Rise of The Iranian People

Tracking, reporting and analyzing the movement and events taking place in Iran

Weekend Headlines

Posted by Admin on February 8, 2010

Iran makes new uranium enrichment challenge

BBC | Feb. 7, 2010

Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has asked the country’s nuclear chief to begin enriching uranium to 20%.

The move comes amid a worsening stand-off over a Western offer for Iran to swap enriched uranium for nuclear fuel.

The West fears Iran is trying to develop nuclear weapons – and have threatened new sanctions. Iran insists its program is peaceful.

The US defense secretary urged the world to “stand together,” saying there was still time for sanctions to work.

In London, the Foreign Office said Mr Ahmadinejad’s announcement was “clearly a matter of serious concern”.

“This would be a deliberate breach of five UNSCRs [United Nations Security Council Resolutions],” it said in a statement.

Mr Ahmadinejad made the announcement on Iranian state television – two days after his foreign minister said a deal on swapping enriched uranium for nuclear fuel was close – a claim greeted with skepticism by Western powers.

“I had said let us give them [Western powers] two to three months, and if they don’t agree, we would start ourselves,” Mr Ahmadinejad said in a speech broadcast live.

Defense secretary Robert M. Gates skeptical of Iran’s claims about nuclear deal

Washington Post | Feb. 7, 2010

Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates on Saturday played down assertions by Iran that it is ready to reach a deal on its nuclear program, saying Tehran’s overall response to overtures from the Obama administration has been “quite disappointing.”

His statement came three days after President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad signaled that Iran was prepared to accept a deal offered by the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council and Germany, under which Tehran would hand over a stockpile of uranium for processing outside the country.

In exchange, Iran would receive enriched fuel that would enable it to power a reactor for medical research but not make bombs.

During a visit to the Turkish capital, Ankara, Gates did not completely dismiss the Iranian statements but expressed skepticism about Tehran’s sincerity.

“The reality is that they have done nothing to reassure the international community that they are prepared to . . . stop their progress toward making a nuclear weapon,” Gates said.

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Selected Headlines

Posted by Admin on February 3, 2010

Iran says ready to send enriched uranium abroad

WaPo | Feb. 2, 2010

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said on Tuesday Iran was ready to send its enriched uranium abroad in exchange for nuclear fuel under a plan the West hopes will prevent the development of material used for atomic bombs.

The U.N. nuclear agency has brokered a proposed deal requiring Iran to send its low enriched uranium abroad in exchange for more highly enriched fuel to produce medical isotopes.

Iran has denied seeking nuclear weapons. “We have no problem sending our enriched uranium abroad,” Ahmadinejad told state television.

“We say: we will give you our 3.5 percent enriched uranium and we will get the fuel. It may take 4 to 5 months until we get the fuel,” he said.

“If we send our enriched uranium abroad and then they do not give us the 20 percent enriched fuel for our reactor, we are capable of producing it inside Iran,” he added.

Ahmadinejad’s comments came after Iran and the U.N. nuclear watchdog reported last week that a deal on uranium enrichment was still possible, even though Western diplomats had claimed Tehran had effectively turned down the proposal.

Under the proposed deal, Tehran would transfer 70 percent of its low-enriched uranium (LEU) abroad for conversion into special fuel rods to keep the nuclear medicine reactor running.

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Shah’s ‘tyranny’ continues in Iran

Posted by Admin on February 2, 2010

Iranian security forces surround opposition protesters during clashes in Tehran on December 27.

Tehran, Iran (CNN) — Mir Hossein Moussavi, the Iranian opposition leader and symbol of anti-government fervor, lashed out against Iran’s Islamic Republic Tuesday, saying remnants of the “tyranny” and “dictatorship” that prevailed under the toppled Shah of Iran’s regime persist today.

“In the early years of the Islamic Revolution, most people were convinced that the structure of the revolution would destroy the past political situation of tyranny and dictatorship, and I was one of them who believed that,” said Moussavi, a former prime minister.

But now, he said, that’s not true anymore.

“The current political situation in Iran indicates the presence of the remaining roots of tyranny and dictatorship of the Shah,” whose regime was overthrown in 1979 and replaced by an Islamic republic led by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.

