February 16, 2011
Picture Martyr Sane Jale, carried by his killers at his funeral today in Tehran!! 16 Feb 2011
all the people at this pictures are pro-regime supporters and basiji millits and not Martyr Sane Jale`s family and friends….!!! This is a propaganda act by the iranian regime!!!!
February 16, 2011
PARIS – An Iranian opposition group has rejected accusations that it fired on an opposition protest in Tehran, calling the report a lie.
Clashes at Monday’s rally in the Iranian capital left one person dead and dozens injured.
Iran’s IRNA news agency cited acting police commander Gen. Ahmad Reza Radan as saying that members of the opposition group Mujahedeen Khalq, or MEK, opened fire at police and protesters. He did not provide any evidence to back up his claim.
The France-based National Council of Resistance in Iran, which speaks for MEK, says the claim is “ridiculous and false.”
The group said Tuesday the claim was “fabricated by the regime even when everyone knows that it is the ruling power and its organs repressed the protesters by shooting at them.”
The MEK, which stands for the People’s Mujahedeen Organization of Iran, is on the U.S. government’s list of foreign terrorist organizations. Its thousands-strong army based in neighboring Iraq has been disarmed by U.S. troops.
The group participated in Iran’s Islamic Revolution but soon fell out with the clerics in charge of the country. The group’s supporters argue it no longer engages in armed struggle in its quest for a new leadership in Iran, and the European Union removed it from its list of banned terrorist groups in 2009.
February 16, 2011
The following are a series of photographs of martyr Saneh Jaleh, killed in 25 Bahman uprising. He was shot by security forces while demonstrating. Below he is pictured with Ayatollah Montazeri, Jaleh is the furthest to the left.
The picture below has been doctored by the Iranian regime using photoshop in order to claim that Jaleh was a member of the basij. It is clear that the regime is doing all it can in order to claim Jaleh as one of their own, and deny the true cause of his death.
February 16, 2011
The Iranian judiciary today announced the names of 1,500 people arrested in yesterday’s demonstrations and transferred to Evin Prison, the Human Rights Reporters Committee reports.
Families of detainees gathered in front of the Revoutionary court, where the detainees’ files were being initiated, but they were attacked by Special Guards of the security forces and dispersed.
The authorities are refusing to inform families about what’s happening to individual detainees.
The announcement of the 1,500 names comes after security commander Ahmadreza Radan confirmed to the media that 150 people had been arrested. He said the protests had been carried out by a handful of seditionists.
Gholamhosein Mohseni Ejei, a spokesman for the judiciary and Iran’s prosecutor, told Fars news agency that yesterday’s events were “designed and supported by the U.S. and anti-Revolutionaries including the monafeghin.”
Iranian authorities refer to the dissident political group People Mojahedin Organization as monafeghin.
“In view of earlier warnings,” Mohseni Ejei said, “the judiciary will deal quickly and firmly with the main perpetrators and those who disturbed public order and peace.”
Yesterday Iranians took to the streets of Tehran and major cities in response to an opposition rally call. The mass demonstrations confirmed that post-election spirit of protest remains strong.
February 16, 2011
TEHRAN (NewsCore) – With internet-aided revolts spreading in the Mideast, Iran has strengthened its censorship of independent and pro-opposition websites and other electronic media in an attempt to hamper protests on its own soil, Reporters Without Borders said Tuesday.
The crackdown began on Feb. 10 in an effort to prevent the organization and reporting of protests in Iran. Nonetheless, thousands of demonstrators gathered in Tehran Monday chanting anti-Mahmoud Ahmadinejad slogans in protests that saw two people killed and several wounded.
Under the ramped up measures, broadband speed has significantly slowed in major cities as it did in the advent of other anti-regime demonstrations.
In addition to major disruptions in text-message traffic, the word “Bahman” — the present Persian calendar month — has been added to the list of blocked keywords for messages on mobile phones in an attempt to reduce calls for protests on a specific day.
Internet users have been unable to access two news sites, www.fararu.com and sahamnews.org, the latter of which has close ties to opposition leader Mehdi Karoubi, Reporters Without Borders said.
Satellite TV broadcasts to Iran have been jammed. At first, the disruptions targeted news about Egypt where President Hosni Mubarak bowed to more than two weeks of furious protests and stepped down after a 30-year rule. Soon all BBC and Voice of America broadcasts were cut off or became hard to pick up in Iran.
During remarks in Washington Tuesday, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton reprimanded countries — including China, Vietnam and Syria — that deny their citizens open access to the internet, but she reserved her strongest rebuke for Iran where she said officials “block media websites, target social media, and steal identifying information about their own people in order to hunt them down.”
