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Total number of comments: 23 (since 2013-11-28 15:54:46)

Jhold

Showing comments 23 - 1
Page: 1

  • Million-Person Marches and the Army Backs Off
    • jsbe 02/01/2011 at 2:06 pm

      List of MB's demands, which are so far reasonable but not trustable since Khomeini, one of their protege', lied through his teeth to get the consensus of all the secular/political groups in 1979.

      link to ikhwanweb.com

  • Egypt's Class Conflict
    • jsbe 01/30/2011 at 10:45 pm

      Azadi Sq. (Tehran) v Tahrir Square (Cairo)
      Look how many "affluent North Tehran" kids took part in the protests in Tehran (Left) and nearly 'all sections' of the Egyptian society turning up to Tharir Sq. in Cairo (Right)

      and yet Iran protests were so under reported. Why? Because IRI quickly kicked out foreign journalists and cracked down hard on any one seen with a mobile phone camera.

      link to azarmehr.blogspot.com

    • jsbe 01/30/2011 at 10:00 pm

      Learn from our mistakes
      Letter from an Iranian to the people of Egypt

      Over 32 years ago, Iranian people did the same against the oppressive regime of the then Shah of Iran, for the same reasons.

      My dear Egyptian brothers and sisters,

      When we look back in our own lives, sometimes there are situations we wish we handled differently, had we KNOWN more, or had we been wiser. Life of a nation is no different. So I am writing to you, to share our experience, in the hope, the people of Egypt can do better than people of Iran, in dealing with their dictator, and build a better Egypt.

      32 years ago, as the emotions of our nation was focused on the immediate removal of the Shah, our mind was not looking forward as to what to replace that old bankrupt system with? Today, not only are Iranian people no closer to a more accountable government nor better living standards, our social freedom along with our political freedom has been taken away from us as well.

      Egyptian brothers and sisters,

      Today in Iran, we don't have basic political freedom to assemble, as the Islamic Regime of Iran, does not allow freedom of assembly. Today, the Islamic Regime of Iran, does not even allow a candidate that passed its filtering process, and according to their own statistics received over 13 million votes, to hold a simple rally. How much freedom do you think an Iranian have today? Today, we do not have political parties. Even political factions are not tolerated within the Islamic regime.

      My dear Egyptian brothers and sisters,

      In spite of Iran's vast natural resources, many in Iran live in poverty and those who ask for accountability, are persecuted. So to flee Iran, appears to be the main option. As a result, some of the best and brightest talents of Iran, lives outside Iran, contributing to the host country who sheltered them instead of their own!

      Not only books, films, newspapers are routinely censored for not having the same view as the Islamic Regime, their authors are often imprisoned and in many cases even murdered for such attempts.

      Under Islamic Regime of Iran today, we do not have freedom of speech, access to unfiltered internet, nor even can we watch news other than what they want us to see on satellite TV in the privacy of our home! For the past 32 years, the Iranian people have faced the threat of a Islamic Regime guard raiding their homes, for the crime of watching something other than appears on their TV's.

      Today in Iran, our women are not allowed to wear Hejab if they so choose and not wear the Hejab if they don't. The women are beaten or arrested if they don't abide by Islamic Regime, Talebani version of Islamic code.

      But our lessons:

      -- Don't bring religion to government. We Iranian people unfortunately did, and the results are far worse than what we had. Fortunately, you do not have a powerful character like Khomanee who said one thing, before reaching power, and the opposite after. But still, avoid those who provide their strict religious belief as the solution, for complex problems that faces us today. Our problems today, require collective cooperation and rational thinking, and the freedom to do so. Do not let political-Islam to make you envy even these dark days of Mobark, 30 years later!

      --Don't just focus on removal of that brutal, ignorant dictator Mobark, but also focus on visionary Egyptions that are NOT power hungry, focused on solving the issues, and are not hateful in their speeches.

      --When the tyrant Mobarak finally agrees to step down, don't try to destroy your government and start from zero. That would only take you back another 30 years like it has done so for Iran. Every system, has bad but also very good individual that serves it.

      --Don't execute or torture anyone, even those who tortured you or executed your loved ones. That's the only way to insure, execution and torture will be eradicated.

      --Destruction of headquarters of Mobarks party is valid reaction to his despotic rule, but do not destroy banks, theaters. Those all belong to Egypt not Mobark.

