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Parviz
Joined: 11 Aug 2009
Posts: 63
Location: Tehran
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 Posted: Mon Aug 24, 2009 6:09 am Post subject: |
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| johnwilkins wrote: | | The Shah was not a dictator in so far as he was already the sovereign of the country. |
Another candidate for "most stupid comment on this Blog": So you are telling me that Saudi Arabia isn't a dictatorship? ..... that Saddam Hussein wasn't a dictator because he was already the leader of his country? .... in short, that no leaders can be defined as 'dictators' irrespective of how they rose to power or how brutally they maintain their power?
(btw, Reza Shah usurped the throne by overthrowing the Qajar Dynasty in a coup d'etat, and his son was reinstated by a U.S. coup, so the legitimacy of the Pahlavis is far more questionable than that of Mossadegh, n'est-ce pas?).
| johnwilkins wrote: | | I'm certainly interested in discussing the idea of who he and SAVAK had an interest in killing. Per chance, would it be socialists? |
No, he killed anyone and everyone who demanded democratic reforms.
And, by the way, I'm a democrat in the European sense of the phrase, meaning I'm a believer in responsible capitalism (which has worked wonders for France and especially Germany), so stop insulting me with the 'communist' or even 'socialist' label simply because I oppose the extremist Law-Of-The-Jungle version of Capitalism that has bankrupted the U.S.A. and decimated the 26 % of its unemployed citizens while the fat-cats continue earning billion-dollar (literally) bonuses and 7-figure golden parachutes from the firms they bankrupted. |
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parvati_roma
Joined: 30 Mar 2004
Posts: 8380
Location: Italy
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| Posted: Mon Aug 24, 2009 6:31 am Post subject: |
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| Quote: | | ...btw, Reza Shah usurped the throne by overthrowing the Qajar Dynasty.. |
yeah I'd already pointed out elsewhere to JW that for the sake of ideological consistency, as he's so keen on upholding the divine-right-of-kings of monarchical dynasties that sell off their country's resources to anglospherical interests, he should be demanding the reinstatement of the "legitimate" Qajjars not the "upstart" Pahlavis ... 
And believe it or not, he also constantly reproaches the Iraqis for not eternally retaining as their very-own BritRaj-implanted=divinely-willed royal masters those Hashemite cast-offs from the Hejaz that the Brits installed first in Syria then in Iraq!
_________________
“Against barbarity, poetry can resist only by confirming its attachment to human fragility like a blade of grass growing on a wall while armies march by.” Mahmoud Darwish |
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Parviz
Joined: 11 Aug 2009
Posts: 63
Location: Tehran
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| Posted: Mon Aug 24, 2009 7:46 am Post subject: |
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P-R, I thought you would very much appreciate the video contained in the following link, as it shows how an Iranian blogger 'borrowed' the Italian anti-Fascist anthem!
http://lukeakehurst.blogspot.com/2009/08/iran.html |
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parvati_roma
Joined: 30 Mar 2004
Posts: 8380
Location: Italy
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| Posted: Mon Aug 24, 2009 8:31 am Post subject: |
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I love it, it's been on my own website for weeks:
http://darkmirror.blogspot.com/ ... and I also posted it on this thread around the same date (30th July).
How it happened: from what I've read on Italian blogs, during the 25th of July solidarity demos here in Italy, afaik in Bologna (Italian-resistance historical heartland) and some other central/northern Italian towns, the Iranian students-etc. who were organizing the demos started playing and singing Bella Ciao after Yare Dabestani and other Iranian patriotic/revolutionary songs, both because of its content and to enable their non-Persian-speaking local supporters + passers-by to sing along with them too. So everybody - Italian-resident Iranians and local Italians - started bellowing it out together, in perfect unity-of-sentiment! Then the word spread via the usual grapevines, and someone produced that video. If you check out the comments threads attached to the original youtube video you'll find hundreds of Italians writing in to say how happy they are to see our proud resistance song is being shared by the Iranian freedom movement.
P.S. the English translation used in the video is a patchwork drawn from several translations floating around the web, including some lines from a non-literal "alternative version" I myself wrote and posted on the BellaCiao wikipedia page a few years ago... when I saw some lines of "my translation" were amongst those used in the video I was overwhelmed , so happy/moved to find I too had "contributed" my mite to it I cried ... 
P.P.S The song is so well-know and so enduringly popular in Italy that around the time of those huge international antiwar demos in Feb. 2003 to try to stop the US invasion of Iraq before it started (at least 2 million demonstrated against the war in Rome, largest demo in our entire history..) whole subway-train carriages full of people here - perfect strangers! - would start singing it spontaneously... and if a street-musician started playing it on an accordeon, the passers-by would stop and sing along... it's still very deeply-felt here.
_________________
“Against barbarity, poetry can resist only by confirming its attachment to human fragility like a blade of grass growing on a wall while armies march by.” Mahmoud Darwish |
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Parviz
Joined: 11 Aug 2009
Posts: 63
Location: Tehran
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| Posted: Mon Aug 24, 2009 9:27 am Post subject: |
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P-R, I can't thank you enough for your humanity and for highlighting the plight of the Iranian nation.
As for 'Revisionism Personified', it is becoming rather tiresome to read his selective judgements on monarchs and other leaders. His views are fashioned exclusively by their degree of subservience to American interests.
The Pahlavis were 'legitimate' monarchs despite having overthrown the previous monarchy?
The U.S. had every right to overthrow Mossadegh and reinstate the Pahlavis?
Overthrowing foreign regimes is NOT an act of terrorism?
The Saudi regime is NOT a 'dictatorship'?
Subversion of a foreign government is perfectly legitimate?
... and so on.
