About
Algeria, Angola, Benin, Botswana, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cameroon,Cape Verde, Central African Republic, Chad, Comoros, Congo, Congo Democratic Republic, Djibouti, Egypt, Equitorial Guinea, Eritrea,Ethiopia, Gabon, Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea Bissau, Ivory Coast,Kenya, Lesotho, Liberia, Libya, Madagascar, Malawi, Mali, Mauritania,Mauritius, Morocco, Mozambique, Namibia, Niger, Nigeria, Rwanda,Sao Tome and Principe, Senegal, Seychelles, Sierra Leone, Somalia,South Africa, Sudan, Swaziland, Tanzania, Togo, Tunisia, Uganda,Western Sahara, Zambia, Zimbabwe
ASIA
Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Brunei, Cambodia, China, East Timor, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Japan, Kazakhstan,Korea - North, Korea - South, Kyrgyzstan, Laos, Malaysia, Maldives,Mongolia, Myanmar, Nepal, Pakistan, Philippines, Singapore, Sri Lanka, Taiwan, Tajikistan, Thailand, Tibet, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan,Vietnam
AUSTRALIA AND OCEANIA
Australia, Cook Islands, Fiji, Kiribati, Marshall Islands, Micronesia,Nauru, New Zealand, Palau, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tonga, Tuvalu, Vanuatu
EUROPE
Albania, Andorra, Armenia, Austria, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Belgium,Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Chechnya, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, England, Estonia, Finland, France, Georgia,Germany, Gibraltar, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Latvia,Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Macedonia, Malta, Moldova,Monaco, Montenegro, Netherlands, Northern Ireland, Norway, Poland,Portugal, Romania, Russia, Scotland, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia,Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, Ukraine, Vatican City, Wales
MIDDLE EAST
Bahrain, Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Oman,Palestine, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Syria, United Arab Emirates, Yemen
NORTH AND CENTRAL AMERICA
Antigua and Barbuda, Aruba, Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, British Virgin Islands, Canada, Costa Rica, Cuba, Dominica, Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Grenada, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, Jamaica,Mexico, Montserrat, Nicaragua, Panama, Puerto Rico, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and Grenadines, Trinidad and Tobago
SOUTH AMERICA
Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Falkland Islands,Guyana, Paraguay, Peru, Suriname, Uruguay, Venezuela
US Newspapers
Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado,Connecticut, Delaware, District of Columbia, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii,Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine,Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi,Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey,New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio,Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina,South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Vermont, Virginia,Washington, West Virginia, Wisconsin, Wyoming
Accounts
Friends
Click here to check if anything new just came in.
March 02 2012
Iran: “Should We Vote Again?”
The Islamic Republic is preparing for parliamentary (Majlis) election on Friday, March 2, 2012. It is the first national election since the controversial 2009 presidential election and subsequent mass demonstrations. While several opposition groups have called for boycotting the election, the Iranian state is employing anti-Western propaganda to bring citizens to the polls.
Setare Iran has published [fa] a poster with an image of Neda, a young woman killed during protests, with a slogan that says, “I do not vote.”
Neda: I do not vote
The blogger says:
Beyond the question of whether taking part in this election is useful or not, how can someone go to the polls after all these martyrs and with thousands of innocents imprisoned? This election on Friday will not honour our votes. It is a test for a regime who considers that the intelligence of the people is non-existant. Neda's innocent gaze does not let us to sell our honour to a dictatorship.
Azarakan says [fa]:
Contrary to the regime's propaganda that says Western countries will attack Iran if people do not vote, boycotting the election makes the regime understand it does not have any legitimacy. It forces them to stop challenging the international community with its nuclear program.
A 1-minute film recalls that members of parliament backed backed the last fraudulent election, and brought economic misery to the country.
The final message of the video questions, “Should we vote again?”
Of course, not all Iranian bloggers share the same opinion on the election. Ahestan considers that problems do not get solved by not taking part in the election because the political participation of the people can be a strong answer to enemies (”a fist to their mouth”). “If they [enemies] encourage people not to vote, then why should the Islamic Republic not encourage them to vote?” he says.
To vote or not to vote, may finally not be the question, since some analysts predict the government will report a turnout of 60 percent or higher, regardless of what happens on Friday.
