March 11, 2010

The wife of opposition leader Mirhossein Mousavi called the government of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad “illegitimate,” the reformist Kaleme website reported Thursday.

Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the most powerful figure in the Islamic establishment, has criticized Iran’s opposition leaders for disputing the legitimacy of Ahmadinejad’s government and for refusing to “bow before the law.”

“I have said many times that this government is illegitimate … but because the government claims to be legitimate, it has to carry out its duties,” Zahra Rahnavard was quoted as saying on Kaleme, the website of her husband.

She also said the opposition movement would be present on March 17 when Iranians hold celebrations a few days before the country’s New Year (on March 21).

“We will be present that day… but will not take any extreme or violent action,” Rahnavard said.

Police officials have strongly warned the opposition against using the occasion to organize fresh protests and have said they will hold anyone arrested that day until the end of the Iranian new year holidays.

Iran’s disputed June presidential election, which secured Ahmadinejad’s re-election, plunged the country into its biggest unrest since the 1979 Islamic revolution.

Opposition leaders Mousavi and Mehdi Karoubi say the vote was rigged but authorities deny allegations of fraud and say the June election was the “healthiest” Iran has had in three decades.

Thousands of people, including senior reformers, were detained after the vote for fomenting unrest. Most of them have since been released, though more than 80 people have received jail sentences of up to 15 years.

Two people who were put on trial after the election have been executed.

Separately Thursday Kaleme quoted Mousavi as saying the opposition movement would “stand until we reach our goals.”

Rahnavard called on the authorities to release all pro-reform detainees and to respect “freedom of expression and thought.”

“Freedom, democracy and women’s rights is what we want to pursue,” she said.

(Editing by Elizabeth Fullerton)

Source: Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL)

March 11, 2010

Former Czech President Vaclav Havel has praised the two Iranian activists who were awarded the Homo Homini prize presented annually by the Czech NGO People in Need “in recognition of a dedication to the promotion of human rights, democracy, and nonviolent solutions to political conflicts” and called on them not to lose hope.

We reported earlier this week that former student leader Abdollah Momeni and student activist Majid Tavakoli are the recipients of the prize, which was presented last night at a ceremony in a church in Prague.

Havel could not attend the ceremony, but he sent this message:

“Of course all of us are interested in Iran’s nuclear program and the nature of the current regime, just as we are interested in the abuses committed under the flag of Islam and whether or not the 2009 election was rigged. However, what I am most interested in are the brutal violations of human rights. I found myself in high political position thanks to peaceful public demonstrations and thanks to the students, who led them and made them happen. As a result, I have an elevated sensitivity for certain things and am deeply outraged and shocked that for participating in similar demonstrations in Iran, people are not only being sentenced to several years in prison, but are even being executed. It seems to me like an endless barbarity and I firmly believe this savagery is about to come to an end.

“I congratulate Majid Tavakoli and Abdollah Momeni for receiving the Homo Homini Award. I am glad that the prize has been given to them and I wish for them not to lose hope.”

Vaclav Havel

By Kris Maher and Jay Solomon
Source: The Wall Street Journal
March 10, 2010

Ingersoll-Rand PLC said it has prohibited its subsidiaries from selling products to customers in Iran.

The move by the industrial-parts maker is part of an accelerating trend among major Western companies to reduce their business exposure to Iran.

Caterpillar Inc., Huntsman Corp., General Electric Co. and the German conglomerate Siemens AG have made similar moves over the past year.

The companies’ decisions have been driven in part by pressure from Western governments to halt dealings with Iran, U.S. officials and industry watchers say. But they add that energy, engineering and technology concerns are also increasingly spooked by legislation passed by the U.S. Congress in late January that would punish any international company aiding Iran’s oil and gas sector.

Companies including Ingersoll and Caterpillar could be targeted under this legislation, congressional officials say, because their gear could be used to develop Iran’s gas fields and refineries.