Which planet did J.W. land from? (Probably the same one from which Cheney/Wolfowitz/Douglas Feith/John Bolton/Rumsfeld originated). |
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johnwilkins
Joined: 15 Apr 2002
Posts: 4858
Location: West Coast
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| Posted: Mon Aug 24, 2009 1:12 pm Post subject: |
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| parvati roma wrote: | | And perhaps you missed the way JW has been repeatedly informing Parviz he "must be a commie" because of his fierce resentment of the US-funded coup that deposed Mossadeq and reinstalled the Shah in 1953 etcetc ? ... |
Tsk, tsk. There's a little more to it than that. First, Parviz does not acknowledge that Mohammed Mossadeq led a series of strikes and demonstrations that crippled the nation so that he could gain military power. As soon as he had it, he declared emergency rule and abolished the secret ballot. Then Mossadeq held a typical phony election winning 99.93% of the vote--the type of thing a person does when he wants to remain in power forever. Since Parviz does not acknowledge this fact, I think his political animosity toward the US is a bit insincere. I think yours is too in this respect: the CIA involvement was instigated at the behest of the British, who seem to have been forgotten in the overweening desire to criticize US policy.
| parvati roma wrote: | | Anyway, afaik privatisation yes/no - unlike corruption - was NOT an issue in the elections let alone in the post-electoral protests, as afaik both sides declare they favour privatisation as an economic necessity - but Ahmadinejad's faction is said to favour "privatising" an even larger slice of the Iranian economy from state or bonyad control directy into the hand of IRGC-owned foundations not subject to any form of public oversight? |
Indeed. And again, what type of economic policy was the US opposed to?
| Parviz wrote: | | So you are telling me that Saudi Arabia isn't a dictatorship? |
It's a monarchy. Even if it isn't significant, I prefer using the proper terms of art. Clearly you don't because you are trying to make a "moral equivalence" argument.
| Parviz wrote: | | ..... that Saddam Hussein wasn't a dictator because he was already the leader of his country? |
Of course he was a dictator. However, that Iraq's government was "sovereign" was the oft used argument by the political left for opposing the US Regime Change policy. The US did not claim sovereignty over Iraq. They simply changed its form of government and removed its current leadership.
| Parviz wrote: | | .... in short, that no leaders can be defined as 'dictators' irrespective of how they rose to power or how brutally they maintain their power? |
I didn't say that. In fact, one of my clear points to you was that Mossadeq was also well down the road to dictatorship--a left wing dictatorship.
| Parviz wrote: | | (btw, Reza Shah usurped the throne by overthrowing the Qajar Dynasty in a coup d'etat, and his son was reinstated by a U.S. coup, so the legitimacy of the Pahlavis is far more questionable than that of Mossadegh, n'est-ce pas?). |
In terms of international law, it depends upon diplomatic recognition, which is itself somewhat elastic. The British certainly had a hand in the end of the Qajar dynasty, but again you are omitting many of the central facts. The constitutional reforms that led to the Majlis occurred largely due to the Shah granting too many concessions to foreign interests. The bigger fear among the people of your country at that time, if reports are to be believed, is that he was too close with Russia. British attempts to reverse the Russian revolution led to a blowback in Persia as well, as the Russians began to extract all sorts of concessions and stripped territory from Persia. British influence among the merchants is part of what brought your country out of its Medieval period. From 1906 to 1925, one of the bigger developments in Russia was the adoption of communist party rule and a propensity to export communist revolutionaries. Clearly, this had the British and the Americans worried. My guess is that had the Qajar dynasty not been overthrown, Iran would have been a Soviet satellite state. The British and the Russians clearly over threw Reza Khan, because he sided with the Nazis during World War II.
Again, a little more detail would be appreciated when you make your assertions. Otherwise your commentary tends to sound a bit like a rageful Forrest Gump: "And then, for no particular reason, the Americans overthrew another government. I thought that was really bad."
| Parviz wrote: | | No, he killed anyone and everyone who demanded democratic reforms. |
One of the SAVAK's early accomplishments was to root out a communist Tudeh network operating within the Iranian military. This is very consistent with something the US would support. Again, whenever I come up against this type of vitriol, I never have to dig too deep to see the US involved in anti-communist activity. Why can't you just come clean and admit that this was the US objective?
SAVAK
| Encyclopedia Iranica wrote: | | This organization was the first modern, effective intelligence service to operate in Persia. Its main achievement occurred in September 1954, when it discovered and destroyed a large communist Tudeh Party network that had been established in the Persian armed forces |
| wrote: | Pakravan was replaced in 1965 by General Nematollah Nassiri, a close associate of the Shah, and the service was reorganized and became increasingly active in the face of rising Shia and Communist militancy and political unrest.
...
A turning point in SAVAK's reputation for ruthless brutality was reportedly an attack on a gendarmerie post in the Caspian village of Siahkal by a small band of armed Marxists in February 1971, although it is also reported to have tortured to death a Shia cleric, Ayatollah Muhammad Reza Sa'idi, in 1970. |
Then, there is also scaling the organization properly. It's enemies will always dramatically exagerate deaths, tortures, etc.
| Quote: | | However, according to more recent research by a political historian of the era, Ervand Abrahamian, deaths numbered in the dozens rather than the thousands under the SAVAK, far fewer than the several thousand prisoners are estimated to have been killed in the Islamic Republic that followed. While some prisoners during the Shah's era were tortured, prisoners' letters were much more likely to use words such as "boredom" and "monotony," to describe their confinement than "fear," "death," "terror," "horror," and "nightmare" (kabos), the common descriptors found in letters of prisoners of the Islamic Republic. |
| Parviz wrote: | | And, by the way, I'm a democrat in the European sense of the phrase, meaning I'm a believer in responsible capitalism (which has worked wonders for France and especially Germany), so stop insulting me with the 'communist' or even 'socialist' label simply because I oppose the extremist Law-Of-The-Jungle version of Capitalism that has bankrupted the U.S.A. and decimated the 26 % of its unemployed citizens while the fat-cats continue earning billion-dollar (literally) bonuses and 7-figure golden parachutes from the firms they bankrupted. |
Then stop repeating communist propaganda. It makes you sound like a dyed-in-the-wool communist. America clearly isn't a law-of-the-jungle capitalist country. The government virtually owns our banks, car companies, and wants to own our health care system too. They own many of the notes on our houses as well.