March 01 2012
Iran: Nationalist feelings only for election time
Iranian state-run broadcasters are persuading people to vote in coming parliamentary election by Friday, 2 March. They also playback some nationalist songs and hymns. Spidermard, an Iranian user, tweets [fa]: ‘Only by election time the state realizes that the country is called Iran. The other times it is Islamic Republic'.
Iran: ‘Wish we had a couple of candidates'
Iranian parliamentary election would be held by Friday, 2 March. Reformists and protestors have boycotted the election due to crackdown in last 3 years. Arezoo criticizes reformists and protestors and tweets [fa]: ‘We did not manage to do scheduling and negotiations so we could have a couple of candidates to vote for them'.
Iran: ‘My candidate is still in prison'
Iranian parliamentary national election would be held by Friday, 2 March, but it seems there is a widespread boycott at least among most of the online Iranian users. Mamad tweets [fa]: ‘Someone came to hand me a pamphlet for a candidate. I told him that I have voted for someone two years ago and he is still in prison'. This Tehran-based user is referring to a-year-long house arrest of Mirhossein Mousavi and Mahdi Karoubi, two reformist candidates of Iran 2009 presidential election which leads to protests.
February 23 2012
Iran: Letter from Jailed Blogger Details “Blue Sky of Pain”
Dr. Khazali with his daughter
Dr. Mehdi Khazali, a jailed Iranian blogger, publisher and government critic, wrote a letter this month from prison describing a “blue sky of pain” of his first-hand experience with the injustice of jails in Iran where prisoners face torture and arbitrary death sentences.
Khazali's daughter (see photo) and wife were briefly arrested too.
Mehdi Khazali's letter was published in his personal blog (some activists pass on passwords to their blogs and Facebook accounts before they lose access themselves).
He writes [fa]:
One person was sentenced to death for receiving a fake one and half sentence email. What I see with my own eyes is that prisoners have no rights in revolutionary courts. Many have no rights to legal defense, nobody has the right to read his or her own file to be able to defend him or herself… You can't even read the court's sentence for you before you are forced to sign it.
The blogger adds:
Three prisoners who were in my cell were sentenced to 17 years in prison in a trial which lasted just two mintues. One of them has been on hunger strike for 10 days now… Three Christians are in prison too, just for their faith.
Khazali says prsioners who escaped mass executions in 1988 and remain alongside him in prison, and have told him about coffins (some prisoners were put in coffins as a torture) and iron cages.
Khazali wrote the letter to Ahmad Montazeri, the late Grand Ayatollah Hussein-Ali Montazeri's son. Ayatoolah Montazeri criticized mass executions and revealed some information on this topic.
February 04 2012
Iran: Leader's website blocked in Saudi Arabia
Iranian sources say [fa] that Saudi Arabia has blocked Iran Leader's site Khamenei.ir. This sources says this website is blocked because of Ayatollah Khamanei's remarks on “Islamic Arab Spring”. Iranian user on Friendfeed believes [fa]: This could be a start for a cyber-war between Iran and Arabia.
January 28 2012
Iran: ‘Hostages in Syria are not military’
Free Syrian Army says it has taken hostage seven Iranians, five of whom were allegedly soldiers complicit in the Syrian government's crackdown on protesters. But an Iranian in Freindfeed writes [fa]: “They show a card as a document to show that this people were affiliated with militaty but that card is a proof that you did the military service which is mandatory for every Iranian man. They might be killed for that simple card which means nothing”.
January 25 2012
Iran: ‘The pain of sanctions'
European Union has adopted an oil embargo against Iran. Faren Taghizadeh, a presenter at BBC Persian TV posted [fa] in Facebook: This is one of the adversities of being a journalist that you should talk about the pain of your people in details with a smile on your lips. But this smile is not the whole truth.
January 23 2012
Iran: Sanctions Bite, and the Iranian Currency Falls
Iranians are facing a financial tsunami as the national currency (Rial) loses value day by day as sanctions against Iranian oil and the banking system get tougher. The Rial was trading at nearly 20,000 to the U.S. dollar on Saturday on the black market, compared to 18,000 Rials a day earlier.
Some bloggers blame Mahmoud Ahmadinejad for failing to keep his economic promises. Fasl tazeh says [fa]:
One dollar is currently traded at about 2,200 tomans (22,000 Rials) and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad took a trip to Mashhad to talk about Taziyeh [religious art].
