Mousavi Toughens Line On Iran's Rulers

New York Times :

Mir Hussein Moussavi, the Iranian opposition leader, made some of his harshest remarks against Iran's rulers on Tuesday in an interview published on his Web site, calling their behavior dictatorial and terrifying.

Read the whole story: New York Times

Comments

[parsi]

10:22 AM on 02/03/2010

Please ask Iranian officials to STOP EXECUTIONS!

by Shorts
03-Feb-2010

Massive protests in Iran after the presidential election led to the GREEN movement. Dozens of people were killed in the streets.

The death of four young protesters under torture, while in custody, was confirmed by the regime.

The regime arrested hundreds of people. Many were charged with “Moharebeh”, meaning “war against God”.

Arash Rahmanipour , 20 years old, and MohammadReza Alizamani were executed on January 28. No lawyers were present during their trial. The families learned of their sons’ executions on TV!

Five more men were sentenced to death on January 29. No lawyers were present in court.

“Nine more people are to be executed shortly,” Iranian Judiciary Chief’s Assistant stated on Feb 1.

Another group of 14 men and 2 women are being tried. More people in prisons are awaiting trials.

You can save their lives by raising your voice!

Please contact Iranian officials and ask them to STOP EXECUTIONS immediately.

Iranian Embassies and Consulates in other countries:

* United States

e-mail: [e-mail]

website: http://www.daftar.org/Eng/
Address:

2209 Wisconsin Avenue, N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20007
Tel: [phone]
Fax: [phone]



For more information, Read the rest here:

http://www.iranian.com/main/blog/shorts/please-ask-iranian-officials-stop-executions

[Spirited Away]

05:41 PM on 02/03/2010

May a time come when Iran no longer harasses, rapes, stones, executes or jails dissidents or individuals who don't follow or cow-tow to a State creed. So be it!

[parsi]

10:18 AM on 02/03/2010

EVERY STEP COUNTS & WE ARE COUNTLESS! V!
by Setareh Sabety
03-Feb-2010

Friends in US,

Please call &/or email the staff at the Iranian Interests Section in Washington DC suggest that they join the People & resign by Feb. 11.

[e-mail]

Tel. Numbers [phone]
[phone]
[phone]
[phone]
[phone]
[phone]

FAX [phone]
[phone]

Iranian Embassies World Wide
http://www.iranvisa.co.uk/iranian-embassies.html

Every Step Counts!

http://www.iranian.com/main/blog/setareh-sabety/every-step-counts-we-are-countless-v

[parsi]

09:47 AM on 02/03/2010

Iran to execute nine protesters 'soon'
Dissidents to be hanged ahead of 22 Bahman

AFP: Iran will "soon execute" nine people arrested during anti-government protests for seeking to topple the Islamic regime, Fars news agency on Tuesday quoted a senior judiciary official as saying. "The two people executed and another nine who will soon be executed were definitely arrested in recent riots and each was linked with counter-revolutionary movements," deputy judiciary head Ebrahim Raisi told a meeting in the holy city of Qom late Monday. "They had participated in riots with the aim of creating disunity and toppling the system," he added. Iran executed Mohammad Reza Ali Zamani, 37, and Arash Rahmani Pour, 20, last Thursday on charges of seeking to topple the regime >>>
http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5gJkJY5BVINMIjcYoEQTfti6pWPsQ

[LeftyMcGee]

11:59 PM on 02/02/2010

Ah yes, the losing candidate in the election who tried to claim victory before the results were counted is calling the wining candidate a dictator
Priceless

I would cut him a bit more slack as far as criticizing human rights abuses, however when Mousavi was prime minister he was much much worse than the current leadership in that regard. So my sympathy for him is pretty minimal

[wereeverywhere]

02:51 AM on 02/03/2010

A few things have changed since Mousavi was Prime Minister. He took on the mantle of the reform movement when he ran last June, but more importantly he's fought for them the last seven months when it would have been safer and easier to capitulate. A recent statement:

Mousavi questions his earlier support for Islamic Republic

http://www.irannewsdigest.com/2010/02/03/mousavi-questions-his-earlier-support-for-islamic-republic/
Iranian opposition leader Mir-Hossein Mousavi delivered a stinging indictment of the current Iranian establishment, arguing that despite a revolution 31 years ago, the nation remains mired in tyranny.

