This is a crosspost by Mark Gardner from the CST blog in the UK.
A previously confidential Foreign and Commonwealth Office report (large pdf, here), officially released on 15 December by the FCO, suggests some foundational answers to the commonly asked questions regarding Britain’s apparent tolerance and accommodation of Islamist groups of varying extremes throughout the 1990s. In other words, what is sometimes termed the ”Londonistan” phenomenon of that time. (The report is 79 pages long and covers far more ground than merely these aspects covered below.)
Meir Javedanfar offers these observations on the talks scheduled next week over Iran’s nuclear program - which, given the recent provocations on the Korean peninsula by the Pyongyang regime, will be of heightened interest and sensitivity.
Both the P5+1 and Iran are attending these talks because they are an essential part of their dual track policies toward each other. Without such an approach, their respective strategies would collapse.
Iran’s dual track approach involves a diplomatic channel that allows it access to direct negotiations with the P5+1, while also supporting foes of the West-especially those of the United States-in places such as Iraq, Afghanistan and Lebanon. Iran hopes this twin approach will gradually coerce the West into accepting its terms.
But the West also pursues a dual strategy. Despite the talks being widely seen as dead before they’ve even started, it still needs to keep the talks going as it provides Iran a channel through which come to the negotiating table. The second track consists of the sanctions that it hopes will coerce Iran into complying with demands over its nuclear programme.
With both sides pursuing dual but competing approaches, it’s going to be all about who has the most stamina.
One of the few merits of the Wikileaks project is that it puts the obvious and already well-known on the front pages. Take Iran and its nuclear program, for example. Everybody who takes an interest in such matters and is not blinded by hatred of Jews running their own affairs knows that most Arab states are far more worried about the nuclear ambitions of the ayatollahs than they are about Israel and would be quietly pleased if the US and/or Israel put an end to them using whatever means necessary.
Is Iran’s government sponsoring an Internet site that extols the German Nazis, their history and achievements, including the antisemitism that the current Iranian regime also supports? Or is it merely permitting one to operate in a highly censored communications’ system?Here are the facts. There is a discussion group site entitled IranNazi that has an Iranian internet URL. It is written in Persian and seems to have begun on August 24. All the material on the site is pro-Nazi and features pictures of Adolph Hitler, the swastika, and goose-stepping German soldiers. There is an English-language part as well.
As America votes in the midterm elections, Iran’s medieval regime is doing what it does best. Sakineh reportedly faces execution tomorrow, November 3rd. This from the International Committee Against Stoning, via The Propagandist:
The Islamic regime of Iran plans to execute Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani immediately
According to news received by the International Committee against Stoning and International Committee against Execution on 1 November 2010, the authorities in Tehran have given the go ahead to Tabriz prison for the execution of Iran stoning case Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani. It has been reported that she is to be executed this Wednesday 3 November.
We had previously reported that the casefile regarding the murder case of Ms Ashtiani’s husband had been seized from her lawyer’s office, Houtan Kian, and found missing from the prosecutor’s Oskoo branch office so as to stitch Ms Ashtiani up with trumped up murder charges. Ms Ashtiani’s son, Sajjad Ghaderzadeh, and her lawyer, Houtan Kian, have warned of the regime’s plan to do so on many occasions. With the arrest of Ms Ashtiani’s son and lawyer on 10 October and her not having had any visitation rights since 11 August and after fabricating a new case against her, the “Human Rights Commission” of the regime has announced that: ‘according to the existing evidence, her guilt has been confirmed.’ In fact, the regime has created a new scenario in order to expedite her execution.
The International Committees against Stoning and Execution call on international bodies and the people of the world to come out in full force against the state-sponsored murder of Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani. Ms Ashtiani, Sajjad Ghaderzadeh, Houtan Kian and the two German journalists must be immediately and unconditionally released.
International Committee against Execution
International Committee against Stoning
Email: minaahadi@aol.com
Tel: 0049 (0) 1775692413
This story is at least a week old, but it doesn’t seem to have had much of an airing, so here goes. At this month’s World Masters Weightlifting Championship in Poland, an Israeli competitor, Sergio Britva, took first place. Britva lifted an astonishing 300kg of weight, beating the second-placed competitor, the Iranian Hossein Khodadadi, by 4 kilos.