Clinton hailed the internet as an important tool to help bring about social and political change, praising its role during the recent protests in the Mideast. She seemed to also issue a warning to repressive regimes jittery over the uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt.
February 16, 2011
The Iranian government threatened opposition leaders with execution and made a fresh wave of arrests, a day after the largest protests in a year prompted clashes in which at least two people were killed and dozens injured.
Tehran and other Iranian cities quieted down on Tuesday as the opposition regrouped and assessed the impact of the rallies that brought tens of thousands of people into the streets across the country.
The protesters, buoyed by activism across the Middle East, were confronted forcefully by police and antiriot forces, which used guns, tear gas and electric prods to disperse them. The demonstrators had called for Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei to step down.
Two college students in their 20s, Sanah Jaleh and Mohamad Mokharti, were killed by gunshots, said the government and opposition. Dozens of people were injured and 1,500 people have been arrested in connection with the demonstrations, the government and protestors said.
Mr. Mokharti’s last Facebook message on Monday morning, hours before he joined the protests, was “Happy Valentine’s Day,” next to the green ribbon that symbolizes the opposition.
Antigovernment activists said they planned to attend a funeral procession on Wednesday morning for Mr. Jaleh, who was a student activist as part of the pro-democracy Islamic Student Union and part of the minority Sunni Kurd community, his friends said on the student website Daneshjoo.
The funeral, which will take place in front of Tehran University, could become the next flashpoint between pro-government forces and the opposition. “We will not allow them to kill us and then shamelessly take advantage of our martyrs,” said a student activist from Tehran.
Mr. Jaleh’s friends said he was shot dead Monday by a member of Basij, a volunteer plainclothes militia. In his honor, students waved green banners at the campus of Tehran University, videos show.
Paradoxically, the government cast Mr. Jaleh as a Basij militiaman. The opposition tried to discredit that claim by circulating on websites and blogs a picture of Mr. Jaleh with the late reformist Islamic cleric Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri, a spiritual guide for opposition Green Movement.
In the U.S., President Barack Obama spoke on Tuesday in support of the protesters in Iran and condemned the violence.
“I find it ironic that you’ve got the Iranian regime pretending to celebrate what happened in Egypt, when in fact they have acted in direct contrast to what happened in Egypt by gunning down and beating people who were trying to express themselves peacefully,” Mr. Obama said at a White House news conference.
But Mr. Obama, whose administration has pushed for economic sanctions against Iran over its nuclear program, said the U.S. “cannot ultimately dictate what happens inside of Iran.”
It was too early to say whether the protests will gain momentum, analysts said. But Iran’s leaders—who claimed they had quashed the movement that brought hundreds of thousands to the streets in 2009 and early 2010 to protest what they said was a flawed election that unfairly returned President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to office—seemed shaken by the rallies on Monday.
Mr. Ahmadinejad on Tuesday blamed the protests a day earlier on “enemies” of the government.
Ali Larijani, speaker of the parliament, on Tuesday accused the U.S. for fomenting the protests and said the legislative body must quickly form a panel “to investigate the antirevolutionary movement” brewing in Iran. The session turned rowdy when a group of hard-line conservatives began pumping their fists in the air and shouting that prominent opposition figures Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi “must be executed.”
The two men have been under house arrest since Friday and were unable to attend the demonstrations, but had called for supporters to take to the streets Monday in solidarity with the movements in Egypt and Tunisia that had deposed their own leaders.
Mousavi adviser Ardeshir Amir Arjemand said the opposition wasn’t surprised at the government’s reaction to Monday’s protests. “Their violence and brutal crackdowns against the public are not up for dispute, these officials have to be held accountable,” he said, according to the website Kalame.
Source: Wall Street Journal
While Iranian government media claimed that Sane Jaleh, one of those killed during protests on 14 February in Tehran, was a member of the Basij paramilitary forces, a member of the Tahkim-e Vahdat student organization told the International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran that Jaleh was not a Basiji. In fact, he told the Campaign, Jaleh was a member of the Tehran Arts University’s Islamic Association, and that he had attended previous demonstrations as well. He told the Campaign that Jaleh was directly shot at while trying to run away from armed plainclothes forces.
“Sane Jaleh, 26, was a member of the Tehran Arts University’s Islamic Association and a member of the General Council of Tahkim-e Vahdat Organization. He supported reformist candidates in the days leading up to the election, and after the election coup, he attended student gatherings inside the Arts University to protest the big fraud and participated in the 14 February demonstration for the same reason. He was a Kurdish, Sunni drama student at the Tehran Arts University,” the Tahkim-e Vahdat member told the Campaign.
