Ramin Etebar, MD" <retebar@cox.net>
Subject: Legal discrimination of religious minorities in Iran
Date: Tue, 23 May 2006 01:05:43 -0700
Legal discrimination of religious minorities in Iran
http://www.judeoscope.ca/breve.php3?id_breve=1545
So last week’s National Post story claiming a new Iranian dress code would impose on religious minorities coloured ribbons to distinguish them from the “Believers” turns out to be baseless. This, however, should not distract us from noting that religious minorities are nonetheless systematically discriminated by Iran’s corpus of laws and constitution and that a non-Muslim’s life is considerably less valuable than a Muslim’s life.
Human Rights Watch has documented legal and constitutional provisions which confer a dhimmmi (Zami in Farsi) status upon religious minorities:
Articles of Legislation Discriminatory to Non-Muslims
The Penal Code
A fundamental problem in the penal code is that the communities referred to by the terms unbeliever or non-Muslim are not defined in the law. This is important because while some non-Muslims, kafir zami,6 have some level of protection under the law, others who do not fall under this definition have no protection whatsoever. According to Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the first leader of the Islamic Republic, the religious communities accorded the status of zami in the Islamic Republic are Christians, Jews and Zoroastrians.7 However, Ayatollah Khomeini’s statements and religious legal opinions (fatwa) do not have the status of binding written law in Iran.
To avoid ambiguity a definition must be provided in the constitution, the penal code or elsewhere in the codified law of the country. Not all religious authorities would agree that Zoroastrians, for example, should be accorded the status of zami, and yet the constitution provides, in Article 12, that other established schools of Islamic jurisprudence should be accorded equal weight.8 The inclusion of Zoroastrians as zami is an Iranian peculiarity not found in the established schools of jurisprudence. Thus the rights of non-Muslims are at best ambiguous and subject to divergent interpretations in the penal code.
In addition to this basic ambiguity about protected minorities, a number of articles of the penal code are directly discriminatory in their treatment of all non-Muslims. For example, Article 207 of the penal code states that if a non-Muslim kills a Muslim then the killer is liable to legal retribution, qisas, and subject to the death penalty. The principle of qisas requires that the nature and severity of the punishment should be equivalent to that of the offense. Therefore, the qisas punishment for murder is death. However, in some cases the penalty may be replaced by the payment of blood money (diyah) to the family of the victim.
If a non-Muslim kills another non-Muslim, qisas applies. However, if a Muslim kills a non-Muslim, the law does not require qisas, and does not specify a punishment. Article 2 of the penal code makes clear that the existence of a specified punishment denotes the existence of an offense. Therefore, in the absence of a specified punishment in this instance, the judge may even rule that no offense has taken place in the willful killing of a non-Muslim by a Muslim. Therefore, the penal law applies less value to the life of a non-Muslim as compared to a Muslim and may even permit the murder with impunity of non-Muslims by Muslims.
Other lesser offenses also provide for differential sentences between Muslims and non-Muslims. For example, Article 88 of the penal code states that if a Muslim man commits adultery with a Muslim woman, the penalty is 100 lashes for the man. However, if a non-Muslim man commits adultery with a Muslim woman, his penalty is death. No penalty is specified for the Muslim man who commits adultery with a non-Muslim, woman. Similarly with homosexuality, under Article 121 of the penal code, non-penetrative sex between two Muslim men is punished by 100 lashes. However, if one of the partners is non-Muslim, the penalty for him is death. The crime of malicious accusation is punished, according to Article 147 of the penal code, by eighty lashes if the victim is a Muslim. However, if the victim is non-Muslim, the maximum penalty is set at seventy-four lashes. In this article, non-Muslims are equated in their treatment with minors and those lacking their full mental capacities. Article 494 of the Penal Code provides penalties for violating the corpse of a Muslim; no penalties are stipulated for violating the corpse of a non-Muslim.
The penal code, which is derived from traditional Islamic legal principles, is nevertheless applied fully to non-Muslims whose own traditions of penal law may be quite different.
Explicit discrimination is also found in legal texts other than the penal code. For example, Article 115 of the constitution of the Islamic Republic requires that the president should be a Shi’a Muslim, thus excluding more than 20 percent of population from taking full part in the conduct of the public affairs. Articles of the Iranian Civil Code that deal with matters of inheritance create a privileged status for Muslims. Article 881 of the civil code prohibits a non-Muslim from inheriting property from a Muslim. Moreover, it provides that if a non-Muslim dies and there is among his beneficiaries even one Muslim, this legatee, even if he is only a distant relative, inherits all the property. This article of the civil code conflicts with the constitutional provision permitting religious communities to deal with matters pertaining to personal status in accordance with their own laws and practices.
According to Article 1059 of the civil code, a Muslim man is free to marry a non-Muslim woman. However, the opposite does not apply. A marriage between a non-Muslim man and a Muslim woman is not recognized.
Other areas of legislation discriminate against non-Muslims. For example, according to the law on the selection of judges of 1983, the judge must be a Muslim man. The constitution provides, in Article 163, that the qualifications of the judge will be determined in accordance with the principles of fiqh, or Islamic jurisprudence. Many areas of the civil service have an explicitly Islamic mission or orientation, especially the army. The constitution provides in article 144 that, "the army of the Islamic Republic of Iran must be an Islamic army ... and must recruit into its service individuals who have faith in the objectives of the Islamic Revolution."