The two athletes mounted the podium to receive their medals, together with the third-placed competitor from Germany. Britva and the German shook hands. But when Britva offered his to Khodadadi, the Iranian refused it.
That unsporting gesture didn’t prevent Khodadadi from being rebuked by the Iranian authorities for standing alongside an Israeli. According to Radio Zamaneh, “the Head of Iran’s National Athletic Organization had earlier written a letter to the Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Khamenei, to receive instructions on how to handle situations where Iranian athletes have to confront Israeli athletes.” You don’t need a wild imagination to figure out what those would have been.
And so to the video embedded above. At 1′30″, you can see Britva mount the podium draped in an Israeli flag. He shakes hands with the German to his left. He turns to his right, but the Iranian declines. That doesn’t seem to bother Britva, who is deservedly delighted with his victory. Then, at 2′21″, with Khodadadi and Britva still together on the podium, a stirring rendition of Israel’s national anthem, Hatikvah, strikes up. Britva stands erect and solemn, choking back tears of pride and joy. His image then dissolves into another of the Israeli flag atop the Iranian and the German.
I don’t know whether the Polish producers of the broadcast understood the enormous historical resonance here, but it really has to be seen.
Landing at Beirut’s international airport, Ahmadinejad’s motorcade passed near the site where Hizbullah murdered 241 American marines and 58 French soldiers in dual suicide truck bombings in September 1982. These peacekeeping forces had been dispatched to monitor the exit of Yasser Arafat and the PLO, following the Israel-Lebanon war, and to assist in restoring peace to this small, battered country.
But the void left by the PLO departure, and subsequent withdrawal of American and French forces, was quickly filled by Hizbullah, born during that war. Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, emboldened by the shah’s overthrow and eager to export their ideology across the Middle East, seized an opportunity to plant revolutionary seeds. Lebanon, a nation torn by civil war, was particularly vulnerable to outsider machinations, especially any seeking allies intent on Israel’s eradication as part of the larger crusade to spread radical Islam across the region.
From my op-ed in today’s Jerusalem Post, examining the ramifications of Ahmadinejad’s recent visit to Lebanon.
This article by Dan Yurman is reposted with permission from the ANS Nuclear Café, where it was originally published on October 20, 2010.
In July 2010 a software worm, which is malevolent computer code, appeared on the radar screen of cyber security firms when it was found to be targeting computers in Iran and several other countries running industrial control systems.
The government of Iran has today formally rejected the proposal made by President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner at the recent UN General Assembly that the fugitives whose extradition Argentina is seeking in connection with its investigation into the AMIA massacre be tried in a mutually agreed third country.
1. If and when Iran acquires nuclear weapons the avoidance of nuclear war between it and Israel, the country it seeks to destroy, will depend on Israel having a second strike capability. That means that it must have the capacity to suffer a nuclear attack and still be able to inflict a terrible retaliatory blow. If it has this capacity then it has less motivation either to mount a conventional attack on Iran designed to prevent or delay its acquisition of nuclear weapons or, once these weapons have been acquired, launch a preemptive nuclear attack designed to prevent them being used and permanently end Iran’s capacity to threaten its security.
I don’t think many will contradict me if I say that the verb “resist” is usually transitive. That means, for example, that it doesn’t make sense for me to praise “Mike’s resistance” unless I am sure that my interlocutor knows about Mike’s attempts to stop his landlord from evicting him.
I am standing before you in this court so that the Almighty will be a witness before you and I. A witness to what is happening today to our beloved Iran and to its brave sons and daughters. So that upon the judgement day when we are held accountable, those of us who stand proud and those of us who hold our heads down will remember that such is destiny. The final reward and punishment is only by God.
If justice was the benchmark, instead of me standing trial today, it should have been those who have disgraced Iran and Islam who should have been standing trial. The very people who want to plunder Iran’s wealth and use Islam to cover up their foray and despotism.
