Six Years Imprisonment for Other People's Comments

Iranian blogger, Ali Behzadian Nejad, was sentenced to 6 years imprisonment by the Islamic revolutionary court. What makes his sentence a first however is not so much what he himself has written on his blog but what other people have left as comments on his posts! In other words he has been sentenced for other people expressing their opinions. His blog can still be seen here : http://navand.blogspot.com/. His last posts in reverse chronological order are :

- Election Program Schedule on TV
- A Mathematical Poem by Professor Hashtaroudi
- Doodle for Google
- Competition in Providing Web Services
- 10 Rules of Being a Human Being
- Enthusiasm of Globalisation
and some more posts about various programming languages workshops.

Another Iranian blogger, Omid Lavassani who had designed mirhossein.com, was also sentenced to six years.

Coincidentally Behzadian Nejad is also the nephew of Moussavi's campaign team director, Ghorban Behzadian Nejad.

What was it Ahmadinejad told his clueless hosts, 'There is almost complete freedom in Iran'

International Student Solidarity with Iran's Studnets

We Are Countless

20th Anniversary of the Velvet Revolution in Bratislava

Slovaks celebrate the 20th anniversary of the velvet revolution which freed them from the yoke of Communist repression.

Look at this magnificent sculpture in the SNP square to mark the anniversary. Its a huge illuminated heart made out of the same barbed wire that went round the borders and made the country a huge prison for all who lived in it.

We envy the Czech and the Slovak people of course but  we are hopeful our time will come soon and our children will finally live in a free Iran.

Extra Judicial Killings in Iran Continue

This Sunday will be yet another anniversary of the extra judicial killing of Iran's secular dissidents, Daryoush and Parvaneh Forouhar. The elderly couple were stabbed repeatedly in their home by 'The Hidden Imam's Anonymous Soldiers', the term Iran's intelligence officer operatives like to use for themselves.

The daughter of Forouhars, Parastou has once again travelled to Iran to lead the commemoration ceremony on Sunday. Of course Daryoush and Parvaneh were not the only victims then. Around one hundred dissidents  are known to have been killed by these extra judicial methods in the late 90s and it seems these extra judicial killings are continuing today.

Twenty six year old Tabriz University medical graduate, Dr. Ramin Pourandarjani, was serving his national service at the notorious Kahrizak detention centre as a graduate medical officer where many of the worst human rights abuses against the election protesters took place. According to the reports from Iran, Pourandarjani had refused to sign papers which blamed meningitis as the cause of death for several of the detainees. He was found dead in his sleep having no history of any known illnesses. Pourandarjani's father in an interview with Radio Farda said he had not been given the autopsy record nor the death certificate for his son and nor were the family given permission to carry out their own autopsy.

Dr.Pourandajani went to a special school for gifted children at the age of eleven and ranked 1069 in the whole country amongst those who took the university entrance exam in 2001. He is yet another asset from Iran wasted by the enemies of knowledge who rule Iran.

Ramin Pourandarjani can be seen here making a speech at the graduation ceremony. He comes across as a confident, talented individual full of hope for the future. He talks about saying farewell and how the word farewell is such a sad word, but he asks his friends to make this farewell a sweet parting. He finishes by reciting a poem, 'The heart that became alive with love will never die, Its endurance will be remembered forever'

For Our Brave Students

It is the International Student Day today and we are all doing our part for the next day of protests in Iran on 7th December, the National Students Day in Iran.

Let us not forget our fallen bravehearts who have been at the forefront of the struggle against the enemies of knowledge. As the anthem says, we swear in the name of freedom and to the moment they gave their lives that we will continue their path. All forward and with one voice, Long Live Our Beloved Iran

Times Interview with the Supreme Leader's Envoy in UK

I wonder if Baroness Kinnock of Holyhead read the Times interview with the Supreme Leader's envoy in UK, published last Saturday? Those of us in UK who wrote to our MPs asking why the Supreme Leader is allowed to have a representative office in UK were referred to Baroness Kinnock who dismissed our concerns and replied 'the Centre was a charity engaged in spiritual matters only!'

It is precisely because of clueless and spineless politicians like Baroness Kinnock that states which sponsor terrorism manage to create terror movements through their 'charity and spiritual' networks within our midst.

And if Baroness Kinnock doesn't yet know what suffering is caused to the people of Iran by the despotic Supreme Leader, perhaps she should be encouraged to read the other articles published in Britain's dailies over the last few days:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/nov/15/iran-neda-caspian-makan-interview
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article6913273.ece
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/middle_east/article6917831.ece

Interview with Neda's Fiancé in the Observer

Make sure you read the interview with Caspian Makan, Neda's fiancé, in today's observer.

A short version of a documentary made about Neda will be shown on PBS on the 17th and the full version, 'An Iranian Martyr' directed by Monica Garnsey will be broadcaston BBC2 on 24th November, at 9 pm.