But the former prime minister also said that the Islamic Republic’s constitution included the means to bring about democracy, and argued for reform rather than radical change.

Still, it appeared to be the first time Mousavi explicitly argued for fundamental change to Iran’s political system. And Mousavi for the first time publicly acknowledged that perhaps he, too, had been mistaken in the past in his earlier die-hard support of the system.

“In the early years of the revolution, the majority of our people had been convinced that the revolution had erased all structures of dictatorship and autocracy, and I was one of these people,” he said. “But today, I don’t believe so.”

Perhaps even more provocatively, Mousavi placed the current Green movement struggling for democratic change in Iran as part of country’s centuries-old struggle against tyranny.

[parsi]

09:28 AM on 02/03/2010

Iranians don't want a revolution not because they support the regime. They want gradual change because they want to avoid a bloody and devestating civil war. There are too many scores to be settled and the Iranians know that the regim'es lackeys will have to fight to bitter end because they have no where else to escape to, and no other country will take them unlike the Shah's constituents.

Iranians know about Mousavi's past but are willing to accept him for now to avoid massive bloodshed in the streets of every city in Iran.

[separatingwheatfromchaff]

05:54 AM on 02/03/2010

I see the results of this election as being fraudulent.From the start we saw massive protests where the common response to the question of who voted for Imadinnerjacket was nobody.It's similar to GWB being awarded the Presidency by some political hacks on the SCOTUS.

[Richard Pearce]

11:49 PM on 02/02/2010

I think Mousavi has realised that having linked himself with the protests, which he believed would set him up as the single 'reform' candidate for the next election, and thus improve his odds of winning, has backfired (even most of the people who voted for him, who turn out to think Ahmadinejad won a fair election, have to be having second thoughts about continuing to support him as they find they can't go out on the streets for a parade without finding themselves in the middle of a riot), and is now pinning his hopes the American's invading, and needing an Iranian to front for them.

Unfortunately for his hopes (and American's dreams), while it is not uncommon to find a politician who is willing to betray the hopes and desires of the voters to obtain power, most soldier's first loyalty is towards their fellow countrymen, and citizens who live in a democracy (and just about every Iranian thinks they do) and believe their government leader was fairly elected (again, even the majority of Mousavi supporters feel Ahmadinejad won a fair election) tend to unify behind that government, and fight against a foreign invasion, even when it has such a front man.

[ruhaba]

11:40 PM on 02/02/2010

Tehran announced that nine imprisoned antigovernment protesters would soon be hanged. Two were hanged last week.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/03/world/middleeast/03iran.html?ref=global-home

[parsi]

10:29 PM on 02/02/2010

Khamenei's MEN tied her a bed for days and did WHAT?!!!


“I was arrested and transferred directly to the headquarters of Sepāh (IRGC) in Tehran in May 2009 by a number of military officials and plainclothes agents. Immediately after arrival, and before questions and answers, they started beating me. In total, I stayed 25 days in Sepāh. Twenty-two days of that time I stayed on hunger strike and suffered all types of physical and mental torture. The interrogators were male, and I was tied to a bed with handcuffs. They used their fists, feet, electric batons, and cables to beat my head, face, body, and soles of my feet.

At that time I could not even understand and speak Persian. When their questions remained unanswered, they beat me again till I passed out. When
“...One day I was sitting on my chair with closed eyes and was being interrogated. The interrogator put out his cigarette on my hand, or another day with his shoes he pushed so hard on my feet that my nails turned black and fell off, or he would make me stand up on my feet all day without any questions, while interrogators would sit in the room and would do a word puzzle. In short, they would do anything they could.”