      --When you are rewriting you constitution, do not trust closed door sessions. Read every page of the documents and understand their ramifications. It is better to take the time to come up with a great document, than to hurry this process and have to redo it again in 30 years!

      --Here's one we should have chanted from day 1 and we did not, Iran for all Iranian. Say, Egypt for all Egyptians! Moslem or Christian, northerner or southerners. Be aware of anyone who tries to do otherwise.

      The whole world is watching and we hope you set a better example than our revolution did. We hope we can learn from you. A powerful, democratic Egypt is good for the region. Egypt is now in a unique position to be great both for her own people but also a good example for the region.

      link to iranian.com

    • jsbe 01/30/2011 at 9:02 pm with 1 replies

      A Note of Warning and Encouragement for Egyptians
      From an Iranian writer who lived through the 1979 Revolution.

      the United States issued ambiguous statements, indicating support for the leader’s desire to establish law and order on the one hand while at the same time insisting that the march of democracy must continue, and that the use of force could not be a solution to the country’s problems. Benefiting from the subsequent chaos, radical Islamists, posing as democrats, used the chance to seize power and deracinate the democratic movement in favor of tradition and theocracy.

      The country I am speaking of is not Egypt in 2011 but Iran in 1979. The leader is the Shah, not Hosni Mubarak. Yet, as this history makes clear, the parallels between then and now are numerous. And they offer some key lessons for Americans and Egyptians alike.

      For U.S. policymakers, the Iranian Revolution illustrates the perils of vacillating between defending an old regime and establishing ties with new democrats. President Obama must use all of his persuasive power to demand that Hosni Mubarak immediately declare that he will not seek reelection. The Egyptian dictator must be persuaded to appoint a caretaker government that will handle the daily affairs of the state, headed by a moderate member of the opposition like Mohammed ElBaradei. This might be the last chance to arrange an orderly transition to democracy, one wherein anti-democratic forces in any guise—religious, military, secular, or theocratic—cannot derail the democratic process.

      For Egyptians, the history of the Iranian Revolution should serve as a warning. In 1978, Ayatollah Khomeini hid his true intentions—namely the creation of a despotic rule of the clerics—behind the mantle of democracy. More than once he promised that not a single cleric would hold a position of power in the future government. But once in power, he created the current clerical despotism. And when, in June 2009, three million people took to the streets of Tehran to protest decades of oppression, they were brutally suppressed.

      With this history in mind, Egyptian democrats must not be fooled by the radical Islamists of the Muslim Brotherhood. If and when Mubarak falls, they simply cannot allow the most radical and brutal forces to win in the ensuing chaos. If these forces are allowed to claim power using the rhetoric of democracy, Egyptians will find themselves decades from now needing another uprising, which is precisely the current situation of the Iranian people.

      The propaganda machine for the clerical regime in Tehran has been gloating about the similarities between the events of Islamic Revolution of 1979 in Iran and developments in Egypt now. It shamelessly claims that today’s uprising in Egypt is but an aftershock of the revolution in Iran. The Egyptian people must prove them wrong.

      And not just for the sake of Egypt. For over a century, Egypt, like Iran, has been a bellwether state for the entire region. The arrival of freedom to Egypt would therefore put the Iranian mullahs on the defensive. Far from a repeat of 1979, the Egyptian uprising might begin to seem like a close cousin of 2009—a true democratic revolt. This would give confidence to democrats across the Middle East. It would suggest that the tectonic plates in the region really are shifting away from despotism and dogma, toward democracy and reason. Inshallah!"

      Unless there is a deliberate force trying to install radicalized and anti-Western regimes on purpose to provide legitimate excusse to carpet bomb or nuke the entire region???

      Khomeini was influenced deeply by the Islamist brotherhood.

      link to tnr.com

    • jsbe 01/30/2011 at 8:54 pm

      US Secretly Backed Egypt Protest Leaders For 3 Years

      link to dailykos.com

  • Zewail's 4 point Plan for Egypt
    • jsbe 01/29/2011 at 7:11 pm with 1 replies

      He forgot the most important thing: Separation of Religion from the State.

