Copies to mass media

“St Andrews” versus “St people of Iran”!

On the visit of Khatami to St Andrews university

Maryam Kousha

www.wpiran.org www.azadizan.com

kousha.maryam@gmail.com

The University of St Andrews Students’ Association has issued a statement dated 5th Oct 2006 clarifying its support on the decision of the university to award Khatami an honorary degree.

In this statement we read: “Our conclusions were as follows: the honorary degree of Doctor of Laws which is being conferred is to recognise HE Mohammad Khatami’s work in building interfaith relations – principally between Islam, Judaism, and Christianity. His work in establishing a Foundation for the Dialogue of Civilisations and the role he plays in Kofi Annan’s Alliance for Civilisations are especially notable. Considering current global tensions relating to these faiths, the Students’ Association of St Andrews considered such work particularly commendable; in our opinion, they are clearly grounds on which to award an honorary doctorate.”

We also read: “The decision by the University of St Andrews Students’ Association to support the award was one that was not reached on a whim – but was made after full consultation and debate with several prominent independent experts, academics and, most importantly, St Andrews students, who attended the student forum where our response was discussed.”

It is good that this decision was not reached on a whim. Since the Students’ Association has reached this decision by careful analysis, we like to add to this research by reminding the Association that if it were to be faithful to the spirit of academic research, (not that this is an academic issue, it is totally political), it should have included the not so “prominent” independent experts in their quest. Experts such as:

· the women who had acid thrown on their faces for not observing the Islamic veil, direct orders of Khatami;

· the political prisoners who were jailed during Khatami’s presidency;

· the political parties or students’ associations that were/are not allowed to exist and function. According to the constitution of Islamic Republic, cradled and executed by Khatami they are “Kafar” (enemies of Islam);

· the students who protested against suppression and poverty, who were attacked by armed forces, who was headed by Khatami;

· the list is endless.

2nd Khordad was never the “opposition”. Khatami was never the representative of the “unsatisfied” in the society. He became the president not because he was a “liberal” politician wanting to bring about changes and reforms in Iran. This is what the West, and now your Association and university are trying to do. He became the president under conditions when no non-Islamic or opposition Parties were allowed to stand for elections. There is no freedom of expression or organisation in Iran. It was a “choice” between the bad and the worst! (Khatami or Yazdi).

For your information, Khatami’s posts were:

Head of Executive Power of the country, Head of the Cabinet, Head of the secret Police, Head of the prison services, In charge of people’s income and the way the oil revenue was spent, In charge of education, health and wages that were not paid to workers, In charge of budget paid to Basiji and the armed forces to violently attack any protest movements including that of the students, In charge of ethnic cleansing of the Afghani refugees in Iran, In charge of forcing the veil and all the rest of the Islamic backward values on women, In charge of negating freedom of organisation and speech.

He was paid as the president to safeguard the Islamic Republic, its constitution and values. It was his job!!! He did his job excellently! As president and in charge of the government, he spent billions of pounds to sustain the status quo, namely suppression, torture, violation of human rights ….

Your argument that he established a Foundation for the Dialogue of Civilisations does not have any importance to people of Iran. In fact it is an insult. Your recognition of his role in UN and dialogues certainly means a lot to Khatami himself. However, people of Iran never had any illusions about him or 2nd Khordad movement.

Khatami had the same position as the heads of Executive and Legislative and Judicial powers had under Hitler Germany, Apartheid in South Africa, or Pinochet in Chile.

No government or organisation in the world can paint another picture of Khatami’s record. He was the head of one of the most suppressive regimes in the world. Unfortunately this regime is still in power and takes the lives of the people every day. It is a scandal that your association and university are giving him such platform and recognition. It truly undermines your credibility as a respectable academic institution. It also demonstrates your lack of understanding of Universal Human Rights.

We urge you to join our rank, i.e. the rank of progressive people and the people of Iran who have seen nothing but misery under presidency of Khatami and struggled for so many years to disclose him and the crimes he committed. Unfortunately unless you withdraw your support for Khatami and the award ceremony, your action too will be archived in the history as collaborating with a dictator. It can not be good for your resume!

Source:www.rowzane.com

NCRI - The Iranian Resistance strongly condemn newspapers shutdown in western part of Iran and called on international human rights organizations and defenders of freedom of speech to condemn the increasing suppression by the mullahs’ regime in Iran.

Ten local publications lost their licenses in western part of the country, the state-run daily Rooz reported on October 29.

The Kurdish-Farsi language publications, “Manesht”, “Ha-Naran”, “Tariefeh”, the Turkish-Farsi language publications, “Oya-Nesh”, and “Kesahvarz-Javan” were among the publications shutdown by the mullahs’ regime. The reason given by the regime for the shutdowns have been “instigating ethnic unrest and publicizing leftist mentality in the country as well as wreaking Islamic and national unity.”

Also, the suppressive regime’s agents shutdown four other publications identified as “Leeyakh”, “Gharb”, “Navai-Vaght”, and “Kaz-Boui” in the western provinces of Karmanshah and Kurdistan.

The mullahs’ Minister of Culture and Islamic Guidance Brig. Gen. Mohammad-Hossein Saffar-Harandi in regards with the shutdown publications said, ”If a paper or magazine had been shutdown in this region and their publishers had been under legal proceedings”, it has been their role in “string up the public sentiment.”

