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Iran Politics - Politics, Business, Civil, History - Posted: 31st Jul, 2007 - 7:24pm
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It seems like Iran got very upset about a film that was awarded a Cannes prize about an 8 years old kid watching the downfall of the shah followed by the imposition of Islamic law after the 1979 revolution.
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TEHRAN -- Iran has protested to France over the screening at the Cannes film festival of an animated film about a woman growing up in revolutionary Iran, slamming the movie as a "political act," local media reported Monday. Persepolis, which stems from a best-selling comic book series by Iranian emigre Marjane Satrapi and is competing for the prestigious Palme d'Or, shows its heroine struggling with the authorities in the early days of the Islamic revolution. "The Cannes film festival has selected a film about Iran which presents an unreal picture of the outcomes and achievements of the Islamic revolution," said a letter to the French cultural attache in Tehran carried by the press. "Could the selection of this film ... not be counted as a political or even anti-cultural act on the festival's part?" said the letter penned by the government-run Farabi Cinema Foundation. The Farabi foundation works under the culture and Islamic guidance ministry and is tasked with promoting and marketing Iranian cinema all over the world. It complained that Persepolis was the only Iranian film competing in the competition this year and accused the festival authorities of "acting in line with the biased policies of domineering powers" against Iran. Satrapi, whose black-and-white comic-memoirs have been translated into more than 20 languages and won several awards, co-directed the film along with Vincent Paronnaud. The film, to be premiered in Cannes Wednesday, shows Satrapi's rebellious eight-year-old screen persona watching the downfall of the shah followed by the imposition of Islamic law after the 1979 revolution. She witnesses the horrors of the war with Iraq, leaves for Austria, but quickly feels the solitude of an exile... |
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| EHRAN -- An advisor to Iran's president Monday expressed fury over the awarding of a top Cannes festival prize to an animation about growing up in revolutionary Iran, saying that the movie promoted "Islamophobia." Persepolis, which jointly won the Jury Prize at Cannes, is based on best-selling comics by an Iranian-French emigre about her struggling with the authorities in the early days of the Islamic revolution "Islamophobia in Western drama started in France and producing and highlighting the anti-Iranian film Persepolis in Cannes falls in line with this Islamophobia," seethed Mehdi Kalhor, a cultural advisor to President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. He said that Persepolis sought to "sabotage Iranian culture and will not be the last anti-Iranian film," according to the Fars new agency... |
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What is going on between the Iranian government and Iranian-Americans? How come so many of them arrested and how little is known of their whereabouts?
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| TEHRAN, Iran (CNN) -- Iran has formally charged Iranian-American Haleh Esfandiari with trying to topple the government, a spokesman for the Iranian judiciary told CNN on Tuesday. Spokesman Ali Reza Jamshidi also confirmed the detention of Iranian-American sociologist Kian Tajbakhsh. Both Esfandiari and Tajbakhsh are being held in Tehran's Evin prison, which houses many Iranian dissidents and political prisoners, according to their employers and Human Rights Watch. Esfandiari, 67, who works for the Woodrow Wilson Center for Scholars in Washington, was detained in Tehran on May 8 and Tajbakhsh was picked up two days later. Until Tuesday, Iran had not confirmed Tajbakhsh's detention. He is being detained for questioning on suspicion of the same charges filed against Esfandiari, Jamshidi said. Tajbakhsh, 45, is an independent consultant and urban planner employed by U.S. philanthropist George Soros' Open Society Institute. They are two of at least four Iranian-Americans who have either been imprisoned or had their passports revoked in recent months. According to Human Rights Watch, that group includes Ali Shakeri whose associates told the organization that he was detained during a recent trip to Iran. The Iranian government has not provided any public information about his whereabouts.... |
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In order to give the benefit of the doubt, I would like to see if Karbala has a different report than the one I am going to present and probably could challenge some of this writer's statements of what is going on in Iran.
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| Ahmadinejad has taken desperate measures to reign in the escalating civil unrest throughout Iranian society by closing newspapers, enforcing strict dress codes and stepping up public hangings and stonings. The high priority of implementing these new 'security measures" was made clear in a July 2007 interview with the director of Iran's prison system, Ali Akbar Yessaqi, who spoke with Iran's state-controlled news agency (ISNA). In his interview, Yessaqi conceded the existence of the regime's secret prisons [torture centers] for political prisoners, the execution of juveniles and the policy of making arbitrary arrests, and also reported that Tehran is building 41 new prisons in Iran. The Iranian regime's rise in executions in recent weeks included a group execution in Tehran's Evin Prison on July 22, where 12 prisoners were hung simultaneously. Two out of the 12 condemned men were political prisoners who were transferred from another prison to be executed with the others - an all-too-common method of silencing dissidents in Iran. On many occasions, political prisoners have been tagged with trumped-up convictions of drug trafficking and other crimes in order to receive the death penalty. Amnesty International has recorded at least 124 executions since the beginning of 2007. Two recent victims of the Iranian authorities' use of the death penalty were those whose alleged crimes were committed before the age of 18. In addition, the human rights organization reported that in one case, an 18-year-old girl, Nazanin, was sentenced to be executed for having, at age 17, stabbed to death one of three men in a park who were attempting to rape her and her younger niece. Hanging is not the only form of capital punishment routinely enforced in Iran: in the first week of July, a man convicted of adultery was stoned to death in Qazvin province, while senior Iranian officials defended this medieval act. One senior Iranian cleric, Ahmad Jannati, the leader of the regime's Council of Guardians, defended the increased executions in religious terms: "If it was Imam Ali (the first Shi"ite leader after Prophet Mohammad), he would have executed more people because he was not a man who would have compromised with those who disrupt [the] security of the society." President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad defended the executions as a way for Iran to protect society "with all its power." Sixteen people were arrested on July 9, the eighth anniversary of the student demonstrations in 1999 that were violently suppressed by security forces. One of the student activists of the 1999 demonstrations who had once served six months in prison in Tehran, and was recently rearrested by the Iranian regime as a "street hooligan," was sentenced to death for breaching the "security" of the country. |
Full article: https://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,291436,00.html
Iran definitly does not look like a country where I personally would like to live or visit.