“I don’t believe that the revolution achieved its goals,” said Moussavi, speaking out forcefully as the tensions over Iranian politics continue.

The regime is marking the anniversary of the shah’s overthrow with a series of events that began this week and culminate on February 11. Moussavi and Mehdi Karrubi, another Iranian opposition leader, have urged supporters to demonstrate.

Those celebrations coincide with Iranian trials and executions of street protesters who demonstrate against the June 12 presidential election victory of incumbent Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. In the final results Ahmadinejad was declared the winner over Moussavi, a result seen by many Iranians as questionable or rigged.

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Weekend Headlines

Posted by Admin on February 2, 2010

Shadow of Extra-Judicial Executions Looms Large over Dissidents

IHR | Jan. 31, 2010

Sixteen defendants currently facing a “show trial” in Tehran have been selected to intimidate specific groups of dissidents and pave the way for applying the charge of Mohareb, or “enemy of God,” to large numbers of dissidents and protestors, charges that can lead to their execution, the International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran said today. Five of the sixteen defendants prosecuted in the post-Ashura trials of 30 January face the death penalty, having been charged with that crime.

“After the extra-judicial massacre of thousands of political prisoners in 1988, large scale executions of dissidents again loom before Iranians and the world community, this time after transparently political show trials. These trials do not adhere to the most basic standards if justice and rely on the charge of Mohareb to justify sending peaceful dissidents to the gallows,” said Hadi Ghaemi, the Campaign’s spokesperson.

According to the ISNA news agency, the prosecutor read the charges against the 16 defendants individually (see below). While five of the defendants were charged as Mohareb, the charges against others included assembly and conspiracy to commit crimes against national security and propaganda against the state, charges the Campaign believes are arbitrarily applied to convict critics of the government.

On 29 January, one day after two political prisoners (Arash Rahmani Pour and Mohammad Ali Zamani) were hanged, the hardline cleric and member of the Guardian Council, Ayatollah Ali Jonati welcomed these executions. Given his prominent position amongst the ruling elite’s “hardliner” faction, his statement is interpreted as a green light for further political executions. He explicitly stated that if widespread executions had taken place following the post- election unrest, the protests would not have been prolonged. Addressing the head of the Judiciary, Jonati said at Friday prayers in Tehran: “For God’s sake, just as you expedited these two executions, continue on like a man and bravo for these actions.”

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Iran’s New Labor?

Posted by Admin on January 31, 2010

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Against the status quo: An interview with Iranian trade unionist Homayoun Pourzad

Despite unrelenting state repression, there have been rumblings throughout the 2000s of renewed labor organizing inside the Islamic Republic of Iran (IRI). One result of this upsurge in labor organizing was the May 2005 re-founding of the Syndicate of Workers of the United Bus Company of Tehran and Suburbs, a union that has a long history, albeit one that was interrupted by the 1979 Revolution, after which the union was repressed. The unions’ leader, Mansour Osanloo, was severely beaten and thrown in the Rajaei prison where he remains in a state of deteriorating health. Osanloo is an Amnesty International “prisoner of conscience.”

Another important result of the new labor organizing has been the emergence of the Independent Haft Tapeh Sugar Workers Union which launched an aggressive 42-day strike in June 2008 over wage-theft and deteriorating working conditions. In 2009, the regime imprisoned five union leaders in an attempt to smash the union for “acting against national security through the formation of a syndicate outside the law.”

Since the dramatic street demonstrations that so captured the international media’s attention beginning on June 12 of this year, the direction of events inside the IRI has sparked considerable debate as well as confusion. The continuing rivalry between various power factions within the government lends itself to no easy predictions, while little is known of the internal dynamics of the Green Movement responsible for the demonstrations. The fate of an already vulnerable organized labor movement in this volatile environment is likewise unclear. Whatever the outcome of the current power struggles, the future of Iranian organized labor is now an international issue. Its right to organize is in desperate need of support.

Following the U.S. Labor Against the War Conference, and in order to better grasp this situation, Platypus Review Assistant Editor Ian Morrison sat down with Homayoun Pourzad, a representative from the Network of Iranian Labor Unions, to discuss the current crisis and the effects of “anti-imperial” ideologies on understanding the character of the IRI. Morrison conducted this interview, which has been edited for publication, on December 3, 2009.

