Whisper

I went back to an old CD of mine that I love: Mohammad Reza Aligholi's Earth Whisper and particularly it's track with Rahim Moazzen Zadeh Ardabili's azan.

It is strange how the call to prayer can raise diverse feelings. A friend of mine was recently telling me how it brought back a sentiment of oppression. I remember in Sudan, where mosques were being built at literally every corner thanks to Saudi money and every morning it felt like 2-3 guys we shouting in your ears from different sides of your bed, it certainly was not spiritually uplifting.

But this one is different, and it is not only an azan:




not really a shōmyō either...

Tell me lies, tell me sweet little lies

I don't know if it is because the situation in Iran has deteriorated, or if his statement was far worse than the usual, or just because I am depressed, but Mr. Mottaki's address to the UN Human Rights Council gave me a bad migraine.

I mean, he started with "I would like to reiterate our firm commitment to work towards making the Human Rights Council a strong, effective and efficient body capable of promoting and protecting all human rights for all on the basis of inclusion, equality and human dignity..."

-- as if all human rights for all, inclusion, equality and human dignity existed in Iran --

and then he ended with: "Our commitment to human rights stems from our firm belief and it is aimed at realizing our goal which is the "inherent dignity of man".

Of course, it is dignified to be beaten so hard that you lose your hearing, it is dignified to have your face plunged into excrement, it is dignified to be flogged...

Just as a footnote, just before the quote, our Minister said that Iran's commitment was based on the Divine Teaching of Islam and in accordance with its International obligations...

Perhaps while writing all this his assistants should have sought help from the Japanese.

Abysmal

Looks like we have entered a descending whirlwind, which is slowly encompassing all Iranians. It reminds me of Brecht's "first they came for the communists, ... , then they came for the trade-unionists, ... , then they came for the jews, ... , then they came for me..."

Now they have come after two doctors who ran a very successful anti-AIDS programme. Yeah, right, they were attempting a "velvet revolution".

They arrest anyone who is speaking up for human rights, they close down offices of human rights defenders.

They arrest young Iranians who were doing some project for the children in poor suburbs -- oh! but I forgot, they are Bahais!...

And now, doctors who help drug addicts.

And who are "they" exactly? Ah yes! Those who are supposed to bring justice and well-being to the people of Iran.

And in the meantime some eat sushi...

Where did it go wrong?

71-81... that's a pretty bad margin when last year it was 78-79. I am talking about the vote that defeated the no-action motion that Iran put forward at the UN so that its violation of human rights not be discussed.

After all the efforts (and money) our government spent on this, it is pretty bad, particularly because our economy is blooming and we are all happy campers.

Makes us all forget why there was a resolution in the first place, particularly if one listens to the statements of the Iranian representative (sorry this one is in Persian), so you may want to peruse the UN Secretary General's report about it (then scroll down to A/C3/459).

The man

I have not been blogging in a long time because things are so much the same (but in a worse manner) in Iran that I feel the only thing I would be doing is reapeating myself over and over again.

But Mr. Qaddafi came out with such a surprising statement (I know, he is good at doing that but hey...) that I had to post it.

A women's rights defender

Don't you love it when Mr. Ahmadinejad implies that the US is not advanced enough to elect a woman as president?

A MehrNews wire was quoted in the New York Times but unfortunately, I was not able to find the original article.

We all know what the situation in Iran is. I have blogged about it a number of times and things aren't getting better.

But my question to our president is: can a woman be elected as President in Iran in the first place? And since he said that: "Presidency of a woman in a country that boasts its gunmanship is unlikely." Does it mean that Iran is also great at boasting its gunmanship? (and I have no wish to posts links about this...)

Well said

This is almost a "linkduni", as some other bloggers like to call it, since I have really nothing to add to what a Swiss himself has written about the visit of Micheline Calmy-Rey to Iran. It is just the pathetic continuation of what I blogged about here and then here.

Breathe in

Out of the Calif's chest

It seems that our Minister of Foreign Affairs has been learning melodrama: his speech, or rather the opening of his speech at the Human Rights Council last Tuesday was quite well orchestrated: he goes to the Podium, pauses, drinks a glass of water, clears his throat, straightens his goatee, pauses again, makes a reference to the heart-breaking individual case of a six-months old infant and then asks for a minute of silence.

And then he makes yet another bold move: requests that during this minute of silence Muslims in the room recite the "fatehe" and starts reciting it under his breath (and it can be slightly heard in the microphone).

(this year, the webcast is a little less practical, so to watch it, you need to go here, then choose the morning session and then go more than 3/4 into the webcast).

Perhaps he was competing with Mr. Ahmadinejad's halo a couple of years ago.

Aside from his blatant untruthfulness concerning Iran's human rights record in the rest of his speech there are a couple of points that can be raised and are a clear reflection of the behaviour of this government:

Firstly, he uses the Persian pronunciation of an Arab word, and therefore refers to "ghazzeh" (instead of Gaza), so that most people, I am sure, must have been wondering what he is talking about;

but more importantly announces that he sacrifices a minute of his speech and then speaks for 20 minutes instead of the allotted 10, thus, in fact, taking 10 minutes of the time of the following speakers.

In Persian one would say that he is making a donation out of the Caliph's chest.

Davos, bis and worse

OK, one more on Davos and then I stop, but there is no way I cannot reiterate how anything can be said and not be challenged, I really wonder what the point is.