| parvati roma wrote: | | yeah I'd already pointed out elsewhere to JW that for the sake of ideological consistency, as he's so keen on upholding the divine-right-of-kings of monarchical dynasties that sell off their country's resources to anglospherical interests, he should be demanding the reinstatement of the "legitimate" Qajjars not the "upstart" Pahlavis ... |
I'm not defending the Divine Right of Kings. I'm saying that precedent and diplomatic recognition in an instant conflict, at least in the international legal sense, determines the legitimacy to rule. The Qajars certainly had a more legitimate claim to the throne than Reza Shah; however, it is more than likely that the Russians would have done him off if Reza Shah had not.
| parvati roma wrote: | | And believe it or not, he also constantly reproaches the Iraqis for not eternally retaining as their very-own BritRaj-implanted=divinely-willed royal masters those Hashemite cast-offs from the Hejaz that the Brits installed first in Syria then in Iraq! |
Principally as a retort to those of you who argued throughout the Iraq war that Iraq never had a democracy, so a democracy could not be "installed." Again, my point was to note your false history lessons and obfuscating the fact that General Kassem was in league on-again-off-again with the communists. We also get the bosh that the US "installed" Saddam Hussein--again, with no mention of the actual facts or the political context. The US opposed Kassem, and conspired along with French intelligence to install Arif.
| Parviz wrote: | | As for 'Revisionism Personified', it is becoming rather tiresome to read his selective judgements on monarchs and other leaders. His views are fashioned exclusively by their degree of subservience to American interests. |
Not exclusively, but there you have finally made a point worthy of consideration. American actions should be interpreted with a view to American interests so that you can understand what the US did, why it did what it did, and predict what it will probably due in the future.
| Parviz wrote: | | The Pahlavis were 'legitimate' monarchs despite having overthrown the previous monarchy? |
Mohammed Pahlavi Shah's government was a member of the United Nations, as is Queen Elizabeth's.
| Parviz wrote: | | The U.S. had every right to overthrow Mossadegh and reinstate the Pahlavis? |
First, in state craft you are dealing with powers more so than rights. Second, the Pahlavis weren't officially removed from power. You cannot "reinstate" that which has not been removed. As I have said multiple times, Mossadeq was no democrat. I can certainly understand why a citizen of one country would be resentful of foreign influence by another. However, I cannot sympathize with wholesale subscription to communist propaganda. That is how the Soviets have infiltrated our country and conspired to put leftists into our universities and media.
| Parviz wrote: | | Overthrowing foreign regimes is NOT an act of terrorism? |
It IS an act of subversion. It usually does NOT involve terrorism.
| Parviz wrote: | | The Saudi regime is NOT a 'dictatorship'? |
It is a monarchy. Does it have characteristics in common with a dictatorship? Yes.
| Parviz wrote: | | Subversion of a foreign government is perfectly legitimate? |
It certainly beats full scale warfare, no?
| Parviz wrote: | | Which planet did J.W. land from? (Probably the same one from which Cheney/Wolfowitz/Douglas Feith/John Bolton/Rumsfeld originated). |
If you don't understand why things get done, you have no power to effect change or modify your actions accordingly. Look at the US/China trade of the last 20 years. The Chinese are communists--a philosophy widely despised in America--who trade with the United States. How did this come to pass? It was a means of splitting up the communist bloc nations while delivering to China and the US respectively the comparative advantages of the two nations. China, in spite of its one-party communist rule, has worked and traded with the US to become the third largest economy in the world--ahead of Germany and France in GDP terms.
I laid out for you a whole series of measures Iran could have done and could do to achieve the same ends. You just can't get passed Soviet-sponsored Iranian nationalist rhetoric, whose aim is to prevent in Iran the same rapid rise in living standards and wealth that occurred in China IN SPITE OF RUNNING A COMMUNIST GOVERNMENT.
_________________
"A designer knows he has achieved perfection not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away."
--Antoine de Saint-Exupery |
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parvati_roma
Joined: 30 Mar 2004
Posts: 8380
Location: Italy
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| Posted: Mon Aug 24, 2009 4:39 pm Post subject: |
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Re SAVAK:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SAVAK
| Quote: | | According to Iranian political historian Ervand Abrahamian [...] SAVAK interrogators were sent abroad for "scientific training to prevent unwanted deaths from 'brute force.' Brute force was supplemented with the bastinado; sleep deprivation; extensive solitary confinement; glaring searchlights; standing in one place for hours on end; nail extractions; snakes (favored for use with women); electrical shocks with cattle prods, often into the rectum; cigarette burns; sitting on hot grills; acid dripped into nostrils; near-drownings; mock executions; and an electric chair with a large metal mask to muffle screams while amplifying them for the victim. This latter contraption was dubbed the Apollo—an allusion to the American space capsules. Prisoners were also humiliated by being raped, urinated on, and forced to stand naked.[16] |
| Quote: | Abrahamian estimates that SAVAK (and other police and military) killed 368 guerillas between 1971-1977 and executed something less than 100 political prisoners between 1971 and 1979 - the most violent era of the SAVAK's existence. [18]
One well known writer was arrested, tortured for months, and finally placed before television cameras to 'confess' that his works paid too much attention to social problems and not enough to the great achievements of the White Revolution. By the end of 1975, twenty-two prominent poets, novelist, professors, theater directors, and film makers were in jail for criticizing the regime. And many others had been physically attacked for refusing to cooperate with the authorities.[19] |
The khomeinist regime that followed seems to have operated/be operating in the same Mukhabarat-State "spirit" but with a much higher kill-factor? (Parenthesis: any regime - regardless of how it labels itself - that jails and tortures poets novelists etc etc is deep in sick-puppy territory)
Here's the story of one guy - not the only one - who personally experienced the "joys" of both systems :
http://azarmehr.blogspot.com/2009/08/i-did-not-want-to-die-in-bed.html
http://iranfacts.blogspot.com/2009/08/from-old-professor-to-new-professor.html
....
Re rape as carry-over practice of choice from Savak to current pseudo-religious whatsit:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/middle_east/article6805885.ece
Not easy reading...
