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ramonmercado Psycho Punk
Joined: 19 Aug 2003 Total posts: 17933 Location: Dublin Gender: Male |
 Posted: 07-10-2011 14:11 Post subject: |
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Yassamine Mather on the longevity of the Islamic regime in Iran
http://vimeo.com/28898826 |
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| ramonmercado Psycho Punk
Joined: 19 Aug 2003 Total posts: 17933 Location: Dublin Gender: Male |
| Posted: 09-03-2012 01:25 Post subject: |
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Full text at link.
| Quote: | The last president?
The latest rigged elections have produced a predictable result as Supreme Leader Khamenei consolidates his power, says Yassamine Mather.
Ahmadinejad trumped by Khamenei
Iran’s Islamic constitution automatically bars anyone objecting to the theocratic nature of the state from standing for election and, as a result, parliamentary and presidential elections have often been used by the electorate to express their discontent with the more powerful factions of the religious state. Since 1997 this has been expressed in votes for ‘reformist’ candidates - not necessarily to support ‘reformism’, but, since it represented the lesser of two evils, to express discontent with more conservative factions.
The parliamentary election just completed was different: for the first time in more than a decade the choice was between complex lists of conservative factions only. Like Shia Islam, itself the product of factional infighting, over the last 12 months - as ‘reformists’ were manoeuvred out of the official political scene - the conservatives and ‘principlists’ split and split again. In the words of one ayatollah: “We wanted to create a unified, single principlist faction, but we ended with 16 to 17 factions fighting the principlist corner.”
There was no doubt the turnout would be abysmal and this is precisely what happened. The supreme leader had made this an election about ‘honour’ and pride, and his supporters predicted exactly the percentage of the population that had participated in the elections: 64%. As if by magic, the electoral commission declared this to be the official figure - mere hours after the booths closed. Yet many Iranians believed these figures were false; some of those who had ventured out onto the streets had already posted photos of deserted polling stations on the internet.
Foreign reporters, under carefully controlled official guidance, were taken by bus to selected polling stations to be shown the queues of those waiting to vote. However, this failed to impress the foreign press corps - and, of course, in the absence of independent observers and opinion polls, it is impossible to say whether the official figures are correct. The ‘reformist’ opposition, together with the liberals and the left, had largely boycotted the vote and were quick to find contradictions in the official story.
They pointed to a gaffe made on live TV by Seyed Solat Mortazavi, the head of the interior ministry’s election centre. On state television, Mortazavi quoted the interior minister, Mostafa Mohammad-Najjar, as saying that the turnout was almost 34% - but instantly ‘corrected’ this to 64%.
The other blunder came from the Mehr news agency, which had reported 373,000 people eligible for voting in the province of Ilam. The same agency reported 380,000 had voted there. Mehr later amended the figure on its website to 280,000. Another news outlet, Baztab, reported that the number of eligible voters was 2.5 million less than were eligible in 2009.[1] There are also reports of cash payments made in the provincial cities in a desperate effort to entice people to vote. Apparently the going rate in Fars province (Shiraz) was 30,000 tomans: $15 at the current exchange rate.
Ahmadinejad the loser
Just as the turnout was foreseen with remarkable accuracy by the supreme leader and his allies, so too was the result. The various factions of those loyal to Ali Khamenei have likely picked up at least 75% of the seats in the majlis (parliament).
The big loser, then, is president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad; his increasingly open rupture with the supreme leader has effectively ended in his defeat and, while he himself does not go back before the electorate until 2013, he now faces strong opposition both from above and from the next rung down the Iranian constitutional ladder. Both in Tehran, where he has traditionally fared worse, and in the provinces, where his populist rhetoric has more purchase, he has been comprehensively beaten - legitimately or otherwise.
http://www.cpgb.org.uk/article.php?article_id=1004752 |
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| ramonmercado Psycho Punk
Joined: 19 Aug 2003 Total posts: 17933 Location: Dublin Gender: Male |
| Posted: 13-06-2012 00:23 Post subject: |
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| Quote: | Scientists protest against prison sentence for Iranian student
http://www.nature.com/news/scientists-protest-against-prison-sentence-for-iranian-student-1.10800
Scientific societies and human-rights organizations ask for fair treatment for Omid Kokabee.