“The whole supply chain involved in the oil and gas sector is impacted,” said Mark Dubowitz, executive director of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a Washington policy institute that focuses on Iran’s energy sector.

The U.K.’s BP PLC, India’s Reliance Industries Ltd., Geneva’s Vitol Holding PLC, and Trafigura Group are among energy companies that have recently moved to sever energy ties with Iran, according to according to people familiar with matter.

Ingersoll, which relocated its headquarters to Dublin from Bermuda last year, disclosed its new restrictions on sales to Iran in a letter to the lobbying group United Against Nuclear Iran. In the letter, Michael Lamach, chief executive of Ingersoll, said that effective immediately the company will order its foreign subsidiaries to “stop accepting orders for all products, components and parts where the subsidiary knows such products, components or parts would be destined for Iran.”

He also said that Ingersoll made the decision “in light of very real and escalating concerns about the intentions of the current regime in Iran.”

Kimmie Lipscomb, a spokeswoman for the New York-based lobbying group, said, “We applaud their decision to stop doing business in Iran. We see it as a positive step to sending a clear message to the Iranian regime.”

UANI’s advisory board contains former Democratic and Republican national-security officials, including R. James Woolsey, director of the Central Intelligence Agency in the Clinton administration, and Jack David, a deputy assistant defense secretary under George W. Bush.

Paul Dickard, a spokesman for Ingersoll, said the company’s business in Iran probably represents less than 0.1% of its $13.2 billion in 2009 revenue. He said the company has been watching the issue and that efforts by UANI “probably accelerated” its decision.

UANI was launched in September 2008 to try to prevent Iran from possessing nuclear weapons, and it has targeted more than 200 U.S. and foreign companies. The group had said it would “ostracize” Ingersoll for its machinery sales in Iran.

Mr. Lamach said Ingersoll was “deeply disappointed” by UANI’s tactics, which included a March 2 letter alleging the company had violated Securities and Exchange Commission rules by not reporting information about sales into Iran. He called the allegations “completely unfounded” and said UANI had apparently sent its letter to the media before giving the company a chance to respond.

Mr. Lamach added that Ingersoll’s Iran-related revenue was immaterial and that the company has no employees, operations or assets there. Ingersoll makes industrial equipment and air-conditioning systems, as well as locks and golf carts.

U.S. lobbyists said Tuesday they would accelerate pressure on the Obama administration to enforce the new U.S. legislation as well as to enforce sanctions passed against Iran in the past.

The American Israel Public Affairs Committee, Washington’s strongest pro-Israel lobby, circulated a letter through Congress late Tuesday pressing for more vigorous implementation of sanctions laws involving Iran. (Read the letter.)

The U.S. is negotiating to get the United Nations Security Council to pass a fourth round of economic sanctions against Iran for its nuclear work.

But many diplomats acknowledge that winning stringent new U.N. sanctions will be difficult. China, which has veto power in the Security Council, and Turkey and Brazil have resisted calls for extensive new penalties.

Meanwhile, on Wednesday, the Treasury Department’s point man on Iran sanctions, Undersecretary Stuart Levey, will travel to Switzerland, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Oman. “We are pointing out that they face dramatic risks by doing business with Iran,” Mr. Levey said in an interview Tuesday.

• (Reuters) First Iranian-built destroyer launched in Gulf. Iranian state television said the first Iranian-built destroyer was launched on Friday in a ceremony attended by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

March 9, 2010

Celebrated Iranian poetess Simin Behbahani

Simin Behbahani was prevented from leaving for France for International Women’s Day ceremonies.

RAHANA – “Paris municipality had invited me for March 8 and I had prepared a text about feminism and a poem about women which I was going to read at the ceremony and return on Wednesday.” Behbahani said.

“After I crossed customs and my passport was stamped, two officials called me, took my passport away, kept me till 5 am and asked questions. I was handed a paper and asked to appear before the Revolutionary Court,” she said.

Simin Behbahani joins scores of Iranian rights activists who have been barred from leaving the country under similar circumstances including Nasrin Sottodeh, Mansoureh Shojaee, Narges Mohammadi, Talat Taghinia, Badrosaday Mofidi and many more.