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/babylonbeyond/2009/08/iran-officials-blamed-victim-for-his-own-alleged-rape.html
Noting: | Quote: | The young man (...) said he was at first humiliated by the experience and suicidal, but was consoled by Karroubi, a cleric, who helped him regain his composure and self-esteem.
"He devoted himself like a psychiatrist to me to convince me that I was innocent," he said, according to the account. "He cited religious examples, and I was finally convinced that when someone is raped with his hands and feet tied is not a sinner and is on the contrary an oppressed." |
Clap-clap for Mehdi Karroubi... he sounds like a brave man and a fine human being.
_________________
“Against barbarity, poetry can resist only by confirming its attachment to human fragility like a blade of grass growing on a wall while armies march by.” Mahmoud Darwish |
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fred
Joined: 07 Nov 2002
Posts: 2950
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| Posted: Mon Aug 24, 2009 10:51 pm Post subject: |
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| parvati_roma wrote: | | Fred, are you seriously proposing a top-of-the-pops rock-anthem from Britain in the 1960s as the key to understanding the issues at stake in Iran in 2009? |
Give it a rest. The bulk of my post pertained to the article I linked:
Portrait Mir Hossein Mousavi - Reformer without Form
Anyways - would I spoil the sting and zeal of the Iranian revolution that you wear upon your sleeve - totally destroy it with a simple truism? Nah. Perish the tought.
"Cliches are truisms and all truisms are true" - Jack Kerouac
Rest up, P_R. You quite the battle before you - "freedom on the march" and all that. Just let me know when it's "mission accomplished." I'll send cake.
Patriotism is not short, frenzied outbursts of emotion, but the tranquil and steady dedication of a lifetime. - Adlai E. Stevenson
_________________
"I am at this moment writing a lengthy indictment against our century. When my brain begins to reel from my literary labors, I make an occasional cheese dip."
— John Kennedy Toole (A Confederacy of Dunces) |
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parvati_roma
Joined: 30 Mar 2004
Posts: 8380
Location: Italy
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| Posted: Tue Aug 25, 2009 6:35 am Post subject: |
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| Quote: | | Rest up, P_R. You quite the battle before you - "freedom on the march" and all that. Just let me know when it's "mission accomplished." I'll send cake. |
Depends whose mission is being accomplished, doesn't it?
The Iranian protest movement says its uprising was/is a desperate attempt to prevent the complete takeover of the Iranian republic by the hyper-theocratic-police-state-forever faction headed by Ayatollah Mesbah Yazdi, dear-leader Ahmadinejad and supreme-leader Ayatollah Khamenei's son Mojtaba, whose aims and propaganda have consistently received your enthusiastic support. So I'm sure you will be rejoicing at "your guys'" latest progress-report:
Top Iran reform figures on trial
| Quote: | The trial has begun in Iran of a number of senior opposition figures following June's disputed presidential election.
The defendants, who include former ministers in the 1997-2005 Khatami government, are accused of conspiring with foreign powers to organise unrest.
Two leading economists are also on trial, Saeed Leylaz and Kian Tajbaksh.
It is the fourth such trial since the disputed re-election of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, a conservative, sparked pro-reform street protests.
BBC Tehran correspondent Jon Leyne - who was expelled after the elections - says the trial looks like a public denunciation of President Mohammed Khatami's time in power, with the government trying to frighten the opposition into silence.
Hardliners are currently also pressing for the arrest of the two leading opposition candidates in the election, Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi.
(...)
The 20 people in the dock on Tuesday included former Deputy Interior Minister Mostafa Tajzadeh, former Deputy Foreign Minister Mohsen Aminzadeh and former government spokesman Abdollah Ramezanzadeh, reports said.
The leading reformist Saeed Hajjarian, a former city councillor and a close aide to former president, Mr Khatami, was also in court.
A statement was read out for him by another defendant, apparently for health reasons, saying sorry for "major mistakes" he had made in his analysis of the election.
"I apologise to the great Iranian nation... and resign from the Islamic Iran Participation Front (the main opposition party, also known as Mosharekat) and announce my complete adherence to the constitution and... to the supreme leader," he was quoted saying. |
Even at transatlantic-gulf distance the stench of that "cake" makes me vomit. So on firing-squad day, please send it complete with accompanying "mission accomplished" roses to your hero Ahmadinejad c/o Basiji HQ, OK?
_________________
“Against barbarity, poetry can resist only by confirming its attachment to human fragility like a blade of grass growing on a wall while armies march by.” Mahmoud Darwish
Last edited by parvati_roma on Tue Aug 25, 2009 7:20 pm; edited 2 times in total |
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parvati_roma
Joined: 30 Mar 2004
Posts: 8380
Location: Italy
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| Posted: Tue Aug 25, 2009 8:49 am Post subject: |
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More info on the show-trial from AP:
Iran resumes mass trial of opposition figures
| Quote: | (...) The star defendant Tuesday was Saeed Hajjarian, who is considered the engineer of the pro-democracy reform program under former President Mohammad Khatami and is revered as a hero of the reform movement after he survived an assassination attempt in 2000. He was shot in the head from close range in the attack, leaving him partially paralyzed. He uses a wheelchair and has difficulty speaking.
Two people carried Hajjarian into the courtroom by the arms, the state news agency IRNA said. A prosecutor read out a long list of charges against him — among them, acting against national security, fomenting unrest, propagating against the ruling system, having contacts with British intelligence and insulting Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. The prosecutor asked for the "full punishment" against Hajjarian, though officials have not said what the maximum sentence would entail.
Hajjarian identified himself to the court, then asked another defendant, Saeed Shariati, to read a text of his confessions on his behalf because of his inability to speak fluently.
"I've committed grave mistakes by offering incorrect analysis during the election ... I apologize to the dear Iranian nation because of my incorrect analyses that was the basis for many wrong actions," Hajjarian's text said, according to IRNA.
Hajjarian, a leftist thinker, renounced his own writings from the past 10 years and said his ideas "contradict the path of the Imam" — referring to Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the founder of Iran's Islamic Republic.
