Iran at a crossroad on News Talk Online

Shar Shahabi interview on News Talk Online with Gary Baumgarten. Newz Talk Online is syndicated to over 12 million homes in the United States and around the world.

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The GODFATHER OF IRANIAN POLITICS DRAWS LINE IN THE SAND

When watching last Friday’s sermon lead by Hashemi Rafsanjani I got the feeling that I had seen this act once before and then it hit me. This was a replay from the 1972 movie “The Godfather”. I was watching Vito (Don) Carleone of Iranian politics speaking as clearly as he possibly could first to his adversary, the very man he supported and helped put in power, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and second, to the military rogue elements of the Islamic regime that are out to dethrone him, that they have been forewarned. Rafsanjani made it clear that in the days and months ahead if they did not adhere to his wishes and the wishes of his people there will be consequences with severe and dire results.

Rafsanjani, in a diplomatic and carefully crafted sermon drew a line in the sand between what he saw as an ideal “Islamic republic” of Iran as opposed to his opponent’s version of an “Islamic” state which looked more like a dictatorship. By drawing from Islamic history, the prophet Mohammed, the Quran and scripts from Islamic scholars including the founder of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Khomeini he made it clear that no Islamic state can survive without the will and support of the people and any attempt to curtail this God given right is a breach of righteousness and social justice “edalat ejtemaee”.

One other great mastery in his speech was to remind the clan leaders and coup plotters who they were dealing with and by making reference to his biography, relationship to the leader of the Islamic revolution and his direct involvement and role in the 1979 revolution and its aftermath Rafsanjani made sure he shut the opposition up.

Clearly what Rafsanjani demonstrated on Friday was a) his authority on this regime and b) how he aims to play a pivotal role in the current crisis Iran is faced with. He stated that “from here on things will not be easy but by doing things right (and he made suggestions such as freeing the political prisoners and opening up the press) we can and must win the peoples trust back”, and from the hundreds of thousands if not over a million men, women and children chanting for his support “Rafsanjani hemayat hemayat”, the very people IRIB state run TV tried desperately to hide from its wide-angle shots, Rafsanjani achieved his mission.

So, now that the godfather has given his ultimatum and has drawn a line in the sand between those political groups and figures who support him against the supporters (Cosa Nostra) of Khameneie who believe that the Iranian government draws its legitimacy from "the Almighty God" and not the people what can we expect? Well, your guess is as good as mine as to which way the pendulum of Iranian politics is going to swing in the days and months ahead but one thing is certain in that there is going to be a lot of bloodshed once the Iranian nation takes to the streets in the millions, again.

Shahriar on Paltalk Radio - Monday July 20th

Demonstrations and pronouncements challenging the government at Friday's prayers suggest things are heating up once again in Iran.

The European Union and the U.S. State Department are both putting renewed pressure on Iran.

The United States is hinting that the regime's legitimacy is being challenged. Israel continues to show Iran its military prowess sending a message that it has the capability of striking that nation's nuclear weapons development facilities if necessary.

Iran's new atomic energy chief is pushing back, telling the West to back off. Some observers believe the regime's foundation is so weakened that a collapse is inevitable. But, then what?

Joining me on News Talk Online on Monday July 20 at 5 PM New York time to discuss all this with Gary Baumgarten on PalTalk Radio. Check out the link below.

http://garybaumgarten.blogspot.com/

The torture of a 17-year-old in Iran

A teenager's story with graphic photos of abuse at the hands of Iran's religious paramilitaries, the Basij

June 24, 2009 The pictures you are seeing are not from someone who supports anarchy, he is not even a part of the "Dust & Twigs" that Ahmadinejad called his opponents. He is just a 17-year-old teenager who was arrested by the paramilitary forces or the Basij. These pictures are taken hours after his return home, his bruised face and broken nose cannot be shown due to his fear from the security forces retaliation. This is a description of his story as told by the young boy in an email that I received:

It was around 12:30 a.m. and I was with my friend, his brother and his brother's wife. We were talking right in front of his place (the friends housing complex), which was about 2 to 3 blocks away from my place, while a group of people escaping entered the alley and took refuge in houses with open doors. My friends' place is in the middle of the alley so nobody took refuge there, and we went in and closed the door. His brother and his wife went in the building and asked me to join them as well, but since I was not feeling comfortable with his family my friend and I stayed out in the parking.

All of a sudden agents in black uniforms and helmets carrying batons broke the door and entered. We tried to hide behind the big trash bin at the end of the parking but one of them saw us, whistled and informed the rest of them who were just leaving the parking. It was just baton strikes all over my body after that, and we were transferred to the minus 4 level of Ministry of Intelligence building. There were a lot of riot police in black uniforms like those on the streets there. They were mostly non-Farsi speakers, and those who spoke Farsi kept telling us they could kill us right away and no one would ever know, they were also insulting us with very bad words.

One of them asked me if Mr. Khatami would come save us, while they were breaking my fingers and cutting the finger webs. Although I swore a thousand times that I had not voted and had never participated in any demonstration, they didn't care and just kept beating me hard. I fainted once or twice but there were some of us who fainted every time their bones were broken, and as soon as they gained their consciousness, the riot police started beating them again. I was trying to contract my muscles to avoid further bone fracture.