Iranian authorities impose a travel ban on the country’s most celebrated living poetess to mark International Women’s Day.

Happy Women’s Day, Dear Simin!

Source: Telegraph

10 March 2010

Men and women who want to enter into matrimony will have to undergo a three-month course of prenuptial training, for which they will earn a certificate proving they are ready to wed.

The course is part of a plan approved by the Iranian president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad that aims to reverse declining Iranian marriage rates and rising divorce statistics, the Guardian reports.

From next week, young people will be offered courses to prepare them for the hardships, as well as the high points, of married life.

The courses, involving weekly exams, will be run by the state-governed national youth organisation. Those who successfully complete them will receive a certificate as proof of their readiness for committment.

Mohsen Zanganeh, the head of the national youth organisation for Teheran province, said the courses would provide young people with an understanding of the “alphabet of life” and were intended as an essential gateway to marriage.

“We intend that within the next two years, if a boy attempts to woo a girl, she will answer only if he has finished his course,” he told the Fars news agency. “We are trying to increase the level of information among young people concerning marriage.”

Mr Zangeneh said the course would run along similar lines to a university degree, with a panel of 40 experts serving as its scientific board.

Internet giant Google has welcomed a U.S. decision to relax restrictions that have prevented U.S. companies from exporting Internet services and software to Iran, Cuba, and Sudan.

The U.S. Treasury Department eased the sanctions on March 8, allowing U.S. companies to export services to those countries that are related to Internet communication.

The move is aimed at fostering more open societies by making it easier for tech savvy citizens to circumvent information blockades by browsing the Internet, writing blogs or e-mailing, chatting and social networking — as well as to share photos and video.

The governments in Tehran, Havana, and Khartoum all exert varying degrees of control over the Internet — and are expected to continue to do so. The U.S. move doesn’t change rigid information and Internet control laws in any of the countries.

But U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said the easing of sanctions was aimed at opening an information floodgate into repressive societies like Iran by allowing U.S. firms to provide the technology without violating U.S. law.

“With regard to Internet freedom,” Clinton said, “we are supporting the right of free expression and have granted licenses or are in the process of granting licenses to companies that wish to provide Internet tools to citizens of Iran so that they can communicate — so that they can have other sources of information about what is going on inside their country.”

Skirting Blockade

Clinton said Washington hoped the move would give ordinary Iranians more options to circumvent Tehran’s information blockade — making it much more difficult for the agents of censorship in Tehran to keep their people from sharing ideas and information.

“Iran calls itself a democracy. It should act like one, and that means respecting the right to free expression and assembly of its own people — and in the 21st century, expression and assembly are carried out on the Internet as well as in person,” Clinton said. “So we’re going to continue to support those Iranians who wish to circumvent and be able to communicate without being blocked by their own government.”

Certain services from major Internet companies — like Google’s “Gmail” e-mail program — already are used in Iran. But Google and other companies have, themselves, blocked access to other services for fear of violating U.S. laws that ban commerce with blacklisted countries.

The lifting of sanctions would allow companies like Microsoft and Yahoo to allow users in Iran, Cuba and Sudan to use instant messaging over the Internet — a service they did not provide in the past because of those fears.

Washington has declared Internet freedom as a fundamental principle in American foreign policy since the chaotic days after June elections in Iran — when video sharing sites like Google’s YouTube and social networks like Facebook and Twitter were used by Iranians to organize protests and inform the rest of the world about brutal government crackdowns on demonstrators.

Last month, in an effort to prevent the organization of antigovernment protests before the 31st anniversary of Iran’s Islamic revolution, authorities in Tehran imposed technical limitations which made it difficult for many Iranians to get access to their Gmail accounts.

Spurring Innovation?

Bill Echikson, Google’s spokesman for Europe, Africa, and the Middle East, told RFE/RL today that the firm welcomes the move by the U.S. Treasury.