He admitted that his ideas had led his party — the Islamic Iran Participation Front, Iran's largest reformist party — "astray, particularly during the election." He and Shariati both announced their resignation from the party, which hard-liners have accused of fomenting unrest and demanded be dissolved.
Hajjarian was a top aide to Khatami, who was president from 1997-2005 and attempted to bring about social and political reforms in Iran — though ultimately the attempt was stymied by hard-liners who now dominate the government under President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
Hajjarian also served as a top intelligence official for about two decades before Khatami's administration and is often described as the "walking memory" of recent Iranian history because of his access to classified information and the Islamic establishment's secrets.
Many of those on trial held key positions during the administration of Khatami. Among the defendants in the courtroom on Tuesday were top reformists including former Deputy Interior Minister Mostafa Tajzadeh, former Deputy Foreign Minister Mohsen Aminzadeh and former government spokesman Abdollah Ramezanzadeh. Also there were Behzad Nabavi, a veteran politician known, as well as Saeed Leilaz, a prominent political analyst. All of them wore prison uniform and slippers.
Each of the previous three sessions, defendants have been brought forward and gave sweeping confessions, often completely renouncing their long careers as reformists and adopting the government's line that they organized the postelection protests at the behest of Iran's foreign enemies to bring down the Islamic Republic. (...) |
PressTV.ir In Iran court, dissolution of reform fronts is sought
Historical precedent:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moscow_Trials
| Quote: | | The Moscow Trials were a series of trials of political opponents of Joseph Stalin during the Great Purge. Many of the defendants were executed. After Nikita Khrushchev's revelations in the 1950s, the Moscow Trials are today universally acknowledged as show trials in which the verdicts were predetermined, and then publicly justified through the use of coerced confessions, obtained by torture and threats against the defendants' families. The purpose of the trials was to eliminate any potential political challengers to Stalin's authority, especially Old Bolsheviks with solid revolutionary credentials. The principal tactic was to charge the defendants, under Article 58 of the RSFSR Penal Code, with conspiring with the western powers to assassinate Stalin and other Soviet leaders, dismember the Soviet Union and restore capitalism. (...) |
Pictures from the Fourth Session of Stalinist Trials in Iran - none of which are being obsessively-shown on US MSM btw - guess they're not snuff-movie-type "sexy" enough for "westernist" tastes??
.................
P.S. update from PressTV.ir on the charges against Hajjarian:
Top Iran reformist in alleged links with UK intelligence
| Quote: | Saeed Hajjarian, a premier reformist strategist who was disabled in a 2000 assassination attempt, has been accused of having links with the British intelligence service.
During the fourth round of the mass trials held for those arrested during Iran's post-election violence, the co-founder of Iran's main reformist party, the Islamic Participation Front, was linked to renowned political theorist John Keane, Open Society Institute's George Soros and German philosopher Jurgen Habermas.
"Hajjarian has twice met with John Keane, the British mastermind connected to MI5," the prosecution said.
Hajjarian, the prosecutor said, had met well-known philosopher and sociologist Jurgen Habermas, who is famous for the theory of Civil disobedience.
According to Habermas, societies can actively refuse to obey certain laws, demands and commands of a government, or of an occupying power, without resorting to physical violence.
The Soros Foundation which according to the indictment planned to launch a "velvet coup" in Iran was also named as having links with Hajjarian.
George Soros, the chairman of the foundation, has reportedly helped fund the 1989 "Velvet Revolution" in the Czech Republic.
The prosecutor concluded by asking for the "full punishment" against Hajjarian, who has been in custody three days after Iran's disputed June 12 election. |
Habermas I'd heard of but Keane was new to me so I googled around, found the introduction to his latest book "The Life and Death of Democracy" from his own website -
http://www.thelifeanddeathofdemocracy.org/about/book_introduction.html
Interesting reading - must say it doesn't really sound like an MI5-fancying text to me, let alone a CIA-sponsored opus?
More about John Keane - seeing as he's apparently being presented as the "mastermind behind the mastermind" of the Iranian uprising:
http://www.johnkeane.net/biography/bio.htm
See also: http://www.johnkeane.net/other/other_texts.htm
... thanks to which I'm starting to understand why the "dear-leaderist" brigade has such a strong dislike for Keane: note in particular the preface to the Farsi edition of Civil Society - Old Images New Visions, and Keane's interview with Abdolkarim Soroush: "The Beauty of Justice"
...................
P.P.S to those American posters/readers who must be wondering why I'm fixating so much on Hajjarian's trial, please remember where I "come from": until quite recently (1870), Rome too was a theocratic state... with a penchant for trying and executing dissident philosophers.
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“Against barbarity, poetry can resist only by confirming its attachment to human fragility like a blade of grass growing on a wall while armies march by.” Mahmoud Darwish |
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fred
Joined: 07 Nov 2002
Posts: 2950
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| Posted: Tue Aug 25, 2009 10:37 pm Post subject: |
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| parvati_roma wrote: | The Iranian protest movement says its uprising was/is a desperate attempt to prevent the complete takeover of the Iranian republic by the hyper-theocratic-police-state-forever faction headed by Ayatollah Mesbah Yazdi, dear-leader Ahmadinejad and supreme-leader Ayatollah Khamenei's son Mojtaba, whose aims and propaganda have consistently received your enthusiastic support. So I'm sure you will be rejoicing at "your guys'" latest progress-report:
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More attempts from you to obfuscate by mischaracterizing my argument. I don't support anyone, or make myself vulnerable to revolutionary fervor.
Just who do you think will stand to benefit from this current revolt? People like Rafsanjani who has the power to dismiss Ayatollah Khamenei. Rafsanjani is trying to sell himself off as a reformer, but what are his motives considering that he is one of the richest men in Iran. Rafsanjani made a name for himself for cracking down on dissent. In fact, in the past, he praised government crackdown upon student demonstrations.
