globalvoices:

… one of main reasons that people do not believe in Khazali’s hunger strike is that more than a year ago, it was announced that he had been on hunger strike for 67 days. Shortly after he was released by order of Ayatholah Ali Khamenei, the Islamic Republic’s Leader, Khazali started his weekly mountain hiking and urged people to take part in parliamentary elections. In the photos published from his mountain hiking, there was no visible sign of a long hunger strike and he appeared in good shape… His past activities with the regime made some people suspect the regime is in the process of creating fake opposition.

350 Iranian bloggers, political and civil society activists co-signed a letter last week warning that the life of publisher, physicist and blogger, Mehdi Khazali is in grave danger after he has been on hunger strike for more than 90 days.

But while some bloggers warn that Mehdi Khazali’s life is danger, there are also those who question whether he is really on hunger strike.

Khazali is the son of a leading right-wing cleric and former Counsel of Guardians member, Ayatollah Khazali. He was arrested together with several participants of a writer’s association called Saraye Ghalam.

An Iranian Blogger’s Hunger Strike in Question

(via obliquecity)

  3:01 pm  |   April 8 2013   |  10 notes  

theatlantic:

Google Reader’s Demise Is Awful for Iranians, Who Use It to Avoid Censorship

RSS readers take raw feeds of data—headline, text, timestamp, etc.—and display that information in a stripped-down interface along with many other feeds, which is what makes them so efficient. (Here is the RSS feed for Quartz.) Less obvious is how many RSS readers, including Google’s, serve as anti-censorship tools for people living under oppressive regimes. That’s because it’s actually Google’s servers, located in the U.S. or another country with uncensored internet, that accesses each feed. So a web user in Iran just needs access to google.com/reader in order to read websites that would otherwise be blocked.

Read more. [Image: AP]

  4:09 pm  |   March 14 2013   |  589 notes  

braceletofnoor:

The state-linked Iranian Students’ News Agency (ISNA) said the two daughters Zahra and Narges Mousavi were summoned for questioning, not arrested, and were asked to give “explanations” to prosecutors.

It did not say what they were questioned about but it may be connected to a statement the women issued last month complaining they had been denied access to their parents.

Mousavi’s other daughter, Kokab, told opposition website Kaleme security officials searched her sisters’ homes for several hours and “took anything they thought might be of use to them along with my sisters”.

Karoubi’s website Sahamnews said security forces raided his son Hossein’s house on Monday morning and confiscated personal belongings including his laptop and mobile phone. Hossein was also taken away, questioned and released after several hours, the website added.

(via obliquecity)

  7:34 pm  |   February 11 2013   |  16 notes  

…Iranian doctors, patients and officials say that, in particular, a ban on financial transactions is so effective that even medicines and other critical supplies that are exempted from the sanctions for humanitarian reasons are no longer exported to the Islamic Republic.

The trade measures have led to widespread shortfalls of imported goods and a plunge in the value of the national currency, the rial. On Friday, when Iranians celebrated the annual “Day of Fighting the Global Arrogance,” a k a the United States, student demonstrators in Tehran carrying an effigy of President Obama handed out fliers denouncing the sanctions.

Officials here estimate that potentially about six million patients, many of them with cancer, are affected by the shortages.

For Iran’s sick, it amounts to life on what feels like the front lines of a battle between governments.

Every day patients and their relatives line up at special pharmacies in Tehran, where those suffering from cancer, hemophilia, thalassemia, kidney problems and other diseases are increasingly told the foreign-made medicines they need are no longer available.

For Ali and his family, the nightmare started eight months ago, when his mother, a 56-year-old homemaker, felt a small, painful lump in her right breast. After a series of examinations, her doctor told her that she had an aggressive form of breast cancer.

As the members of the family became familiar with long waits in hospital hallways and difficult conversations with soft-spoken physicians, they swore to one another that they would beat the disease. But they never expected to have to go out hunting for medicine.