“We’re very happy with the decision of the U.S. Treasury Department because it will allow the export of Internet communications software and services to Iran and other nations where freedom of expression is limited,” Echikson said. “We’ve long advocated the ability to provide citizens of these countries the tools with which to communicate with each other and the world. So what we will be doing now is to exploring how we might provide our communications products into these areas.”

Echikson said it was too early to name specific software or technologies that Google would introduce for users in Iran as a result of the lift on sanctions.

But Robert Boorstin, head of Google’s communications division, spoke briefly today about some of Google’s activities and plans during a human rights forum in Switzerland — the Geneva Summit for Human Rights Tolerance, and Democracy.

Boorstin told the forum that Google has sponsored conferences allowing activists to get together and talk about the latest methods authoritarian regimes are using to block access to the Internet — as well as developments on how to circumvent information blockades.

“We have engineers who are quite interested in this and work on it in their spare time — in addition to working on various tools that the company is interested in,” Boorstin said. “It’s not something that I really, frankly, want to talk about publicly — for obvious reasons.”

Boorstin mentioned investments that Google has made to build up the global Internet infrastructure. That includes being the partial funder of a new undersea cable into east Africa. It also includes developments on mobile telephone software and, critically, a major satellite project aimed at increasing Internet access for people in remote areas of developing countries.

“We have invested in a satellite network that at some point in the future — it is several years off — should provide for much better connectivity in places where there are no landlines,” Boorstin said. “And we are very high on that possibility,… the potential for satellites to help people connect.”

written by Ron Synovitz based on RFE/RL and wire reports

March 9, 2010

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Erdogan, right, has accused Western powers of treating Iran unfairly over its nuclear stance [EPA

Recep Erdogan, the Turkish prime minister, has cautioned against further UN Security Council sanctions on Iran over its nuclear programme during a visit to Riyadh in Saudi Arabia.

“I don’t believe that any further sanctions will yield results,” Erdogan told journalists, adding that earlier rounds of sanctions ”have never yielded results.”

Turkey, which has good relations with its neighbour Iran, has offered to host an exchange of Iran’s low-enriched uranium (LEU) with 20 per cent enriched uranium to be supplied by world powers to Tehran as part of a UN-drafted deal.

Tehran and members of the UN Security Council are locked in a stalemate over the deal, which envisages shipping out Iran’s LEU to France and Russia for further conversion into higher-grade uranium.

Sanctions debate

Iran has said that its nuclear programme is purely for peaceful purposes and denies that it is trying to build a nuclear weapon.

But the US and other nations have been pressing the UN Security Council to impose a fourth set of sanctions against Iran on the issue.

The UN Security Council has said it is considering the matter after Yukiya Amano, the chief of the the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), said last month that he could not verify that all of Tehran’s atomic activities were peaceful.

At a meeting of the IAEA’s 35-nation board in Vienna, the Austrian capital, in February, Amano said he could not “confirm that all nuclear material in Iran is in peaceful activities”.

Amano also accused Iran of failing to co-operate with the IAEA and said he wanted Tehran to clarify issues about its nuclear programme.

“We would like to have a discussion with Iran to clarify the outstanding issues and issues that have a possible military dimension,” he said.

In October, Erdogan accused Western nations of hypocrisy in criticising Iran’s uranium enrichment programme while remaining silent on Israel, which is believed to have an undeclared nuclear arsenal.

He made the remarks during a vist to Tehran where he held bilateral talks with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the Iranian president.

Erdogan had told journalists travelling with him in Iran that the country’s nuclear programme “is an energy project with peaceful, humanitarian purposes”.

The same month he told The Guardian, a British newspaper, that Western powers were treating Iran unfairly and referred to Ahmadinejad as a “friend”.

Majid Tavakoli

It’s rare to have Iran-related news coming out of Prague, but here’s an encouraging one for all those fighting for more rights and democracy inside the country.