IranMania- An accident between a Peugeot passenger car and a trailer truck en-route Gachsaran-Shiraz Road on Monday evening left five casualties, IRNA reported.

The accident at six pm Monday evening claimed the lives of three passengers of the Peugeot on the spot, and sent another two of them to the hospital.

A hospital official at Gachsaran said that the names of the accident's three victims were Mostafa Jamshidi, Valiollah Bahrami, and Ahmad-Reza Gorginpour, and the other two victims were hospitalized at Gachsaran's Martyr Rajaei Hospital.

Karim Rezaie added, "The accident's survivors are in stable condition."

The cause of the fatal accident is not known yet.

The former president of Iran will receive an honorary degree from a British university on Tuesday.

Mohammad Khatami will be honoured by St Andrews University and will officially open its Institute for Iranian Studies.

But the Islamic scholar, who is the most senior Iranian politician to visit Britain since the Shah in 1972, will face protests from some student groups over his human rights record.

By Kameel Ahmady
KurdishMedia.com

Kurdish Cultural Heritage Project; should have been learning together through process, not product for the sake of London-Museum outputs

Defining the word of “the Kurdish community” in UK like anywhere else within the Diaspora community can be very difficult indeed. While there is no much of unity among the Kurds of four parts of Kurdistan, due to political and language (dialects) differences, most Kurds do dream of seeing such unity and togetherness in near future. Living in the west, and away form political barriers and enjoying the ‘’free world’’ benefits, equality and freedom of expression, just might have been the perfect idea for such dream to come through.

The Kurdish Cultural Heritage Project was a year long partnership with Hackney Museum, which ended its first phase in 2005. The understanding of that project was that it had been based on shared community work alongside the museum and its staff, and that community members were being asked how they felt it was appropriate to see their culture represented to wider audiences. This came through running a number of workshops, and two exhibitions, each which remained at the museum for about three months. The very admirable idea behind this was to give Kurds in London a sense of belonging and a chance to express their identity, and to make people feel they have been given the chance to contribute to the wider multicultural society in practice. Through the course of this project, some of the community members realised that participation of Kurds was through only a small and select group, as the museum chose to work with one particular community centre and exclude the others. Therefore, even though the aims were good and worthwhile ones which for sure every Kurdish person would support, the vast majority were not given the opportunity to do this or in fact had any knowledge of the work at the Museum.

Read on: www.kurdmedia.com/articles.asp?id=13510

London (KurdishMedia.com) 30 October 2006: The Kurdish literary figure Ahmad Hardi passed away in the Kurdish city of Sulemeni, where he was born and spent most of his life.

Hardi was born in 1922 into a family of intellectuals in the City of Sulemani, Southern Kurdistan, and passed away on 29 October 2006, at the age of 84, after a long fight with his illness.

Hardi’s contribution to the Kurdish literature is significant. His first and only book of poems, The Secret of Solitude, was published in 1957, and it was republished several times since then. Many of his poems became lyrics for famous Kurdish songs. Hardi taught and lectured at the University of Sulemani and later in Salahadin.

Hardi spent a number of years of his life in exile. He was in Iran in 1970s and until his illness came to a critical stage, Hardi lived in the UK.

His name is Ahmad, the son of Hassan Bag the son of Aziz Bag the son of Karim Bagzada.

The Sunday Times
Mark Macaskill and Mary Braid

Mohammad Khtami, the former Iranian president, faces possible police questioning when he arrives in Britain this week to accept an honorary degree from St Andrews University.

The Metropolitan police have confirmed that they are investigating complaints lodged by two Iranian exiles who claim they were falsely imprisoned and brutally tortured while Khatami was in office.

Safa Einollahi, 29, and Ali Ebrahimi, 34, claim that Khatami, who was in power from 1997 to 2005, was ultimately responsible for the atrocities they endured.

They want him arrested under the 1988 Criminal Justice Act, which allows for any individual, regardless of nationality, to be arrested for carrying out, condoning or colluding in crimes of torture anywhere in the world.

As president, Khatami had a reputation internationally as a moderate hemmed in by extremists. His term ended last year with the election of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

He has been invited to open a new centre for Iranian studies on the Fife campus. He was due to be presented with an honorary doctorate by Sir Menzies Campbell, the Liberal Democrat leader who is also the university’s chancellor. Campbell, however, has pulled out of the engagement.

The official explanation is that he wants to attend a debate at Westminster on Britain’s continuing role in Iraq, but senior Lib Dem sources have indicated that he has come under pressure to distance himself from Khatami.

Campbell’s decision follows the publication of a letter signed by 12 parliamentarians, including Lord Waddington, a former Tory home secretary, Lord Fraser of Carmyllie, a former lord advocate in Scotland, and Baroness Harris and Lord Russell-Johnston, both Liberal Democrat peers, urging Brian Lang, the university principal, to cancel the visit.

The choice of Khatami as an honoured guest has prompted criticism by a diverse group that includes exiled Iranians, the Israeli government, politicians and students across the UK.

“They pretend that Khatami was a ‘moderate’ when he ruled, and in comparison with his successor he was; but that is like describing Himmler as a moderate compared with Hitler,” said Struan Stevenson, the Conservative MEP.

Einollahi, who now lives in London, claims he was arrested in July 2003 within days of attending a student rally in Tehran.

“I was left blindfolded for eight hours in a room so tiny that I couldn’t move,” he said. “Then I was interrogated by two agents who wanted the names of my activist friends. They beat me until I passed out. I was left bleeding and injured for a day in a cell with no light.”

