Posted tagged ‘Iran – human rights’

« WarSclerotic home page
« Older Entries
Newer Entries »

In trouble, Iran tries to discredit the MEK – dissidents

February 7, 2017

In trouble, Iran tries to discredit the MEK – dissidents, Iran Focus, February 6, 2017

mek-rally-750

London, 7 Feb – As President Donald Trump’s new US administration steps up pressure on Iran over its belligerent activities, Iranian opponents are arguing that Tehran is now targeting its main organised opposition movement, the People’s Mojahedin Organisation of Iran (PMOI or MEK), with disinformation in order to discredit its role as a potential alternative to the theocratic regime.

The MEK, established over 51 years ago, as an opposition movement to the Shah’s regime, soon fell out with the clerical government that took over with the 1979 revolution. Since 1981, the MEK has been considered as the ruling theocracy’s main nemesis. The MEK is also the leading force in the main opposition coalition National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI).

Following the publication of articles by the Iranian ‘lobby’ targeting the MEK with ‘misinformation’, Farzin Hashemi, a Member of the NCRI Foreign Affairs Committee, wrote on Monday:

“Over the past week, once again policy on Iran was widely discussed in the media. Simultaneously, in recent weeks there has been more growing call for a new approach toward Iranian opposition, the MEK. The announcement by the US National Security Advisor that ‘Iran is officially on notice’ drew much attention. This position was followed by more Tweets from President Trump and a new round of sanctions, raising the prospect of a change of policy in the US approach towards Iran”.

Hashemi pointed out that both the NCRI and the MEK support sanctions against Iranian officials over their role in ballistic missile proliferation, a violation of United Nations Security Council Resolution 2231:

“As far as the Iranian Resistance, and its components including the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (MEK/PMOI), is concerned imposing sanctions against a number of individuals and companies affiliated to the clerical regime for their role in missile proliferation is a positive step in confronting the illegitimate and terrorist dictatorship whose record includes 120,000 political executions”.

Last week the Trump administration sanctioned 25 Iranian officials and entities for a recent ballistic missile test launch by Tehran. Hashemi argued, however, that in order to deal with the threats emanating from Tehran – which it described as the Godfather of state-sponsored terrorism – the world community ought to impose comprehensive sanctions on Iran’s Revolutionary Guards (IRGC), the Ministry of Intelligence, and “other entities involved in suppression of the Iranian people and export of terrorism”.

“The IRGC and its affiliated militias and their commanders must be expelled from the countries of the region, in particular from Iraq, Syria, and Yemen. Otherwise, the region would not witness peace and tranquillity”.

“The prospect of a shift of US policy, has already shaken not only the Iranian regime and its lobbies but also apologists and advocates of the old and failed policy of appeasement. In order to maintain the ‘golden era,’ a term used by the mullahs’ officials internally and sometimes publicly to describe the last few years of US policy on Iran, they have resorted to a two-pronged strategy”, Hashemi argued.

Through their “propaganda in the media”, under various covers, they are trying to create an “echo chamber” with which any suggestion of the need for a firm policy on Iran and its rogue behaviour, both at home and abroad, is described as “war mongering”, he said. “They are desperately trying to intimidate those calling for a change of policy to side with the people of Iran, through such false labels”.

“Simultaneously, they are engaged in a massive disinformation campaign to discredit the democratic opposition, the MEK and the coalition National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), led by its President-elect Maryam Rajavi. By spreading fake news about the MEK/PMOI, originated from the Ministry of Intelligence of the mullahs’ regime and the intelligence section of the IRGC, their objective is to convey this false message that there is no viable opposition and the world must accept and deal with the religious dictatorship ruling Iran. Thus, the core of the issue is not their debunked allegations but their hidden agenda to maintain the policy of appeasement”.

“So, the choice is simply to opt between supporting the central banker of international terrorism with the record of having executed 120,000 dissidents for political reasons –ironically, the majority of them members and sympathizers of the PMOI/MEK – or to side with the Iranian people in their quest for a free and democratic Iran in which there would be no more executions, no more gender discrimination, no more supporting terrorist groups and destabilizing the entire region and no more nuclear weapons program”.

Iranian dissidents have also taken to social media, such as Twitter and Facebook, to denounce Tehran’s ‘media propaganda ploy’ against the MEK.

On 9 January this year, 23 US prominent dignitaries, many of them with years of public service, urged the Trump administration “to adopt and pursue an Iran policy that recognizes the interests and inalienable rights of the Iranian people, and not just the clerical regime ruling over them.”

Highlighting the failure of the past policy that the nuclear deal might lead to a change of behavior from Tehran, the signatories stressed that the regime’s aggressive policy is part of their efforts on “preserving the vulnerable system of dictatorship”.

They also called for the voice of the Iranian people to be listened to through the NCRI and the MEK.

The former US officials also spoke out against Iran’s misinformation campaign against the MEK.

Pointing out that some “media and policy community continue to recycle defamatory allegations from decades past,” they wrote “We now know that these designations of the resistance as a terrorist group by Western governments were not made in response to confirmed terrorism; all were diplomatic gestures taken at the request of Tehran. Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence and Security has for many years impaired the exiled opposition by covertly spreading false and distorted claims through third parties in the West. Other governments like Germany and the Netherlands closely monitor Iran’s influence operations on their soil; a thorough counter‐intelligence investigation by the US is clearly needed and long overdue”.

They concluded by recommending to Trump: “With a more enlightened grasp of the Iranian regime’s priorities and vulnerabilities, your Administration will be equipped to exert leverage enabling the US to oppose Tehran’s repression and adventurism while standing for the fundamental values both our peoples share”.

Hashemi added: “While, Tehran’s lobby and advocates of appeasement will desperately continue to allocate all their resource to discredit the resistance, and in particular the MEK (PMOI) and to preserve the failed old policy, their time is over”.

 

More about the People’s Mojahdin Organization of Iran (PMOI/ MEK) —– Source

The People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (Also known as MEK, or Mujahedin-e-Khalq / Mujahedeen-e-Khalq), was founded on September 6, 1965, by Mohammad Hanifnejad, Saeed Mohsen, and Ali-Asghar Badizadgan. All engineers, they had earlier been members of the Freedom Movement (also known as the Liberation Movement), created by Medhi Bazargan in May 1961.1

The MEK’s quest culminated in a true interpretation of Islam, which is inherently tolerant and democratic, and fully compatible with the values of modern-day civilization. It took six years for the MEK to formulate its view of Islam and develop a strategy to replace Iran’s dictatorial monarchy with a democratic government.

MEK’s interpretation of Islam

The theocratic mullah regime in Iran believe interpreting Islam is their exclusive domain. The MEK reject this view and the cleric’s reactionary vision of Islam. The MEK’s comprehensive interpretation of Islam proved to be more persuasive and appealing to the Iranian youth.
MEK’s founders and new members studied the various schools of thought, the Iranian history and those of other countries, enabling them to analyze other philosophies and ideologies with considerable knowledge and to present their own ideology, based on Islam, as the answer to Iran’s problems.

