Opposition leader is attacked at Tehran press fair

Mehdi Karroubi, the leader of the Etemad Melli Party and the most vocal critic of the Iranian regime, was attacked at the Tehran Press Fair this afternoon after being loudly cheered by supporters, according to Iranian media reports.

The following footage shows the crowd shouting 'Long live Karroubi! May Mousavi stand long!'


Parleman News, the news site of the minority Imam Line Faction of the Majlis, said that the assailants intended to inflict bodily harm on Karroubi. Karroubi had announced his intention earlier in the week to attend the fair.

The opposition leader was acclaimed upon his arrival at the trade gathering. He was charged by unknown assailants minutes later and his turban was knocked off. The following footage shows participants cheering Karroubi, then chanting 'Basijis have become savage! Basijis have become savage!'


In further footage, the crowd shouts 'Hemmat and Bakeri were true Basijis!' (Two famous revolutionary martyrs)

(For more footage, click twice on the videos on this page and consult the channels of the YouTube posters)

The semi-official Fars News, close to the Revolutionary Guards, headlined its article on the attack with 'The people chased Karroubi from the exhibition as they chanted "Death to the hypocrite!"' Fars News posted a photo that looked suspiciously Photoshopped and showed a shoe striking Karroubi in the head. Earlier this week, a shoe was thrown at former Culture Minister Saffar Harandi as students protested his presence in Tehran University.

Fars News also claimed that one of Karroubi's bodyguards had opened fire into the air as Karroubi was rushed into a car. 'One of the bodyguards of this failed presidential candidate fired into the air to disperse the crowd, an act that is rarely carried out by bodyguards of personalities in this country,' said Fars.

The 16th Tehran Press Fair was closed to the public by authorities fearing that the green movement would take advantage of the gathering to launch protests.

The fair's organizers took the unprecedented step of setting up a stand devoted to complaints against presidential candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi, according to Kalemeh, Mousavi's official news site.

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'Who is holding my son? What are the charges?': Blogger Hossein Derakhshan's father sends open letter to judiciary chief

The father of a prominent Iranian blogger has written an open letter to Iran's judiciary chief Sadegh Amoli Larijani almost a year after his son's arrest.

Hassan Derakhshan, father of Hossein Derakhshan, expressed concern that he and his family had yet to be informed of which authorities are holding his son or the charges against him. A translation of his letter can be found at the end of this article.

Hossein Derakhshan was arrested at his family's home in Tehran on November 1, 2008, but news of the detention did not reach foreign media until later that month. He had returned to Iran in October.

The Internet activist's prior trip to his homeland had been in the summer of 2005 to cover the presidential election which brought Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to power. He was detained for a week during that visit and made to sign a letter of apology for writing about 'taboo subjects.'

Hossein Derakhshan is known as the 'Blogfather' for his key contributions to popularizing blogs in Iran, initially as a digital culture journalist for two reformist newspapers which were shut down and subsequently as a popular blogger also known as Hoder. He published a seminal guide on how to create Farsi weblogs on Blogger after moving to Canada in 2000. Iran has become one of the top ten blogging nations in the world since then.

Derakhshan has advocated the use of blogs as instruments of political and social activism. In 2003, he began a campaign against Internet censorship in Iran. (To view a video of a seminar on the topic of reform, youth, and technology in Iran, presented by Derakhshan at Umea University, Sweden, click here.)

He made a highly publicized trip to Israel in 2006, which may be one of the reasons for his arrest. Of that visit and its goals he wrote:

This might mean that I won’t be able to go back to Iran for a long time, since Iran doesn't recognize Israel, has no diplomatic relations with it, and apparently considers traveling there illegal. Too bad, but I don't care. Fortunately, I'm a citizen of Canada and I have the right to visit any country I want. I'm going to Israel as a citizen journalist and a peace activist. As a citizen journalist, I'm going to show my 20,000 daily Iranian readers what Israel really looks like and how people live there. The Islamic Republic has long portrayed Israel as an evil state, with a consensual political agenda of killing every single man and woman who prays to Allah, including Iranians.I'm going to challenge that image. As a peace activist, I'm going to show the Israelis that the vast majority of Iranians do not identify with Ahmadinejad’s rhetoric, despite what it looks like from the outside. I'm going to tell them how any kind of violent action against Iran would only harm the young people who are gradually reforming the system and how the radicals would benefit from such situation.