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Selected Headlines

Posted by Admin on January 28, 2010

Official: Report on university attack has to wait

Khabar Online | Jan. 27, 2010

Deputy Majles Speaker Seyyed Mohammad Hassan Abutorabi said officials were determined to track down and punish those behind the Tehran University dormitory incident.

“Given the Leader’s wishes about a probe into the attack on the Tehran University dormitory and punishing the perpetrators, authorities are determined [to take action] and the investigations of the truth-finding committee have yielded very positive results,” he said.

Abutorabi was asked why the Tehran University dorm report had not been presented in Majles. “Because the truth-finding committee’s report on Kahrizak was read out in Majles, the Tehran University dorm report will be presented to lawmakers at a better time,” he said. “The Tehran University dorm report is just as transparent and straightforward as the Kahrizak report and it will be read in Majles after a better conclusion is reached.”

Lawmakers to meet with family of fourth Kahrizak victim

Asr Iran | Jan. 27, 2010

Head of the Majles truth-finding committee Parviz Sarvari said the panel had heard about the fourth Kahrizak victim only as they were about to conclude its report.

In response to speculation about failing to include Ramin Aghazadeh Qahramani’s name in the Kahrizak report, Sarvari said, “We heard that he died after his release from prison but either way me and Mr. [Mohammad] Dehghan the will be visiting his family and we will listen to what they have to say.”

The member of the National Security and Foreign Policy Commission told Mehr News Agency that, “This issue was different as we were following up on the cases of the Kahrizak victims and from what we heard this individual [Qahramani] passed away after his release from prison.”

“Of course I am not 100 percent sure and we must review the coroner’s files as well as other documents to be able to make a statement in this regard,” he said. “In any case, given that the Kahrizak report has been read in Majles, the work of the truth-finding committee is over.”

He added that the only way to investigate Qaharamani’s case was through a delegation appointed by the National Security Commission.

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Weekend Headlines

Posted by Admin on January 26, 2010

Javad Larijani uses racial slur in reference to Obama

Asr IranPeykeiran | Jan. 23, 2010

Mohammad Javad Larijani criticized the policies adopted by U.S. President Barack Obama and referred to him using a racial epithet.

“When Barack Obama was sworn into office he talked of verbally engaging Iran,” the U.C. Berkeley graduate was quoted as saying. “What has changed is that today this [the equivalent of the N-word in Farsi] talks of regime change in Iran.”

In a Saturday meeting at the Islamic Engineers Society, Larijani said, “I am not a racist, but I must respond to this man [Obama] in some way.”

Larijani’s brother, Ali, is the speaker of Majles (Parliament). Another brother, Sadegh, is head of the judiciary.

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Plane catches fire in Iran, injures 42

ReutersPhotos | Jan. 24, 2010

Some 42 Iranians were injured when a Russian-made Tupolev aircraft caught fire as it landed in northeastern Iran on Sunday, state radio said.

“About 42 passengers, out of 157 aboard, were injured when the plane was landing at Mashhad city’s airport,” said Gholamreza Massoumi, head of Iran’s emergency medical services.

There were no fatalities, said Iran’s civil aviation spokesman Reza Jafarzadeh.

A senior local official said the wounded were not in a critical condition, state television said.

The official IRNA news agency said the incident occurred when the rear end of the plane, which belonged to Iran’s domestic Taban Airliner, caught fire while landing. The cause of the incident was being investigated, IRNA said.

Russia’s Federal Air Transport Agency said on Sunday it will investigate the reasons behind the fire and said “weather conditions and visibility problems were most likely behind the incident,” state-run news agency RIA-Novosti reported.

In the worst plane crash in Iran in the past six years, a Tupolev aircraft crashed in 2009 in Iran on its way to Armenia, after catching fire mid-air and crashing into farmland killing all 168 people on board.

Iran has suffered a string of crashes in the past few decades, many involving Russian-made aircraft.

U.S. sanctions against Iran have prevented it from buying new aircraft or spare parts from the West, forcing it to add to its aging fleet of Boeing and Airbus planes with aircraft from Russia and other former Soviet Union states.