MEK’s leadership’s arrest during the 70s.

The Shah’s notorious secret police, SAVAK, arrested all MEK leaders and most of its member’s in1971. On May 1972, the founders of the MEK, Mohammad Hanifnejad , Saeed Mohsen and Ali Asghar Badizadegan, along with two members of the MEK leadership, Mahmoud Askarizadeh and Rasoul Meshkinfam, were put before death squads and were executed after long months of imprisonment and torture. They were the true vanguards, who stood against the dictatorial regime of Shah. However, they are also recognized for their opposition to what is today known as Islamic fundamentalism.

The death sentence of Massoud Rajavi, a member of MEK’s central committee, was commuted to life imprisonment as a result of an international campaign by his Geneva based brother, Dr. Kazem Rajavi (assassinated in April 1990 in Geneva by mullahs’ agents) and the personal intervention of the French President Georges Pompidou and Francois Mitterrand. He was the only survivor of the MEK original leadership.
Massoud Rajavi’s critical role in characterizing religious extremism

From 1975 to 1979, while incarcerated in different prisons, Massoud Rajavi led the MEK’s struggle while constantly under torture for his leading position.

Massoud Rajavi stressed the need to continue the struggle against the shah’s dictatorship. At the same time, he characterized religious fanaticism as the primary internal threat to the popular opposition, and warned against the emergence and growth of religious fanaticism and autocracy. He also played a crucial role when some splinter used the vacuum in the MEK leadership who were all executed or imprisoned at the time, to claim a change of ideology and policy. Massoud Rajavi as the MEK leader condemn these individual’s misuse of MEK’s name while continuing to stress the struggle against dictatorship. His efforts while still in prison forced these individuals to no longer operating under the name of MEK and adopting a different name for their group. These positions remained the MEK’s manifesto until the overthrow of the shah’s regime.

Release of Political Prisoners on the last days of the Shah

A month before the 1979 revolution in Iran, the Shah was forced to flee Iran, never to return. All democratic opposition leaders had by then either been executed by the Shah’s SAVAK or imprisoned, and could exert little influence on the trend of events. Khomeini and his network of mullahs across the country, who had by and large been spared the wrath of SAVAK, were the only force that remained unharmed and could take advantage of the political vacuum. In France, Khomeini received maximum exposure to the world media. With the aid of his clerical followers, he hijacked a revolution that began with calls for democracy and freedom and diverted it towards his fundamentalist goals. Through an exceptional combination of historical events, Shiite clerics assumed power in Iran.

Khomeini’s gradual crackdown on MEK in fear of their popular support

In internal discourses, Rajavi the remaining leader of the MEK, argued that Khomeini represented the reactionary sector of society and preached religious fascism. Later, in the early days after the 1979 revolution, the mullahs, specifically Rafsanjani, pointed to these statements in inciting the hezbollahi club-wielders to attack the MEK.

Following the revolution, the MEK became Iran’s largest organized political party. It had hundreds of thousands of members who operated from MEK offices all over the country. MEK publication, ‘Mojahed’ was circulated in 500,000 copies.

Khomeini set up an Assembly of Experts comprised of sixty of his closest mullahs and loyalists to ratify the principle of velayat-e faqih (absolute supremacy of clerical rule) as a pillar of the Constitution. The MEK launched a nationwide campaign in opposition to this move, which enjoyed enormous popular support. Subsequently, the MEK refused to approve the new constitution based on the concept of velayat-e faqih, while stressing its observance of the law of the country to deny the mullahs any excuse for further suppression of MEK supporters who were regularly targeted by the regime’s official and unofficial thugs.

Khomeini sanctioned the occupation of the United States embassy in 1979 in order to create an anti-American frenzy, which facilitated the holding of a referendum to approve his Constitution, which the MEK rejected.

MEK’s endeavors to participate in the political process avoiding an unwanted conflict with government repressive forces
The MEK actively participated in the political process, fielding candidates for the parliamentary and presidential elections. The MEK also entered avidly into the national debate on the structure of the new Islamic regime, though was unsuccessful in seeking an elected constituent assembly to draft a constitution.

The MEK similarly made an attempt at political participation when [then] Massoud Rajavi ran for the presidency in January 1980. MEK’s leader was forced to withdraw when Khomeini ruled that only candidates who had supported the constitution in the December referendum – which the MEK had boycotted- were eligible. Rajavi’s withdrawal statement emphasized the MEK’s efforts to conform to election regulations and reiterated the MEK’s intention to advance its political aims within the new legal system”. (Unclassified report on the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran(PMOI/ MEK) by the Department of State to the United States House of Representatives, December 1984.)

However, the MEK soon found itself in a direct struggle against the forces of the regime’s Supreme leader. The MEK’s differences with Khomeini dated back to the 1970s, and stem from its opposition to what is known today as Islamic extremism. Angry at the position taken by the MEK against his regime and worried about the MEK’s growing popularity, Khomeini ordered a brutal crackdown against the MEK and its supporters. Between 1979 and 1981, some 70 MEK members and sympathizers were killed and several thousand more were imprisoned by the Iranian regime.

June 20, 1981- Khomeini’s order to open fire on peaceful demonstration of half-a-million supporters of MEK

The turning point came on 20th June 1981, when the MEK called a demonstration to protest at the regime’s crackdown, and to call for political freedom which half-a-million supporters participated at. Khomeini ordered the Revolutionary Guards to open fire on the swelling crowd, fearing that without absolute repression the democratic opposition (MEK) would force him to engage in serious reforms – an anathema as far as he was concerned; he ordered the mass and summary executions of those arrested.

Since then, MEK activists have been the prime victims of human rights violations in Iran. Over 120,000 of its members and supporters have been executed by the Iranian regime, 30,000 of which, were executed in a few months in the summer of 1988, on a direct fatwa by Khomeini, which stated any prisoners who remain loyal to the MEK must be executed.

Having been denied its fundamental rights and having come under extensive attack at the time that millions of its members, supporters and sympathizers had no protection against the brutal onslaught of the Iranian regime, the MEK had no choice but to resist against the mullahs’ reign of terror.

“Towards the end of 1981, many of the members of the MEK and supporters went into exile. Their principal refuge was in France. But in 1986, after negotiations between the French and the Iranian authorities, the French government effectively treated them as undesirable aliens, and the leadership of the MEK with several thousand followers relocated to Iraq.” (Judgment of the Proscribed Organizations Appeal Commission, November 30, 2007.)