He also has an association linking him with Iran-Contra. He's the chief financial supporter of Ansar-e Hezbollah. Rafsanjani is a free marketer who likes privatization of industry - but last time he implemented his policies he ran the Iranian Rial down to 80%
| Quote: | Rafsanjani urged universities to cooperate with industries. Turning to the quick pace of developments in today's world, he said that with "the world constantly changing, we should adjust ourselves to the conditions of our lifetime and make decisions according to present circumstances".[18] Among the projects he initiated are Islamic Azad University.[19][20] Nevertheless, the real incomes of Iranians fell 14 per cent during 1990-7 due to his poor political judgements and economic policies.
During his presidency, a period Rafsanjani is described by western media sources as having been the most powerful figure in Iran, the judicial system of Iran executed political dissidents, drug offenders, Communists, Kurds, Bahais, and clerics.[7]
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Just as the other butcher, Mousavi, Rafsanjani is trying to sell himself off as a reformer, but just as with Mousavi, both want to privatize Iran - and that's both their motives.
Those that are truly behind the revolution are being used, just as with the green & orange revolution. It's a setup to open up exploitation of Iran.
So - just who do you think is going to fill the void in the current structure of the Iranian government  
| parvati_roma wrote: | | P.P.S to those American posters/readers who must be wondering why I'm fixating so much on Hajjarian's trial, please remember where I "come from": until quite recently (1870), Rome too was a theocratic state... with a penchant for trying and executing dissident philosophers. |
Yeah, now the Pope receives audience with shills for the World Bank/IMF like Boner from U2 and Geldof - pawn off the pseudo-heretics as heroes.
I'm simply not fooled.
_________________
"I am at this moment writing a lengthy indictment against our century. When my brain begins to reel from my literary labors, I make an occasional cheese dip."
— John Kennedy Toole (A Confederacy of Dunces) |
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parvati_roma
Joined: 30 Mar 2004
Posts: 8380
Location: Italy
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| Posted: Tue Aug 25, 2009 11:17 pm Post subject: |
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| Quote: | ... now the Pope receives audience with shills for the World Bank/IMF like Boner from U2 and Geldof - pawn off the pseudo-heretics as heroes. Rolling Eyes
I'm simply not fooled.
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Yeah it's all about anglo-pop culture, popemobiles, the Illuminati and the NWO, right?
Re papal audiences: if you travel to Rome, you too can have an "audience" - no problem, just remember not to wear shorts.
| Quote: | | People like Rafsanjani who has the power to dismiss Ayatollah Khamenei. |
You're misinformed: his family too is being targeted.
| Quote: | | Just who do you think will stand to benefit from this current revolt? |
The way it's looking: only basiji, grave-diggers and worms.
_________________
“Against barbarity, poetry can resist only by confirming its attachment to human fragility like a blade of grass growing on a wall while armies march by.” Mahmoud Darwish |
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parvati_roma
Joined: 30 Mar 2004
Posts: 8380
Location: Italy
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| Posted: Wed Aug 26, 2009 12:29 pm Post subject: |
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Re:
| Fred wrote: | So - just who do you think is going to fill the void in the current structure of the Iranian government
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Objective: reinstatement of constitutional rights and rule of law, upholding of human and civil rights.
Hope-springs-eternal dept:
Insider : Judiciary is reinstating Police of Police, going after violators
| Quote: | Judiciary Chief (S.Larijani) commissions Supreme Court & Prosecutor General (Ejei) with oversight/investigation of Government in accordance with Art 161 of IRI constitution. Judiciary is placing oversight of all national prosecutors and judges under Prosecutor General & Supreme Court’s resposibility.
Judiciary is poised to regain its full independence in its sphere. Ejei said “Implementation of Justice is by enforcing constitution & laws is the primary responsibility of Judiciary.” Supreme Court will reestablish Judiciary Police force as described by late Ayatollah Beheshti.
What is the judiciary police going to be?
An executive force to enforce court rulings against Government & security forces officials, who would otherwise be in command of police, Secret Service style.
Is it a fifth security faction? artesh/sepah/police/basij/judiciary?
Not really. Judiciary is authorized to have its own armed agents. But Judiciary had been pretty much stripped of all competence since Khatami.
Khatami crippled judiciary?
It was the Supreme Leader who did this, having been alienated by Khatami’s words of lightning speed reforms. In the end, Khatami couldnt fight it.
I see. So what will the role of the judiciary police be? Police of Police?
Exactly that. Judiciary police is going to be policing Government, Judges, Prosecutors, etc… Not civilians. They won’t be investigating. They’ll execute arrest warrants for officials who have control over police force and can not be arrested by their own force. Judiciary agents are not members of police force. Judiciary used to have them before Iran’s police force was merged with Sepah. They used to be officers of Prosecutors office and there were special agents acting under Judges of courts.
When will this be put in place?
It is happening right now, as we speak. Ejei anounced a purge of violators from Judiciary. That means Mortazavi, Salavati, Moghadam, etc… These are not laws that have to be approved. These are rights/duties of Judiciary. This is what sadegh larijani critisized : Judiciary has neglected its Art 161 duty.
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More hope-springs-eternal/worst-of-worst must be prevented "this time around" murmurings - via Mousavi's website:
| Quote: | Grand Ayatollah Montazeri in response to the letter written by 293 intellectuals emphasised that the authorities should return from the diversion path they are taking and reinstate people’s rights, compensate for the damages, release the innocent prisoners and by ending the “show trials” prevent further humiliation for Judiciary system; or just announce that this is neither a Republic nor an Islamic government.
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The report by ParlemanNews has been confirmed and Rezaeian, the managing director of Tehran cemetery, was dismissed or as the authorities call it “retired”. Following the report on the secrete burial of tens of Green martyrs in Tehran cemetery and the video released showing the anonymous graves by NoorozNews, Rezaeian denied this report instantly. There is still no formal information on why he "retired" now!
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According to ParlemanNews a member of Parliaments’ Special Committee in investigating the post-election events, while requested to stay anonymous, revealed that so far it has been proven to this committee that sadly some of the detainees were sexually abused with batons and glass bottles. He added that they will refer their report to higher officials when it is complete.
