Protests continue after Ayatollah's warning: Protesters beaten, tear-gassed in street

[Siggie]

Re: Dealing with illegitimate Regimes like Iran is no way forward

Federate you are just laughable and stupid by saying that my comment is laughable...

The Forum is created to allow discussions with relation to Armenia or Armenians.

1] What you CAN NOT post.

You agree, through your use of this service, that you will not use this forum to post any material which is:
- abusive
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John, refamiliarize yourself with the rules please. You cannot insult people here. Disagree with Fed's statements, but do not attack him personally. In other words, talk about what he said, not him.


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[Haykakan]

Re: Protests continue after Ayatollah's warning: Protesters beaten, tear-gassed in st

I fail to see how there can be a way of separating religion from government since the laws have to be derived from some sort of pretext. Most laws in the west are based on Judeo-Christian ideology so unless there is some other known functioning form of laws that have proven to build a functioning society, you either have to follow them or be in constant trouble with the law (if you can afford to be). Those above the law don't have to follow anything. Israel is the new comer in the middle east and was created through blackmail and terrorism. The Israeli government has been bullying their neighbours every since they were formed. Iran has every right to defend themselves and Armenia has every right to have positive diplomatic relations with any of its neighbours as it sees fit.

You do not need religion to make laws. Seperation of church and state is more important then i think most people today realize. There were laws long before christianity and judaism. Mixing religion with really anything that needs to be objective to function properly is like mixing hydrogen and fire. Wars were fought and people died to keep church and state seperate and i only hope enoughf will remember this to prevent society from reverting into bs we had during the dark ages. I agree with your other points 100%!

[KanadaHye]

Re: Protests continue after Ayatollah's warning: Protesters beaten, tear-gassed in st

You do not need religion to make laws. Seperation of church and state is more important then i think most people today realize. There were laws long before christianity and judaism. Mixing religion with really anything that needs to be objective to function properly is like mixing hydrogen and fire. Wars were fought and people died to keep church and state seperate and i only hope enoughf will remember this to prevent society from reverting into bs we had during the dark ages. I agree with your other points 100%!

That's fine... but they forgot to separate synagogue/temple and state




Iran set to swear in Ahmadinejad


Iran is preparing to swear in President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad for a second term in office, following weeks of post-election unrest in the country.

Opposition supporters who dispute the poll result are expected to hold protests to coincide with the ceremony.

Germany, France, Britain and the US all said they would not be sending letters of congratulation to Mr Ahmadinejad.

At least 30 people died during the street protests which followed the 12 June poll.

Mr Ahmadinejad was formally endorsed as president on Monday by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who has solidly backed him throughout the unrest.

Mr Khamenei said Mr Ahmadinejad was the rightful winner and that Iranians had "voted in favour of a fight against arrogance, to confront destitution and spread justice".

Once sworn in, Mr Ahmadinejad will have two weeks to form a government that must then be approved by parliament.


The BBC's Tehran correspondent, Jon Leyne, said forming an acceptable, credible government could be the real challenge for the president.

He has been dogged by controversy in recent weeks, becoming embroiled in a series of disputes with conservative politicians who would normally be his allies.

After Monday's endorsement ceremony, witnesses said security forces prevented hundreds of opposition supporters from staging protests in Tehran.

Mr Ahmadinejad's predecessors as president - Mohammad Khatami and Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani - did not attend the event.

Also missing were the two defeated opposition candidates, Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi.

Mr Karroubi said on Tuesday that neither he nor Mr Mousavi had stopped contesting the declared election result.

"We will continue to protest and we will never collaborate with this government. We will not harm it, but we will criticise what it does," Spain's El Pais quoted him as saying.

Western objections

Several states which have criticised the elections said they would not be sending customary letters of congratulations to Mr Ahmadinejad to mark his reappointment as president.

"I don't have any reason to believe we will send any letter," said White House spokesman Robert Gibbs.

A spokesman for the German government said that "in view of the circumstances of the controversial re-election, the chancellor will not, as usual, write the normal letter of congratulation".

Similar comments were made by Britain and France.

More than 100 people, including some members of the opposition
movement, went on trial in Iran on Saturday for their alleged involvement in the post-election violence.

Foreign media, including the BBC, have been restricted in their coverage of Iran since the election protests turned into confrontations with the authorities in which at least 30 people were killed.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/8184240.stm

[hipeter924]

Re: Protests continue after Ayatollah's warning: Protesters beaten, tear-gassed in st

JohnCanadian, I think you should read about how much the civilized West helped us out in 1915.

Yep. Because right now the only European nations to have helped Armenia are Russia, France and Greece...even then its a 50/50 argument, meaning they have all done good things and not so good things for Armenia. Personally Armenia would be more sensible to play a difficult balancing act between East and West because then you can get benefits from both sides. Which is pretty much what Armenia is doing now.