  • Mubarak's Response to Demand for end of Military Rule
    • jsbe 01/29/2011 at 6:09 pm

      Mubark Half sunk...

      link to planetpov.com

    • jsbe 01/29/2011 at 4:11 pm

      Khamenei's Advice to Mubarak

      link to iranian.com

  • Anzalone: Hezbollah’s Double Standards: Tunisia and Iran
    • jsbe 01/29/2011 at 3:40 pm

      January 29 global day of action
      In support of political prisoners and against execution in Iran

      Many organizations and individuals have announced their serious concern about public executions and intensification of executions in Iran. Saturday 29th January 2011, has been declared as a day of global protest against executions and in defense of political prisoners in Iran.

      link to iransolidarity.blogspot.com

      The IRI no longer notifies the family members before executing dissidents:

      link to iranhumanrights.org...

      link to iranian.com

    • jsbe 01/29/2011 at 12:16 am

      Watching the pictures from Tunisia and Egypt, it looks the crowd sizes in Iran were much larger. None of the protests in Egypt or Tunisia came any where near the three million crowd who came to the streets in Tehran, six days after the fraudulent elections in June last year. The repression by the regime in Iran was many times more brutal and savage than that in Tunisia or Egypt however. People in Egypt and Tunisia were not attacked in their homes and pulled from their roof tops for simply chanting Allah Akbar at night. The injured protesters in Tunisia and Egypt were not attacked in hospitals and dragged from their hospital beds. Protesters were not arrested and bused into detention centres like Kahrizak and raped in Tunisia and Egypt like they were in Iran.

      The Iranian regime is one that ceased power through a revolution and is thus well experienced in how to avert a revolution. As a friend of mine in Iran quoted his revolutionary guards commander "we will do everything the Shah didn't do and not do any thing that the Shah did during the 1979 revolution. Just one concession will open the floodgates and increase people's confidence in overthrowing the regime, we will not give one concession to the protesters"

      Just one reminder of how brutal the repression in Iran was, watch the video of attack on student dormitories here, which resulted in five students killed:

      Foreign journalists were not kicked out in Egypt and Tunisia as they were in Iran quickly after the protests erupted.

      When Iranian protesters used social networking tools like Facebook and twitter and citizen journalists uploaded their mobile phone pictures and videos, the Iranian protesters were quickly labeled by rich Western Left-wing intellectuals as "affluent North Tehran kids" who did not represent the country.

      Had these pictures been taken in Iran, these girls would have been labeled as middle class elite:

      Watching all this perhaps nothing was more annoying than the filthy Press TV hypocrite, Yvonne Ridley claim "What the Egyptian people are doing is so courageous because what they are facing, as we can see on our screens, is this terrible machine which seeks to instil fear and brutalises the people."

      Yvonne Ridley of course ignores the courageous people who rose up against the terrible state terror machine of her pay masters in Iran.

      Stop the War Coalition who through out the protests in Iran refused to express any solidarity with the Iranian protesters by using the excuse that "we are only concerned with war situations" did not lose any time to express solidarity with the people of Egypt. Next Wednesday, they will hold a public meeting in Conway Hall in solidarity with the Egyptian uprising, with speakers like George Galloway and John Rees, God help the Egyptian people from such solidarity expressions!

      As Mark Urban said on BBC tonight, "all such revolutions are of epic importance and consequences, the outcome however is uncertain and any extremist violent minority group could cease power as they did in Iran in 1979 and in Russia in 1917"
      The chances of a violent minority group ceasing power through protests in Iran last year was always much more remote, because of the tolerance and peacefulness displayed by the protesters throughout the protests:

      link to azarmehr.blogspot.com

    • jsbe 01/28/2011 at 12:18 pm

      At the expense of Iranian own national interest while raping and pillaging, plundering, squandering national wealth, mismanagment,robbing future generation of Iranians from freedom, liberty, economic security, progress, basic civil rights? Very interesting, indeed.

    • jsbe 01/27/2011 at 12:59 pm with 2 replies

      what universal justice
      did the Khameni/Khomeini cult bring it to Iran? How does Hezbollah (supporter of Velayate faghihe) can bring any freedom or justice to Lebanon or other states?

    • jsbe 01/27/2011 at 11:31 am with 1 replies

      Thank you for telling it as it is and speaking the truth. The coup that brought Ahmadinezhad and his Hojatieh minions to power should be remembered with much more vigor and shame than the coup of 1953, which was nowhere nearly as violent or brutal. And this time we have only Iranians to blame, not the Brits or the AMericans or CIA or MI6 or anybody. Just our own internal, corrupt, backward forces, the biggest enemy of democracy in Iran. Those who try to portray it otherwise are just feeding the military dictatorship's propaganda campaign. We have seen no shortage of IRI apologists come here and unsuccessfully try to push this anti-Iranian agenda.