A report prepared by his GP reveals how his torturers repeatedly thrust batons and bottles into his rectum. It says that he is awaiting surgery for a complete prolapse and loss of bowel control. There are other enduring physical injuries but the doctor also emphasises the terrible psychological damage.

Ebrahimi claims he was arrested in 1999 for attending a “sit-in” protest at Iran’s Shiraz University over the government’s treatment of students.

During his six-month imprisonment he claims he was strung up, whipped across the soles of his feet with thick cables and beaten with batons. On one occasion, a guard used pliers to wrench a nail from his finger. On another, a bottle was forced into his rectum.

“I feared for my life,” he said. “They threatened me with the end, they said nobody knew where I was, nobody could do anything. I didn’t know if it was day or night. I thought I would be executed. But somehow I survived. I feel I have been born again in Britain. I want to use my freedom of speech in Britain to speak out against what is happening to my people in Iran.”

A spokesman for the university said the decision to invite Khatami was based on his “vision and willingness to change”.

By GEORGE CONGER
jpost.com

Former Iranian president Muhammad Khatami may be greeted by a police summons when he arrives in Britain this week to pick up an honorary degree from a Scottish university.

The invitation to the former Iranian leader to visit Britain, designed to open backdoor channels between the West and Iran's theocratic oligarchy, may collapse under the weight of mounting protests from politicians, human rights activists and Jewish community leaders.

The former president will be the most senior Iranian political figure to visit Britain since the shah's 1972 visit, and comes as Britain and the United States are pursuing sanctions through the United Nations Security Council over Iran's nuclear ambitions.

London's Metropolitan Police has confirmed to The Sunday Times that it was investigating a complaint filed by two Iranian exiles that they were unlawfully imprisoned and tortured by the Khatami regime.

Khatami could be brought to trial in the UK for crimes against humanity committed by his government during his tenure as president of Iran from 1997 to 2005. Section 134 of Britain's Criminal Justice Act 1988 states that torture wherever committed worldwide is criminal under British law and triable in the United Kingdom. As a private citizen, the former Iranian president would not be immune from questioning or prosecution during his UK visit.

Khatami will be in Britain to receive an honorary doctor of laws degree from St. Andrews University on Tuesday, where he is scheduled to open the university's Institute for Iranian Studies, which will house 12,000 books donated by Sadegh Kharazi, Iran's former ambassador to France. The following day he is scheduled to travel to London to deliver a speech at Chatham House on his interfaith work as president of the International Foundation for Dialogue among Civilizations.

A spokesman for St. Andrews told The Jerusalem Post, "President Khatami's attempts to nurture communication and understanding between faiths, cultures and civilizations represent an opportunity to address and resolve conflicts by talking, rather than by aggression." This "approach offers a courageous and refreshing alternative" to the current international scene, the spokesman said, noting the university's decision to honor Khatami "was subject to the normal academic processes and scrutiny and was taken after the widest consultation with experts in modern Iran and beyond."

The proffered degree has prompted outrage from Britain's National Union of Students, which has promised to greet the Khatami with demonstrations unless Teheran frees an Iranian student activist jailed during after a 1999 pro-democracy protest.

Nor is Britain's scholarly community happy with the decision. Islamic scholar Dr. Denis MacEoin of Newcastle University stated there was "still time for St. Andrews to reconsider this misguided decision to honor a member of one of the most intolerant regimes in modern history. Interfaith harmony has been the last thing on Mr. Khatami's mind, and is still grossly abused in an Iran ruled by bigots," he said.

Ephraim Borowski, director of the Scottish Council of Jewish Communities, stated that "to award an honorary degree to such a man is to devalue the concept of honor itself. If they understand the word, St. Andrews University should do the honorable thing and withdraw the offer."

An aide to the chancellor of St. Andrews, Liberal Democrat Party leader Sir Menzies Campbell, who had been scheduled to present the award, defended his involvement in the ceremony in an October 25 e-mail to constituents. "It is not part of Sir Menzies' role as chancellor to decide who should receive doctorates but he is assured that the university did not take the decision lightly." However on Friday Campbell dropped out of the awards ceremony citing the press of parliamentary business. His withdrawal came the day after 12 members of the House of Lords called on St. Andrews to cancel the visit, citing Khatami's complicity in Iran's "theocratic and brutal regime."
"It is ironic that Khatami should be invited to a university with as rich a history as St. Andrews, when during his presidency the Iranian regime responded to the just demand of students for democracy and against repression by ordering vicious dawn attacks on university dormitories," the letter said.

However, the St. Andrews Students Association has defended the invitation saying the former Iranian president was a reformer who had "adopted a brave stance to promote liberal values in the face of great adversity." The image of Khatami as the moderate voice among the dozen clerics at the top of Iran's power structure has prompted some foreign policy experts to call for back channel talks with Teheran to strengthen internal opposition to President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Last month Khatami burnished his progressive credentials on a 12-day tour of the United States. Speaking at Harvard University, he condemned religious terrorism, saying, "One cannot and ought not engage in violence in the name of any religion." At Washington's National Cathedral he called for a renewed interfaith dialogue amongst the monotheistic faiths. "Great religions, particularly Islam, Judaism and Christianity, can help mankind solve modern problems and challenges by a return to their vital, vibrant and common essence," he said.