Michele Catanzaro
11 June 2012
Iranian PhD student Omid Kokabee has been jailed for conspiring with a foreign government.
The 10-year prison sentence imposed on physics PhD student Omid Kokabee in Iran for conspiring with foreign countries has triggered protests by scientific organizations around the world.
The Committee of Concerned Scientists in New York has launched a petition asking the Iranian government to release Kokabee, and Scholars at Risk, another human-rights watchdog in New York, has called for people to send letters, faxes and e-mails to the appropriate authorities requesting a reconsideration of his conviction. And many physics, optics and chemistry societies in Europe and the United States (the American Chemical Society, the American Physical Society, the International Society for Optics and Photonics, the Optical Society of America, and the European Optical Society) have sent, or are drafting, open letters to Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamen'i, asking that the student be treated fairly.
Kokabee’s case has also been highlighted in a declaration by 17 organizations, including Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch that asks Iran to uphold the right to education and to academic freedom. Friends and contacts of Omid Kokabee are promoting an online petition to Amnesty International and related organizations, and human-rights activists have launched a Twitter 'storm' aroundanother petition.
Kokabee is a 29-year-old experimental-laser physicist who did part of his PhD studies at the Institute of Photonic Sciences in Barcelona, before moving to the University of Texas at Austin in 2010. He was arrested in February 2011 while returning to the United States after a holiday in Iran, charged with communicating with a hostile government and taking illegal earnings. After 15 months of detention, he was sentenced on 12 May to 10 years in prison.
Kokabee and his friends say he was not a political activist. In open letters sent from Tehran’s Evin jail, he hasclaimed that he has not been allowed to talk with his lawyer. Close contacts in Iran have told Nature that the prosecution did not present any evidence during the trial. These people say that Kokabee has appealed the sentence, and has complained to the judge in charge of the trial, Abolghasem Salavati, of unfair treatment, including exposure on television.
Related stories
Iranian physicist sentenced to prison
Iranian physics student faces trial for spying
Missing physicist may have been jailed in Iran
Arash Alaei, a doctor who led pioneering AIDS damage-reduction programmes in Iran before being jailed between 2008 and 2011 (see 'Iranian AIDS doctors continued work behind bars'), spent 8 months in the same prison as Kokabee. “He was under stress, but as well he was one of the most active prisoners in giving English classes to the others,” says Alaei. “Omid’s jailing is a message for other scientists: the government does not like independent researchers that do their job outside of its programmes,” he says.
Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam, a neuroscientist at Oslo University and spokesman for the non-governmental organization Iran Human Rights, says that it is important for researchers to stand up for Kokabee. “If universities and scientists do not react to this sentence, any Iranian researcher abroad may be accused of spying,” he says.
Kokabee’s story has spread anxiety among Iranian students abroad. An Iranian student in Barcelona, who asked to remain anonymous, says: “Since I found out about his detention I have not gone back to Iran: I plan to reduce my visits to the minimum, to avoid risk.”
Nature doi:10.1038/nature.2012.10800
Related stories and links
From nature.com
Iranian physicist sentenced to prison
15 May 2012
Iranian physics student faces trial for spying
15 July 2011
Missing physicist may have been jailed in Iran
16 May 2011 |
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| ramonmercado Psycho Punk
Joined: 19 Aug 2003 Total posts: 17933 Location: Dublin Gender: Male |
| Posted: 07-02-2013 14:27 Post subject: |
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Confusion reigns in Iran. The Iranian people have suffered from Imperialist sanctions but corruption and incompetence is rife amongst the ruling elite. The governor of Iran’s Central Bank, Mahmoud Bahman has been sacked for making improper withdrawals from client accounts. Yassamine Mather analyses the situation. Full text at link.
| Quote: | In Iran, presidential elections are looming, the economy is in freefall, the public hanging of small-time criminals is creating an atmosphere of terror, repression is worsening and workers are protesting throughout the country. There are unconfirmed reports of an explosion at the Fordo uranium enrichment plant and the infighting between factions of the regime is shown live on state-owned TV. Meanwhile, Israel has bombed a military facility in Syria, claiming it is used by Iranian Islamic guards, and civil war is breaking out in Iraq, Iran’s main Shia ally. Finally, the country’s aerospace agency has sent a monkey into space! All in all, as far as Iranians are concerned, it has been an eventful start to 2013. ...