Two activists and representatives of Iran’s student movement, Abdollah Momeni and Majid Tavakoli, are this year’s recipients of the Homo Homini Award, which is awarded annually by the Czech NGO People in Need “in recognition of a dedication to the promotion of human rights, democracy, and nonviolent solutions to political conflicts.”

Momeni was released a few days ago after spending more than six months in jail, including reportedly some 100 days in solitary confinement. A former leader of the student movement and an outspoken critic of the Iranian establishment, he campaigned for reformist cleric Mehdi Karrubi ahead of last year’s disputed presidential vote. He was arrested in late June and sentenced to eight years in prison.

Here is a picture of Momeni after his release.

Outspoken student activist Majid Tavakoli remains in jail, where he’s reportedly being held in solitary confinement. Tavakoli has been sentenced to 8 1/2 years in prison. He was arrested after giving a speech at Amir Kabir University on Students’ Day in December. His arrest led to a campaign in his support.

The People in Need Foundation said the two represent the older and younger generation of Iran’s student movement, which has been at the forefront of the fight for democracy and human rights in the Islamic republic.

Marek Svoboda, the head of the human rights center of the Czech group, has praised Momeni and Tavakoli for playing a significant role in the student movement.

The awards ceremony will be held in Prague on March 10.

March 9, 2010

In his recent press conference, Iranian dictator Mahmoud Ahmadinejad once again looked straight into the eyes of journalists and denied reality. As Mir-Hossein Mousavi would put it, “Ahmadinejad can look right into the cameras and tell big lies without batting an eyelash.”

During a press conference with the international media’s cameras focused on his face Ahmadinejad shrugged, turned his slitted eyes toward the world and declared: “Freedom of the press is at it’s highest level in Iran.”

Iranian journalists are braver and much more enlightened than members of the foreign press who come to Iran and are there at the pleasure of the government. Iranian journalists have more experience standing up to someone who brazenly denies reality.

Three reformist journalists whose colleagues are mostly imprisoned, have either fled or are in hiding, courageously, cleverly and calmly put their questions to Ahmadinejad during this press conference.

The reporter from Etemad daily told Ahmadinejad: “When questioned by foreign press regarding the treatment of the press and the arrest of journalists, you claim that it’s all in the hands of the judiciary. Can you please tell us what position you yourself and the Ministry of Intelligence and Security play in the arrests and interrogations?”

The reporter from Farhang va Aashti daily then asked him: “You call confronting newspapers and journalists during the introduction ceremony of the general director of the official governmental news agency, dictatorship. Can you please tell us your opinion about the arrests and imprisonment of journalists and does the Ministry of Guidance and Enlightenment under your administration defend the suspension of various media outlets?”

Finally, the reporter from Farheekhtegaan daily asked: “What has your administration done for the betterment of the condition of imprisoned journalists in Iran?”

Below: video of the press conference as he is confronted by one of the three reports

What foreign journalists in Iran have had the courage to challenge the Iranian leader so directly?

Ahmadinejad’s answers to these questions were long and rambling in an attempt to obfuscate the truth to the three journalists who bravely, heroically, continue to work even now in Iran’s precarious climate. He said:  “The government has absolutely nothing to do with the suspension of newspapers; our administration really regrets the arrest of journalists but it’s all in the hands of the authorities of the judiciary.”

As a journalist who worked in the media inside Iran for ten years myself, I can attest to the fact that prior to Ahmadinejad, the public prosecutor had the razor blade of censorship in his hand but that during Ahmadinejad’s tenure this blade was turned into a sword held in Ahmadinejad’s own hand, which he also used on the judiciary to assist him in breaking the media. Like many of my colleagues, I was faced with threats by the Ministry of Intelligence and Security. In one instance, I had to prove that I was actually leaving the country and I was interrogated for two hours by a member of the judiciary at the passport office when I went to collect my confiscated passport. The next day, my confiscated passport was actually released but I was accosted while in my car, by unidentified men who dragged me out and proceeded to search every inch of my car and then demanded to see my press card. I got the message and was among one of the luckier ones who was able to flee.