How Shirin Holy’s Confessions Led to a Death Penalty: “Description of pressures put on me during my arrest”

http://www.iranhumanrights.org/2010/02/shirin_holi/

[parsi]

10:03 PM on 02/02/2010

These are both tense and exciting times in Iran and amongst the opposition abroad. In the build-up to 22 Bahman[1] which is yet another chance for the Green movement to use the cover of official demonstrations to come out en-mass to protest, the regime is showing signs of uncharacteristic and newfound anxiety.


As though the execution of the two innocent young men was not enough, Jannati, last Friday’s prayer leader, asked the judiciary to hasten the execution of more Moharebs. This hard-line Ayatollah, cursed with the illogic of the petrified, used verses from the Koran in order to justify the hangings. Jannati, in this way, sealed the sure repulsion-from-Islam of those urbanites that still may have held a soft spot in their heart for their ancestral religion.

On the international front, the more “secular and educated” foreign minister Manuchehr Mottaki announced on Farid Zakaria’s show that the protesters were a violent minority who had not been targeted by the basij and the security forces but who had themselves fired guns, burned buildings and killed people.[2] Mottaki’s performance was so lame compared to his firm and fair interlocutor that Farid Zakaria would win a majority of Iranian votes if free elections were to be held today. Regime mouth piece Professor Marandi of Tehran University in his perfect mid-western accented English blamed the executed nineteen and twenty-some year olds for their own execution...
http://www.iranian.com/main/2010/feb/we-refuse-die

[parsi]

09:31 PM on 02/02/2010

the regime cannot deceive the opposition, who are now in the majority. It exists, it knows it exists and it understands that its grievances are real — not a seed planted in its head by the West. What’s more, the opposition is only gaining support — Ahmadinejad is losing backing among his conservative base and his former allies are turning against him in disgust over the abuse of protestors. The protests themselves are no longer exclusively ‘Green’ but are being frequented by religious and conservative Iranians who have become disillusioned with Ahmadinejad and by extension, the Supreme Leader and the regime. The protests are also no longer exclusive to Tehran but are spreading across the country, to the less secular and affluent cities…..

The opposition may lack leadership and structure, but the fact that it has not only survived but has also gained momentum, is its biggest achievement. In the 30 years since the revolution, the Islamic Republic has never endured such schisms or been more vulnerable than it is today and the regime’s desperate attempt to silence the reformists and to paint them as stooges is indicative of its distress over its unprecedented weakness.""



http://www.standpointmag.co.uk/features-jan-09-iran-revolution-claudia-schwartz-online-only?page=0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0

[Richard Pearce]

08:59 AM on 02/03/2010

On what do you base your claim that the 'opposition' is now in the majority?

I back my statements up with public opinion polls done by credible institutions that have a good track record of being right. You back yours up by links like this (standingpoint rallies around the 'free speech' banner if the person is hate-mongering about Muslims, and then screams that voices should be muzzled if they are critical of Israel).

[parsi]

09:17 AM on 02/03/2010

RP: LOL. Are you serious?? Who do you think you're fooling??

Opinion poll conducted by westerners. Do you really think while the IRGC controls all telecommunication and the Internet, Iranians are free to express their feeling freely. Do you think while everyone is watched and monitored by Basiji informants in every county and neighborhood, Iranians are going to give Westeren opinion poll takers their true sentiments about the regime? Do you think Iranians are stupid or suicidal??

RP, you're nothing but a shill for one of the most criminal regimes in the 21st century.
You're grasping at straws and your frustration is palpable. Honestly, it's quite pathetic that you have to brand Iranians as stupid, gullible, unsophisticated morons while Iranians inside are the most intelligent and political saavy population in the region and perhpas in the world...

Shameful

[parsi]

09:34 AM on 02/03/2010

Are you afraid if the IRI is overthrown, the Palestinians are going to lose their benefactors?
Are you willing to overlook the crimes and atrocities committed by the Islamic Republic of Rapists for your Palestinain cause??? Is that why you hate Iranians who are struggling for their freedom???

[jabidi]

09:25 PM on 02/02/2010

"Mir-Hossein Mousavi's Iran/Contra Connection?"

http://www.uruknet.info/?p=54948

[ruhaba]

09:23 PM on 02/02/2010

So Iran's leader ship is dictatorial and oppressive? they have been like that for 30 years .