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Selected Headlines

Posted by Admin on January 24, 2010

Engineer’s arrest exposes U.S. pursuit of Iranians

WaPo | Jan. 22, 2010

The case of Majid Kakavand, accused of purchasing American electronics online and routing it to Iran via Malaysia, has shed light on increasing U.S. attempts to crack down on people outside American borders suspected of illegally buying U.S. supplies for Iran military programs.

The case is also pushing the justice system in France, which has grown increasingly tough on Iran’s nuclear ambitions but also has trade and oil interests in the country, toward a stand that could have deep diplomatic and economic repercussions.

Kakavand’s future could be decided at a Feb. 17 Paris hearing on whether to extradite him to the United States.

Iran’s government spoke out about the case for the first time this week, accusing France of linking Kakavand’s fate to that of a young French academic on trial in Iran. It says Kakavand is innocent and suggests he is being used as a bargaining chip in the diplomatic tug-of-war over 24-year-old Clotilde Reiss.

NYC consultant denied bail in Iran trade case

Wapo | Jan. 21, 2010

A management consultant charged with violating the Iran Trade Embargo was denied bail Thursday despite his claims that he would not be welcome in Iran.

U.S. District Judge John F. Keenan ordered Mahmoud Reza Banki held until his March 22 trial on charges that he broke money transfer laws when he and relatives in Iran transferred money to each other.

Banki, 33, of Manhattan, has been held without bail since he was arrested earlier this month. He is accused of operating an unlicensed money transfer business, a charge that federal sentencing guidelines suggest would carry a prison term of at least five years after a conviction.

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Selected Headlines

Posted by Admin on January 21, 2010

Four arrested after Iran prosecutor assassinated

BBC Jan. 21, 2010

Four people have been arrested after an Iranian state prosecutor was shot dead outside his home in northern Iran.

Vali Hajgholizadeh, who officials say had a reputation for fighting corruption, was killed in the town of Khoy near the Turkish border.

Local officials said a Kurdish separatist group had claimed responsibility for the killing.
The region has been the scene of frequent clashes with Kurdish groups who want to establish their own state.

Two gunmen opened fire on Mr Hajgholizadeh outside his house late on Monday, and he died of his wounds in hospital.

The Free Life Party of Kurdistan (PJAK), a Kurdish militant group based in Iraqi Kurdistan claimed it carried out the attack, local government official Fakhrali Nikbakht told the Mehr News agency.

Four men were arrested on Tuesday, but no details have been given about their identities.

Clinton Urges Global Response to Internet Attacks

NYT Jan. 10, 2010

Coupling a salute to Internet freedom with a carefully worded caution to countries like China and Iran, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said Thursday that countries that engaged in cyberattacks should face consequences and international condemnation.

“In an interconnected world, an attack on one nation’s networks can be an attack on all,” she said in a speech in Washington. “By reinforcing that message, we can create norms of behavior among states and encourage respect for the global networked commons.”

Mrs. Clinton’s comments came in a speech in which she announced a new $15 million effort to help more young people, women and citizens groups in other countries communicate on the Web.

“Given the magnitude of the challenges we’re facing, we need people around the world to pool their knowledge and creativity to help rebuild the global economy, protect our environment, defeat violent extremism and build a future in which every human being can realize their God-given potential,” she said, according to the advance text of a speech at the Newseum in Washington.

Her remarks came at a time when Internet controls have drawn increasing public attention. Limits on Internet searches led to a dispute made public this month between Google and China, and sites such as Facebook and Twitter, which played a critical role in helping protesters in Iran spread news and images of violent crackdowns on antigovernment demonstrations, have been blocked by the authorities in Tehran

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Selected Headlines

Posted by Admin on January 20, 2010

Iranian academics fear more killings

Nature | Jan. 19, 2010

Iran’s scientific community is reeling after the assassination on 12 January of Masoud Alimohammadi, a particle physicist at the University of Tehran.

Alimohammadi was killed by a bomb as he got into his car to go to work. “Everyone is worried that this may be only the start, and that there may be more killings of academics to come,” one researcher says.