MEK Today

The MEK today is the oldest and largest anti-fundamentalist Muslim group in the Middle East. It has been active for more than a half century, battling two dictatorships and a wide range of issues. The MEK supports:

• Universal suffrage as the sole criterion for legitimacy
• Pluralistic system of governance
• Respect for individual freedoms
• Ban on the death penalty
• Separation of religion and state
• Full gender equality
• Equal participation of women in political leadership. MEK is actually led by its central committee consist of 1000 women.
• Modern judicial system that emphasizes the principle of innocence, a right to a defense, and due process
• Free markets
• Relations with all countries in the world
• Commitment to a non-nuclear Iran

The MEK remains a strong and cohesive organization, with a broad reach both worldwide and deep within Iran. MEK is the leading voice for democracy in Iran, supported by its interpretation of Islam that discredits the fundamentalist mullahs’ regime.

Categories: Iran - human rights, Iran - political prisoners, Iran - world power, Iran lies, Iran lobby, Iran scam, Iranian dissidents, Iranian Islam, Iranian media, Iranian prisoners, Iranian resistance, MEK, Obama and Iran, Trump and Iran, Trump and Iran scam
Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Comments: Be the first to comment

Spare Us Iran’s Pieties on U.S. Immigration Policy

February 1, 2017

Spare Us Iran’s Pieties on U.S. Immigration Policy, PJ Media, Claudia Rosett, January 31, 2017

zarifwreathIranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif lays a wreath on the grave of Imad Mughniyeh, a top Hezbollah commander, in the southern suburb of Beirut, Lebanon, Monday, Jan. 13, 2014. (AP Photo/Bilal Hussein)

After eight years of President Obama’s incendiary efforts to couple an expanding American welfare state with a laissez-faire approach to U.S. borders, America is finally launching a real debate over immigration policy. In our democracy, there’s room for everything from the weepy Sen. Chuck Schumer to the defiant President Trump. My hope is that America ends up willing to take as many refugees — and immigrants generally — as possible, subject to genuine regard for American security and preservation of our rambunctious democracy and its Constitution.

What America emphatically does not need, however, is the voice of Tehran’s terror-sponsoring regime insinuating itself anywhere in this immigration debate. Which is exactly what Iran’s foreign minister, Javad Zarif, has been trying to do with his recent comments that Trump’s Jan. 27 executive order on immigration is “a great gift to extremists.” Calling Trump’s order a “Muslim ban” (which it is not), Zarif has accused the Trump administration of intruding into the friendship between the American and Iranian people, and aiding “terrorist recruitment” by “deepening fault lines exploited by extremist demagogues to swell their ranks.”

Zarif’s statements (in which Zarif himself was de facto doing plenty to encourage terrorists and deepen fault lines) were put out on Twitter, replayed via Iran’s Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA), and amplified by Al Jazeera, under the headline “Zarif: Trump’s Muslim ban ‘great gift to extremists'” — along with Al Jazeera’s report that some 45% of the would-be travelers to America affected by Trump’s order are from Iran, and that “more than a million Iranians live in the United States.”

In case it sounds touching that Zarif should be so concerned about the well-being of America, let’s be clear on what’s really going on here. Zarif, while presenting himself as an enemy of “extremists,” is a prominent official voice of an Iranian regime that has ranked for years as the Middle East’s biggest Old Boys’ Club of “extremism.” The Tehran government Zarif represents is the world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism. He speaks for a regime which since Iran’s 1979 Islamic revolution has as a matter of messianic government policy recruited, trained and funded legions of terrorists — a poisonous influence emanating from the Middle East, a self-declared existential threat to Israel, and home to officially blessed chants of “Death to America.”

According to the State Department’s most recent report on State Sponsors of Terrorism, covering 2015, “Iran continued its terrorist related activity… including support for Hizballah, Palestinian terrorist groups in Gaza, and various groups in Iraq and throughout the Middle East.” State noted that Iran views the terror-sponsoring Assad regime in Syria as “a crucial ally”; that Tehran-backed Shia terrorist groups have “exacerbated sectarian tensions in Iraq and have committed serious human rights abuses”; and that “Iran has also provided weapons, funding and training to Shia militants in Bahrain,” including such gee-gaws as “a bomb-making facility” which, when discovered by the Bahraini government, was housing 1.5 tons of high-grade explosives.

As for Zarif’s charges that the Trump administration is imperiling the friendship between the people of Iran and the people of America, let’s recall that Iran’s Islamic Republic, from the year of its inception right up to the present, has made a practice of seizing and holding Americans as de facto hostages — including the prisoners whose release in Jan. 2016 came coincident with (or, as it now appears, no coincidence?) President Obama’s secret hustling of $1.7 billion in cash to Iran’s terror-sponsoring government. Nor does it help the cause of friendship that Iran — despite its official promise to abjure a nuclear weapons program — continues, as it did just last week, to test ballistic missiles (for which the only realistic use is delivering nuclear weapons).

It is the Tehran regime itself that is the prime cause of misery for people who would like to travel from Iran to America, or vice versa. If Zarif’s real concern is to fight terrorism and encourage the free flow of people between Iran and America, what he really ought to do is resign his post and call for an end to the repressive and terror-sponsoring Tehran government that he himself, under Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, has for decades so zealously served. That would be the right and decent move; an honest and genuinely useful contribution to world affairs.

Not that Zarif is even remotely likely to do any such thing. But unless he takes the highly improbable course of placing blame where it belongs — on his own government — his indignant opinions about U.S. immigration policy are of less than zero value. They are of a piece with those Iran visas extended to the series of American citizens who took the bait and ended up in Iran’s prisons, held as chits for Tehran’s political extortion rackets. Such are the contributions of Iran’s regime to the cause of international friendships and open exchange of people. Please spare us.

Categories: Executive order, Hypocrisy, Iran - human rights, Iran and President Trump, Iran terror victims, Iranian terrorist funding, Refugees, Trump agenda, Trump and refugees
Tags: , , , , , , , ,

Comments: Be the first to comment

US Lawmakers Promise Iranian Opposition that there will be Tougher Laws on Iran

January 28, 2017

US Lawmakers Promise Iranian Opposition that there will be Tougher Laws on Iran, Iran News Update, January 28, 2017

unnamed-2

A bipartisan group of US lawmakers have promised the Iranian Opposition that they will press for tougher sanctions on the Iranian Regime. The House members made this pledge to the Organization of Iranian-American Communities (OIAC) on Tuesday. 

The OIAC is allied with the Iranian dissident group Mujahedin-e-Khalq (MEK)  and advocates for a “democratic, secular and non-nuclear government”, and overthrowing the  “religious dictatorship” in Iran.

Republican Congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen called for an expansion of the sanctions against Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), which were not removed during the nuclear deal.

She said: “It is time that we put the tools that we have created to use, broadening our sanctions so that they include IRGC-controlled businesses and subsidiaries. We must target the (Iranian) regime at every turn, not only enforcing the sanctions that have been too long neglected, but expanding their scope whenever and wherever possible.”