Meanwhile, another working class prisoner, Shahrokh Zamani, a member of the Council of Representatives of Labour Organisations, has sent an optimistic letter from Gohardasht prison, entitled ‘It is now our turn - the turn of democratic governance and workers councils’. The letter explains how, in the face of a major economic crisis, capitalism has launched an attack on workers throughout the world, and Iran is no exception to this rule. Zamani points out that the Iranian working class should have no illusions about ‘reformists’ within the Islamic regime, nor should it seek alliances with ‘liberals’ outside it. Instead workers should rely on their own strength. He ends his letter with the clarion call: “Workers have no alternative but to unite and organise. Long live the political general strike. Long live the revolution.” ...
http://www.hopi-ireland.org/c/iran-corruption-repression-fightback-yassamine-mather-reports-chaos-islamic-republic |
Edit to fix link. |
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| escargot1 Joined: 24 Aug 2001 Total posts: 17896 Location: Farkham Hall Age: 4 Gender: Female |
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| ramonmercado Psycho Punk
Joined: 19 Aug 2003 Total posts: 17933 Location: Dublin Gender: Male |
| Posted: 07-03-2013 15:47 Post subject: |
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Full text at link.
| Quote: | Iran: Need our support. Yassamine Mather reports on the developing social catastrophe
The Iranian new year is only two weeks away, but most Iranians do not feel like celebrating. As hundreds of workers protested in Tehran on March 4 against non-payment of wages, one placard summarised the mood: “99% are facing death”.
Non-payment of wages is only part of the problem: food prices have rocketed and even rents are beyond the means of the overwhelming majority. This week, Vahed busworkers took to the streets demanding better wages - and similar protests have taken place throughout the country. In Arak, angry workers set fire to tyres outside the factory gates. Last week farmworkers clashed with security forces near Isfahan in southern Iran, protesting against government proposals to divert water from the city. Peasants blew up the main pump taking water from Isfahan province to Yazd, before closing the main highway road near Khorasgan and setting fire to a number of buses.
http://www.hopi-ireland.org/c/iran-yassamine-mather-reports-developing-social-catastrophe |
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| ramonmercado Psycho Punk
Joined: 19 Aug 2003 Total posts: 17933 Location: Dublin Gender: Male |
| Posted: 09-03-2013 14:19 Post subject: |
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Full text at link.
| Quote: | Repression and resistance in Iran: interview with Yassamine Mather
PF: What sort of social base and popular support does the regime still have?
YM: The regime has a base mainly amongst those whose survival depends on payment from the regime, a vast religious militia (the Bassij) and the Islamic guards. Probably 3-5 million, including families of members of these forces. They have no social base amongst the poor, shanty town dwellers, peasants and they never had a social base amongst workers.
PF: Can you also tell us about what different strands there are in the opposition, especially in the democratic movement itself? Also, the democratic movement of several years ago seemed to run into the problem that the regime was prepared to unleash violence on it and the movement had no means of dealing with that. How do you think a mass progressive democratic movement can deal with this?
YM: It is true that the regime unleashed repression on the democratic opposition, however the mass movement was betrayed by the leadership of the Green movement who were more interested in negotiations with the leaders of the regime and kept calling for restraint and retreat. They called on demonstrators to “remain silent” during some of the largest protests and they refused to address workers’ demands for better wages. They distanced themselves from the more radical demands put forward on the demonstrations, yet that did not save them from house arrest. A mass movement can defeat this if it is a truly revolutionary movement with no illusions about sections of the regime and if it addresses workers’ demands.
...
PF: Some people on the left in the West argue that defence of Iran against threats and various measures by the US and other Western powers means defence of the existing regime in the Iran. Some even argue that the regime is a product of a revolution and so is at least partly progressive. What is your view of these things?
YM: The coming to power of the Islamic government signalled the defeat of the Iranian revolution, there was nothing progressive about it in 1979 and there is nothing progressive about it now. It is a ruthless, religious dictatorship with misogynist ideology, it tried to impose Islamic behaviour in the private and public life of a population who refused to accept this. Hence the duplicity and the reality of Iranians living two separate lives: one pretending to be religious outside the house with increasing disillusionment with religion in private. All this was before the corruption scandals and accusations of the involvement of senior clerics in prostitution and drug rackets made a mockery of the “pious, moral” Shia Ayatollahs. ...