[KanadaHye]

Re: Protests continue after Ayatollah's warning: Protesters beaten, tear-gassed in st

Ayatollah: U.S., UK not meddling in Iran

TEHRAN, Iran (CNN) -- Foreign influences are not to blame for Iran's post-election violence, the nation's supreme leader has said, according to state-run media.

"I don't accuse the leaders of the recent incidents of being affiliated with foreign countries, including the United States and Britain, since the issue has not been proven for me," Ayatollah Khamenei told a group of university students on Wednesday, Iran's Islamic Republic News Agency reported.

"But there is no doubt that the events were planned, no matter whether their leaders knew it or not."

Iranian officials, including hardline President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, have previously claimed that nations such as the United States and Britain have meddled in Iranian affairs since elections in June, without offering proof. Ahmadinejad has has warned of repercussions over the alleged meddling.

Gholam-Hosein Mohseni Ejei, Iran's intelligence minister, on Sunday blamed Western powers for stirring up protests. The British Embassy in Tehran "played a heavy role in the recent disturbances," he said, adding that the United States led the effort.

"The fact that Iran is stable, calm and secure, they're upset with this," Ejei told Iran's Press TV in late June.

Hundreds of thousands of Iranians took to the streets for more than two weeks to protest the June 12 election results, calling them fraudulent after Ahmadinejad was declared the overwhelming winner.

More than 1,000 people were arrested in a government crackdown, and Iran said at least 30 people were killed in post-election violence.

More than 100 Iranians are going through mass trials this month. Top military officials have called for faster prosecutions and demanded "swift retribution" for post-election detainees, Iranian media have reported.

Khamenei warned Wednesday that the judiciary should not use "rumors" as the basis for their prosecution, and should try them on strong evidence.

Two opposition leaders unsuccessfully challenged the results for weeks, and Ahmadinejad was sworn in for his second term in early August.

Brig. Gen. Yadollah Javani, head of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps -- a branch of the armed forces -- has blamed candidates Mir Hossein Moussavi and Mehdi Karroubi, who called the election fraudulent, for the violence that plagued the protests.

The government has gone after the protesters themselves in mass trials that have been denounced internationally. Among those appearing in court are two French and British embassy employees and a French citizen.

Iran has said that many of the defendants have confessed to helping Britain and the United States instigate the unrest.

http://www.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/meast/...ame/index.html

[Mos]

Re: Protests continue after Ayatollah's warning: Protesters beaten, tear-gassed in st

stupid democracy supporters. Well, it is with relief I say, those protests have been quieted. Ahmadinejad is a good leader for Iran and a great friend to Armenia. It is in our interest, to see the Islamic Republic of Iran prosper and the current regime to hold power.

[KanadaHye]

Re: Protests continue after Ayatollah's warning: Protesters beaten, tear-gassed in st

Iran sentences Iranian-American academic to 12 years for role in post-election unrest


TEHRAN, Iran - Iran has convicted an Iranian-American academic for his alleged role in the post-election unrest in the country and sentenced him to more than 12 years in prison, the state news agency said Tuesday.

Academic Kian Tajbakhsh was arrested July 9 during a violent crackdown by security forces on street protesters and Iranian opposition members rallying against the country's disputed presidential elections. The protesters claimed the June balloting was rigged in favour of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Washington has repeatedly demanded that Tehran free Tajbakhsh, who was the only American who was part of the mass trial of Iranian opposition members. Charges against him reportedly included espionage, contacting foreign elements and acting against national security of Iran.

In August, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton appealed for the release of Tajbakhsh and he was specially named in a call by the British rock star Sting to free all political prisoners in Iran.

In 2007, Tajbakhsh, a social scientist and urban planner, spent four months in prison on charges of endangering national security. He denied the allegations.

The state news agency IRNA quoted his lawyer, Houshang Azhari, as confirming on Tuesday that he received the verdict. The attorney said Tajbakhsh's sentence was "more than 12 years" but that the law prohibits him from divulging further details.

The sentencing came as just over one-third of Iran's parliament asked judicial authorities to prosecute opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi.

According to IRNA, 100 deputies in the 290-member parliament supported the demand in a letter to Prosecutor Gholam Hossein Mohseni Ejehi. The letter was delivered by lawmaker Hamid Rasai, a zealous supporter of Ahmadinejad.

Rasai reportedly made the demand to prosecute Mousavi because his statements and actions had damaged "reputation of the Islamic system."

On Sunday, Mousavi said the opposition movement that began after the country's disputed presidential elections would continue. Mousavi has charged massive fraud in the June 12 election.

http://www.cbc.ca/cp/world/091020/w102035A.html#

"In August, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton appealed for the release of Tajbakhsh and he was specially named in a call by the British rock star Sting to free all political prisoners in Iran."