In an interview with The Wall Street Journal, President George W. Bush stated he had personally approved Khatami's visa because he wanted to hear what the Iranian leader "had to say" and to gauge the mood in Teheran.

The Daily Telegraph reported on October 10 the US government had authorized secret overtures to the Iranian leadership through Khatami to explore possible diplomatic resolutions to Western concerns over Teheran's nuclear ambitions, a claim denied by State Department officials.

St. Andrews told the Post Britain's Foreign Office "is aware of the visit and we have had discussions with officials about the mechanics of the visit." No official meetings between Khatami and the British government are planned however, a government spokesman noted.

On September 14, Dr. Ali Ansari, who will head the new Iranian studies department at St. Andrews, urged a campaign of quiet diplomacy with elements of the Iranian regime at a Chatham House briefing.

Western attempts to "demonize" Ahmadinejad and focus on the nuclear threat had led to missed opportunities for d tente, he argued. The Western reaction to Ahmadinejad had contributed to the current impasse as his popularity among the masses had been handed to him by "Western incoherent and incompetent policies." MacEoin told the Post Western attempts to find moderates in Teheran were not likely to succeed. "Western governments may be selecting someone who only seems a 'moderate' when compared with someone like Ahmadinejad. What the West needs is a genuine reformer, but they won't find anyone who is alive, not in prison, or has influence," he said.

American Enterprise Institute scholar Dr. Michael Ledeen was skeptical of the prospects of a diplomatic success as "Iran intends, as Ahmadinejad recently put it, to 'destroy Anglo-Saxon civilization.' I don't think rational people can possibly believe we can negotiate away the issues that led Iran to declare war on us 27 years ago, and has waged ever since," he said.

TEHRAN (Reuters) - Iran plans to file a legal complaint against Argentine authorities who are seeking the arrest of former Iranian President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, Iran's prosecutor general told state television on Saturday.

Argentina's Prosecutor Alberto Nisman on Wednesday said he sought Rafsanjani in connection with the 1994 attack on a Jewish community centre in Buenos Aires that killed 85 people.

Iran has always denied any role in the attack and rejected the renewed charges this week.

"We will seriously pursue the matter," Ghorbanali Dorri Najafabadi, Iran's prosecutor general, told state television.

"We reserve our right to file a complaint in the relevant courts," he said.

Dorri Najafabadi also told the official IRNA news agency on Friday that Iran would "demand spiritual and financial compensation and will not tolerate a conspiracy against the Iranian nation."

The judge overseeing the investigation must now decide whether to order an international arrest warrant for Rafsanjani, who was president at the time of the attack.

Britain's Home Office in 2003 rejected Argentina's request to extradite Iran's former ambassador to Buenos Aires, Hadi Soleimanpour. It said there was insufficient evidence against the former envoy to justify his extradition.

No one has been convicted for blowing up the centre, in part because judges determined in 2004 that a long investigation into the bombing had been botched. But they ordered the probe to continue.

He must be arrested and put on trial!

Former Iranian president Mohammad Khatami has been invited to Chatham House, London to give a speech.

Khatami has always been introduced to the world by the governments and media in the West as the ‘smiling’ and ‘reformist’ face of the Islamic Republic of Iran. He is known for his ‘dialogue of civilizations’ - a term he first used in a speech to the UN General Assembly in September 1998.

But the reality is far from the general picture the western media draws of Mohammad Khatami. During the eight years of his presidency:

·More than 200 people were executed;

·Scores of women were sentenced to death by stoning;

·4 workers from Khatoon Abad (Babak Shahr) copper mine were killed for going on strike;

·Students’ demonstration in commemoration of 9 July 2004 was brutally crushed on his orders;

·The organized killings of political dissidents by the regime, known as ‘serial murders’, happened when he was in power;

·Women had no rights and were constantly harassed. Any protest against the discriminatory laws was answered by whips, arrests, torture, humiliation and imprisonment;

·Many homosexuals were arrested and sentenced to long-term imprisonment or execution;

·Thousands of people were arrested and tortured for trying to defend their human rights against the Islamic regime;

·Hundreds of workers’ strikes and demonstrations and students’ and women’s protests and nurses’ and teachers’ strikes were savagely attacked and suppressed.

The list is endless…

Mohammed Khatami and the regime whose president he was for eight years have done nothing but organising terror and murder and oppression. Khatami and all other leaders of the Islamic Republic are criminals and must be tried in international courts for their crimes against humanity.

During the eight years of Khatami’s presidency, the persecution and murder of Iranian people continued non-stop. Inviting Khatami and providing him with a platform to speak and treating him as a respectable politician is an insult to the people of Iran, and must be categorically condemned. Khatami has been the president of a regime of repression, execution, torture and violence against the people of Iran. His government has helped Islamic terrorism in the Middle East. Inviting him as a ‘respectable statesman’ for ‘a civilized dialogue’ is disgusting and unacceptable.

The Worker-communist Party of Iran is against giving the criminal leaders of the Islamic regime any opportunity to travel around the world and pretend that they are opening civilized dialogues, while at the same time murdering and torturing people and supporting international Islamic terrorism.

We call upon all concerned organisations and individuals and international human rights organisations to make their protest heard and to demand Khatami’s arrest and trial as a criminal.