  • Continued Protests in Tunisia
    • jsbe 01/25/2011 at 10:32 pm

      link to huffingtonpost.com

    • jsbe 01/25/2011 at 4:09 pm

      Hijacking the Tunisian Revolution
      aljazeera / Video Interview
      25-Jan-2011
      Some have called it the Facebook or Twitter revolution because social media played a critical role in fanning the flames of discontent and spreading the news to a captivated world. But is Tunisia's Jasmine revolution entering a new phase? Driven by the youth and trade unions, are professional politicians now hijacking the Tunisian uprising? How do the young people of Tunisia feel about the course their revolution is taking? In this special show from Tunis, Inside Story presenter James Bays discusses with: Fidaa al-Hammami, a graduate student and opposition activist; Haifa Jmour, a tour guide and blogger; and Dhouha Bokri, a graduate student and activist.

      link to youtube.com

      link to english.aljazeera.net

    • jsbe 01/25/2011 at 4:01 pm

      Hope Tunisia does not suffer the same fate as Iran when the revolution was hijacked by militant/terrorist Islamist goons a la Khomeini.

      link to youtube.com

      link to youtube.com

      On Average, One Person Executed Every Eight Hours in 2011

      link to iranhumanrights.org

      link to iranhrdc.org

      link to iranrights.org

      HISTORY OF VIOLENCE: IRI's Reign of Terror Begins (BBC Report 1979

      link to iranian.com

  • Thousands Protest Interim Government in Tunis
    • jsbe 01/23/2011 at 1:37 pm with 2 replies

      shahid shahid: are you hoping Tunisia to become another Islamic Republic of Iran? I truly hope that's not the case.

  • Iranian-American Comedians on Daily Show
    • jsbe 01/22/2011 at 11:06 am

      Gearing up for change in Iran
      Rulers in Iran have only themselves to blame

      link to iranian.com

    • jsbe 01/21/2011 at 2:15 pm

      Awesome. They are the best.

  • Ahmadinejad Promises to Protect Qana in South Lebanon
    • Jhold 10/16/2010 at 2:21 pm with 1 replies

      Appalling. Shameful thug. He is a megalomaniac liar.

      To the Lebanese Women Without Hejab who Welcomed Ahmadinejad

      link to azarmehr.blogspot.com

      At the Time Ahmadinejad Was Welcomed in Lebanon
      link to azarmehr.blogspot.com

      Hanna Makhmalbaf Addresses the People of Lebanon Ahead of Ahmadinejad's Visit
      link to azarmehr.blogspot.com

      Only Alternative
      Interview with former President Abolhassan Bani-Sadr

      link to iranian.com

  • Blogfather in Iran sentenced to 19.5 years for Dissent
    • Jhold 10/02/2010 at 2:33 am

      Updated 29 Sep 2010 Iran's Prisoners of Conscience 633 Names
      LISSNUP
      01-Oct-2010
      This list will quickly get out of date - please visit the rhairan.biz or rhairan.us or rhairan.org website for current status. Note: I have given 3 alternative links because Iran House of Human Rights website is regularly blocked or hacked by the Iranian regime's so-called "cyber army".

      >>>

    • Jhold 10/01/2010 at 8:55 pm

      More on Hossein Derakhshan

      link to moriab.blogspot.com

      Hoder writes in 2007:

      ...Cut the bias Someone should remind Reporters Without Borders to remove Arash Sigarchi's name from the list of Iranian cyberdissidents in jail. It's been over three months since he was cleared ...His main charge was working with the American government-funded Radio Farda ...But since he also had a blog ... the entire human rights machine (western media, watchdogs, and NGOs) started to spread numerous reports, showcasing him as an innocent victim of a brutal regime with a formulated policy for imprisoning bloggers who dare to write a word of criticism against the government. As a matter of fact, the Iranian government has not had any such policy toward bloggers...Obviously the Islamic Republic cannot be as tolerant against criticism as, say, Norway....
      link to guardian.co.uk

    • Jhold 10/01/2010 at 8:41 pm

      Evin, where college kids meet senior citizens

      link to iranian.com

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