Nikahang Kowsar, Roozonline
The Iranian regime [Velyate Faghieh] took Iran and its people hostage for its useless nuclear energy…. The economy is collapsing… dark days are ahead of us… with prayer nothing will get changed… This regime and its nuclear energy only gave th Iranian people poverty and misery.
The blogger Sight writes [fa] ironically, that is it a bad thing that “most of our people became millionaires. You need to have one gold coin to have one million tomans”.
Hamdel writes [fa]:
… People consider the Islamic Republic's political and economic situation unstable and they exchange their Rials to Dollars, Euros and gold. The Islamic Republic moves into the direction that there is no hope for economic and political improvements. Concerning the economic situation, we can compare Iran to a bankrupt company. In regards to foreign policy, Iran is in the worst situation of the last 30 years and is led by Iran's Leader Ayatollah Seyed Ali Khamenei. More and more workers become jobless and people's purchasing power is declining.
Dara2011 predicted fall of the Rial a couple of weeks ago. The blogger says [fa]:
… since the Islamic Revolution, Iran's leaders do not care about the economy and just want to remain in power. During Ahmadinejad's presidency the economic situation has deteriorated more. A Dollar was around 70 Rials in 1979 and now we buy at 14,000 rials because the Dollar is on its way to becoming 2,000 rials. Does Iran become Middle East's Zimbabwe, with a national currency without value?
January 22 2012
Iran:Political prisoners in a cold jail
While Tehran is experiencing snow and severe cold weather, there are serious concerns over prisoners' safety in the major prison, Evin. Saeid Pourheydar, former prisoner, writes [fa]: “The only heating system in solitary confinement cells at [Theran's prion] Evin's ward 240 is a warm water pipe. Now the prison has been out of gasoline for past couple of days. That's cold there.”
Iran:Press TV loses UK licence
Press TV, the Iranian state-run English-language TV, lost the license in UK due to what Ofcom says “breaching the Communications Act”. Maziar Nazemi, a presenter at Iran state-run TV believes [fa]: “It is obvious that every media is fulfilling the goals of its sponsors. So Ofcom's decision is a political one”. On the other hand, Mizan Ghalam supports UK decisions and considers[fa] “justice is done”.
January 18 2012
Iran: Women activist shot dead in Texas
A Texas Medical Center student and Iranian women activist was shot dead on Monday in Houston. Gelareh Bagherzadeh was driving her car when she was shot. Authorities said it is unknown what prompted the shooting. Iranians users are showing concerns over this murder in Balatarin, an Iranian link-sharing website.
Iran:More web activists got arrested
Reporters Without Borders (RSF) says [fa] Iran has arrested two web activists last week; Mohammad SoleimaniNia, who “hosts and manages websites of many Iranian civil society communities and intellectuals and manager of Persian literature website sokhan.com”, and Simin Nematollahi “Majzooban.org, the website of Iranian Gonabadi dervishes”.
Iran: Second blogger arrested in Tehran
Iranian authorities arrested Marzieh Rasouli, journalist and blogger, last night in Tehran. She writes stories and narrations of her daily life in ‘3 Rouz Pish’ [fa]. This is the second arrest of a blogger in a couple of days in Tehran. Parastoo Dokouhaki, blogger and journalist, was arrested on Sunday.
January 16 2012
Iran: Jailed Islamic Cleric and Blogger on Hunger Strike
In the last 33 years since the Islamic Revolution, Iran has been a kind of paradise for Islamic clerics who gained power and rule over the country. But not for all of them. Mohammad Sadegh (Arash) Honarvar Shojayi, a cleric and a blogger is one who is currently sharing the pain of imprisonment for his ideas and writings along with many other prisoners. Has the Islamic Republic democratized repression? In October 2011, after one year of jail, the blogger was sentenced to four years in prison and lashes.
Arash Honarvar Shojayi had online profiles on Facebook, Twitter, and a blog. He is a critic of the concept of Guardianship of the Jurists (Vlayat Faqih), which means leadership under one cleric, the position currently held by Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. He was accused of propaganda activities and activities against national security, as well as defaming the regime and the clergy. He was released recently due to health problems, but arrested again after an interview. He has been on hunger strike since last Monday.
Youth for Human Rights blog says [fa]:
Arash Honarvar Shojayi had been among political prisoners in section 350 in Evin Prison but he was transfered to section 325, among jailed clerics who do not share his critical ideas. The authroities warned if he continues his hunger strike, nobody in that section has right to receive any phone calls. Such warnings are made to provoke other prisoners to raise pressure on Mohammad Sadegh Honarvar Shojayi.