Nature interviewed half a dozen scientists in Iran who knew Alimohammadi, all of whom requested anonymity. They are mystified as to why he was singled out. “I could expect that some influential political figure be assassinated, but not him,” says one. Like many intellectuals in Iran, he was politically engaged, but far from being a political activist, the researchers say.

Mottaki calls for return of diplomat in Norway

Gooya
| Jan. 18, 2010

In a joint press conference with his Gergian counterpart on Monday, Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki said that he awaited the return of the Iranian consulate employee who requested political asylum in Norway.

Mohammed-Reza Heydari, an Iranian diplomat in Oslo, said he resigned from his post on account of his government’s violent suppression of demonstrators on the day of Ashura (December 27).

“This individual handed in his resignation to the Iranian Embassy in Norway and given that his resignation did not meet with approval, he should have ended his work there and resumed work at the Foreign Ministry. This is the normal procedure and this is why we hope to see him continue his services [to the country] in Norway.”

Tajzadeh due in court in February

Tabnak |
Jan. 18, 2010

Mostafa Tajzadeh, a leading reformist figure, has said that until a complaint he filed a decade ago is brought to court, he will not be attending any court hearings, according to his wife.

“My husband believes if they had heard his complaint none of the present problems would have occurred,” Fakhralsadat Mohtashami, Tajzadeh’s wife, told an Arya reporter.
“Tajzadeh has said that he will not appear in his court hearing scheduled for February 20 and the judge can hand down any verdict he pleases and carry it out.”

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Selected Headlines

Posted by Admin on January 20, 2010

Iran city prosecutor assassinated

IrnaIsnaReuters | Jan. 18, 2010

The prosecutor of a northwestern Iranian city has been assassinated, ISNA news agency reported on Monday.

ISNA did not give any further details but quoted a provincial judiciary official as saying “investigations were under way to identify those behind the killing” of Khoy’s prosecutor.

ISNA’s report came six days after a remote-controlled bomb killed a university scientist in Tehran.

Minister confirms state interception of phone calls

Advar News | Jan. 18, 2010

Communications Minister Mohammad Soleimani confirmed that the conversations citizens have on their cell phones are listened to and recorded.

“In the case of the C-130 plane crash if the journalists [onboard the plane] had had phone conversations, their call records can be released with a legal warrant,” he told a gathering on injured war veteran employees of the ministry under his care.

In response to a reporter’s question as to whether the phone conversations of citizens were automatically recorded and kept for six months, Soleimani said, “WE try to always keep the call recordings and with the digital technologies of today there is the possibility of recording.”

“But not everyone can access the recorded conversations of citizens unless they have a legal warrant.”

Iranian delegation meets with Lebanese officials

Asr Iran | Jan. 18, 2010

Iranian vice president for Majlis Affairs visited Hezbollah Secretary-General Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah in Beirut to discuss regional developments.

Heading a high-ranking Iranian delegation, Mohammad-Reza Mirtajedini met with Nasrallah and Hezballah commander in south Lebanon Sheikh Nabil Qauq to discuss local and regional developments.

“The resistance of the Islamic Resistance and Hizbollah Youth proved that there exists a generation in Lebanon capable of confronting the barbaric acts of the Zionists and its [Israel's] armed-to-the teeth army in the region,” Mirtajedini said after the meeting. “The new threats issued by the Zionists are only a psychological war and Lebanon’s Islamic Resistance [movement] can powerfully repel their hostile acts.”

Mirtajedini and the other members of the Iranian delegation also met with Grand Ayatollah Sayyed Mohammad Hussein Fadlallah — the Shia Lebanese’s Source of Emulation — to convey President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s gratitude for his stance on recent developments.

Earlier reports suggested that the Iranian opposition had sent a delegation to seek Fadlallah’s help in resolving the political disputes in Iran and securing the release of the detained political activists in the country. Fadlallah is held in high esteem by Iran’s Leader Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei.

Soon after this report, another Iranian delegation headed by one Mojtaba Hosseini traveled to Syria to meet with Fadlallah. In that meeting Fadlallah advised all parties in Iran to resolve their differences through dialogue and denied having been contacted by the Iranian opposition to mediate in the country’s political crisis.