Read more…

  11:45 am  |   November 3 2012   |  13 notes  

“Narratives of weak or militant Iranian women are not just dishonest; they also fuel a political narrative whereby Islamism is equated with backwardness and the ability of women to reconcile Islamic ideals with feminist goals is entirely obfuscated. Both Western conservatives and many secular feminists often participate in this obfuscation, effectively trying to either hide Iranian women’s successes in order to demonize Iran or by ignoring the ideologies of liberation they have formulated in order to preserve the status of secular feminism as the only path to women’s liberation. As a result, Western conservatives and some secular feminists link arms with the same misogynist Iranian men who are trying their hardest to keep Iranian women down.”

— Misreading Feminism & Women’s Rights in Tehran: Beyond Chadors, Ninjabis, & Secular Fantasies | Ajam Media Collective (via gole-yas)

(via gole-yas-deactivated20130109)

  5:18 pm  |   October 29 2012   |  83 notes  

Ahmadinejad Goes ‘Gangnam’

In what might just be the most effective U.N. protest yet, a dancer dressed up as the Iranian president does the popular dance backed, naturally, by dancers dressed up as Bashar Al-Assad and Ayatollah Khomeini. The U.N. finally gets the viral treatment it deserves.

  10:49 pm  |   September 26 2012   |  23 notes  

mohandasgandhi:

gedenkenbrauchtwissen:

Ahmadinejad sidesteps the Holocaust question on Piers Morgan last night.

He expresses concern that researchers are not allowed to research the Holocaust in Europe, and asks questions like, “Where did the Holocaust happen?” and “Who were the perpetrators?” 

The part of this clip from the interview I found the most interesting was Ahmadinejad’s statement after being asked if he would prefer Obama or Romney to win the U.S. presidential election:

I do respect the right to free elections for the people of the United States. This is the right of the people of the United States.

Mahmoud is in trouble if the people of Iran gain access to this interview and find out that their unelected president agrees that free elections are a fundamental right to be respected in the United States… but not in Iran.

  8:40 pm  |   September 25 2012   |  46 notes  

Iran will hold presidential elections on June 14 next year, the Interior Ministry said on Friday, the first such vote since a violent crackdown on protests over Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s disputed re-election in 2009.

The 2013 presidential vote is expected to be a contest between candidates representing Ahmadinejad’s allies and his more conservative opponents. Ahmadinejad himself cannot run for a third term due to a constitutional limit.

“The next presidential election will be held at the same time as municipal elections,” the official IRNA news agency said, citing the Interior Ministry.

Iran’s disputed 2009 presidential election was followed by months of massive anti-government street protests, quelled by security forces. The opposition said the vote was rigged in Ahmadinejad’s favour, a charge dismissed by the authorities.

The two leading opposition leaders Mirhossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karoubi have been held incommunicado since February last year when the two called their supporters on to the streets for a rally in support of uprisings in the Arab world.

In a contest between conservative factions in parliamentary elections in March, loyalists of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei won the majority of seats, eroding Ahmadinejad’s authority.

  7:50 pm  |   September 7 2012   |  6 notes  

“In the case of the academic ban, the country’s substantial economic problems provide greater insight into the policy than do claims about government hostility toward women from some Iranian feminists and Western commentators.”

—

Iranian Women: Victims of Economic Strain via English Al-Akhbar

In the Western media, the move has been presented as an attack on women’s rights, reflecting an institutionalized effort to roll back educational opportunities based on gender stereotypes and demonstrating general hostility to women’s empowerment.

Certain Iranian feminists have also viewed the restriction through a gendered lens. Iran’s most famed women’s rights advocate and exiled Nobel Peace Prize laureate, Shirin Ebadi, condemned the action as retrograde, describing it as one among several examples of government intolerance toward “women’s presence in the public arena.” Haleh Esfandiari, the director of the Middle East Program at the Woodrow Wilson Center, a Washington think-tank, lambasted the decision as “reflecting a fear of educated and powerful women who are aware of their rights and frustrated about discrimination.”