The lawmakers also want to stop IRGC-affiliated companies from buying US-made passenger planes, which would likely be used to ship weapons, troops and even money to terrorist cells.

Democratic Congressman Brad Sherman co-sponsored a bill to require the Trump administration to report any signs of Iran using US-made aircraft for “illicit military or other activities” which would violate the terms of the 2015 nuclear deal.

He said: “We need an ironclad system that makes sure (any newly-acquired planes with American technology) are not used for military or terrorist purposes (by Iran).”

During his campaign, Trump promised to renegotiate the Iranian Nuclear Deal- unlike his Republican opponents, Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio, who promised to “rip up” the deal, on their first day in office- but has not made steps towards it yet.

Sherman also wanted to prevent US banks from loaning Iran any money to pay for new planes.

Republican Congressman Dana Rohrabacher called for increased political pressure against the Iranian despots, especially to protect the human rights of the people living there.

He said: “One strategy is to help pro-democracy movements who would replace the mullahs. I’m willing to help the Azeris, Baluch and Kurds, who are not part of the Persian majority, to create a situation where you have autonomous regions similar to the states of the United States so that those people’s rights will feel secure as well.”

Democratic Congressman Eliot Engel explained that he wanted to help the Iranian dissidents who were previously exiled to Camp Liberty in Iraq, but have since been safely relocated to Albania.

He noted that they still have not received the money from the sale of their property in Iraq; an estimated $50 million left at Camp Liberty and $500 million at Camp Ashraf. This money is needed to help them make a new life, without handouts.

He said: “As all of their expenses in Albania are paid by MEK, they need their money to be returned as soon as possible. So, I urge Iraq, which the United States has helped for so many years, to honour its commitment to return the money to MEK.”

Categories: Aircraft sale to Iran, Iran - human rights, Iran - sanctions, Iranian dissidents, Iranian proxies, Iranian resistance, Iranian Revolutionary Guard, MEK, Organization of Iranian-American Communities (OIAC), U.S. Congress
Tags: , , , , , , , , ,

Comments: Be the first to comment

Not Satire | No One Can Humiliate Iranian Nation, Official Says after Trump’s Visa Ban Order

January 28, 2017

No One Can Humiliate Iranian Nation, Official Says after Trump’s Visa Ban Order, Tasnim News Agency, January 28, 2017

iranianjerk

He further highlighted the long history of peaceful coexistence among various Iranian religions, ethnicities, cultures and races, stressing that Iran has never been familiar with racial prejudice.

******************************

TEHRAN (Tasnim) – After the new US president signed an executive order banning all immigrants and visa holders from seven countries, including Iran, from entering the US for 90 days, a senior Iranian official reminded Trump of Iran’s rich history and its aversion to violence and terrorism.

In a post on his Twitter account on Saturday, Political Deputy of Iran’s Presidential Office Hamid Aboutalebi called on US President Donald Trump to study about Iranians’ Aryan history, Islamic humanitarian values, and philanthropy, asking Trump whether he has ever heard of the Cyrus Charter – also known as the Cyrus Cylinder, believed to be the oldest charter or symbol of universal human rights.

Aboutalebi said that Iran takes pride in hosting Muslims, Jews, Christians and Assyrians for millennia and that the “old and very civilized nation of Iran” does not tolerate violence and terrorism but opposes them.

He further said that the Iranian nation has stood proud and dignified over the past 3,000 years, reminding Trump that nobody has been able to humiliate Iranians throughout the country’s history.

The new order Trump signed on Friday bars all persons from seven countries from entering the US for 90 days and suspends the US Refugee Admissions Program for 120 days. The countries impacted are Iran, Iraq, Syria, Sudan, Libya, Yemen and Somalia.

Trump’s order will also cancel the Visa Interview Waiver Program, which once allowed repeat travelers to the United States to be able to forgo an in-person interview to renew their visa. Under the new order, these travelers will now have to have in-person interviews.

In comments on Saturday, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said today’s world would not tolerate separating peoples.

There is no room for separation of nations in the present era, the Iranian president explained, saying people of the world have turned into neighbors due to cultural, scientific and civilizational globalization.

He further highlighted the long history of peaceful coexistence among various Iranian religions, ethnicities, cultures and races, stressing that Iran has never been familiar with racial prejudice.

Categories: Iran - human rights, Iran lies, Iranian terrorist funding, Trump and Iran
Tags: , , ,

Comments: 1 Comment

After Trump Inauguration, Netanyahu Wastes No Time Putting Iran Back on Agenda

January 21, 2017

After Trump Inauguration, Netanyahu Wastes No Time Putting Iran Back on Agenda, Jerusalem Post, Herb Keinon, January 21, 2017

bibiandtrumpDonald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu meet at the Trump tower. (photo credit:KOBI GIDON / GPO)

“This ruthless regime continues to deny you your freedom,” Netanyahu said in the English video, accompanied by Farsi subtitles.  “It prevents thousands of candidates from competing in elections, it steals money from your poor to fund a mass murderer like [Syrian President Bashar] Assad. By calling daily for Israel’s destruction, the regime hopes to instill hostility between us. This is wrong. We are your friend, not your enemy.”

***************************

Just 24 hours after US President Donald Trump spoke in his inaugural address about the need to eradicate radical Islamic terrorism, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu put a brief video clip on social media aimed at placing the Iranian threat squarely back on the international agenda.

“I plan to speak soon with President Trump about how to counter the threat of the Iranian regime, which calls for Israel’s destruction,” Netanyahu said in the two-and-a-half minute video addressed directly to the Iranian people.

“This ruthless regime continues to deny you your freedom,” Netanyahu said in the English video, accompanied by Farsi subtitles.  “It prevents thousands of candidates from competing in elections, it steals money from your poor to fund a mass murderer like [Syrian President Bashar] Assad. By calling daily for Israel’s destruction, the regime hopes to instill hostility between us. This is wrong. We are your friend, not your enemy.”

This was the first video of this sort Netanyahu has put out in months, after putting out several in the spring and summer that addressed issues such as Palestinian incitement and the settlements. It is also the first time in a while that he has exclusively addressed the Iranian issue, other than in a  couple of sentences in public appearances here and there.

The release of the video now, just 24-hours after Trump took over from Barack Obama, is an obvious effort to get the world’s leaders – first and foremost Trump – to one again focus on the Iranian regime.

Trump has come out squarely against the Iranian nuclear deal.  The sense among sources close to Netanyahu is that when dealing with the new administration, Netanyahu will not only have a more receptive ear regarding the dangers that the Iranians pose, but also find an administration more willing to shine the light on Iran’s part in the spread of radical Islamic terrorism, and more vigilant in ensuring that Tehran lives up to its commitments under the nuclear deal.

“We’ve always distinguished between the Iranian people and the Iranian regime,” Netanyahu said in the video.