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Tavakoli, conservative MP, in a letter addressed to Sadegh Larijani, new Head of the Judiciary, while referencing various articles of the press law announced that the ban of Etemad-Melli newspaper (owned by Karoubi) is illegal and asked for the immediate lift of its ban. He also by pointing out several violations of law by Saeed Mortazavi, Tehran’s General Prosecutor, asked Larijani to refer his case to the court. |
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P.S. If accurate, this could be the turning-point?
IRAN: TV; KHAMENEI, OPPOSITION NOT SUPPORTED BY USA OR GB
| Quote: | | (AGI) - Tehran, 26 August - Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has distanced himself from Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. The Iranian Supreme Guide has declared that leaders of the Iranian opposition (Mir Hossein Moussavi and Mehdi Karroudbi among others) are not supported by foreign powers. "I am not accusing the leaders of the recent incidents of being under the orders of foreigners like the United States and Great Britain, because no proof has been given to me of this" said Khamenei in a statement read on State TV. The accusation of foreign interference has been repeatedly made by Ahmadinejad and his entourage since the eruption of violence following his controversial reelection last 12 June. |
In conjunction with this:
In Iran, Leader vows firm action over jail crimes
_________________
“Against barbarity, poetry can resist only by confirming its attachment to human fragility like a blade of grass growing on a wall while armies march by.” Mahmoud Darwish |
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fred
Joined: 07 Nov 2002
Posts: 2950
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| Posted: Wed Aug 26, 2009 11:00 pm Post subject: |
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| parvati_roma wrote: | You're misinformed: his family too is being targeted.
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How does Rafsanjani's son being arrested for embezzlement have anything to do with the point I made concerning the Assembly of Experts having the power to remove the Supreme Leader - except to further underscore my assertion that there appears to be a power struggle with those who want to privatize Iran's economy pitted against those favoring nationalization?  (i.e. Rafsanjani vs. Khamenei).
Rafsanjani's daughter was also arrested Yep. There appears to be a power play. That's my point.
Then you load up your posts with more unsubstantiated claims that simply remark that there's no influence from Western powers upon the current discord in Iran, or, at the very least, the Western influence is ineffective - never explaining to us how you divine that it's ineffective to Western goals or aims for Iran. Sheesh. Divide and conquer is the oldest trick in the book.
You're all over the place with your revolutionary zeal. First, we have Ayatollah Khamenei giving the elections his approval - then we have stories how Ayatollah Khamenei is vulnerable - then we have the dispute between Rafsanjani and Khamenei. And then the school yard boy feud between Khamenei and Ahmadinejad. How does any of this bode well for the populace?
You're just throwing mud against the wall to see what'll stick. Yeah, I get it, you're on a revolutionary mission.
And please tell me you're merely being flippant when you try to compare Sir Boner before the Pope with me having an audience with the Pope. I appreciate a good laugh as well as the next guy, but if you're serious - well, get serious.
Anyways, isn't it the Black Pope that holds the real power. 
Otherwise, you have the same damn players in this Iranian struggle going back to the 80's, and not one damn one did anything in achieving rights for the populace.
_________________
"I am at this moment writing a lengthy indictment against our century. When my brain begins to reel from my literary labors, I make an occasional cheese dip."
— John Kennedy Toole (A Confederacy of Dunces) |
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parvati_roma
Joined: 30 Mar 2004
Posts: 8380
Location: Italy
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| Posted: Thu Aug 27, 2009 6:18 pm Post subject: |
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Fred, as we've already been over this ground so many times at this point it's highly unlikely that either of us could convince the other to shift perception. Nonetheless, as background to Iran's still-ongoing political crisis I'd like to invite you to have the patience to read/re-read the first 2 pages of this thread spanning the critical 10 days from June 11 to June 21, complete with links - in particular Fisk, Parsi, Escobar, Badrakhumar etc. And in that sequence, you will see how, when and exactly why my own position shifted from fascinated-analytical-observer with a fairly detatched albeit vaguely "pro-reformist" preference to a strongly anti-Ahmadinejad/anti-Basiji stance. You will also see my views on the extremely narrow margins of manoevre available to "the west" (i.e. US+UK) and continental Europe in this context. At the same time, it should - hopefully - become clear to you that far from being charged with "revolutionary fervour" (afaik I-personally have never used the term "revolution" for what's been happening in Iran, at most I've termed it an "uprising" but mostly used terms such as "protest movement", "protesters", "reformists and their supporters"...) my attitude has tended to be apprehensive. To spell it out: concerned and apprehensive for Iran-and-Iranians - not for the so-called "West" let-alone-Israel!! - in terms of the very real, still-looming danger of a massive and very bloody internal crackdown on the Iranian opposition and its supporters, which would not only crush what little hope its population has of sooner or later getting-out- from-under the Mukhabarat-State syndrome/curse but could well facilitate the bombs-ahoy aims of Iran's most deadly enemies. Plus angry: angry at the vicious abuses being committed under the cloak of sanctimonious holier-than-thou rhetoric on the one hand, angry on the other at how some areas of the "western" antiwar-zone, by accusing the protesters/reformists of acting at the behest/instigation of "foreign powers", were not only "adding insult to injury" re the very real, very concrete injuries so many of them had suffered/are suffering but were themselves - at least in the case of their more "visible" proponents such as Chossudovsky and Paul Craig Roberts - wittingly-or-unwittingly providing further fuel and "justification" for even more extensive and deadly repressive moves. This is how I see it; your views differ - what we do have in common is that from a political point of view we're both "nobodies", mere cyphers: nothing either you or I say here - or anywhere else, for that matter - can even minimally affect the course of events.
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Some other points I'd like to clarify for you "en passant":
| Quote: | | How does Rafsanjani's son being arrested for embezzlement have anything to do with the point I made concerning the Assembly of Experts having the power to remove the Supreme Leader |
What you originally said was that Rafsanjani himself had-the-power-etcetc. Which is untrue. Rafsanjani is the current chairman of the Assembly of Experts but removal of the Supreme Leader - which would be viewed as an earthshaking move by the Iranian clergy - would require the support of the majority of its members. Following the last elections, 68 out of 80 are reportedly closer to Rafsajani's "pragmatic conservatism" than to
Mezbah Yazdi's hard-line visionary-apocalyptic variety - but at this stage in the game it's highly unlikely they'd be prepared to back such a dramatic solution. However, if the principalist faction's current wave of high-profile arrests and treason-trials were to extend upwards to include top opposition clerics such as Khatami and Karroubi, let alone Grand Ayatollah Montazeri and/or Khomeini's own family members - I'd say the chances of their doing so would increase considerably.