[KanadaHye]

Re: Protests continue after Ayatollah's warning: Protesters beaten, tear-gassed in st

US cuts funding to Iran opposition


In an apparent shift from the Bush administration's efforts to foster regime change in Iran by financing opposition groups, the Obama White House has all but dismantled the Iran Democracy Fund.

While the move has been criticised by neo-conservatives in the US, it has been welcomed by Iranian human rights and pro-democracy activists.

The controversial program was initiated by the Bush administration in an effort to topple the clerical regime in Tehran by financing Iranian NGOs.

While heralded by some in Washington, reactions in Iran to the program were overwhelmingly negative.


"The US democracy fund was severely counterproductive. None of the human right activists and members of opposition in Iran had any interest in using such funds, but we were all accused by Iran's government of being American spies because a few groups in America used these funds."

The secretiveness around the program - the recipients of the funds remain classified - has added to the dilemma, Iranian human rights groups maintain. They say it has enabled the Iranian authorities to accuse any Iranian NGO of having received funds from the US government.

Human rights abuses

Abdolfattah Soltani is a well-known Iranian human rights lawyer, and spokesman for the Defenders of Human Rights Center, which was founded by the Nobel Peace Prize-winner Shirin Ebadi.

He welcomes the change in policy: "These US funds are going to people who have very little to do with the real struggle for democracy in Iran and our civil society activists never received such funds. The end to this program will have no impact on our activities whatsoever."

Critics of the Obama administration have accused him of cutting much needed funds for human rights activists at a time when the Iranian government's human rights abuses have sharply increased.

The director of one benefactor of the Iran Democracy Fund, the US-based Iranian Human Rights Documentation Center, told the Boston Globe that they never expected their funding to be cut under these circumstances.

Senator Joe Lieberman said in a statement: "It is disturbing that the State Department would cut off funding at precisely the moment when these brave investigations are needed most.''


'National security threat'

Human rights defenders in Iran, however, point to the Iranian Human Rights Documentation Center's activities as an example of exactly why the fund should be cut.

In 2005, the centre organised a seminar in Dubai. Though it was advertised as a human rights seminar, participants tell the BBC that they soon realised that the aim was to train Iranian human rights defenders on how to overthrow the Iranian regime through non-violent means.

Several of the participants were subsequently arrested and jailed in Iran.

Today, they bitterly complain that the Human Rights Documentation Center knowingly put them under immense risk by luring them to Dubai - a hub for Iranian intelligence services - under false pretences.

The episode is believed to have focused the attention of the Iranian regime on NGOs and political activists. The authorities began to regard them a as a potential national security threat, prompting a severe crackdown on Iranian civil society.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/8315120.stm

[KanadaHye]

Re: Protests continue after Ayatollah's warning: Protesters beaten, tear-gassed in st

Iran demonstrators clash with police



Iranian security forces wielding batons and firing tear gas clashed with crowds in Tehran on Wednesday in an effort to break up anti-government protests organized on the same day as state-sanctioned rallies celebrating the 30th anniversary of the U.S. Embassy takeover.

The rally of opposition demonstrators was the first show of force since a mid-September protest that coincided with a state-sponsored rally against Israel.

The protestors again turned out to display opposition to the government of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, whose win in a disputed June election sparked the biggest political turmoil since the 1979 Islamic Revolution.

Witnesses said paramilitary units from Iran's Revolutionary Guard swept through the opposition counter-demonstration in Tehran's city centre, clubbing, kicking and slapping protestors. There were no immediate reports on injuries or arrests in the clashes.

However, reports from Tehran are limited because foreign journalists are either barred from Iran or severely limited in their movements. As a result, news coming from Iran is trickling out through first-person accounts, videos posted on YouTube or other online social media tools. Opposition websites have been calling for a large turnout.

Protest follows warning from Ayatollah
Many marchers Wednesday wore green scarves or wristbands as symbols of the campaign of Mir Hossein Mousavi, who claims President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad stole the election through fraud. Mousavi and his allies, including former President Mohammad Khatami, appeared to encourage opposition protesters to return to the streets.


The anti-government protest took place about a kilometre away from an annual anti-American gathering outside the former U.S. Embassy to mark the day it was seized in 1979, an event that triggered a hostage crisis that endured for 444 days.

The protests come after Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei warned in a speech over the weekend that challenging the results of the June election was "the greatest crime."

Earlier in September Khamenei had warned the country's reformist opposition on Friday it would face a "harsh response" for confronting the Islamic establishment.

Opposition members say at least 72 protestors were killed during the protests that followed the election, while Iranian officials said 36 people died.

http://www.cbc.ca/world/story/2009/1...est-clash.html

[KanadaHye]

Re: Protests continue after Ayatollah's warning: Protesters beaten, tear-gassed in st

The question remains... will the UK, US and Israel ever stop meddling and causing death and destruction.