Or is it perhaps the Open Forum? Because, I must admit that when Mr. Mottaki and Mr. Hashemi Shajareh had to face Mr. Khalilzad, things were quite different, although the latter go some heat for it afterwards, it seems.

But lo and behold, it was truly painful to hear yet another time Ayatollah Hadavi:

" I suggest it, if the is a group of expertise in human rights, they come and they evaluate the human rights situation in Iran and in the United States and give a neutral report about the situation and you can say the human rights situation in Iran is worse than the human rights in the United States, I would like you to do this, because some of the Americans have done it before and they say that the human rights situation in the United States is worse than the human rights situation in Iran. I am not saying so, a Jewish professor in the United States said it in 2004."

The name of that famous professor will remain forever unknown... and, of course, we will completely overlook all of the UN human rights reports made by experts...

Unanswered in Davos

Mr. Khatami was once more invited to Davos for the World Economic Forum. This time he spoke at the Open Forum.

He has certainly succeeded in establishing himself as one of the darlings of the West and a kind of moderate Muslim cleric that can be talked to.

However, the most painful of all is to hear him make statements such as (I changed a little the words of the translator to make it more accurate):

"But if the intervention of religion in political life would mean to limit life, or if religion would not appreciate the human values, or would like to take away from men freedom which is one of the greatest benedictions of God, that kind of religion and interference would be a loss and the society would never accept it."

or "In the Islamic revolution people demanded freedom, independence and progress based on religion. And this is why an Islamic Republic was established. An Islamic Republic means a democratic government, where women are free, there is freedom of thought, the elections would establish the power, etc. and because people are Muslim the religious values should be present, but these religious values should not contradict these basis."

or "I don't think that in Iran anyone is prosecuted because of his religious beliefs, and if he is, this is wrong."

and that no one can (or wishes to) ask him: Mr. Khatami, you were President of Iran for 8 years, how come these lofty statements were nowhere to be implemented then?

Best time to be forgotten

Although it might have looked as if I had taken long holidays, I am proving the assumption wrong by posting twice (for now) between Christmas and the Gregorian New Year!

However, I have come to realize that this is probably the best time of the year for human rights violators to perpetrate their worst crimes: not many will be there to raise their voices. The other day, I sent an email to the three persons in the Iran team of a big (if not the biggest) human rights organization. A few minutes later I received three similar responses: on holidays until 7 January 2008...

Well, at least Reporters sans frontieres is still alert, but is anyone else worried for Emad Baghi?

A little visit

OK, I know, I have not been blogging for nearly a month now -- call it blogger fatigue, depression about the state of the world, rivalry of Facebook, or a combination thereof. So much had been written about the National Intelligence Estimate and so little about the adoption of the UN General Assembly's resolution on the human rights situation that it seemed pointless to blog about either.

But tonight, I have seen one of the best films of the year. It's not about Iran, and not about human rights. It's about Egyptians and Israelis, peacefully. It's poetic, profound, with a great sense of humour. It's a must see.

No words

I just saw the photos of Zahra Baniyaghoub's funerals and the pain of her relatives is heart wrenching, and there is nothing more to say.

Half of the world

To all those who love Isfahan...

Fart and the temple

As can be seen, I have been reading Mr. Abtahi's blog fairly regularly and although his unfailing support of Mr. Khatami is a little unnerving to say the least, I recently had to admit that I enjoyed some of his posts.

Well, clearly now, they are after him, and I am not surprised because he has been quite critical of some of the political stances taken lately.

For those who cannot read Persian, Mr. Abtahi has been accused by an ultra-conservative site of having his blog designed and run by Baha'is. And in order to make their accusations look credible, the authors of the article included a number of links. Out of curiosity, I tried all of them... and (of course) none of them led to anything that might remotely suggest any link to the alleged designers.

Moreover, there is this box on the side of the article that without showing any name indicates "Age:24" and then what can be assumed to say "Children: no", "Ethnicity: Middle-Eastern", "speak: Persian" (which is not correct English, by the way...), and "Religion: Baha'i" . Now, the form being in English, I really wonder where in the Western world would any form ask for one's religion?...

But my final question is: so what? And even if Mr. Abtahi's website designers are Baha'is, what does it have to do with the way the site is designed or run? Are they running subliminal messages so that everyone reading the blog are going to become hypnotized and convert? Is Mr. Abtahi less of a Muslim cleric because of his webmasters' alleged religion?

Relativity

I must say, I was a little disappointed with the analysis around Mr. Larijani's resignation. It is strange how when one ultra-conservative is replaced by an even more ultra-conservative he suddenly becomes "conciliatory"... Not to mention the fact that the conservative then becomes a moderate.

But a few days ago, I was nicely surprised by Omid Memarian's piece for OSI.

Red and orange

It is the time for harvesting:

Pomegranites

and saffron

A sober reality check

Once again, I am too late for my posts... Last week, Mrs. Ebadi was in Paris saying how US sanctions were bad and Mr. Ganji wrote an Op-Ed in the Washington Post finally explaining why US money was so bad. But then, a friend sent me this and it takes us away from all the rethorics of human rights to what day to day life means in Iran ... particularly if you try to stand up for your rights, whether you be a woman, or part of any other group that would make you less good than the average.

Little stones

It had been too many years since I last tasted Sangak... my favourite -- while watching PBS' programme on Iran.