An Israeli television report made during that trip includes interviews with Derakhshan in English:


Later that year, Derakhshan posted a number of articles in defense of Iran's nuclear program. He also strongly denounced the U.S.'s bellicose stance towards the Islamic Republic of Iran:

The more the clash between the west and Iran escalates, the more convinced I become that the west's real problem with the Islamic Republic of Iran is not its nuclear activities, its level of democracy, its human rights record, or its support for "terrorist" groups. [...] Increasingly, a lot of secular Iranians, like myself, are figuring that even if Iran is turned into the most democratic, secular, fair and peaceful state on earth, there is no guarantee the US won't find another excuse to try to overthrow its government. It will start bullying Iran for its "devastating role" in climate change, or animal rights, or - who knows? - for obesity. I'm not saying this as a fervent religious man with sexy Ahmadinejad's posters on my wall. In fact, I am an atheist and this can easily get me into serious trouble in any Islamic country. I did not vote for Ahmadinejad and I would do anything to democratically bring him down. [...] I am even a victim of the paranoid state of Iran that censors criticism and punishes dissent for fear of foreign-backed revolt. [...] Of course I do have the dream of an open, free, fair and secular Iran, run by competent and representative officials, and in peace with the whole world, obviously including Israel. However, I believe the Islamic Republic is a valuable cause, worth defending and, at its worst, is way better than anything that the United States or anyone else can bring to Iran. If the US waged a war against Iran, I would absolutely go back and defend Iran.

Derakhshan further lost support among Iranian reformists because of his grudging respect for Ahmadinejad. He ridiculed the New York Sun's call for Ahmadinejad to be kidnapped while attending the UN General Assembly in September of 2008. As reported in The Times, Derakhshan wrote, 'They don't know how big this man's balls are.'

But despite his turbulent and complex worldview, Derakhshan's democratic credentials and dedication to his country are difficult to dismiss.

While he has wasted away in an Iranian prison cell, his orphaned blogs have disappeared from the cyberspace he had championed so passionately. A visitor to HoderInIran is informed that the domain name expired on October 9, 2009, and is pending renewal or deletion. Hoder.com has also expired.

Another free Iranian voice has been silenced, at least for now.

---

The following is a translation of Hassan Derakhshan's open letter to judiciary chief Sadegh Amoli Larijani:

In the name of God.

Ayatollah Amoli Larijani, Honorable President of the Judiciary,

With greetings and respect,

One year has gone by since the arrest of my son, Hossein Derakhshan.

In the months, days, and hours that have passed, my hope and that of my wife and family has been to see my son's case treated accordingly by religious rulings and in the shadow of Islamic justice's benevolence.

This letter is our first publicized reaction in twelve months, which shows the extent of our hope that the legal framework would be respected within the borders of our dear country. It goes without saying that on numerous occasions we rejected the requests of foreign media for news about Hossein's situation, even when the worst rumors about his mistreatment were reported in semi-official media outlets. No authorities would deny these extremely distressing news reports -- not to comfort the turmoil in our hearts, but to protect the independence of justice in this case.

In all this time, we have visited our child on only two short, minutes-long occasions. Imagine, a few minutes every six months! I declare that we have no knowledge of his legal situation. No trial has been set and it is unclear which security authority or body has custody of him. We have tried many times to obtain detailed information about his situation, but have not succeeded.

Is this the result that must be expected from the composed and respectful behavior of a prisoner's family? In his remarks and writings, my son has expressed his desire to serve his country and he returned to Iran of his own free will to respond to the accusations against him. Is this a suitable way to greet a person who has returned to the bosom of his beliefs and homeland?

Our complaint is not against the enforcement of the law, but rather is directed at the state of uncertainty and ignorance we have been kept in and the lack of attention to the law. The accused have rights. The families of the accused have rights. In the same manner that the sovereignty of society is to be respected, and order and rules are precious.

I request that you order that my son Hossein Derakhshan's family be informed of the state of his case. Which authority is holding him? Which judge is overseeing his case and what are the charges against him?

I am sure that Your Excellency would agree that one year of detention is not an appropriate greeting to a person who has voluntarily returned to the bosom of Iran and dear Islam. My wife, my family, and I await your just deportment.

With respect, (handwritten)
Hassan Derakhshan

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The banality of evil: Shocking video of a man being lashed in Iran

It is hard to put a face to the torturers and murderers that have filled our common psyche in the past months. What exactly does a human being who beats another to death look like? In what dingy outpost of civilization do these deeds occur? Are filthy, dark cellars the only province of deliberately inflicted pain?

But harder still is the jarring realization of what philosopher Hannah Arendt called the banality of evil, that great oppression is carried out by legions of functionaries who may pull a prisoner's nails out with pliers, then go home and kiss their children goodnight. Normality in the name of a premise, an ideology, a religion.

Much as our sanity demands it, we cannot relegate evil to groups of fanatics operating in the stifling heat of a detention center, overcrowded and reeking of urine and feces and fear.

It can be seen in the jovial face of Hamid Rasai, Majlis representative from Tehran, as he compares Mir Hossein Mousavi with MKO leader Massoud Rajavi and says that anyone who stands in the way of the goals of the Islamic Revolution must be eliminated. And it can be heard in the words of former health minister, Kamran Lankarani, a poster boy for youthful idealism, as he claims that Mohsen Rouholamini died of meningitis, not because he was bludgeoned so severely in jail that his jaw had been shattered. Or in the fatherly figure of Mahmoud Hashemi Shahroudi, the supposedly moderate former head of the judiciary, as he pleads that he could have done no more than sign a watered-down moratorium on stonings after Jafar Kiani had been buried in a pit and stoned to death in Takistan.