[parsi]

10:05 PM on 02/02/2010

Precisely! Time to wake up.

[CigarGod]

09:00 AM on 02/03/2010

I guess there was not history in the Shah's time?

[Balzac]

09:19 PM on 02/02/2010

Ahmadinejad can be considered one of the last remaining Bush cohorts.

[LeftyMcGee]

11:56 PM on 02/02/2010

What?
How ridiculous.

Although you might be aware that Mousavi was the prime minister of Iran during the whole Iran Contra scandal with Reagen and Bush's father. So he has a connection to Bush. But Not Ahmadinejad, whose support comes from the poor poarts of Iranian society, the parts we don't like

[Balzac]

12:22 AM on 02/03/2010

I was not aware of Mousavi's prior role as Prime Minister of Iran. I wonder if he's had contact with Oliver North. Still, a man is defined within his own cultural context more than from the perspective of American interests.

I've found his support of a more modern Iranian society to be more in accordance with broad trends, especially since Iran has a large proportion of young people.

Regarding the less affluent people of Iran, I don't know why you suggest people don't like them, and I don't know who you're referring to by saying "we". Care to elaborate?

Myself, I have no lack of respect or care for poor people in Iran or anywhere in the world. I am like a good uncle who understands their troubles and seeks to help them, reduce their problems and increase opportunity.

[TheLonelyGod]

08:35 PM on 02/02/2010

What else can you expect from a government who once appointed THE JOKER to be their ambassador to the UN?

http://www.angelfire.com/on2/crimson/YJG/DITF/congrats.JPG

Not the behavior of a rational government!

[MajorKong]

09:15 PM on 02/02/2010

Oh, sorry. I thought you were talking about John Bolton there for a minute.

[CigarGod]

09:01 AM on 02/03/2010

aka: Captain Kangaroo.

[parsi]

08:10 PM on 02/02/2010

Journalist Emadeddin Baghi in Prison
Enduring America / Scott Lucas
02-Feb-2010
Baghi was detained at home on the day after Ashura on behalf of a general precautionary warrant for alleged abuse of Ayatollah Montazeri’s death; and his crime was declared as “making an interview with Ayatollah Montazeri”, which was released by the BBC [Persian]. This interview had been made two years earlier, even before BBC [Persian] started, and was published by this media only after Montazeri’s death.

So far Emadeddin Baghi has spent four years in prison on several occasions, three years of which under the former government and one year under the government of the current President. In his first imprisonment, the accusations were related to media matters, and in the second imprisonment to his civil society activities in the “Society (Anjoman) To Defend Prisoner’s Rights”, which he founded.

In the second imprisonment from 2007, Baghi suffered from a malady due to adverse prison conditions, being finally transferred to hospital, and he spent the rest of his detention in the prison’s general ward. Doctors trusted by the Iranian Intelligence service had already noticed that keeping him in a closed and ... >>>

http://enduringamerica.com/2010/02/02/iran-letter-journalist-emadeddin-baghi-in-prison/

[parsi]

08:02 PM on 02/02/2010

Renounce Mousavi
Rooz 1107 / Fereshteh Ghazi
02-Feb-2010
Eight months after the June 12, 2009 electoral coup in Iran, the security atmosphere continues to govern Iran. And while the arrest of political, student and media activists continue, a new round of pressures has been launched on individuals who are in prison. The families of political prisoners have discussed the latest condition of their loved ones in interviews with Rooz.

Political prisoners are under extreme pressure to pledge that they will halt their political activities forever, and Mir-Hossein Mousavi’s advisors, who were arrested en masse after the Ashoura Day protests last December are under extreme pressure to renounce the wartime prime minister. So far, Mousavi’s advisors have not given in to the demands. Meanwhile, the families of political prisoners were not allowed to enter the Majlis building yesterday...more below:

http://www.roozonline.com/english/news/newsitem/article/2010/february/02//renounce-mousavi.html