“The regime is cruel, the people are not; the regime is aggressive, the people are warm. I yearn for the day when Israelis and Iranians can once against visit each other freely – in Tehran and Isfahan, in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv,” he said. “The fanatics must not win, their cruelty must not conquer our compassion. Our two peoples can work together for a more peaceful and hopeful future for both of us. We must defeat terror and tyranny, and we must ensure that freedom and friendship win the day.”

Netanyahu referenced the Iranian student protests of 2009, which some say was a golden opportunity for change in Iran which was squandered by a lack of unequivocal moral and material support by Obama in the early days of his presidency.

“I will never forget the images of brave young students , hungry for change, gunned down in the streets of Tehran in 2009,” Netanyahu said. “And I will never forget beautiful Neda Soltan – gasping for her last breath on that sidewalk.”

This was a reference to Iranian student Neda Agha-Soltan, whose shooting-death during the protests was caught on video and went viral.

“You have a proud history, you have a rich culture,” Netanyahu said. “Tragically, you are shackled by a technocratic tyranny. In a free Iran you will once again be able to flourish without limit , but today a cruel regime is trying to keep you down.”

While Netanyahu said he will speak to Trump about Iran soon, no announcement has yet been made about when their first meeting will be held, though there have been recent reports it could be as early as the first week in February. Government officials said that the issue will be determined in the coming days.

Netanyahu congratulated Trump on his inauguration in a tweet Friday afternoon: “Congratulations to my friend President Trump,” he wrote. “I look forward to working closely with you to make the alliance between Israel and America stronger than ever. Shabbat Shalom.”

Categories: Iran - human rights, Iran - regime change, Iran and Israel, Iran scam, Iranian dissidents, Iranian proxies, Iranian resistance, President Trump, Prime Minister Netanyahu
Tags: , , , , , , , ,

Comments: Be the first to comment

Senior National Security Experts Calling for Working with the Iranian Opposition Applauded by Iranian Americans

January 18, 2017

Senior National Security Experts Calling for Working with the Iranian Opposition Applauded by Iranian Americans, Iran News Update, January 18, 2017

noi2-750

This bi-partisan urge to the incoming Trump administration “to establish a dialogue with Iran’s exiled resistance, the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI),” who have called for free elections to establish a secular, democratic, non-nuclear republic in Iran, as well as to end to Tehran’s “religious dictatorship.”

Successive US administrations, offering concessions in a futile attempt to moderate the behavior of the totalitarian regime, have failed, and ignored 80 million freedom loving people in Iran.

***************************

In an article published in the PR Newswire, a Cision Company on Jan. 16, 2017, the Organization of Iranian American Communities-US (OIACUS), the largest, most active and enduring grass root organization of Iranian-Americans in the United States welcomes the letter initiated by nearly two dozen bi-partisan former senior U.S. government officials who have urged President-elect Donald Trump to work with the Iranian opposition, as an integral part of a new policy on Iran.

Signed by 23 former top officeholders during the past five administrations the letter to the president-elect states, “To restore American influence and credibility in the world, the United States needs a revised policy based on universally shared norms and principles reflecting the ideals of peace and justice. A policy highlighting, and demanding an end to, Iran’s domestic human rights violations and malevolent regional actions will attract broad support and generate needed leverage against Iran’s threatening behavior.”

This bi-partisan urge to the incoming Trump administration “to establish a dialogue with Iran’s exiled resistance, the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI),” who have called for free elections to establish a secular, democratic, non-nuclear republic in Iran, as well as to end to Tehran’s “religious dictatorship.”

Successive US administrations, offering concessions in a futile attempt to moderate the behavior of the totalitarian regime, have failed, and ignored 80 million freedom loving people in Iran.

The OIAC calls on the new administration to reach out to the Iranian people and their well-organized opposition movement, saying that foreign military intervention is not the answer, and that the United States should recognize the aspirations of Iranian people for a free and democratic future as the only effective and viable policy.

Our members have a range of political and party affiliations. However the members are unified in the belief that democracy and human rights in Iran are imperative to the national security of America, peace in the Middle East, and beyond. “In this honorable endeavor, we shall welcome your engagement and decisive decision-making.”

At a January 24th Congressional briefing, Iranian Americans will also join their representatives to present their policy recommendations on Iran with their representatives in Washington, DC.

Categories: Iran - human rights, Iran scam, Iranian dissidents, Iranian reformers, Iranian resistance, Theocracy, Trump and Iran, Trump and Iran scam
Tags: , , , , , , ,

Comments: Be the first to comment

Obama’s Enabling of Palestinian Terror

January 11, 2017

Obama’s Enabling of Palestinian Terror, Front Page Magazine, Joseph Puder, January 11, 2017

abbasobama

When we consider last month’s United Nations Security Council resolution (UNSC) 2334 that passed with deliberate U.S. abstention and later, justified in a speech by U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, it makes the adage below come to mind. The Midrash (commentary on part of the Hebrew Scriptures) tells us, “He who becomes compassionate to the cruel will ultimately become cruel to the compassionate.”  Maimonides wrote in The Guide of the Perplexed that “the wicked and calculating person who killed intentionally and was sentenced to death – if he seeks sanctuary among us, we must not provide him with asylum, and not have mercy upon him, because compassion toward the wicked is cruelty to all beings.”

In supporting the Palestinian regime that seeks the destruction of the Jewish State as its ultimate goal, the Obama administration is being compassionate toward the wrong party.  The Obama administration is knowingly and deliberately supporting the creation of another unstable Arab authoritarian regime that has failed its people.  Mahmoud Abbas, like Arafat before him, albeit more subtle, seeks the same goal: undermining the Jewish state, and replacing it with an undemocratic Palestinian state.  Abbas wouldn’t return to the negotiating table unless he is heavily bribed, and like Arafat, at the crucial moment when all reasonable concessions had been made, he walked out.

At their September 16, 2008 meeting in Jerusalem, Israeli Prime Minister Olmert agreed to forgo sovereignty over the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, Judaism’s holiest site, and proposed that in the framework of the peace agreement, the area containing the religious sites in Jerusalem would be managed by a special committee consisting of representatives from five nations: Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Palestinians, the U.S. and Israel.  The advisors and Fatah officials heard that Olmert laid out for Abbas not only the details of the agreement but also a large map upon which he outlined the borders of the future Palestinian state.  Abbas, like Arafat in July, 2000, walked out.

Considering Palestinian terrorism incited by Hamas and the Palestinian Authority against Jewish civilians and soldiers alike, it becomes clear that the Obama administration has shown compassion toward Palestinian aspirations and contempt for Jews aspiring to settle in their ancestral regions of Judea and Samaria.  The Administration would be quite content on a “judenrein” West Bank.   In fact, the U.S. and its European allies support the PA with huge grants, portions of which goes to pay salaries to Palestinian terrorists with blood on their hands and their families.  They have likewise funded Palestinian-Arab construction projects, built illegally throughout the West Bank and Jerusalem.