Please send your protest letter to:

The Chatham House Press Office: shardy@chathamhouse.org.uk

Foreign Secretary: email: foraffcom@parliament.uk , Fax: 020 7219 5365

When

Wednsday 1 November 2006
4:30 – 6:30
Where

Chatham House
10 St James's Square
London SW1Y 4LE
Nearset tube station: Piccadilly Circus /Green Park

Tel: 07984445278 / 07886973423

Worker-communist Party of Iran - UK Organisation

International Federation of Iranian Refugees- UK

Communist Youth Organisation –UK

Organization for Women’s Liberation

Iran Press News: Reza Malak who was an investigative expert at the ministry of intelligence and security was arrested and charged with publishing an 80-page dossier in connection with the notorious chain murders* which divulged related documents; he has been in the semi-public section of ward 209 of Evin prison which is overseen and controlled by the agents and torturers of the ministry of intelligence and security. Reza Malak is in his 6th years of imprisonment which is half of his 12 year long sentence and he is still being held in Evin’s security ward; the ward authorities refuse to transfer him to a public section of the prison where the conditions are somewhat better.

For the last year and a half Malak has declined to step out of the ward to get fresh air in protest to his uncertain status and the regime’s refusal to allow him access to legal representation as well as the most basic amenities.

The officials in charge of ward 209 have also refused him all medical care; as such Malak has lost most of his teeth while in prison and is unable to eat normal food. He is currently only able to eat bread that has been dunked in water and fruit htat has been properly grated down to tiny shreds. Due to his inability to consume many foods, his system has seriously weakened.

During his years in prison he has had a variety of diseases and ailments such as severe and chronic migraine and the gradual loss of his sight. The level of cruelty of prison officials is to such extent that they even refuse him his eye glasses however Malak has managed to ingeniously fabricate spectacles for himself out of bits and pieces of other prisoners’ glasses.

In the meantime, it has been 3 years that the prison officials have prohibited Reza Malak from being visited by his two children.

In an open letter, Malak addressed international human rights organizations writing about the extreme mental and physical torture inflicted upon him [and other prisoners] during these years in detention and had requested assistance and attention to his case. In this letter he cited and detailed shocking cases; in one case he describes the case of a fellow prisoner, an engineer who had been arrested and also being held in ward 209. In one of the torture sessions, the man had been stripped naked and left in a room with a hungry Russian-trained dog and then terrorized into the confession of crimes that he had not in fact committed. Malak also points out that officials do not hesitate to use various forms of psychotropic drugs in order to force prisoners into confessing.

Also in his letter, Reza Malak requested that Nobel prize winnter Shirin Ebadi, undertake his defense. But so far there has been no reaction from Ebadi.

* The reign of terror and assassinations of Iranian intellectuals, journalists, activists and regime-opponents during Rafsanjani and Khatami’s tenure came to be known as the Chain Murders.

Iran Press News: According to Advaar News, the news source from the office of Fostering Unity (Tahkim Vahdat)* a man accused of forging documents and possession of alcoholic beverages was arrested by the bureau of intelligence of the city of Majid Soleimon (province of Khuzestan), where he lost his hands due to the severity of the torture inflicted upon him. He is currently a patient in the hospital for accidents and burns in TEHRAN.

This report indicates that the guards and agents of the bureau of intelligence of Masjid Soleimon hung the accused from the ceiling for long time; they repeatedly burned his fingers and physically assaulted and battered him. Finally however, due to the worsening of his condition, the agents transferred him for medical treatment to Tehran. Doctors at the accidents and burns hospital diagnosed that the man’s hands have to be amputated from the palm area and above due to the extreme severity of his injuries.

It is worth mentioning that the prisoner had spent 8 years in prison on political-security prisons in one of the province of Khuzestan

* The Office of Fostering Unity, known in Farsi as Tahkim Vahdat, is the largest student organization in Iran which has mainly been a university students' organization. It was formed to support the rule of Ruhollah Khomeini. Tahkim Vahdat became one of the most vocal critics of hardliners in Iran and promoted a pro-reformist stance, supporting Khatami. Since the failure of the so-called reformists, at present the organization works to promote secularism, though many of its governing members are "nationalist religionists", meaning that they believe in the separation of religion and state though they remain faithful to Islam as their religion.

Iran Focus

London, Oct. 26 - The following are the names of officials charged by Argentine prosecutors with masterminding the 1994 deadly bombing of a Jewish community centre in Argentina. The attack left 85 people dead and 300 others injured.

“We have proven that the decision to attack the AMIA headquarters on July 18, 1994 ... was a decision made by the highest authorities in Iran's government at the time”, Argentine chief prosecutor Alberto Nisman was quoted as saying by news agencies on Wednesday.

Argentine prosecutors demanded an international arrest warrant for the following individuals:

Ayatollah Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, former Iranian President, currently chairs Iran’s State Expediency Council and is deputy chair of the Assembly of Experts

Hojatoleslam Ali Fallahian, former Iranian Minister of Intelligence and Security

Ali Akbar Velayati, former Iranian Foreign Minister, currently the chief foreign policy advisor to Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei

Major General Mohsen Rezai, former Supreme Commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), is currently the secretary of the State Expediency Council

Major General Ahmad Vahidi, former Commander of the IRGC Qods Force, is currently Deputy Defence Minister

Mohsen Rabbani, former cultural attaché at the Iranian embassy in Buenos Aires

Ahmad Reza Asgari, alias Mohsen Ranjbaran, former official at the Iranian embassy in Buenos Aires

Imad Fayez Mugniyeh, commander of the Shiite Lebanese group Hezbollah’s overseas operation, currently believed to be hiding in Iran

KurdishMedia.com
By Kameel Ahmady

This research carried out in partnership and cooperation with University of Kent, UK, Kanoon (Institute for the Intellectual Development of Children and Young Adults) , UNICEF, the British Arts Council and the Social Science Department at the University of Tehran. This unique visual ethnography research is one of the first of its kind ever carried out in Kurdistan on popular youth culture with focus in gender and conformity by Kurdish visual anthropologist Kameel Ahmady.