In response to criticism of the new policy, Iranian officials have either been silent or circumspect. The few officials who have commented on the issue insist the universities implemented the restrictions on their own, without any government involvement. In fact, one report suggests that the Ministry of Education’s academic evaluation organization opposes the measure and that “a review and reversal of the decision may be in the making.”

In addition:

Take Action! Demand Iran Protect Women’s Equal Access to Higher Education via United For Iran

In contravention of Iran’s constitutional and international human rights obligations, thirty-six Iranian universities have announced that 77 BA and BSc courses in the coming academic year will be “single gender” and exclusive to men. Under this new policy, Iranian women are being excluded from a broad range of studies, including English literature, hotel management, archaeology, nuclear physics, computer science, electrical engineering, industrial engineering and business management. Iranian authorities are claiming the restrictions aim to create “balance” between the genders in higher education, but leading clerics have previously expressed the real intention behind such policies: To limit the presence and activities of women in society, and curb their educational choices. Send a letter urging Iran’s Minister of Science, Research and Technology; the Higher Council of Cultural Revolution; and the deans of the 36 Iranian universities enforcing “single gender” courses to reverse these and all discriminatory policies against women

Signal Boost!

(via arielnietzsche)

(Source: jayaprada)

  11:59 pm  |   September 6 2012   |  16 notes  

Take Action! Demand Iran Protect Women’s Equal Access to Higher Education via United For Iran

In contravention of Iran’s constitutional and international human rights obligations, thirty-six Iranian universities have announced that 77 BA and BSc courses in the coming academic year will be “single gender” and exclusive to men. Under this new policy, Iranian women are being excluded from a broad range of studies, including English literature, hotel management, archaeology, nuclear physics, computer science, electrical engineering, industrial engineering and business management. Iranian authorities are claiming the restrictions aim to create “balance” between the genders in higher education, but leading clerics have previously expressed the real intention behind such policies: To limit the presence and activities of women in society, and curb their educational choices. Send a letter urging Iran’s Minister of Science, Research and Technology; the Higher Council of Cultural Revolution; and the deans of the 36 Iranian universities enforcing “single gender” courses to reverse these and all discriminatory policies against women

Signal Boost!

  4:25 pm  |   September 5 2012   |  29 notes  

…Partly in response to local and international pressures regarding Draconian laws such as those that allow child executions, Iranian lawmakers proposed changes to the country’s penal code. In January, the Guardian Council, an unelected body of 12 religious jurists who vet legislation to ensure its compatibility with Iran’s Constitution and Sharia law, approved the final text of an amended penal code. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has not yet signed the amended code into law, but he may do so at any time.

Iranian lawmakers and judiciary officials have cited the amendments as a serious attempt to comply with Iran’s international human rights obligations.

Indeed, the amended penal code abolishes the death penalty for certain categories of crimes committed by child offenders, such as drug trafficking. But the proposed revisions would still allow judges to sentence child offenders, like Molla-Soltani, to death for other crimes. In 2011, at least 143 child offenders were on death row in Iranian prisons. The new code pegs the age of criminal responsibility to the age of maturity under Sharia law, which in Iranian jurisprudence is 9 for girls and 15 for boys.

There are numerous other problems with the new penal code. The proposed amendments continue to mandate the death penalty for “crimes” such as consensual sexual conduct outside of marriage, drinking alcohol, and apostasy (even though no law prohibits apostasy). Many other objectionable provisions under the current penal code remain in the amended version, including punishments, among them death, for alleged violations of Iran’s broadly-worded national security laws. These laws are regularly used to try and convict political dissidents, including peaceful dissidents, in revolutionary courts. In some cases, the proposed amendments further weaken the rights of criminal defendants and allow judges wide discretion to issue punishments, including death.