This continued till around 1 p.m., when they took us to another place, where security guards were in charge. We were then interrogated by the militia. Again, they kept beating me although I told them that I have never participated in any demonstration. In general, they were less harsh than the previous ones. In the evening, we were transferred to a police station where normal police with green uniform hung us by our hands (you can see the signs of the string around my wrists on the pictures), they hung some of us upside down and started beating us again.

Around 2 AM, they took us to a police hospital where they just stitched the web of my fingers that were still bleeding and bandaged my head without any stitches. They released us in a highway, I think they knew we did nothing; otherwise they would not have released us. I am surprised how I tolerated all the tortures and survived. I didn't see anyone dying there; a lot of people just lost their consciousness, but I guess the baton strikes were so harsh that brain injury or internal bleeding was inevitable. I can never forget the scenes I saw there.

A Mother’s Nightmare

Now that world media has lost its focus on the “Iran story” perhaps in part because the drama of the 2009 election has died down I want to bring YOUR attention, you, a member of the international community, on a news story that has just come out of Tehran. It is the story of Taraneh Mousavi who is missing.

From the reports I have read and obviously from her picture, Taraneh Mousavi was an attractive young women who like many young Iranians was disillusioned by the election outcome and the coup d’état that followed. On June 25th Taraneh was on the streets of Tehran near Ghoba Mosque where she was captured and detained along with other youth protestors, even though some say she was not involved in the street protests taking place in that area.

According to eye witnesses who were with her at the Nobonyad police station stated that within hours they were taken from the station to Hosseinieh Ershad (a detention center) by basij forces and from 4:00pm to 10:30pm they were interrogated. At 10:30pm all but Taraneh were released.

The following day Taraneh's family who were unaware of her whereabouts recieved a phone call by one of the captured youth who was with her, informing the family of Taraneh's location. The family franticly started searching for her but to no avail. Her father who was under severe mental and emotional stress from the ordeal collapses and is rushed home. You see, Taraneh was an only child of the family and daddy’s little girl.

It was reported that after a few days the family was able to find Taranehs car parked in Mirdamad on Daroukhane street but still no sign of her.

It wasn’t until last week July 8th 2009, when an unidentified man contacts the family and tells them that their daughter has been in a car accident and that her injuries include a severe tear in her anus and her uterus and that she was at the Imam Khomeini hospital in Karaj (an hours’ drive outside of Tehran). But when the family gets there the hospital shows no record of such person being admitted. However, one of the nurses did confirm that a girl with Taraneh’s description was brought in to the intensive care unit. The nurse further stated that when they brought Taraneh in she was unconscious and when they took her she was also unconscious.

Now the cover up story coming from the basij (the paramilitary plain clothed shock force) is this: Taraneh allegedly had had sexual relations outside of marriage and was therefore depressed about the situation, in other words, they are insinuating that she deliberately tried to commit suicide. This is a blatant cover-up of state crimes against innocent and defenseless citizens of Iran committed by perpetrators who now use religion as a tool for violence, fear and aggression with impunity.

This is truly a sad day for humanity but to get a sense of the injustice of this crime I ask of you to look at Taranehs picture, close your eyes for 30 seconds and imagine that she is your daughter, your sister, your cousin or best friend being savagely raped by beast like men. Her innocence has been stolen, her life taken, but what these so called men of God can’t do is erase her from history and from our hearts.

Life is precious and it is our duty to protect it. Join the cause for freedom and democracy in Iran and together we can stop such crimes from happening in Iran and around the world, for ever.

The Reformers Race Against Time.

On July 5th 2009 Mir Hossein Mousavi announced that he is filing papers to start a new political party. This move comes three weeks in advance to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad taking the oath of office and being declared the President of Iran, It is clearly a strategic move to a) force the radical factions within the system to retreat and b) to show the disenchanted people of Iran that the reform camp is serious about bringing pragmatic change to Iran’s political system. A system that has finally shown its true identity to its own people and to the world.

Now the question is can Mousavi pull it off in light of the new militarized climate that has gripped Iran with an iron fist and is adamant in the words of Keyhan Newspaper’s Managing-Editor Hossein Shariyat Madari “to blind and gauge out the eyes of anyone who is against the flow of the regime”.

It is certainly a race against time, but it’s a race that can be won for the following reasons.

First, throughout the world history has proven that when people mobilize as a collective force against those who abuse power nothing, not even their guns can stop the will of the people. And if anything, history is on Iran’s side as in 1979 the Iranians took to the streets in protest and overthrew the Shah.

Second, in an effort to form a political party, Mousavi is in fact creating a united front and building up a national network of supporters that up until now had no rights to form independent political groups. So even if we take the number of votes cast for Mousavi as quoted by the Ministry of Interior, a 12 million man / women strong network will still be powerful enough force to bring about change. And

Third, in using a political party as a backbone to streamline a national movement, Mousavi will be in a position to assert himself as a national leader much like what Mosadegh was in 1953 when he stood against the British. With a well oiled and well funded political machine with distributed centers of leadership it would be virtually impossible for the hardliners to confront and challenge the will of the people.

Will Mousavi be successful in forming this political party? We will know soon.