And as the footage posted on the bottom of this page shows, evil can occur under the leafy green canopy of a tree on a sunny day, the tinny sound of a radio playing soothingly in the background, an old man watching dispassionately from a row of chairs along the garden wall. The banality of evil.

The exact details of the footage are unknown now, but they are immaterial. The place is Iran, the time is recent enough for the video to have been filmed with a mobile telephone. 'Please don't film me, I'll be dishonored,' the prisoner wails, clutching at his tattered dignity. 'I'm not filming,' the other man responds. 'This is my handset.' Primeval barbarity meets modern technology.

The man is tied to a tree, his back bare, and he is methodically lashed 76 times. The sentence lasts six minutes, during which time the man screams and pleads to no avail. Justice must be done.

As a child in the Shah's time, I knew a man, a family friend, whose eyesight had been damaged at a torturer's hands. A clamp had been placed on his head and the screws tightened until he had shrieked and his eyeballs had almost been expelled from their sockets. He had rebuilt his life, but was forced to use a magnifying glass to read. It was a cruel daily reminder of prison days for such a voracious reader. I asked my father about him once, only once because even a child knows that some personal horrors cannot be delved too easily. But the truth still pierced my cloistered existence and has stayed with me since.

But what of the present Iran? What have the pious overlords created? What hope for the future generations? Over 230 people have been executed in Iran since the beginning of the year. Iran is the only country in the world to kill juvenile offenders. Torture and brutality had become common practices, even before the recent unrest.

When the highest authorities in the land set the tone, the rest of society follows. The murder rate rose an astonishing 11% last year, according to official statistics, which can be suspected of being below the true figures. The number of people killed by relatives increased by 10% and the murder of parents by their offspring was up by 3%. Bank robberies ballooned by 36%. Violence and death beget more of the same. As prominent thinker Abdolkarim Soroush said in a blistering open letter to Leader Ali Khamenei recently, 'All your celebrations have become mourning ceremonies.'

This culture of violence must come to an end. The regime and its functionaries have committed many crimes, but the day that they are removed, the cycle of vengeance must be broken. They must be tried in open courts and capital punishment must forever be banished from Iran. Only then can the country become a champion, rather than a violator, of human rights. The land which spawned the Cyrus the Great cylinder, considered by some to be the first human rights charter in the world, can aspire to nothing less.

Many years ago, Elie Wiesel, a concentration camp survivor and author, recounted a parable at a gathering. A man lives in unjust times. He comes to the town square every day and speaks of justice and tolerance, but no one takes notice. In fact, brutality and corruption become the norm. Yet, every day, he returns to the square and, as the years go by, speaks louder and longer. Finally, an exasperated passerby asks, 'Why do you come every day and speak louder and longer? You are not changing anyone.' The man responds, 'I speak louder and longer so that I may not change.'

We must speak out. We who hold no power must speak out lest we become like them if ever we do wield power.

We must speak out to retain our own humanity.

(Viewer discretion is strongly advised)

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Iran 172nd out of 175 countries in Press Freedom Index

Iran approached the bottom of the heap in a press freedom index issued Tuesday by international watchdog Reporters Without Borders.

The annual report, also available in Farsi on the group's web site, measures freedom of the press around the globe from September 1, 2008 to September 1, 2009.

Iran was ranked 172nd this year, falling even further than its 166th place in 2008. Its position was only better than that of Turkmenistan, North Korea, and Eritrea, respectively 173rd to 175th in the ranking. 'Iran has now reached the gates of the infernal trio at the very bottom, where the media are so suppressed they are non-existent,' said Reporters Without Borders in its report.

The Paris-based organization compiles its report with the help of questionnaires completed by media experts, partner organizations, journalists, jurists, and human rights experts. The index does not cover all the countries in the world and does not take into consideration purely human rights issues.

The questionnaire contains 40 criteria which assess violations against journalists - murder, prison, or torture - as well as against news outlets. The index is also affected by the level of impunity which the violators enjoy. Occupational issues such as self-censorship and financial pressure, particularly present in Iran where journalists are routinely laid off or prevented from working, are also parameters used in calculating the index. 

Reporters Without Borders stressed that the index should 'in no way be taken as an indication of the quality of the press in the countries concerned.'

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Afghan president's web site removes embarrassing Ahmadinejad congratulations

Afghan President Hamed Karzai's official web site has removed an article reporting Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's hasty congratulations following the first round of the presidential election in Afghanistan.

Hamid Karzai conceded in a press conference hours ago that he did not win the election outright and must now participate in a runoff against his main rival, Abdullah Abdullah, on November 7.

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad had been the only world leader to congratulate Karzai on his supposed victory in the first round of the election on September 18.

Though a search of the Afghan presidential web site still returns a result entitled 'President Ahmadinejad congratulates President Karzai on Re-election' (see above), the post itself appears to have been removed.

According to Fars News, Ahmadinejad had told Karzai, 'The Afghan people have picked you as an ingenious and devout leader.'

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