In 2010, Mohamad Sadegh Honarvar Shojayi published several posts regarding human rights violations in Iran against Shi'a religious leaders. The blogger quoted Amnesty International's 1998 report on Iran:
Since the establishment of the Islamic Republic of Iran in 1979 serious human rights violations have continued. Victims have included a broad range of political opposition from members of left-wing groups to monarchists, as well as ethnic and religious minorities. There has also been a pattern of restrictions placed on Shi’a religious leaders opposed to fundamental tenets of the Iranian political system such as velayat-e faqih.
In the Islamic Republic, even some clerics, do not favor of the regime.
Iran: Celebrating The 1st Golden Globe For Iran
Iranian users in Twitter, Facebook, Friendfeed and other social media are celebrating that Iranian filmmaker Asghar Farhadi's drama ‘A Separation‘ won the award for best foreign language film at the 69th Golden Globes. Aysan posted in her Facebook: This is about 3 years that our Facebook profiles have been full of pain and suffer but now we are all happy and proud because of this award.
January 15 2012
Iran: Enthusiasm over ‘A Separation' in Golden Globe
Iranian users are showing enthusiasm in Facebook over a photo which shows Asghar Farhadi, the Iranian director of ‘A Separation‘, a Golden Globe foreign language nominee, beside Pedro Almodovar and Angelina Jolie, other nominee directors who are very famous in Iran.
January 11 2012
Iran: Blogger Faces Death Penalty for Insulting Islam
A 50-year old Iranian blogger, Mohammad Reza Pour Shajari (aka Siamak Mehr), has been charged with “insulting the Prophet of Islam” and “enmity with God” or “waging war against God”, charges that could carry the death penalty in Iran. His trial on December 21, 2011 lasted only 15 minutes.
His daughter, Mitra Pour Sharjari, told Deutsche Welle's Farsi service that her father told the judge he would not defend himself, because neither his lawyer, nor jury members, nor the media were there. He said, “One day, like Gaddafi, you will hide in a hole.” The judge replied that it makes no difference since, “Now we are here, and you, and people like you, will pay the price.”
Siamak Mehr was arrested in September 2010. In his blog, Iran Land's Report, he would criticize the Islamic Republic and Islam with strong words.
In his last post on September 8, 2010 he said he considered Shi'ite clerics a mafia group who had wasted away Iran's national resources since [the Islamic Revolution in] 1979.
Here is a video showing Siamak Mehr in chains, apparently on his way to court:
Iranian blogger Azarmehr writes about this video, saying:
Who would you expect to be chain bound, hands and feet, and surrounded by revolutionary guards special units as he is taken to appear before the revolutionary court? A dangerous criminal? In fact, the person you see hands and feet bound in the footage below is a gentle and polished man, who has lost a kidney as a result of tortures he has suffered in prison.
Mehdi Roud writes [fa]:
This blogger was charged with Medieval laws for publishing his ideas in his blog. His family did not have the right to be present in court… and a political prisoner like him can face the death penalty.
In February 2011, Bazaferinieazad published a letter by Siamak Mehr where he says he is accused of acting against national security and insulting the regime's leaders.
It also says his file mentions that he insulted [Islamic] sanctity like Salman Rushdie (a British Indian writer who Iran's Ayatollah Khomeini famously issued a fatwa against).
In a letter to his daughter, Siamak Mehr writes:
Dear Mitra,
Remember I am not just a person, but I am also a notion. A notion which is deep rooted amongst Iranians, and I am extremely hopeful that finally we shall overcome this evil, this anti-human anti-freedom and anti-life source. Therefore never regard my physical destruction as the destruction of this flourishing notion”
The Iranian regime has jailed several bloggers in recent years. As the tragic death of imprisoned blogger Omid Reza Mirsayafi in 2010 showed, the more a blogger is isolated and deprived of a network, the more he is in danger.
December 19 2011
Iran: ‘Pure comments campaign'
Iranian officials are going to launch a “pure comments campaign” against blasphemy and pornography. Khoshnevis says [Fa] that 1000 individuals have been recruited to put comments on “dirty websites and blogs” to “diss-effect” their content.
Maybe Soup is currently being updated? I'll try again automatically in a few seconds...