In 2011, Iran executed at least 600 people, second only to China.

The new penal code provisions also permit the continued use of punishments that amount to torture or cruel and degrading treatment, such as stoning, flogging and amputation – and retain discriminatory provisions against women and religious minorities.

Read more…

  3:26 pm  |   September 5 2012   |  3 notes  

Sanctions by the United States, it seems, have hit “World of Warcraft.”

Iranian gamers took to the “World of Warcraft” message board this week, complaining that they had been shut out of the online game. “Well, as if life of an Iranian couldn’t get worse, the Battle.net became completely inaccessible as of today,” one “World of Warcraft” fan wrote in frustration.

Another lamented, “Well we had a good run, Goodbye cruel world …”

Some speculated that the Iranian government must have shut them down, concerned that the game glorified mythology and violence. But a gaming company employee replied this week that U.S. sanctions were to blame for Iranians getting booted after paying for the game.

Blizzard Entertainment, the U.S. company behind the popular game, “tightened up its procedures to ensure compliance with these laws, and players connecting from the affected nations are restricted from access,” one of its employees explained in an online message to gamers.

The same rules stopped Blizzard from offering refunds, the employee wrote. “We apologize for any inconvenience this causes and will happily lift these restrictions as soon as U.S. law allows.”

Read more…

  2:21 pm  |   September 5 2012   |  4 notes  

Read the full Urgent Action notice from Amnesty International USA here (pdf).

  2:02 pm  |   September 5 2012   |  1 note  

mohandasgandhi:

According to this website (Farsi), activists, journalists, and Iranian exiles teamed up with Reporters Without Borders outside Air Iran in Paris to protest Iran’s arbitrary arrest and torture of journalists and bloggers. Reporters Without Borders called for more international attention on the status of prisoners in Iran, many of which are condemned to solitary confinement, tortured, and killed. They also commemorated the death of Iranian photojournalist Zahra (Ziba) Kazemi.

  2:20 pm  |   July 12 2012   |  122 notes  

Hossein Abedini: Iran’s Freedom March

On Saturday 23 June 2012, over 100,000 Iranian exiles and supporters of the Iranian resistance from five continents gathered in a historical rally at the convention centre in the northern suburb of Villepinte, Paris, to demand democratic change in Iran and immediate international measures to guarantee basic rights of Iranian Resistance members in Ashraf and Liberty.

The day itself marked the thirty-first anniversary of the start of the resistance against the religious tyranny in Iran. A reign of terror established on three main principles, heavy domestic repression, terrorism and export of religious fundamentalism abroad.

More than 100,000 people gathered in Villepinte welcomed hundreds of distinguished personalities, legislators of different political tendencies, human rights activists, and prominent jurists, from around the world (see below for the list of participants and delegations) who had come to show their support for a free and democratic Iran.

The many prominent speakers joined the keynote speaker at the event the President-elect of the Iranian Resistance, Mrs Maryam Rajavi, to address the gathering calling for a firm stance vis-à-vis the religious dictatorship in Iran and the recognition of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) and the Iranian Resistance by the world community.

Many of the speakers stressed the need for a policy change away from the decade long appeasement towards the Iranian regime. A failed policy that has only embolden the Iranian regime to continue to defy the demands of international community, most recently at the talks in Moscow, and to advance its position in neighbouring countries, Iraq, Afghanistan and in the region as in Syria and Lebanan, through export of religious fundamentalism and terrorism.

The speakers also urged the United Nations, the United States, and the European Union to act swiftly to prevent a humanitarian catastrophe in camps Ashraf and Liberty, the latter is the new home of the Iranian dissidents who have agreed to relocate from Camp Ashraf under a Memorandum of Understanding signed between the Government of Iraq and UN.

The participants reiterated their strongest protest against turning Camp Liberty into a prison, a measure the Government of Iraq is preparing for at the behest of the mullahs’ regime in Iran.