Fadlallah for his part stressed the importance of unity among Muslim and Arab nations. “We must support Islamic unity as the global arrogance has targeted the unity of the Ummah (Muslim Community),” he said.

The Iranian delegation also met with the deputy head of the Higher Muslim Shiite Council Sheikh Abdel Amir Qabalan and discussed the future of Tehran-Beirut ties as well as Lebanese and regional developments.

Mirtajedini congratulated Qabalan on the formation of a united Lebanese government and reiterated Tehran’s stance to support Lebanon.

Last month a Lebanese lawmaker had said that before the crisis in Iran is resolved no government could be formed in Lebanon.

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Selected Headlines

Posted by Admin on January 17, 2010

Iran Air plane skids off runway at Stockholm

Press TV | Jan. 16, 2010
An Iran Air plane slid off the runway into the snow as it was about to leave Stockholm for Tehran on Saturday, an official with the airline said.

None of the 173 people, including 149 passengers, onboard Flight 762 were hurt, the official told Press TV on condition of anonymity.

An Arlanda Airport spokesman, Jan Lindqvist, said the plane had not been damaged as it was moving slowly.

“Some 100, 150 meters out on the runway (the plane) made a very slow turn and got stuck in the snow on the side of the runway,” he was quoted by AFP as saying.

The cause of the incident remains unknown.

The incident caused no major delays at Arlanda as the airport’s two other runways were kept open.

Mashai fly buzzing in Ahmadinejad’s ear

TabnakEbrat | Jan. 16, 2010

A critical comment by Esfandiar Rahim Mashai about one the prophets prompted the Mashhad Friday Prayers leader to call the president’s right-hand man “a fly buzzing in the ear” of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

“We will not tolerate attacks on the principles of religion from any front or movement even if we are among [one of] its supporters,” said Hojjatoleslam Seyyed Ahmad Alamolhoda. “In our opinion, the insults hurled by the head of the presidential office [Mashai] at one of the great prophets [Noah], are on a par with an attack on the principles of religion.”

Alamolhoda was referring to Mashai’s remarks at the Kharazmi Medical Science Festival. “Why should someone talk about the management skills of prophets at a medical festival?” he asked. “Do you [Mashai] know these prophets? Who does he [Mashai] think he is to question the managerial skills of prophets?”

“Noah the prophet struggled for 950 years to save humanity and if it wasn’t for him humanity would have been extinct and it was thanks to Noah’s management that humanity was saved from extinction,” he explained.

“It’s better for you [Mashai] to study the Qoran. Do you even know what Jesus has done to be criticizing his managerial skills? Are you some kind of expert?” he said.

“The people voted for a pious, honest individual,” he said, referring to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, “and now someone [Mashai] stands beside him [Ahmadinejad] buzzing in his ear like a fly.”

“We warned the president [about Mashai] a long time ago,” he said.

Alamolhoda went on to stress that the nation stood by its vote and added, “We will not allow a fly to buzz in our president’s ear.”

During Ahmadinejad’s trip to Mashhad, Alamolhoda left the podium in the middle of his speech to protest Mashai’s presence.

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A Response to the Leveretts

Posted by Admin on January 15, 2010

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A Response to Flynt Leverett and Hillary Mann Leverett

Flynt Leverett directs the New America Foundation’s Iran Initiative and is a professor of international affairs at Pennsylvania State University. Hillary Mann Leverett heads Strategic Energy and Global Analysis, a political risk consultancy. Together, they publish the Web site “The Race for Iran.” Having spent years in the intelligence community, they are both considered Iran experts.

[ comment ] On January 5, 2010, Flynt Leverett and his wife Hillary Mann Leverett wrote a New York Times op-ed piece entitled “Another Iranian Revolution? Not likely.”

In this opinion piece, the authors attempt to prove that the opposition Green Movement in Iran is weak, disorganized, leaderless, and even lacks a sense of what it wants. They also claim no clear process exists for the Green Movement to achieve a regime change.

This is not the first time that the Leveretts have bought into the hardliners’ propaganda. Immediately following the rigged June 12 presidential election, Flynt Leverett appeared on PBS with Charlie Rose and opined that Ahmadinejad had won fair and square. The couple then asserted the same in an article published by Politico and entitled, “Ahmadinejad won. Get over it.”