(The research will refer you to appendix/photo you may not see in this part, they will appear on conclusion stage and on future parts)

Ethnography: The Youth Photographic Projects

Below, I have chosen seven of the more detailed projects which I see as emblematic of the concerns in the lives of the young people in Mahabad who I worked with. They direct critiques at government, the family and the opposite sex, and in some cases find subtle ways to avoid the restrictions of censorship. In the final section, I will analyse their content in more detail and attempt to draw out the themes connecting their work and to see what conventions of ‘current affairs’ reporting and story telling have influenced this. For the sake of accessibility, I have divided the projects into three main themes; 1) those dealing with consumption, 2), those dealing with community welfare and government services and 3) those dealing with gender. In fact, these themes have much in common and seem to move into one another, particularly with overarching issues of imposed sanctions on behaviour and youth freedom of expression from the family and/or the state.

Read on: www.kurdmedia.com/articles.asp?id=13496

By Dr Rebwar Fatah
KurdishMedia.com

Since the Armenian genocide, Turkey has done very well to hide and disguise its dark history from the international community. But a shady past rarely dawns a bright future.

Instead, Turkey is re-branding itself with Europe-friendly terms to essentially get rid of what it has always wanted to be rid of. Turkey’s tidy up of its language: words with a distinct Kurdish origin wiped out and replaced. Indeed, anything that is not strictly Turkish has been linked to “terrorism” – a trigger word guaranteed to win the sympathies of the international community.

The Turkish constitution does not recognise Kurds in Turkey, and so often labels them as terrorists, providing a convenient scapegoat for military uprisings and other political issues. Thus, “terrorist” becomes a synonym for Kurds.

Turkey frequently argues that the PKK is a terrorist organisation; hence all Kurdish organisations are banned for what they may imply.

Turkey is desperately in need of an imaginary threat to its “national security”, “territorial integrity” and “sovereignty”, achieved by “separatist/terrorist” Kurds. The scale of the suffering Kurds and destruction of Kurdish homeland does not fit into any “terrorist” definition. In 1999, the death toll of Kurds killed in Turkish military operations increased to over 40,000. According to the figures published by Turkey’s own Parliament, 6,000 Kurdish villages were systematically evacuated of all inhabitants and 3,000,000 Kurds have been displaced. This sounds like an elimination of a people, a culture and a homeland.

Read on: www.kurdmedia.com/articles.asp?id=13491

By Thomas Wagner
AP

LONDON - Industry experts believe the bitter rivalry among Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds will make it difficult to pass a law on distributing Iraq's oil wealth - one of the key steps in a timeline for restoring production to prewar levels and shoring up the shaky Baghdad government.

But even if Iraq's politicians do better than expected, two other problems the industry is facing have shown no sign of abating: widespread attacks on pipelines and oil smuggling.

SIGIR, the U.S. agency that oversees Iraq's reconstruction, recently announced that oil production in Iraq, which had hovered around 2 million barrels per day during 2005 and most of the first half of 2006, briefly reached the prewar level of 2.5 million barrels per day in mid-June. It also said oil exports had increased, averaging 1.6 million bpd during that quarter.

But oil analysts have dismissed those numbers as a blip, not a benchmark.

"Figures for one week, or even one month don't mean much. Oil markets look at the numbers over an average of six months. That is what we call sustained figures," said Issam al-Chalabi, a former Iraqi oil minister now working as an oil consultant in Jordan.

"Nothing has changed. Nothing has improved," he said in an interview, adding that if it had, major international oil companies wouldn't still be sitting on the sidelines, waiting for Iraq to clarify its laws and reduce its widespread violence.

On Tuesday, Zalmay Khalilzad, the U.S. ambassador in Iraq, said its leaders had agreed to the timeline that would require Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's government to set dates by the end of the year for completing six key tasks.

Five of the markers are clearly designed to mollify Sunni Arabs, the Muslim sect that makes up the bulk of the insurgency and is responsible for most American deaths in Iraq.

In addition to a law that would guarantee the sharing of Iraq's oil wealth, the timeline requires amending the constitution, turning an anti-Baathist organization into a reconciliation body, disbanding Shiite militias, setting a date for provincial elections, and "increasing the credibility and capability of Iraqi forces."

A new oil law could help Iraq's oil sector and its crumbling infrastructure by resolving how Iraq's Shiite, Sunni and Kurdish regions would share oil revenues and resources, and broker deals with international oil companies regarding desperately needed exploration and development.

Most of Iraq's known oil wealth is exported from the south, where majority Shiites predominate and where U.S. and Iraqi ground forces and ships work around the clock to protect Iraq's main offshore oil terminal near Basra from insurgent attacks.

In the other main area - the Kurdish north - the regional government already has signed agreements with small international oil companies, in defiance of the central government. Minority Sunnis, who mostly live in barren, war-torn central and western Iraq, worry they will be left with little or no control over the country's oil industry.