I was arrested on 15th February when the intelligence ministry agents broke into my house. They smashed up our furniture and rummaged through our belongings just to maximise their intimidation. This was all because of a song I had written that according to the gentlemen had ‘endangered the national security’. After that, I spent 44 days in solitary confinement where I was put under a series of emotional, mental and physical tortures. Allow me to describe just a small part of what I was put through:
- Hurling insults and profanities to belittle me, even ridiculing the way I looked
- Intimidating me by threatening to arrest my wife, even though she has had no political activities or played a role in anything I have done
- Insulting my war veteran brother and threatening to arrest him as well if I did not co-operate
- Intelligence agent threatening me with death (He said to me I can easily kill you outside here with a single bullet and no one can question me)
- Prison officials threatening me with execution
- Keeping me in a 2 metre by 1.5 metre cell without any hygiene facilities that led to infected boils all over my body
- Deliberate negligence in giving me my medication related to my heart problem
- Putting me in a cell next to an inmate with AIDS and making me walk with bare feet on his blood after he had committed suicide by slashing his wrists
- Giving me insinuating offensive information about my wife
- Stripping me naked in front of an agent who was holding a camera in his hand, who kept laughing and asking me ‘are you scared?’ every time I protested at his immoral behaviour
- Severe physical beating when I asked to see the prison doctor, beatings so bad that the marks were visible all over me for a long time
- Chaining my hands and feet for long periods of time
And these were just a small glimpse of what I went through during my detention.
After the Ashura uprising which resulted in so many of my compatriots being killed, I felt it was my duty to condemn this inhumanity and use my musical talents in doing so. I wrote and composed a song, which became known as ‘Ali, Rise up’. The content of this song is to do with the exploitation of God, the Koran and the Imams by a bunch of impostors to achieve their demonic goals. In this song, I asked the Imams for help in uprooting lies and hypocrisy. Is it not strange that in these days to ask the Imams for help in battling against evil is considered a crime in our country?
Imam Hussein was martyred for good to triumph against evil, so should we not expect the same from his followers? Or are we just supposed to ceremoniously beat our heads and beat up our chests and pretend we despise tyrants and despots?
I do not recognise this man as our president! Am I then not a Muslim? On the day of Ashura, I chanted ‘God is Great’ and I am proud of calling His name. Surely whoever jails me for chanting ‘God is Great’ is a non-believer and an infidel himself.
Those who make out they are Muslims these days, themselves disregard the most basic teachings. They easily lie to nation of seventy million and make false promises, and feign that they want to glorify Iran and Islam. Iran and Islam are both much grander than having the need for such claimants.
The constitution has to be made clear. It gives me the right to criticise. It gives me the right to take part in gatherings without carrying weapons, it gives me the right to free speech and free thought. And because of this constitution that our fathers voted for, I am free not to be indifferent to the destiny of my country. Interestingly instead of being commended, I have to stand trial today for this.
Sadly in the report made by the intelligence ministry, it is stated that I have written an insulting song against Mu‘āwiya and posted it on my blog. Has the intelligence ministry now become defenders of Mu‘āwiya and Yazid? In another section of the report it says, I made up this song against the Supreme Leader, which is the most comical part of the report. The song is clearly against those who desecrated the sanctities of Ashura, but it seems the intelligence ministry is insistent that someone else is responsible for all this. Such is the illusion of power by those who seek the temporary reigns of power.
These policies of mass oppression and intimidation are dictated by which eternal power that justifies silence. Which divine laws allow such invasions of privacy into people’s homes and into the privacy of people’s private beliefs? and not tolerate the slightest of criticisms? These self interest seeking persons who claim to be kinder child minders than our own mothers, not only think they own this land but consider any non-conformity a crime and trample on the basic rights of our citizens. I recommend, in a brotherly way, some reality check and some insight than just having your eyes fixated on the seats of power; for rectifying your mistakes in the future will be much harder.
Respected judge, I am worried today about your judgement, for my interrogators said you are their puppet and will do whatever they tell you to do. I hope God will reveal you the truth, so that God forbid, you will not be held accountable for what others have asked you do for them in another world.
In the end, I reject all charges against me and ask you to find me not guilty.
This is the song written by Arya, which has been deemed to ‘endanger the national security of the country’:
As I reported here a few days ago, in her speech to the recently concluded General Assembly of the United Nations, President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner offered the Iranian government the possibility of trying the AMIA massacre suspects in a third country if it believes they could not get a fair hearing in Argentina. She said that this offer would end the excuses being offered for the Iranian regime for not extraditing the AMIA fugitives.
