Iran vice-president under fire over Koran "dance"

By Edmund Blair

November 16, 2008

Reuters News Agency
An aide to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has come under fire for attending a ceremony that involved actions deemed insulting to the Koran, a row that has given fuel to the Iranian president's opponents before next year's election.
Ahmadinejad is expected to run for re-election in June. But criticism over his economic management is mounting and he faces a more hostile parliament, which sacked his interior minister this month over a fake university degree.
In comments published on Sunday, opponents targeted his vice-president, Esfandiar Rahim Mashaie, who is in charge of a culture and tourism body, for hosting a ceremony where women in traditional dress carried in the Koran, Islam's holy book, to music. Media described the ceremony as a "dance."
"Violation of the sanctity (of the Koran) in the presence of your Excellency's deputy and under his management ... causes deep regret for every Muslim," the head of the Islamic Coalition Front, Mohammad-Nabbi Habibi, said in a letter to the president.
The Front is a conservative party that previously backed the president but, along with some others in the broad conservative camp, has become increasingly critical of his policies.
Mashaie is not new to controversy. He created a storm earlier this year by saying Iran was friendly even to the people of Israel, Iran's sworn foe. Ahmadinejad had said those comments by his vice-president were misrepresented.
The "dance" row offers the president's critics ammunition, one political analysts said. "It's like giving those unhappy with Ahmadinejad another piece in this jigsaw puzzle (to piece together against him)," he said, asking not to be named.
The analyst said it would particularly play into the hands of pro-reform politicians, some of whom are trying to convince reformist former President Mohammad Khatami to run in June.
Clerics, including several ayatollahs, which is a top Shi'ite religious rank, have also assailed Ahmadinejad's vice- president. One described the ceremony as a "shameful" act.
Ahmadinejad, the first non-cleric to be president for about a quarter of a century, has had prickly relations with clerics before. Early in his presidency he had to reverse a decision to allow women into football stadiums after clerical criticism.
A group of clerics who are lawmakers in parliament called in a statement for the president "to deal legally with those behind this action" involving the Koran, ISNA news agency said.
Other lawmakers have said Mashaie should be sacked. Even a party close to Ahmadinejad has voiced concern.
Ahmadinejad is facing heavy criticism for economic policies. He came to power in 2005 vowing to spread Iran's oil wealth but critics say lavish spending has fuelled inflation and squandered oil earnings that should have been saved. [Watch the Video]
 