The Obama administration has also shown compassion for the Iranian regime by ending the economic sanctions against the radical Islamic Iranian regime, which hangs gays and lesbians as well as juveniles.  Amnesty International reported on January 26, 2016, that “Iran remains the leading executioner of juvenile offenders.”  The New York Post reported on August 3, 2016 that “The Obama administration quietly shipped $400 million stacked on wooden pallets in an unmarked plane to Iran in January – just as Tehran was releasing four Americans who had been detained there.”  This was done to appease the Islamic Republic, which is the leading state sponsor of terror around the world, and that has taken Americans in Iran as hostages.

U.S. Mideast mediator Dennis Ross pointed out that the Obama administration was so enamored with the so-called “moderate” Iranian President Rouhani, that it “showed readiness to accept an industrial-scale Iranian nuclear program and not to roll it back.”  The Obama administration was willing to bend its principles in order to foster a relationship and perhaps an alliance of sorts (against the Islamic State in Iraq) with the Ayatollahs regime that promised “to wipe Israel off the map.”

In the summer of 2009, the Iranian people voted for freedom and against the choices of the theocratic regime that oppressed them. They demonstrated in the millions with signs that read “Obama, are you with them or with us.”  Obama did not respond. He proved to have little compassion for the oppressed.

In Syria, the Shiite-Iranian Revolutionary Guards and their supported Iraqi-Shiite militias, as well as the Lebanese-Shiite terrorist group Hezbollah, are murdering hundreds of thousands of innocent Syrian Sunni Muslims, Christians, and others civilians with impunity.  They are bolstering the dictatorship of the Alawi (offshoot of Shiite Islam) minority ruler Bashar Assad.  The Russians have also joined in the killing of Syrian civilians in the name of combatting so-called “terrorists.”

The Palestinians of Hamas and the PA raise their children on hate and expound on the destruction of the Jewish state in schools, mosques, in the media, and in their policy directives.  The Palestinian intolerance towards Jews and Christians is deeply embedded, but due to political correctness, it has never been sufficiently reported in the western media, or by western governments.  Under the Palestinian regime, Christian Arabs have been victims of frequent human rights abuse by Muslims. There are many examples of intimidation, beatings, land theft, firebombing of churches and other Christian institutions, denial of employment, economic boycotts, torture, kidnapping, forced marriage, sexual harassment, and extortion. Palestinian Authority (PA) officials are directly responsible for many of the human rights violations. Muslims who have converted to Christianity are in the greatest danger. They are often left defenseless against cruelty by Muslim fundamentalists. Some have been murdered.

There is a clear dichotomy in determining who the compassionate side is, and who is the cruel. It comes together perfectly clear in the Syrian civil war arena.  Thousands of Palestinians are fighting on behalf of the Syrian dictator, and help in slaughtering the Syrian people who are fighting for their freedom.  The Palestinian radical group, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command (PFLP-GC) led by Ahmed Jibril, provided the Assad war machine with intelligence and ground support, when he laid siege to the Palestinian populated Yarmouk refugee camp.  The PFLP-GC, once a member of the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) joined the Assad troops in killing fellow Palestinians.

Conversely, Israel has opened its hospital gates to wounded Syrians, both civilians and soldiers.  Prime Minister Netanyahu announced last month “We are prepared to take in wounded women and children, and also men if they are not combatants. Bring them to Israel, we will take care of them in our hospitals as we have done with thousands of Syrian civilians. We are looking into ways of doing this. It is being explored as we speak.”  Netanyahu added, “The suffering is great, and the one initiative we took is to help – as I said – thousands of Syrians who are sometimes mutilated beyond belief. We help them. I offered to do more today. I don’t know if we can resolve [the crisis in] Syria, but we can help mitigate some of the suffering. That is the best that Israel can do.”

Being compassionate toward the Palestinian’s aspirations to destroy the Jewish state in stages by forming a terrorist supporting state, the Obama administration is being cruel toward the Jewish state, which seeks to defend its people from the ongoing Palestinian terror.

Categories: Abbas, Ethnic cleansing, Final solution, Iran - human rights, Iran - Middle East, Iran - regime change, Iran scam, Iranian dissidents, Iranian proxies, Israel, Israel - Jewish state, Israeli settlements, Obama and America's allies, Obama and America's enemies, Obama and Iran, Obama and Islamists, Obama and Israel, Obama and Middle East, Obama and Palestinians, Obama's fondness for dictarors, Palestinian terrorists, Two state solution, UN and Israel, UN Security Council
Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Comments: Be the first to comment

Iranian Political Prisoners in Dire Need of the Support of the International Community

January 11, 2017

Iranian Political Prisoners in Dire Need of  the Support of the International Community, Iran News Update, January 11, 2017

(Perhaps if we referred to them as “Palestinians” the international community might notice their plight. — DM)

iranian-political-prisoners-750

Silence of the global community sends a message to the Iranian regime that it can get away with these crimes, and that is a message not to be condoned with silence.

**************************

An article in The Hill by Ali Safavi, member of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the National Council of Resistance of Iran and president of the Near East Policy Research, discusses the alarming reports which from came from Gohardasht Prison, that activist and political prisoner Ali Moezzi, had disappeared on January 4, 2016.

Moezzi spent years in prison in the 1980’s for his affiliation with the Iranian opposition group, the Mujahedin-e Khalq (PMOI/MEK).  Beginning in 2008, he served two more years, for having visited his two daughters residing in Camp Ashraf, Iraq. Arrested again in 2011, seven months after his latest release, for attending the funeral of a fellow political prisoner, he’s been imprisoned ever since. He has faced much pressure, including the extension of his current prison term beyond its specified four years.He’s also be subjected to numerous explicit death threats.

Reportedly, he’s undergone routine beatings and torture and the absence of medical care for his pre-existing health problems. Moezzi’s arrest came shortly after he had been released from a hospital after undergoing surgery following a cancer diagnosis.

The regime has repeatedly been charged with disregard for the health and well-being of prisoners, especially those detained for political or religious offenses.  A recent example is Arash Sadeghi, who is serving a 15-year prison sentence for his peaceful human rights activism. Sadeghi began a hunger strike shortly after his wife was arrested. Sadeghi finally ended his hunger strike after judicial authorities granted his wife temporary release from her pre-trial detention. His hunger strike lasted more than 70 days befor the regime agreed to even that, and it was not the likelihood of Sadeghi’s imminent death that prompted them to act, but the massive support that his protest had garnered within Iran and abroad. Hundreds of Iranians gathered outside of Evin Prison, to protest his treatment. His cause was promoted on the internet and via banned social media networks by several thousands of supporters.