Government media published a Basij forces membership card allegedly belonging to Sane Jaleh. “That Basij membership card is not related to the University. Many students become members of the Basij in high school and through mosques. But at the Tehran Arts University, he was a member of the Islamic Students Association. He was present during the Association members’ meeting with Ayatollah Montazeri, and his photographs are available,” the Tahkim-e Vahdat member told the Campaign.
The Campaign asked the member of Tahkim-e Vahdat about the reasons government media would want to represent Jaleh as a member of the Basij. “Because they want to make a fake announcement through which to hijack this to their advantage. They did the same thing with Mostafa Ghanian before. It turned out later that he was not a Basiji and that he objected to the election [results],” he replied.
“Sane Jaleh was a resident of the Arts University’s Shahid Rahsaz Dormitories. He was last seen leaving the dormitory at 6:00 p.m., heading for the demonstrations. An unidentified caller contacted his friends at 9:00 p.m. and told them that he has found his cell phone and clothes, asking them to go and pick up the articles. Because the caller was unidentified and the phone call appeared suspicious, Jaleh’s friends did not do anything. But an hour later, a member of the Supreme Leader’s Offices at the university called his friends and informed them that he was killed by a direct bullet. Shortly thereafter, the false statement was made by government media about his membership in the Basij,” the source said about Jaleh’s last hours.
“There are no records available about the murderer, but according to those present at the scene, when it grew dark, plainclothes forces directly shot at people at this location and Sane Jaleh was running away along with other people when he was shot,” he told the Campaign when asked about the murderer’s identity.
“Tomorrow morning, there will be a funeral procession for him at the Arts University. Arts University students and Tahkim-e Vahdat Organization invite the public, and especially the students, to attend this ceremony,” said the student organization source.
“The students are very angry. The green university students throughout the country are planning student gatherings to object to the murder of this member of the Art University Islamic Association and the Tahkim-e Vahdat General Council,” he said about the general mood of the students on campus and in dormitories.
“Over the coming days, there will be widespread gatherings in universities all across Iran,” he concluded.
Feb 16, 2011
8:25 pm – Security forces used long electric batons and tear gas that had a loud explosive sound. 8 pm – Bassij forces used violence to beat citizens and arrested many in Forsat Street. 7:45 pm – There are currently severe clashes in Imam Hossein Square in Tehran and security forces are using violence in that region. 6:24 pm – The arrests in Tehran are very concerning. All detainees are immediately blindfolded and taken to fenced trucks. 6 pm – Security forces and plainclothes agents violently arrested a person in Azadi Square in Tehran who was filming the scenes. (Committee of Human Rights Reporters – Feb. 14, 2011)
February 15, 2011
OTTAWA, February 15, 2011 (AFP) – Canada’s foreign minister on Tuesday accused Iranian authorities of “hypocrisy” for cracking down on anti-government protests while calling for democracy in Egypt.
“Canada is deeply concerned by the violence perpetrated by Iranian authorities against peaceful protestors in Tehran,” Foreign Minister Lawrence Cannon said in a statement.
“The hypocrisy of Iranian authorities’ calls for democracy in Egypt and suppression of the same demands in Iran is deeply disturbing.”
As well, the minister said Iranian politicians’ calls for the execution of protestors are “unacceptable” and he urged Iranian authorities to release “any protestors who are being unjustifiably detained.”
Riot police fired tear gas and paintballs at thousands of opposition supporters who took to Tehran’s streets on Monday, witnesses said.
Kazem Jalali, member of the parliamentary commission of national security and foreign policy, told ISNA news agency two people were killed.
February 15, 2011
President Barack Obama has criticized the Iranian government for attacking peaceful demonstrators.
In a news conference Tuesday, the president said the people in Iran should be able to express their opinions and grievances, and seek a more responsive government.
He said he hopes he will continue to see the people of Iran have the courage to be able to express themselves.
Obama said the right signals are coming out of Egypt, and he called on governments in the Middle East to respond peacefully to protestors who are demonstrating peacefully. He said a lot of work remains to be done in Egypt, but what has happened so far is positive.
He said it is ironic how Iran says it welcomes what happened in Egypt, but then cracks down on protestors who gather in its own country.
On domestic matters, the president said the budget he unveiled Monday presses the federal government to live within its means, as American families have been forced to do in their own budgets.
Obama said the $3.7 trillion budget includes tough choices and significant spending cuts, so by the end of the decade the nation’s annual spending will match annual revenues. He said it includes key investments in places like education and science and technology.
He called on Democrats and Republicans to find common ground to work together.
Republicans, who control the House of Representatives, have slammed the spending proposal, saying it does not go far enough to reduce the deficit. Obama’s Democrats retain control of the Senate, making for what is expected to be a protracted partisan battle in Congress over federal spending.