The intelligence of her initiative deserves to be highlighted. It serves to protect her from accusations of doing nothing to bring real pressure to bear on Tehran to give up the AMIA fugitives, has delighted the official representatives of the Argentine Jewish community and the simple act of mentioning Iran in connection with terrorism helps her government’s relationship with the United States.
Here are eight representatives of Iran’s brutal regime:
1. Mohammad Ali JAFARI [Commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, born September 1, 1957]
2. Sadeq MAHSOULI [Minister of Welfare and Social Security, former Minister of the Interior and Deputy Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces for Law Enforcement, born 1959]
3. Qolam-Hossein MOHSENI-EJEI [Prosecutor-General of Iran, former Minister of Intelligence, born circa 1956]
4. Saeed MORTAZAVI [Head of Iranian Anti-Smuggling Task Force, former Prosecutor-General of Tehran, born 1967]
5. Heydar MOSLEHI [Minister of Intelligence, born 1956]
6. Mostafa Mohammad NAJJAR [Minister of the Interior and Deputy Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces for Law Enforcement, born 1956]
7. Ahmad-Reza RADAN [Deputy Chief of the National Police, born 1963 or 1964]
8. Hossein TAEB [Deputy Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Commander for Intelligence, former Commander of the Basij Forces, born 1963]
What do they have in common - apart from being brutes, that is? Over to the White House:
Statement by the Press Secretary on the New Executive Order Designating Iranian Officials Responsible for or Complicit in Serious Human Rights Abuses
The United States is strongly committed to the promotion of human rights around the world, including in the Islamic Republic of Iran. In accordance with U.S. law and the Administration’s commitment to human rights for the Iranian people, the President has signed an Executive Order authorizing the Departments of State and Treasury to impose sanctions on eight Iranian government officials tied to serious human rights abuses against the people of Iran.
These measures are being taken pursuant to the Comprehensive Iran Sanctions, Accountability, and Divestment Act of 2010, which imposes sanctions against senior officials in the Iranian government who, based on credible evidence, were involved in the commission of serious human rights abuses during or after Iran’s 2009 presidential election. The individuals designated will be subject to financial sanctions and visa ineligibilities under U.S. law. The list of names is not exhaustive and will continue to grow based on events in Iran, and as additional information and evidence becomes available.
As the President noted in his recent address to the United Nations General Assembly, human rights are a matter of moral and pragmatic necessity for the United States. The United States will always stand with those in Iran who aspire to have their voices heard. We will be a voice for those aspirations that are universal, and we continue to call upon the Iranian government to respect the rights of its people.
Here’s what’s significant: “The individuals designated will be subject to financial sanctions and visa ineligibilities under U.S. law. The list of names is not exhaustive and will continue to grow based on events in Iran, and as additional information and evidence becomes available.”
After months of anticipation and almost two years after his arrest and imprisonment, blogger Hossein Derakhshan was sentenced to 19.5 years in prison by Branch 15 of the Revolutionary Courts today. News of the stiff sentence was first published by Mashreq website. A source close to the family of Hossein Derakhshan confirmed the news for the International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran, adding that Derakhshan’s family are shocked by the news. ”Neither the family nor the lawyer knew about the sentence, they read the news online.” The conservative website referred to Hossein Derakhshan as an “anti-revolutionary blogger.”
“According to the sentence issued today by Branch 15 of the Revolutionary Courts with Judge Salavati presiding, Derakhshan who was arrested in October 2008, has been charged with ‘cooperation with hostile states, propagating against the regime, propagation in favor of anti-revolutionary groups, insulting sanctities, and implementation and management of obscene websites,’ and sentenced to 19.5 years in prison, five years’ ban from membership in political parties and activities in the media; and returning received funds in the amount of 30,750 Euro, US$2,900, and 200 British Pounds,” reported the Mashreq website.
The crackdown on dissent is clearly in full swing. Derakhshan’s sentence comes just a few days after the regime sentenced Shiva Nazar Ahari, one of Iran’s most courageous human right activists, to six years behind bars, just days after the regime extorted $500,000 from her family to bail her out of prison.
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