The significance of arrests of family members in Iran has been described as "hostage taking", btw... and the reason - in the context of our debate - that I drew your attention to the accusations against Rafsanjani's own family members was simpy because if he really was as all-powerful as you appeared to think, no-one but no-one would ever have dared touch his family. There are also counter-accusations against Ahmadinejad for embezzling far larger sums,, btw... seems there's lotsa mud to go around.
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| Quote: | ... a power struggle with those who want to privatize Iran's economy pitted against those favoring nationalization.. (i.e. Rafsanjani vs. Khamenei).
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Always misleading to confuse/conflate Iran with Venezuela. "Privatisation vs nationalisation" is not what the struggle in Iran is about, either in the streets or in the halls-of-power. In fact Khamenei himself is strongly pro-privatisation - Iranian-style - and under Ahmadinejad's govt. the pace of privatisation has been accelerated:
Ahmadinejad pledges to push Iran privatisation (Feb. 2007)
Iran privatises 14 more state companies (PressTV.ir - 3 Aug. 2009)
Explanation of privatisation Iranian-style + the extent and manner of foreign ownership allowed under Iranian law:
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/18c6aeee-0ab0-11db-b595-0000779e2340.html
| Quote: | Iran to privatise but cling to big oil companies
By Negar Roshanzamir in Tehran and agencies
Published: July 3 2006
Iran on Monday issued an executive order for the privatisation of 80 per cent of several state-owned companies, but retained firm control over the upstream oil sector and key banks.
Ayatollah Seyed Ali Khamenei, supreme Leader of the Islamic Revolution, said in his order that “ceding 80 per cent of the shares of large companies will serve to bring about economic development, social justice and the elimination of poverty”.
The decree is also an effort to revive Iran’s stalled privatisation programme and kick-start the country’s many uncompetitive industries, which are heavily protected by subsidies.
“By putting into practice the action plan, the government’s role will undergo a shift from direct involvement in ownership and running the large companies to supervising and guiding different sectors of the economy to meet the regulations of the World Trade Organisation,” the Supreme Leader said. Iran has not begun any accession negotiations with the WTO.
Ayatollah Khamenei said the privatisation process would help reinforce the private sector in the national economy and would encourage companies to compete in international markets.
Iran attempted to shake up its moribund economy in 2004 by overturning Article 44 of the constitution which decreed core infrastructure should remain state-run. But there has been little interest in shares of state companies. Tehran tried to sell $2.5bn of government assets in the year to March 2005, but only managed to offload less than 30 per cent.
Foreign investors can bid in Iranian privatisation tenders, but need permission from the Economy Ministry on a case-by-case basis.
Analysts have blamed international fears about Tehran’s nuclear programme and an absence of transparency for the lack of enthusiasm for state assets. Local investors also argue state industries are overvalued.
The Supreme Leader said the downstream oil and gas sectors would be privatised but excluded the upstream oil and gas industry, the National Iranian Oil Company, the state companies involved in exploration and the production of crude oil and gas.
Most smaller state banks will be open to flotation, but excluded key banks including the Central Bank of Iran, Bank Melli of Iran, Sepah Bank of Iran, Bank of Industry and Mines, Bank of Agriculture, Housing Bank (Bank Maskan) and the Export Development Bank of Iran.
“All airline companies except for Civil Aviation Organisation as well as Ports and Shipping Organisation should be ceded to the people.” Mr Khamenei said.
This covers flag carrier Iran Air and its affiliate Iran Aseman. The fast-growing Islamic Republic of Iran Shipping Lines has been lobbying for more independence. |
More here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Privatization_in_Iran
Re the "Justice Shares" scheme:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Privatization_in_Iran#.22Justice_shares.22_plan
| Quote: | The government has approved a plan to offer shares to low-income families, starting with the poorest. Under the “Justice Shares“ plan, millions of Iranian families will receive shares in state-owned firms, the value of which will be reimbursed in 20 years from the dividends generated by those shares. The holding period for those shares is a minimum of 2 years. The project is in line with President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s election promise to improve the condition of Iran’s poor. Ahmadinejad in July 2005 promised to distribute shares to Iranian families, adding that these shares would be from state-run companies that must be privatized.[17] The poorest strata of society shall receive justice shares at a 50 percent discount and will pay the said amount in 10-year installments. Villagers and nomads shall have priority in this respect.[18] (...)
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Noting:
| Quote: | | Some observers have argued that this "privatization" is modeled on the voucher distribution programs of Russia and Czechoslovakia in the 1990s, which, at least in the case of Russia, led to the rise of the oligarchs.[24] |
Re foreign investment:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_Direct_Investment_in_Iran#Laws_concerning_foreign_companies
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Sideline P.S. : I still don't really understand why you suddenly brought the Irish rock-group U2 into this thread in the first place let alone in conjuction with papal audiences, would love to have you unravel the logic - also to explore why you brought the Catholic Church into the mix - apart from my vague mention that it favoured Khatami's "dialogue of civilisations" efforts (essentially as antidote to the onslaught of US-NeoCon clash-fanciers on the one hand, wahhabi-jihadi ones on the other both to detriment of ME Catholic communities) - but as both Irish pop-groups and popemobiles are totally off-topic re ME dynamics in general and Iranian ones in particular, if you do have time to reply I think the best place would be in a "partisan corner" thread. Alternate possibility - attach it to the old Vatican-politics thread? Noting I stand by the views I expressed in that thread back in 2005 - starting from this post.
_________________
“Against barbarity, poetry can resist only by confirming its attachment to human fragility like a blade of grass growing on a wall while armies march by.” Mahmoud Darwish
Last edited by parvati_roma on Fri Aug 28, 2009 9:06 am; edited 1 time in total |
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