'DISASTER IN THE MAKING'
November 17, 2008
By Steven Edwards
Canwest News Service
UNITED NATIONS - Leading human rights advocates in Canada warn of a "disaster in the making" for thousands of Iranian dissidents interned in Iraq's Camp Ashraf north of Baghdad.
They and Canadian-Iranians with family in the group are at the centre of calls for United Nations action to prevent the dissidents' expulsion to Iran, where a 1988 fatwa for their execution remains in place.
A new UN report highlights Iraq wants "in the near future" to replace the U.S. military as protectors of the 3,500 members and family of Ashraf's Peoples Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI), which is the main Iranian opposition group in exile.
But concern is high that religion-based ties between Iraq and Iran mean the changing of the guard could lead Baghdad to hand over Ashraf's residents to the Islamic republic, which brands them dangerous terrorists.
"I'm worried about my brother and sister. They're there and they're all that I have left," Toronto resident Maliheh Salehyar, who immigrated to Canada in 1999, said in halting English. "The ayatollahs killed my other brother, they killed my other sister."
Salehyar clutched a red leather-bound book bearing the pictures of 20,000 PMOI members among many more the group accuses the Islamic regime in Tehran of having killed. Among them is a picture of her sister, Sayedeh Salehyar, 47 at her death in 1989.
"I heard she was arrested, tortured and killed," the 53-year-old mother of three said, "but we don't know where her body is."
The group emerged in 1965 with a leftist-Islamic ideology, but fell foul of the mullahs following a power struggle despite taking part in the 1979 overthrow of the Shah.
Saddam Hussein allowed many who fled to set up shop in Iraq, but while the group now says it seeks a democratic secular Iran, its ties with Iraq's Sunni dictator are among ghosts that have returned to haunt it.
In 1991, PMOI's military wing is alleged to have helped Saddam put down Kurd and Shia uprisings after he helped arm its fighters during the 1980-1988 Iran-Iraq War for cross border operations deep inside Iran.
Today Iraq's Shia majority holds sway in the country's elected government, and some see dealing with the Ashraf question as a way to improve relations with Iran's Shia theocracy.
"If the Iraqi forces expel this group, they would likely be murdered," say refugee lawyer David Matas and former MP David Kilgour in a letter to the UN's refugee agency.
"Camp Ashraf is a disaster in the making. We should not have to wait until disaster happens and then wonder what could have been done."
The pair says the Iraqi government's September 1 pledge not to expel the Ashraf residents is contradicted by numerous high-level calls to empty the camp.
"Even if the intention not to expel remains, the ability of Iraqi forces to protect the camp from local militias sympathetic to Iran or from infiltrators of Iraqi forces is questionable," the letter says. "The Minister of Justice himself said that if it were not for the presence of U.S. forces, the 'people of Iraq' would attack and destroy the camp."
Besides the fatwa, Iranian law from 1997 says PMOI activists are "guilty of waging war on God" and face punishment including internal banishment, amputation of the right hand and left leg, or death.
Carved out of the desert by the dissidents, Ashraf has long since evolved into a small town complete with amenities like a shopping centre.
In 2004, Washington granted the residents "protected status" under Geneva Conventions after determining they had not been belligerents during the U.S.-led invasion.
The group had earlier renounced military activity, and surrendered its arms to U.S. forces following Saddam's overthrow. The U.S. also says it has screened Ashraf residents in a bid to ensure the camp is free of terror suspects.
But the camp is not mentioned in the Iraq-U.S. security agreement approved Sunday by the Iraqi cabinet that dictates terms of the U.S. military presence beyond an expiring UN mandate.
"The assumption of both parties is that control...would shift from the U.S. to Iraqi forces by year's end," the Matas/Kilgour letter says.
The pair wants the UN to grant the Ashraf residents "group recognition" as refugees - a status that would prohibit their repatriation and grant them resettlement rights.
Their campaign is in tandem with similar calls by other groups, among them Washington-based Iranian exiles of the National Coalition of pro-Democracy Advocates.
But complicating the efforts is that some countries, including the United States and Canada, list PMOI as a terrorist organization.
"Yes, the PMOI has a past history of violence but never against the West, and only in defence of life and liberty in Iran," Kilgour said in an interview.
Matas argues the terrorism designation is irrelevant when considering whether repatriation should be prevented.
"I don't take a position about whether they were terrorists," he said. "My view is that no one should be killed arbitrarily."
Still, the group has challenged the terrorism label in European courts with some success.
U.S. military and intelligence officials, meanwhile, have praised the group for help that included providing evidence of Tehran's secret nuclear program.
More than three million Iraqi Shiites also recently signed a petition declaring support for the PMOI and Ashraf.
But Tehran's influence in Baghdad remains strong, Kilgour and other supporters of the Ashraf cause say.
Salehyar was one of a number of Canadians joining a rotating sit-in now entering its third month in front of UN headquarters in New York in a bid to highlight the Ashraf cause.
"Because they've given up their weapons they are not able to protect themselves without international help," said Sahand Khoshbaten, 22, a health policy student at Toronto's York University, who was a baby when his parents fled Iran.
Ryerson engineering student Ali Ziaei, 19, said he felt a "responsibility to speak out before it's too late."
The Canadian mission to the UN says Canadian ambassador John McNee "and the rest of the mission are all aware of the problems," according to a note Khoshbaten received after he called on the delegation to help.
Each year since the 2003 murder in a Tehran jail of a Canadian-Iranian photojournalist, Canada has pushed through at the UN a resolution highlighting Iran's poor human rights record. While this year's draft makes no mention of PMOI's predicament, it expresses "deep concern" over Iran's "persecution of political opponents."
 