Salve writes, “It may not be a coincidence that Moezzi disappeared from Gohardasht Prison just one day after it was announced that Sadeghi had been hospitalized and brought back from the brink of death.”  He adds, “Both incidents demonstrated that the Iranian regime has no qualms about endangering the lives of its political adversaries, but the ruling mullahs can only take such a situation to its drastic conclusion if relatively free from public scrutiny.”

He says that it may be easier for the regime simply allow political prisoners to die, if those deaths occur in secret locations, so that they can claim “plausible” deniability.

Iran’s domestic activists or the international community may still be able to save Moezzi in much the same way they saved Sadeghi, but it is impossible to know Moezzi’s current condition, much less to follow its deterioration in real time.  This is a challenge as it is difficult to rally around a cause that they cannot see.  However, these atrocities must not be allowed to continue in the shadows.

This is the challenge that requires serious commitment, and a campaign that includes the international community and media. “World powers must take an interest in this case, and in the overall plight of Iranian prisoners of conscience,” writes Salvi.

Which is actually underscored by the recent success of the Sadeghi case.  Silence of the global community sends a message to the Iranian regime that it can get away with these crimes, and that is a message not to be condoned with silence.

 

Categories: Iran - human rights, Iran - political prisoners, Iranian prisons, Iranian resistance
Tags: , , ,

Comments: Be the first to comment

Iran: How Will Rafsanjani’s Death Affect Regime?

January 11, 2017

Iran: How Will Rafsanjani’s Death Affect Regime? Iran News Update, January 10, 2017

rafsanjani-750

In his January 10 article for Al-Arabiya,, Heshmat Alavi, political and rights activist who focuses on Iran, writes about the effect of senior cleric Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani’s death by heart attack on Sunday, January 8, at the age of 82.

As Rafsanjani was known for his influential role in shaping the regime’s politics following the 1979 revolution, the Iranian regime was dealt a significant blow, and a power vacuum is created, less than four months prior to crucial presidential elections.

Rafsanjani’s role for the past 38 years helped maintain the regime’s measures of domestic crackdown, export of terrorism and extremism abroad, and their effort to obtain nuclear weapons, according to Alavi. 

“The death of Rafsanjani, one of the pillars of the religious fascism ruling Iran and its balance factor collapsed, and the regime in its entirety is closer now to its overthrow,” said Iranian opposition leader Maryam Rajavi, President of the National Council of Resistance of Iran.

After Iran-Iraq War of the 1980s, Rafsanjani served as president from 1989 to 1997. He ran again for office again in 2005, but lost the election to firebrand Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

In recent years, Rafsanjani has been mentoring the so-called “moderate” Iranian President Hassan Rowhani, and was known for his fierce rivalry with Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei.

Although known for his close ties to the regime founder Ruhollah Khomeini, who died in 1989, the West believed him to be a “pragmatic conservative” willing to mend fences with the outside world, especially the US.

Rafsanjani’s last post was head of the Expediency Council, a body assigned to resolve conflicts between the regime’s parliament (Majlis) and the Guardian Council, which has close links to Khamenei, and vets all candidates based on their loyalty to the establishment before any so-called elections. Rafsanjani himself was disqualified by the Guardian Council when he sought to participate in the 2013 elections as a “reformist” candidate.

Instead, Rafsanjani placed his power behind Rowhani after the latter assumed power as president in 2013.  Rafsanjani used this position to “carve himself and his family an economic empire from the country’s institutions and natural resources in the past decades,” writes Alavi.

“One brother headed the country’s largest copper mine; another took control of the state-owned TV network; a brother-in-law became governor of Kerman province, while a cousin runs an outfit that dominates Iran’s $400 million pistachio export business; a nephew and one of Rafsanjani’s sons took key positions in the Ministry of Oil; another son heads the Tehran Metro construction project (an estimated $700 million spent so far),” states a 2003 Forbes analysis, which also alludes to the billions cached in Swiss and Luxembourg bank accounts by the Rafsanjanis.

While the West was convinced that Rafsanjani was more moderate than his “hardline” counterparts, he went along with them in suppressing dissidents, namely members and supporters of the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI/MEK), the main opposition group that first blew the whistle on Iran’s clandestine nuclear weapons program.

“Four rulings are a must for the [PMOI]: 1- Be killed. 2- Be hanged. 3- Arms and legs be amputated. 4- Be separated from society,” Rafsanjani said back in 1981. He also played a presiding role in the 1988 massacre of over 30,000 political prisoners.

During his presidency, Rafsanjani allegedly directed numerous assassinations of dissidents abroad, including renowned human rights advocated Dr. Kazem Rajavi, former Iranian ambassador to Italy Mohammad Hossein Naghdi and Iranian Kurdish leader Abdulrahman Ghassemlou.  He was also indicted for his role in the 1994 AMIA bombing in Buenos Aires that left 85 killed and hundreds wounded.

Alavi writes, “Rafsanjani has through four decades of mullahs’ rule in Iran played the role of the regime’s No. 2 figure and a balancing element, always securing the regime’s higher interests. His death will significantly weaken the mullahs’ regime in its entirety and will trigger major upheavals across the regime’s hierarchy.”  He concludes by saying, “If past is any indication, the mullahs will most likely resort to further violence and the export of terrorism and extremism to prevent this newest crisis from spiraling out of control.”

The NCRI referred to Rafsanjani as “one of the two pillars and ‘key to the equilibrium’ of the Iranian regime,” adding that, “during his long career he was associated with some of the regime’s most egregious actions, including mass-casualty terror attacks and the assassinations of exiled dissidents.”

Rafsanjani is considered as one of its founding fathers of the Iranian regime, who played an outsized political role in the life of the Islamic republic, not only by serving as President after serving as Speaker of Parliament and Deputy Commander of the Armed Forces, but also heading two of the regime’s most important institutions, the Assembly of Experts, an 88-member body of top clerics which nominates the Supreme Leader; and the Expediency Council, a body that advises the Supreme Leader.

“Rafsanjani, who had always been the regime’s number two, acted as its balancing factor and played a decisive role in its preservation. Now, the regime will lose its internal and external equilibrium,” opposition leader Maryam Rajavi said in a statement that also referred to the “approaching overthrow” of the clerical regime.

On January 9 the NCRI published a list, outlining some of his outrageous conduct:

• Rafsanjani called for the extermination of members of Iran’s main opposition group, the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI or MEK). On October 3, 1981, the state-run Ettela’at daily wrote, “Referring to the grouplets’ operations, Hashemi Rafsanjani, Speaker of the Islamic Parliament and Tehran’s acting Friday prayer leader, said in his sermon, ‘Divine law defines four sentences for them which must be carried out: 1 – kill them, 2 – hang them, 3 – cut off their arms and legs, 4 – banish them…‘Had we caught and executed 200 of them right after the Revolution, they would not have multiplied so much. If we don’t deal decisively with [Mojahedin] armed grouplet and agents of America and the Soviet Union today, in three years we will have to execute thousands of them instead of one thousand now…”

• According to Hossein-Ali Montazeri, Khomeini’s former heir, Khomeini sought counsel on his decisions from just two individuals: Rafsanjani and current Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, including his decision to issue a fatwa ordering the massacre of at least 30,000 political prisoners at the end of the Iran-Iraq war in the summer of 1988.