The basis of the argument was a poll that had been taken weeks before the election. Although the poll itself was indicative of the people’s thinking, the Leveretts chose to ignore many facts in order to proclaim Ahmadinejad the winner.

The hallmark of the Leveretts’ articles and opinions is their buy-in to the propaganda of Iran’s hardliners in order to promote their own agenda for dealing with Iran, which involves ignoring human rights issues and the brutality suffered by Iranians fighting for democracy under the current regime.

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From One Third World Woman to Another

Posted by Admin on January 12, 2010

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A conversation with Gayatri Spivak.

[ feature ] Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak is well known amongst many scholars, feminists and South Asian activists. Her reputation as a transnational feminist who combined Marxism and post-structuralism to address women’s issues was established long before her legendary 1988 essay, “Can the Subaltern Speak,” which defined the contours of a whole new discipline of thinking and activism. In the past three decades, she has emerged as the global authority on the intersections of Marxism, feminism, deconstruction, poststructuralism, and globalization. At Columbia University, where she is a professor, Spivak is also a founding member and director of the Institute for Comparative Literature and Society, where she has forged new ground. She was tenured as University Professor–Columbia’s highest rank–in March 2007.

Still, Professor Spivak is not simply an Ivory Tower academic or armchair intellectual. She also works in teacher-training schools in rural Bangladesh and India and is deeply involved with child laborers in Bangladeshi schools. One important difference between other academics and her is that she rejects the notion of “eloquence in silence that screams fail to deliver,” as a friend once put it to me. She delivers on her theories. Sitting next to Gayatri Spivak, I feel I am in the presence of an emphatic intellect.

Spivak’s concern about Iranian women’s rights and the Green Movement is not entirely unprecedented. She has been deeply involved in women’s rights issues in Algeria, where she developed her long collaboration with the prominent Algerian feminist Assia Djebar. Her writings have been equally influential in the work of such other prominent transnational and post-colonial feminists asChandra Talpade Mohanty and Meyda Yeğenoğlu, as well as a new generation of young Iranian feminist scholars such as Negar Mottahedeh and Nima Naghibi.

Throughout the Arab and Muslim World, from China to her native India, Latin America to South Africa, Gayatri Spivak has listened and observed carefully, and thus greatly contributed to the theoretical and pragmatic making of a transnational feminism that has offered by example and theoretical insight the women’s rights movement in Iran.

I approached Professor Spivak with my concerns about women’s participation in the Green Movement. I had questions about how Iranians may prevent history from repeating itself: Even though women and minorities have historically formed the nucleus of these social and political movements in modern Iranian history, they have been consistently sidestepped after victory.

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Bomb Kills Professor Tied to Mousavi

Posted by Admin on January 12, 2010

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AP | Jan. 12, 2010

A physics professor who publicly backed Iranian opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi in the disputed June presidential election was killed Tuesday when a remote-controlled bomb rigged to a motorcycle blew up outside his home. (Video hereand here.)

State media identified the victim as Masoud Ali Mohammadi, 50, a professor at Tehran University, which has been at the center of recent protests by student opposition supporters. Before the election, pro-reform Web sites published Ali Mohammadi’s name among a list of 240 Tehran University teachers who supported Mousavi.

The government blamed the bombing on an armed Iranian opposition group that it said operated under the direction of Israel and the U.S. Iran often accuses both countries of meddling in its affairs — both when it comes to postelection unrest and its nuclear program. Israel’s foreign ministry had no comment.

The Blame Game

EA | Jan. 12, 2010

Press TV, after carrying the message of Iran’s Foreign Ministry of “signs of the involvement of the Zionist regime [Israel], the US and their allies” in the killing of Professor Mohammadi, rolls out the latest accusation:

A terrorist group, whose radio station broadcast from the United States, took responsibility Tuesday for the fatal attack on an Iranian nuclear scientist in Tehran.

The Iran Royal Association, an obscure monarchist group that seeks to reestablish the Pahlavi reign in Iran, announced in a statement that its “Tondar Commandos” were behind the assassination of Masoud Ali-Mohammadi.

And very quickly the “Iran Royal Association” denies the allegation.

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