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Post Date: 31st Jul, 2007 - 3:11pm / Post ID: #
Politics Iran
There are many reports in incidents and happenings in Iran. One needs to be cautious on the specific items reported. Some can have slants to distort the issues and portray a different perspective on the real issues.
Consequently, I read, assess and then at a later time venture to comment on the issues.
Post Date: 31st Jul, 2007 - 5:07pm / Post ID: #
Politics Iran
Wow LDS_forever that is one lengthy report. Ill see what I can do.
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| Ahmadinejad has taken desperate measures to reign in the escalating civil unrest throughout Iranian society by closing newspapers, enforcing strict dress codes and stepping up public hangings and stonings. |
A number of points made nothin which is necessarily new to anyone.
1. Closing Newspapers. Iran does have strict laws regarding the media a concept which in Iran is called "red lines". Contrary to what FOX will have you believe this isnt necessarily a means of the State brutally shutting up dissident voices. Even pro-government newspapers have been shut down. High up clerics in Iran have been jailed or placed under house arrest, the law applies to EVERYONE.
Omar Raageh recently screened a documentary on BBC on Iran in which he explored this concept of "Red lines" in an Iranian magazine. He asked the editor what would happen if he crossed a red line and the editor told him: First there will be a call from the minister of Culture/Media confirming the incident and asking for evidence/proof for the allegation/report. If such evidence is present then that is a different matter. But if there is no evidence it will not be allowed to be published. This seems pretty fair to me.
2. Dress codes: Yes we all know women are required to wear a head scarf. Most iranians in Iran especially outside of Tehran do not mind this law as I observed when I travelled there.
3. Public hangings and stonings: Capital punishment is prescribed for certain crimes. Iranian penal law is strict on certain matters.
None of this necessarily points to civil unrest.
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| The high priority of implementing these new 'security measures" was made clear in a July 2007 interview with the director of Iran's prison system, Ali Akbar Yessaqi, who spoke with Iran's state-controlled news agency (ISNA). In his interview, Yessaqi conceded the existence of the regime's secret prisons [torture centers] for political prisoners, the execution of juveniles and the policy of making arbitrary arrests, and also reported that Tehran is building 41 new prisons in Iran. |
I looked and looked for this report on the ISNA website and I think it might be referring to this link https://www.isna.ir/Main/NewsView.aspx?ID=News-966147&Lang=P. I didnt find any mention of torture there.There was a similar report by the dissident National Council of Resistance of Iran (a treacherous group) of an interview in 2006 https://www.ncr-iran.org/content/view/2363/152/
Similar admissions are made in the 2006 interview but there is no mention of torture.
Shireen Ebadi the famous Human Rights activist in Iran once made torture allegations in 2005. https://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/4181583.stm
Her complaint was centred around solitary confinement. This is a practice used around the world even in the west to sometimes protect the prisoner, other inmates or national security.
I'm not sure what FOX news was referring to when it says "torture".
The rest of the article is worthless with no sources and simply repeating rhetoric.
Iran Politics
Karbala:
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| 1. Closing Newspapers. Iran does have strict laws regarding the media a concept which in Iran is called "red lines". Contrary to what FOX will have you believe this isnt necessarily a means of the State brutally shutting up dissident voices. Even pro-government newspapers have been shut down. High up clerics in Iran have been jailed or placed under house arrest, the law applies to EVERYONE. |
As a Journalist, this is unacceptable. I do not believe a government should have the right to "decide" what can be published and what cannot. Just last year they closed down two newspapers because of a nuclear cartoon and a poem. Ridiculous.
When the Media is being "touched" this way by a government there is little or no hope on finding out really what is going on in Iran as well as the liberties of its citizens and workers jeopardized.
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| 2. Dress codes: Yes we all know women are required to wear a head scarf. Most iranians in Iran especially outside of Tehran do not mind this law as I observed when I travelled there. |
It is not about requiring them to use a head scarf only but arrested and put in prison if they do not want to do it or if they are wearing it wrong. Again, the government getting involved in matters that should be a personal choice. Many women, in order to gain freedom must write apologies and promise never to do it again. What a humiliation!