More information:
Iran Entry in the State Department 2005 Report on Religious Freedom
Iran Entry in the State Department 2005 Report on Human Rights |
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Joined: 26 Feb 2004 Posts: 1672
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Posted: Thu May 25, 2006 2:17 pm Post subject: |
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Report: 54 Baha'is arrested in Iran
May 24, 2006
The Washington Times-UPI
http://www.washtimes.com/upi/20060524-044024-5436r.htm
Iranian officials have released 54 Baha'is arrested in the city of Shiraz last week, the Baha'i International Community said Wednesday.
In a statement, Baha'i officials said those arrested were teaching classes as part of a UNICEF community service activity conducted by an Iranian non-governmental organization. The statement said those arrested carried a letter of permission from the Islamic Council of Shiraz.
The day after the arrests, a judge told family members the detainees would be freed soon. It appeared on Wednesday that all of the non-Baha'is and one Baha'i minor had been released without posting bail.
The arrests coincided with raids on six Baha'i homes during which notebooks, computers, books and other documents were confiscated. In the last 14 months, 72 Baha'is across Iran have been arrested, said Bani Dugal, principal representative of the Baha'i International Community to the United Nations.
"These new arrests in Shiraz, coming after more than a year of 'revolving door' detentions, bring the total number of Baha'is who have been arrested without cause to more than 125 since the beginning of 2005," she said.
Dugal accused the Iranian government of carrying out "religious persecution" intended to keep the Baha'i community "in a state of terror." |
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Joined: 26 Feb 2004 Posts: 1672
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Posted: Fri May 26, 2006 5:49 pm Post subject: |
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http://news.bahai.org/story.cfm?storyid=450
This is very disturbing..look at the picture of the young girls...who knows if they are being raped or tortured... b.
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54 Bahai Arrested in Iran.
NEW YORK, 24 May 2006 (BWNS) -- Iranian officials have arrested 54 Baha'is in the city of Shiraz, the Baha'i International Community has learned. They are mostly youth and were all engaged in humanitarian service when they were arrested. It is one of the largest number of Baha'is taken at once since the 1980s. The specific charges are not clear, though in the past, Baha'is have been arrested summarily on false charges.
The arrests occurred on Friday, 19 May, while the Baha'is, along with several other volunteers who were not Baha'is, were teaching classes to underprivileged children in a school as part of a UNICEF community service activity conducted by a local non-governmental organization. At the time of the arrests, they had in their possession a letter of permission from the Islamic Council of Shiraz. They also carried the letter of permission in each of their classes.
The nature of the charges against the Baha'is is unknown at this time. The day following the arrests, a judge told family members that the detainees would be freed soon. As of today, it appears that all of the non-Baha'is and one Baha'i junior youth have been released without having to post bail.
The arrests coincided with raids on six Baha'i homes during which notebooks, computers, books, and other documents were confiscated. In the last 14 months, 72 Baha'is across Iran have been arrested and held for up to several weeks.
"These new arrests in Shiraz, coming after more than a year of 'revolving door' detentions, bring the total number of Baha'is who have been arrested without cause to more than 125 since the beginning of 2005," said Bani Dugal, principal representative of the Baha'i International Community to the United Nations.
"Taken all together, this pattern of arbitrary arrests and detentions amount to the purest form of religious persecution and reflect nothing less than a calculated effort by the Iranian government to keep the Baha'i community utterly off balance and in a state of terror," Ms. Dugal said.
The arrests come against a backdrop of increasing concern by international human rights monitors that the Iranian Government is escalating its 25-year-long campaign of persecution against the 300,000-member Baha'i community of Iran, the largest religious minority in that country.
In March, the UN Special Rapporteur of the Commission on Human Rights on freedom of religion or belief released news of a secret 29 October 2005 letter from the Iranian military high command ordering police and Revolutionary Guard units to "identify" and "monitor" members of the Baha'i community of Iran, saying the existence of such a letter made her "highly concerned."
Moreover, since late 2005, more than 30 mostly negative and often defamatory articles about the Baha'is and their religion have appeared in "Kayhan," the official Tehran daily newspaper. Radio and television broadcasts have likewise increasingly condemned the Baha'is and their beliefs.
Since January, in addition to the 54 arrested in Shiraz last Friday, seven Baha'is have been arrested and held for periods of up to one month in Kermanshah, Isfahan, and Tehran.
Among those arrested in January was Mrs. Roya Habibi of Kermanshah, who has reported that she was interrogated for eight hours, with questions focused on her role as coordinator of a program to provide religious instruction in the Baha'i Faith.
In the court document that sets out the charges against her, Mrs. Habibi, who is currently out on bail, "is charged with teaching the Bahaism sect and acting in an insulting manner towards all that is holy in Islam."
"While it is often difficult to get details on the charges against Baha'is, there is no doubt that most of them -- like the case against Mrs. Habibi -- are motivated purely by religious intolerance and prejudice," said Ms. Dugal.
Last year, some 65 Baha'is were arrested and held for periods of time ranging from a few days to more than a month.
While most were held less than a week, others were jailed for up to three months. Some of the prisoners last year were held incommunicado, in unknown locations, while their families desperately searched for them. Last year also, government agents conducted prolonged searches of many of their homes, confiscating documents, books, computers, copiers and other belongings.
In the 1980s, some 200 Baha'is were killed or executed. Thousands were arrested and hundreds were imprisoned, many for long periods. In recent years, in the face of international monitoring, the executions and long-term imprisonments have stopped |
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