"The Kurds have submitted a draft Petroleum Act to be adopted that gives them the right to control oil, regardless of the government in Baghdad. The Oil Ministry has submitted another completely different draft that gives the authority to the ministry, not regions. It's the main issue of the conflict: oil and Kurds," said al-Chalabi.

Mustafa Alani, a senior adviser at the Gulf Research Center in the United Arab Emirates, also said he doubted that Iraq's deeply divided parliament will be able to pass legislation that resolves the regional dispute over Iraq's oil wealth.

But he said the U.S. timetable has left many Iraqis believing that Washington is now planning for a gradual withdrawal of its forces, meaning that fighting among Iraqis - not a compromise in parliament - could determine the fate of the oil industry.

"If the U.S. stepped up its forces and stayed, there would be more chance of success," Alani said. "But the U.S. must remember: this is a major oil producing region, not a Somalia. The impact of a cut-and-run strategy wouldn't stop at Iraq's borders."

Even if Iraq's Shiite-led government resolves the dispute, there is little sign of improvement in two other challenges to the oil industry: widespread attacks and corruption.

Recent SIGIR and Iraqi government reports have described corruption in Iraq such as oil smuggling as "pervasive" and "a virtual pandemic" - one that threatens not only Iraq's capacity to fund new capital investment, but also to sustain and increase oil production.

The reports also said widespread insurgent attacks and vandalism on crude oil and product pipelines - which stretch 4,340 miles across Iraq - and the oil industry's dilapidated infrastructure have hindered domestic refining, forcing Iraq to import significant amounts of liquefied petroleum gas, gasoline, kerosene and diesel.

Smuggling includes sending imported oil products or stolen local crude to neighboring countries such as Turkey, Iran, Syria and Jordan, where they often sell for more than in Iraq.

A May 2006 survey found that 20 percent of Iraqis in 10 major cities have paid bribes to purchase gasoline on the black market.

The U.S. State Department estimated that about 10 percent of refined fuels are sold on the black market and about 30 percent of imported fuels are smuggled out of Iraq.

A recent report by the inspector general of Iraq's Oil Ministry said such smuggling is mainly done in boats at Iraq's southern ports and trucks at the western and northern borders, thanks to a lack of coast guards and border patrols, the corruption of customs officials and police, and the existence of illegal ports and anchorage areas operated by smugglers.

In some areas, it said, an Iraqi truck driver who pays $500 in bribes to police patrols to take oil to a smuggling outlet still makes a profit of $8,400.

Iran Press News: Human rights activists in Iran report that the bloodthirsty Islamic regime systematically oppresses and retaliates against any action taken by freedom-loving citizens of Iran. And other than political activists, various religious and ethnic minorities are also brought under severe pressure. Among these ethnic minorities are Iranian-Arab compatriots who are natives of the province of Khuzestan. This is the most oil-rich province in Iran but it’s residents are forced to live in utter poverty and social deprivation and if they protest against their conditions, they are savagely beaten down and repressed. Many of them are now in Karoun and Sehpeedawr prisons in the city of Ahvaz, Rejaishahr prison in Karadj and other prisons all across Iran, in exile and far from their families and loved ones and all under severe psychological and physical torture. Most of the prisoners have been deprived from having legal representation and are quite often unfairly tried in the revolutionary courts, sentenced to either execution or inapproriately long prison terms.

The below-mentioned prisoners are charged with taking part in the 2005 civil action protests in the city of Ahvaz; they have been charged with “taking action against the security of the country and the Islamic order” and against have been sentenced. Here are the names of some of these prisoners and executed that we at Iran Press News would like to acknowledge:

Nazem Barihi: 23-year-old student, sentenced to death

Abdol-Reza Halichi: 21 years old. This prisoner is paralyzed and cannot walk

Taher Tamimi: 42 years old, was sentenced to 15 years in prison and 5 years exile in Yazd. He was arrested on the Turkish border with his family and was sent to prison in the northern province of Orumiyeh. Now is currently being detained in prison in the city of Ahvaz.

Towfigh Hamadi: 35 years old, was sentenced to 5 years in prison and 3 years exile

Basheer Hamadi: 34 years old, was sentenced to 8 years in prison and 5 years exile in Kerman.

Saoud Saliti: 33 years old, sentenced to 9 years in prison and 4 years exile to Ghazvin

Mohammad Jalali: sentenced to 8 years in prison and 3 years exile to Eastern Azerbaijan

The extended Bawvi family who were all arrested in the same civil disobedience protest of August 2005 were each forced to endre 1 year in solitary confinment under the mental and physical torture and they are all currently being held in the Karoun prison in the city of Ahvaz.

Mohsen Bawvi: 32 years old, cousin, information technology engineer, sentenced to 20 years in prison and exiled to Neekshahr

Emawd Bawvi: Law student, sentenced to 25 years in prison and exiled to Ghawemshahr

Hawni Bawvi: Accounting student, sentenced to 11 years in prison and 10 years exile (location unknown)

Zawmen Bawvi: 28 years old, eldest brother in the Bawvi family (age unknown), married, sentenced to death

Mosslem Bawvi: 18-years-old, was sentenced to 16 years in prison and 10 years exile in Arak, he was arrested in under 18 years of age.