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| 3. Public hangings and stonings: Capital punishment is prescribed for certain crimes. Iranian penal law is strict on certain matters. |
Is self-defense included on this list of crimes in Iran? A 17 years old girl is in death row for killing a man who tried to rape her and her niece, does she deserve to die?
Update: As I was writing this, two Journalists were sentenced to Death in Iran n the charge of Moharebeh.
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| TEHRAN, Iran - The Iranian judiciary confirmed that two journalist from the country's Kurdish minority have been sentenced to death, a rare verdict against media people here, the official Islamic Republic News Agency reported on Tuesday. "Adnan Hassanpour and Hiva Boutimar have been sentenced to execution on the charge of Moharebeh," the agency quoted Ali Reza Jamshidi, spokesman of judiciary, as saying. Moharebeh, which literally means "fighting" in classical Arabic, is used in Iran's Sharia law to describe a major crime against the religion and the Islamic state. The official new agency did not specify what crime the two Kurdish journalists were precisely accused of. The journalists were also seen as activists in Sanandaj, the capital of the western Iranian province of Kurdistan, bordering Iraq. They have been detained after Kurds protested in Sanandaj in 2005 |
https://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,291562,00.html
Interesting enough, in an interview the President of Iran recounted a time when he was young and there was no freedom and his friends could not read certain books...same things he experienced, he seems to put his country under. Sad.
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Post Date: 31st Jul, 2007 - 6:56pm / Post ID: #
Iran Politics
I understand your concerns LDS_forever. Your political outlook is extremely liberal. But in Iran there are public moral standards which society has to keep up.
Do you believe newspapers can pubish whatever they like without accountability? Should a newspaper be allowed to publish racist material? Or make false allegations? Incite hatred? If not then who should be responsible for regulating what is published?
As far as I could tell from Omar Rageh's documentary you can publish things as long as you can prove it with evidence. If you cant and it is critical of Government then I think the Government has the right to ask for proof. If such proof is not offered then I believe the Government has the right to stop such slandering. Its called defamation of character and is illegal even here in the UK.
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| ot about requiring them to use a head scarf only but arrested and put in prison if they do not want to do it or if they are wearing it wrong. |
Again a very liberal attitude that no one should interfere in other peoples lives. In the west societal standards are less strict than Iran. Since you are used to the west you find Irans societal standards strange. Should public immorality be tolerated in the west? In Iran their are different moral standards all I can ask is that you at least respect their societal moral standards even if you do not agree.
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Is self-defense included on this list of crimes in Iran? A 17 years old girl is in death row for killing a man who tried to rape her and her niece, does she deserve to die? |
The Iranian constitution has always recognised self defence against assault. The Nazanin Fatehi case was a failure in the judicial system which has been recognised by the Islamic Republic hence a change in the courts decision.
Nazanin Fatehi has been released on bail and is no longer on death row. A Islamic Republic Court overturned the decision of the lower court recognising she was acting in self defence. This is a fact I'm surpirsed FOXNEWS and LDS_forever didnt pick up on.
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Karbala:
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| I understand your concerns LDS_forever. Your political outlook is extremely liberal. But in Iran there are public moral standards which society has to keep up. |
It may seem liberal but I do not think it is. I come from a country with 30 years of a horrible military government where 30,000 still missing, one of them is my own mother who opposed the rigid and undemocratic government and ended up missing when I was only a year old.
You will be surprised on how conservative I can be. Having said that, I am not a believer that my own personal beliefs should be imposed to others to follow. But yes, it is hard to digest that.
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| Do you believe newspapers can pubish whatever they like without accountability? Should a newspaper be allowed to publish racist material? Or make false allegations? Incite hatred? If not then who should be responsible for regulating what is published? |
As a woman, I am against these type of issues. As a Journalist, I believe strongly in the freedom of press. I believe as citizens in any country we have the power to make a newspaper (or any other business for that matter) to escalate in sales or go bankrupt. Yes, regulations are ok but it is NOT the government's job. A third party, established for that purpose should take care of that.
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| Again a very liberal attitude that no one should interfere in other peoples lives. In the west societal standards are less strict than Iran. Since you are used to the west you find Irans societal standards strange. Should public immorality be tolerated in the west? In Iran their are different moral standards all I can ask is that you at least respect their societal moral standards even if you do not agree. |
I try my best to respect it but when I see the reports of women being arrested and treated badly for an issue of PERSONAL grooming then as a woman myself, I can't ignore it. How in the world the government has a right to impose dressing standards? I suppose it is beyond me because I see these people as some sort of robots or puppets doing what the government wants them to do without little or no say on what THEY want to do.
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| Nazanin Fatehi has been released on bail and is no longer on death row. A Islamic Republic Court overturned the decision of the lower court recognising she was acting in self defence. This is a fact I'm surpirsed FOXNEWS and LDS_forever didnt pick up on. |
Yes, I obviously missed it because it was pretty recent. Nevertheless I wonder how many Nazanis we may have in Iran, to just know that a girl of just only 9years of age (a KID!) is eligible for death penalty, blows up my mind!
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