International Student Day

On 4th November, hardly anyone from Isfahan managed to get online, which is why there was very little footage from the protests there. The material is gradually coming through however. Here is a clip from a school protest on November 4th in Isfahan:



Next planned big day of protests in Iran is on 7th December, marking the University Student Day. To prevent further protests, the regime is using its intimidation tactics by arresting the student leaders in their houses. Abdollah Mo'meni, student spokesman who was arrested after the election fraud and put on show trial has received a harsh 8 years imprisonment.

17th November I am told is the international students day, Iranian students studying outside Iran must mobilise other university students to display an impressive global day of support for their comrades and colleagues inside Iran. Lets make sure all universities across the world on 17th November stand up against the enemies of knowledge in Iran.

At the Kurt Schork Awards

I was lucky enough to be one of the guests at the Kurt Schork Awards tonight. The award honours the contributions of freelance journalists who cover conflicts overseas and make exceptional acts of courage to bring the news to us. I don't want to do a report on tonight's speeches and the people that won the awards. I feel I won't be able to write well enough to describe the valour of these individuals, hopefully you can follow the above links and find out more about tonight's winners.

But I do want to talk about a serious problem that covering overseas news faces, i.e. the funds are dwindling. Brave individuals are risking their lives for a relative pittance and things are not getting better. As it was mentioned by the panel tonight, I too don't believe there is a lack of interest amongst the British public about what happens overseas, it is the editors who are wrongly assuming this and it depends how you report the news. The more the editors cut out the overseas news from the newspapers and the news bulletins, the more distant people will get and the less interested they will become. Don't for a minute think that what trained journalists can do can be substituted by blogs and untrained substitutes.

So those of you who are always asking what can we do for Iran as expats or non-Iranians, add this to the long list of things you can do, if you think a television news program or a newspaper is not covering Iran because the editor thinks Iran news does not have a 'market' and people would rather know about some titbit news, ring/write/email and tell them that you want more Iran news and buy the papers that do cover Iran related news.

Regime's Anger at Oxford Uni's Neda Scholarship

It was only a few weeks ago when I reported from a conference about a brilliant idea of the symbolic gesture to rename the streets in European cities where the Islamic Republic embassies reside to Neda. I explained how that would boost the confidence of the people in Iran and it won't require the usual obstacles of bringing the Chinese and the Russians on board etc.

The announcement by Oxford University's Queen's College, to establish a graduate scholarship in Philosophy in memory of Neda, who was also a philosophy student, was just along these symbolic gestures which I find very helpful. So it was with no doubt in my mind that Ahamdinejad's messianic junta would soon show its anger and disapproval, and sure enough they soon did. They were furious and they blamed the award on Arash Hejazi, the eye witness to her murder and the doctor who went to her help when she was shot.

The Islamic Republic through its embassy in London has condemned the award and in a letter to the Queen’s College, has claimed Arash Hejazi is ‘a fellow’ to the Oxford University and behind the award 'plot'.

Yet another knee jerk reaction by the messianic junta who never seem to do their homework properly. Arash Hejazi has never studied in the University of Oxford and has no relationships to Queen's College. He has studied in Oxford Brookes University, an academic body completely separate from the University of Oxford. But then again what do you expect from a regime whose minister presents a badly faked PHD certificate form Oxford university as his 'academic' credential?

And wasn't according to the same junta, Neda a martyr of BBC/MeK/Zionist conspiracy who staged her killing? So why not support a graduate award for her? It seems Neda will haunt those who really killed her for a long while to come and they will continue to show their true colours to the world in their constant state of confusion as very bad liars.

The Great Martyr Edoardo Agnelli

Last night as I was browsing through the Iranian news websites, or what is left of them rather, I came across the pro-Ahamdinejad Fars News, which reported on the commemorations held in Isfahan for the 'great  martyr of Shiite Islam', Edoardo Agnelli. Somehow the name rang a bell but I was relating it to football not martyrdom and Shiite Islam. Something in the back of my mind was reminding me of a football match years ago when everyone was asked to stand in silence before the match started because of an unfortunate death of someone related to Italian football.

As I read the news further, I realised that my memory hadn't entirely failed me, Edoardo Agnelli was indeed the son of  Gianni Agnelli, the wealthy Italian industrialist and the owner of the Juventus football club, but what was all this 'Great Martyr of Shiite Islam' I wasn't aware of? So thanks to Google, I searched for more stuff on Martyr Edoardo and came across a documentary film made by the Islamic Republic, which I had not seen before.

The documentary was as expected. There were lots of negative emphasis on Jewish and Zionism connections. Great Martyr Edoardo's mother was Jewish, all his doctors in the hospital were Jewish/Zionists and the next chosen heir whom 'Martyr Edoardo' vehemently opposed was also his half Jewish nephew from his sister's first marriage to a Zionist and also his death was engineered by the Zionists. All good standard stuff as you would expect from the Islamic Republic. There was one huge mistake however that I stumbled on.