The delegates and personalities urged the United Nations, the United States, and the European Union to guarantee the rights of residents of Ashraf and Liberty as “asylum-seekers” and “people of concern” under International Law and to pressure the Government of Iraq to stop immediately its cruel restrictions against the camp residents.

The speakers joined the call made by the Iranian Resistance to realize the camp residents’ six legitimate demands to resume the relocation process from Camp Ashraf to Liberty.

These demands, sent to the UN Secretary General and the U.S. Government, are very simple. Instead of turning Camp Liberty into a prison, recognize it as a refugee camp; provide water, electricity and human needs for it; do not allow the Iranian regime that seeks to annihilate this movement to intervene in its affairs; and search Camp Ashraf, which you [the U.S. Government] claim it has not been completely disarmed yet before they vacate it.

In her speech, the President-elect of the Iranian Resistance Mrs Maryam Rajavi criticized the unjust terrorist designation of the Iranian Resistance in the U.S. as a devastating policy that has been the main factor for Iranian regime’s survival for the past 15 years.

The Iranian regime and its puppet government in Iraq continue to use this distorted and discredited designation as a lever for repression of the residents of Ashraf and Liberty, not least to justify two bloody massacres in Camp Ashraf on July 2009 and April 2011.

The U.S. designation also provides the Iranian regime with an excuse to enhance domestic repression and to justify execution and torture of many members and sympathizers of the PMOI (People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran) and the Iranian Resistance inside Iran under the pretext of fighting terrorism.

In addition, the designation imposes brutal limitations and enchains the Iranian exiles living in the United States and abroad who dream of a free and democratic Iran. They risk harsh punishments and have to overcome a dirty defamation campaign as they support the Iranian Resistance, the NCRI and the PMOI in their effort to bring about a democratic change in their home country enslaved by a religious tyrants for more than 30 years.

The President-elect of the Iranian Resistance Mrs Maryam Rajavi challenged this unjust terror tag in her speech and said,

The most recent important development has been the judgment issued by the U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington, DC, against the unlawful label against the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI/MEK).This was a landmark and historic achievement in the struggle between the Iranian people’s resistance and the clerical regime. The court made it clear that this label is illegitimate and ruled that if the State Department does not make a decision, it would unilaterally revoke the PMOI’s designation… It is said that no court had in the past two hundred years issued a writ of mandamus on matters of national security and foreign policy. Nevertheless, a movement that has sacrificed everything for the cause of freedom and liberation of its nation lit the light of truth and justice in the depth of darkness… Now, we have not come to chastise this shameful designation and policy. We have come to say that this policy must be uprooted in its entirety.

The political personalities who talked at the rally joined with Mrs Rajaviin her call to the U.S. Secretary of State in their speech and urged Mrs Hillary Clinton to implement the recent court ruling and revoke the unjust terror tag. Some of the speakers described the revocation as a necessity under the rule of law and a boost in right direction for the international community to counter the threats posed by the religious dictatorship in Iran.

The historical gathering in Paris showed that the decisive moment with regard to Iran is here. The massage echoed from Paris on June 23, 2012 was loud and clear: “the international community have to recognize the Iranian people’s democratic aspirations and their right to bring about a democratic change in Iran.”

It is this change, and not hollow reforms, that presents the only solution to the many serious threats posed today by the Iranian regime.

This would be the safest path and the sole guarantor for a longstanding peace and desired stability in the Middle East and the region.

The international community must recognize the Iranian people’s demands for an Iran free of suppression, a non-nuclear and non-theocratic Iran.

This change is ultimately inevitable and achieved only through the Iranian people and their legitimate Resistance.

Please remember that the views expressed by Hossein Abedini and Iranian Resistance are not representative of the entire Green Movement or those fighting towards a free Iran.

  2:42 pm  |   July 10 2012   |  8 notes