During Rafsanjani’s tenure as President and as head of the Supreme National Security Council (SNSC), a body that oversees and authorizes the regime’s terrorist operations, the assassination of Iranian dissidents abroad and the regime’s terror attacks skyrocketed. The terror targets were not only Iranians.

• Rafsanjani’s remarks on May 5, 1989 as carried by Iran’s official state news agency IRNA , and were reported by The Associated Press:: “If in retaliation for every Palestinian martyred in Palestine, they will kill and execute, not inside Palestine, five Americans or Britons or Frenchmen, the Israelis could not continue to do these wrongs… It is not hard to kill Americans or Frenchmen. It is a bit difficult to Kill [Israelis]. But there are so many [Americans and Frenchmen] everywhere in the world.”

• Argentinian investigators implicated Rafsanjani in 2006, in one of the deadliest instances of Iranian terrorism abroad – a suicide truck bombing of the AMIA Jewish community center in Buenos Aires, in which 85 people were killed in 1994.  The investigators accused Iran of instructing Hezbollah to carry out the bombing. They issued arrest warrants for Rafsanjani, seven other senior Iranians, and a Lebanese national, Imad Mughniyah, Hezbollah terrorist chief.

Interpol, at Argentina’s request, issued red notices – the organization’s equivalent of arrest warrants – for five of the Iranians and Mughniyah.

• The FBI established undeniable evidence that Tehran had masterminded the deaths of 19 American servicemen, in the bombing of Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia on June 25, 1996.

According to the NCRI, these are some of the most significant killings of prominent dissidents abroad during Rafsanjani’s tenure:

• In 1992, four Iranian Kurdish dissidents in a Berlin restaurant called Mykonos were assassinated. A German court ruled in 1996 that the Iranian regime under Rafsanjani was directly responsible for the killings, which the U.S. State Department said provided further proof that Iran was a terrorist state.

• Maryam Rajavi’s brother-in-law, Kazem Rajavi of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) – Iran’s most renowned human rights advocate and a former Iranian ambassador to the U.N. was shot dead near Geneva in 1990. Swiss investigators accused the Iranian regime of responsibility and authorities issued an arrest warrant for Rafsanjani’s intelligence minister, Ali Fallahian.

• Mohammad Hossein Naghdi, the NCRI representative in Rome, was shot dead on a street in the Italian capital in March 1993.

• Zahra Rajabi, the NCRI’s representative on refugee issues, was shot dead with an NCRI colleague in an Istanbul apartment in February 1996.

Rafsanjani was the one who pushed the Iranian clandestine nuclear weapons program forward as a guarantor of the regime’s survival. He cooperated with countries like North Korea to achieve these objectives.

Rafsanjani acknowledged that during his time as parliamentary speaker and President, both he and Khamenei sought ways to obtain a nuclear bomb in an interview published by the regime’s official state news agency IRNA on October 27, 2015. “Our basic doctrine was always a peaceful nuclear application, but it never left our mind that if one day we should be threatened and it was imperative, we should be able to go down the other path,” Rafsanjani said.  He added he had travelled to Pakistan to try to meet Abdul Qadeer Khan, the father of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons program, who later helped North Korea to develop a bomb. Fortunately, the meeting never occurred.

Categories: Iran - human rights, Iranian dissidents, Iranian elections, Iranian hardliners, Iranian ideology, Iranian missiles, Iranian nukes, Iranian religious leaders, Iranian resistance, Khamenei, Rafsanjani
Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,

Comments: 1 Comment

Trump’s Great Iranian Opportunity

January 8, 2017

Trump’s Great Iranian Opportunity, PJ Media, Michael Ledeen, January 7, 2017

(Even in the unlikely event that the State Department — not yet Trump’s — would issue a visa, would Iran permit Borougerdi to attend Trump’s inauguration? However, the mere gesture of extending an invitation would speak loudly and well of President Trump’s views on Iran. — DM)

iran-ayatollah-sized-770x415xtPhoto courtesy Shutterstock.

Donald Trump should invite Ayatollah Boroujerdi to the inauguration.

***************************

The great Ayatollah Hossein Boroujerdi is briefly out of prison, where he had been held in miserable conditions for a decade. He is one of those dissidents who are so beloved by the Iranian people that the murderous regime of Ali Khamenei does not dare to put them to death, or even on trial.  They torture them instead, hoping that they will die of “natural causes.”

When regime security forces went to arrest him, thousands of his supporters protested, blocking miles of highway. Khamenei, Rouhani et. al. still fear those people, ten years later.

He’s out on parole, but don’t think the regime is showing mercy. They typically release prisoners for a few weeks at a time—that way everyone sees the miserable state to which they have been reduced—and then drag them back.

I have written several times about him, calling on human rights advocates and political and religious leaders to campaign for his release. The short version:

Ayatollah Boroujerdi threatens the regime for two reasons:  he advocates toleration of all religious (and non-religious) beliefs, and, in keeping with Shi’ite tradition, opposes the involvement of religious leaders in politics.  Years ago, he said  “the regime is adamant that either people adhere to political Islam or be jailed, exiled or killed. Its behavior is no different from that of Osama bin Laden or Mullah Omar.”

He has repeatedly criticized the fundamentalist doctrines of the Iranian theocratic state, and has dramatically spoken about the most explosive issues in the Muslim world, including anti-Semitism. In 2010 he sent Hanukkah greetings to the Jews of the world, saying “any religious belief that brings us closer to the Source (God) is the truth. This force will lead humanity towards enlightenment. On this great day, we celebrate the unity among the believers of God’s light.”

The response hasn’t been great.  Now that he is out, we have a formidable opportunity to help our kind of Iranian, deliver a stunning message to the Islamic world, and reassert our national values.

Donald Trump should invite Ayatollah Boroujerdi to the inauguration.  Such a dramatic move would deliver several important messages:

–Show our support for the brave, honorable dissidents in Iran.

–Demonstrate that the dreadful period of American support for the expansionist, terror-supporting, mass-murdering tyrants of Tehran is blessedly at an end.

–Show that we understand that there are freedom-loving Muslims, and that we believe they are worthy of Western solidarity.  Our war is with radical Islam, and we intend to win.

Boroujerdi is certainly not the only Muslim dissident we should be helping, but he’s a terrific way to start.

Categories: Iran - human rights, Iranian resistance, Trump and Iran
Tags: , ,

Comments: Be the first to comment

« Older Entries
Newer Entries »