President-elect Obama Should Engage Iranian Women Calling for Change

By Soona Samsami

December 9, 2008

Huffington Post

By all accounts, women played a pivotal role in the rise to prominence and election of Barack Obama. It is, therefore, fitting that women play a key role in helping him address one of his greatest foreign policy challenges - the growing threat from Islamic extremists, particularly the ayatollahs in Iran.
Muslims and non-Muslims alike are eager to see Mr. Obama chart a new course which contains the calamity commonly known as Islamic fundamentalism. Iran is unique as the first country where fundamentalists managed to attain power and institutionalize their medieval worldview. A monopolistic, suppressive, dogmatic, misogynous, and terrorist political regime strives to preserve and expand the velayat-e-faqih (absolute rule of the clergy). Gender distinction and discrimination against women is an essential social and legal element.
Iran's misogynist state imposes gender inequality with a series of laws that go so far as to legalize the rape and murder of women. There are widespread arrests, torture, flogging, and stoning of women. In his November 2008 report, U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon expressed concern about "cases of stoning and public execution."
The ruling clerics' hatred of women is in part based on fear. Over 60% of Iran's 70 million population is under the age of thirty; nearly half are women. Additionally, in excess of 60% of university students are women. The paucity of professional and social opportunities and rampant discrimination fuel female dissent, creating a home-grown threat to the powers that be.
It should, of course, be emphasized that the Tehran regime's sadistic hostility to women, as well as the velayat-e faqih system itself, are diametrically opposed to Islam. The principle of equality; regardless of gender, race, or ethnicity, is among the pillars of Islamic belief. According to the genuine message of Islam, women must have equal participation in political leadership.
Tehran's regional influence has certainly been fueled by its unique ideological regimen, and the hesitant Western reaction to it. To advance it regional hegemony, the regime is hurtling full speed ahead to develop nuclear weapons. Its survival depends on continued perpetuation of domestic repression - particularly against women, and export of fundamentalism and terrorism.
Ignoring these fundamental features of Iran's theocracy, successive U.S. administrations sought to engage Iran with the hope of altering the regime's behavior. None, however, has truly engaged the Iranian people, or more specifically Iran's women and their undeniable movement for change.
Currently 3,500 members of the main Iranian opposition reside in Camp Ashraf in Iraq, where they have been recognized as "protected persons" under the Fourth Geneva Convention. Nearly 1,000 are women; many of them spent years in Iranian prisons and subjected to torture, others escaped the country after Tehran sought leaders of anti-government student demonstrations. Ashraf residents have been under the protection of the United States military since 2003. As Tehran ramps up pressure to extradite or disperse its primary opponents from Iraq, and in light of the approval of the SOFA agreement, the U.S. must continue its protection of Iranian dissidents to avoid a major humanitarian tragedy.
The least costly and most effective way to bring about change in Iran is to rely on the strength of the Iranian people, its women, and its organized resistance for democratic change.
In charting a new course, Mr. Obama's administration, U.S. interests, and indeed the cause of democracy in Iran will be well served if the lessons of history are heeded. As World War II loomed, Winston Churchill cautioned against appeasement of Hitler's regime. But many, including British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain, advocated engagement with Germany. Ultimately the agreement Britain signed with Hitler allowed his expansionist machine vital time to prepare, before he launched his aggression in Europe.
As the world community increasingly realizes that Iran's rulers are illegitimate, it must also recognize the legitimacy of the democratic alternative. Coupled with increased international diplomacy, President-elect Obama should look to Iranian women and their organized democratic opposition as a partner in seeking the establishment of democracy in Iran and stability in the region.
 

Shocking crimes in mullahs' medieval prison of Kahrizak unveiled

 December 14, 2008

NCRI Website - Public Statement
18 women died in inhuman conditions in the prison
10 other inmates died under torture
Eighteen women died of inhuman conditions in Kahrizak medieval prison, southern suburbs of Tehran.  The 18 inmates were locked in a metal mobile container during the scorching summer heat in August since there was no women ward in Kahrizak prison.
They died of dehydration and respiration problems and prison authorities paid no attention to their problems. Other prisoners found out about the tragedy by the odor of decomposing corpses spread in the prison complex. The regime made no attempt to transfer the corpses and left them in the metal cells to create more fear among other prisoners. The prison authorities tried to cover up their crime by claiming that the prisoners died of heart failure or committed suicide.
According to eye witnesses, in October 2007, ten other prisoners died under torture in this prison. During that period 80 children who were staying with their mothers in the same prison were kept in inhumane conditions in a warehouse.
These crimes are committed under the supervision of Revolutionary Guard Mohammad Reza Radan, Commander of the State Security Forces. He regularly visits this prison and praises the henchmen for their suppressive crimes.
Kahrizak prisoners are mostly victims of raids in the streets or are picked up by the mullahs' police patrols. These arrests are not subject to any judicial process and none of the detainees are handed over to judicial authorities for investigations while they experience months of detention and torture. During their detention they have been denied of minimum due process of law.
The Iranian Resistance draws the attention of human rights organizations in particular the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights to the tragic situation in Iran and calls for condemnation of these crimes. It also calls for referral of the regime’s human rights dossier to the UN Security Council for adoption of urgent and binding measures.