At that time, each and every one of my friends and colleagues were summoned to the Ministry of Intelligence and Security and interrogated about his or her work and journalistic activities.

Most of my reformist colleagues, since they had not had such an experience with the government did not want to believe that they would have to face such treatment; following the June elections practically all of them are under arrest and are serving long prison sentences. And now Ahmadinejad’s Iran has summoned hundreds of journalists; ninety are already imprisoned and over four hundred have fled.

In his press conference, Ahmadinejad said that Iranian laws state that when a media outlet has a plaintiff against it, it is subject to investigation by the judiciary and in several instances, members of his administration are the biggest plaintiffs against the media.

Here is how that works. Many journalists, in the interest of accuracy and evidence, often made tapes of remarks and speeches given by the regime’s ministers and cabinet members. Journalists then would often receive memos from the President’s Office, forcing us to deny the words of the regime’s own officials. When members of the government wanted to amend or deny their own statements, they forced us to take the blame for having altered the information in subsequent issues. We were then forced to label ourselves liars and prevaricators against the government, despite the fact that we had the actual documentation in hand.

Now while journalists are handed directives about what we are not allowed to write, other directives are handed down about what we must in fact write. In the case of the nuclear issues, in order to promote Ahmadinejad’s angle on the matter, we must continue to put out items about the fact that Iran is proud of its ‘peaceful’ nuclear energy development and then the regime demands that those items appear day after day on the front page.

Journalist Shiva Nazar-Ahari is now held in solitary confinement, charged with having reported and defended people who were political prisoners in Iran for years and now, after the June elections, Shiva herself is imprisoned and charged with ‘harb’ (combating God).

One of my colleagues, a journalist who taught me a great deal about the profession, Issa Sahar-Kheez is now also in prison. And, contrary to the claim of Larijani, the head of the Iranian judiciary, who says that ‘no one is in prison because of their career as journalists’, Issa was arrested because of an article that he penned. On the day his house was stormed and during his arrest, the agents broke his shoulder blade. He remains ever since in solitary confinement without receiving any medical care.

I also know Saied Laylaz personally. He worked as a senior editor for various reformist newspapers. He too was arrested right after the elections and was sentenced to fifteen years in prison.

Ahmad Zaydabadi, another journalist who is highly critical of the government, is sentenced to prison clear across the other side of Iran where his family can hardly visit him.

And then there is Hengameh Shahidi who auditioned to be a commentator for several foreign TV networks and now she too is sentenced to six years in prison.

Masoud Baastaani, who wrote for one of the sites that supported Mir Hossein Mousavi, was arrested and is serving his six year sentence in a faraway prison.

Badr Asadat Mofidi, a woman journalist who covered the Iranian parliament (Majles) and has received a fifteen year sentence and yet, these days not a single member of the Majles has bothered to pen a letter or sign a petition demanding an explanation for her imprisonment.

Mohammad Davari, Akbar Montajebi, Ali Malihi, Vahid Pour-Ostaad, Kayvan Mehregan, Mashallah Shams-ol-Vaaezeen, Kayvan Samimi, Mazdak Ali-Nazari, Kouhyar Goodarzi, Amir Sadeghi, Somaya Momeni, Zaynab Kazemkhah, Ali Kalaie, Ahmad Jalali, Amir Sadeghi, Hassan Zohoori, Mahsa Jazini and countless others of my friends and colleagues, people with whom I have worked for years are now in prison and the so-called Iranian politicians continue to deny this fact and continue to blow smoke in the eyes of foreign journalists about Iran being the freest country in the world.

Siamak Pourzand

In 2002 if we, the younger Iranian journalists, had not sat by silently when the celebrated veteran Iranian journalist Siamak Pourzand, was imprisoned, sentenced to eleven years and forced to make false confessions on Iranian TV, our generation would not be forced to have first hand experience of such arrests, prison sentences and exile and attacks on the press would  have been a thing of the past, never to be repeated.