Asad Bawvi: age unknown, sentenced to 10 years in prison
Other prisoners are:

Mohammad Savawri: sentence uncertain

Reesawn Savawri: probably execution

Arkon Savawri: probably execution

Rahim Afraii: sentenced to 3 years exile

Ali Matbouii: sentence uncertain

Ali Halafi: sentence uncertain

Dr. Oudeh Afrawvi: Psychologists, 20 years in prison and exile to a prison in the province of Ardebil; he is currently suffering from various illness in the Ardebil prison

Mosslem Elhaii: 16 years old, sentenced to 1 years in prison and exile to the town of Khorramabad

Reza Salman-Delfi: sentenced to 1 years in prison and exile to prison in Isfahan

Abdollah Saeedi: sentenced to 2 years in prison and exile to prison in Tehran

Shabeeb Khosrji: sentenced to 2 years in prison and exile to a prison in the town of Arak

Below are the names of those who were already executed:

Ali Afrawvi: under 20 years of age, son of doctor Adoudeh Afrawvi

Mehdi Navasary: 18 years old

Human rights activists in Iran report on the severity of the status of political prisoners in the city of Ahvaz and call on all human rights organizations to prevent the execution of those prisoners who are sentenced to death as well as attention to be given to the cases of those who have been unfairly tried and are in prison.

Iran Press News: The students’ committee for the defense of political prisoners reports that on Sunday, October 22nd during a premeditated action on the part of the Islamic regime’s prison authorities, 3 political prisoners in Rejaishah prison [of the Tehran suburb of] Karadj were severely beaten and injured.

A group of dangerous criminals, also prisoners in Rajaishahr attacked Behrouz Javid-Tehrani, Afshin Baimani and Jafar Eghdami with knives, nightsticks and shards of glass. The 3 were severely injured and several of Javid-Tehrani’s teeth were knocked out by a glass plate that was hurled at him. Afshin Baimani is said to have sustained massive injuries to his face and stomach.

The warden of this section of Rejaishahr prison, Mohammad Moghnian stood by and watched the attack on the 3 activists and took no action. After a long while, he finally ordered to have the prison siren sounded. One of the assistant wardens named Khadem then appeared at the ward but he too stood by with Moghnian and watched as the vicious criminal element of the ward’s attack on the political prisoners continued.

The political prisoners whom the regime wishes to punish are always sent to criminal wards. There the regime’s own jailors allow for their dirty work to be performed by the criminal prisoners; due to the levels of education and social status as activists the murderers, rapists and other dangerous criminal prisoners harass the political prisoners. Also each time a political prisoner ”misbehaves” the warden penalizes the entire ward knowing that this will result in further animosity between the criminals who in turn blame the
political prisoners for being forced to forfeit their amenities.

In view of this, these clashes were the criminals’ retaliation against the 3 political prisoners who in early August held a memorial service for their fellow activist and political prisoner, Akbar Mohammadi who was tortured to death in Evin prison at the hands of the regime’s torturers. During this memorial, photos of Akbar Mohammadi had been installed on the walls. After this incident, warden Mohammad Moghnian tore the photos off the walls and gave a stern warning to Behrooz Javid-Tehrani not to organize political events in prison, threatening that any such action will only “encourage confrontation with his fellow prisoners”.

According to other human rights sources, the attacks had been in fact planned by Mohammad Moghnian himself and other than the involvement of the criminal prisoners, reportedly more than 50 of the prison guards had also been asked to be involved.
Reports also indicate that activist and political prisoner Mehrdad Lohrasbi has been transferred from Rejaishahr prison to an unknown location; this too is another reason that the 3 political prisoner had protested.

It is worth mentioning that no other prisoner, other than the above mentioned 3 political prisoners were involved in these attacks. So far not a single one of these activists who are suffering from trauma and massive injuries have been given medical attention.

By Carol Giacomo and Arshad Mohammed

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Key European states on Tuesday circulated their own draft resolution imposing nuclear and missile-related sanctions on Iran after failing to reach agreement with Washington, U.S. and European officials said.

A senior U.S. official predicted the dispute ultimately would be resolved but it was unclear when that might happen.
A unified front among Britain, France, Germany -- lead negotiators with Iran -- and the United States has been key to international efforts to curb Tehran's nuclear program, which the West says is aimed at making weapons and Iran says is for energy production.

However, the allies split over some issues, including a U.S. demand that Russia be forced to halt work at Iran's Bushehr nuclear power plant, U.S. officials and European diplomats said.

"The Europeans have told the United States that we're going to circulate the text among the permanent five members of the U.N. Security Council and planned to do it today," one diplomat said.

But a senior U.S. official told Reuters: "On Bushehr, I think they'll solve it" by allowing some work on the project -- worth an estimated $800 million (427 million pounds) to Russia -- to proceed.

"It'll just be a matter of where you draw the line. Do you allow construction but not delivery of fuel? How do you work it? I think it'll probably get worked (out)," said the official, who declined to be named because of the sensitivity of the discussions.

Officials later said the European draft had been shared with Russia, China and the United States.
Russia, like China, has been hesitant about sanctions, and U.S. and European officials were concerned Moscow might block the resolution if there was no exemption for Bushehr, which is due to begin operation next year.

REACTOR EXEMPTION

Russia and China, like the United States, France and Britain, are permanent veto-wielding Security Council members.

The European-drafted resolution would ban most nuclear and missile cooperation with Iran, according to portions of a draft version read to Reuters. It would halt overseas financial transactions and travel by Iranians involved in the nuclear program, except for certain humanitarian-related trips.

"States shall take necessary measures to prevent the supply, sale or transfer directly or indirectly from their territories or by their nationals or using their