PF: What do you think progressive people in the West can do that would be of most assistance to the working class and oppressed of Iran?
YM: They should show solidarity with the Iranian working class by promoting their demands, while campaigning against war and sanctions. Sanctions have caused mass unemployment, spiralling cost of living. The current conditions of poverty and destitution make it difficult for workers to mobilise and organise against the regime.
http://www.hopi-ireland.org/c/repression-and-resistance-iran-interview-yassamine-mather |
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| ramonmercado Psycho Punk
Joined: 19 Aug 2003 Total posts: 17933 Location: Dublin Gender: Male |
| Posted: 08-05-2013 23:10 Post subject: |
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Full text at link.
| Quote: | In a week where news from Iran is dominated by speculation about who will or will not stand as a candidate in the country’s forthcoming presidential elections and whether the Guardian Council will allow Mohammad Khatami (the last ‘reformist’ president) or Esfandiar Rahim Mashaei (president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s anointed successor) to participate; in a week where Iran’s press and media are consumed by speculation about ayatollah Hashemi Rafsanjani after he announced he is not ruling himself out as a candidate in the June 14 poll; in a week when a group of pro-US regime change supporters, the newly formed Iran National Council, elected Reza Pahlavi, the son of the former shah, as their spokesperson, the more astute sections of the bourgeois press were drawing attention to a serious player in Iran’s economic and political scene: the working class.
The US journal Foreign Policy writes: “As Iran’s economy continues to deteriorate, the labour movement is a key player to watch because of its ability to pressure the Islamic Republic through protests and strikes … And thus far, Iranian labourers have not joined the opposition green movement en masse. But the economic pains caused by the Iranian regime’s mismanagement, corruption and international sanctions have dealt serious blows to worker wages, benefits and job security - enough reason for Iranian labourers to organise and oppose the regime ...”1
The journal refers to the role of Ahmadinejad’s massive privatisation programme and the ending of subsidies as policies that have “greatly hurt the average Iranian labourer ... The economic decline has resulted in small but widespread strikes and sit-ins. Underground labour groups, ranging from bus drivers to sugar cane workers, have also become more outspoken, staging protests reminiscent of the revolution.”
In the same week The Economist published an article with the strap: “Though watched and muzzled, independent labour unions are stirring”.2 The journal refers to the fact that Iran does not recognise independent unions and that “Islamic Labour Councils, which must be approved by employers and the security services, ... are in cahoots with the government”. Referring to the plight of imprisoned trade unionists, the article points out that leaders like Ali Nejati of the sugarcane workers and Reza Shahabi of the bus drivers’ union have been in and out of prison in the last few months and have been accused of “endangering national security”.
Of course, Hands Off the People of Iran has been drawing attention to the plight of Iran’s workers from the start and very little of what is published in Foreign Policy or The Economist is news to us. However, it is interesting to note that the Iranian working class, the most persistent and courageous opponent of the Islamic regime, is now recognised as a serious force. ...
http://www.hopi-ireland.org/c/iran-may-day-defying-regime |
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| ramonmercado Psycho Punk
Joined: 19 Aug 2003 Total posts: 17933 Location: Dublin Gender: Male |
| Posted: 16-05-2013 14:02 Post subject: |
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| Quote: | Iran: Boycott the vetted election, not the mass protests
The Islamic republic is bitterly divided at the top and subject to crippling international sanctions. Yassamine Mather analyses the political situation in the run-up to the June 14 presidential poll
On the last available day, ayatollah Hashemi Rafsanjani arrived at the ministry of the interior to register himself as a presidential candidate. Rafsanjani was the Islamic republic’s fourth president, from 1989 to 1997, and is now once again standing as a ‘reformist’. In reality he is the candidate of capitalism and probably still one of the richest men in Iran. Despite that, the announcement that Rafsanjani had entered the race ‘to save the country’ generated an almost unprecedented hysteria.
There are two main explanations for his timing. The principlists (conservative, hard-line supporters of the supreme leader, ayatollah Ali Khamenei) are accusing Rafsanjani (also known as the fox because of his political cunning) of holding back before making his dramatic, last-minute move in order to surprise and spread confusion amongst his opponents. There is some truth to this claim: confident of an easy ride, principlists entered the presidential elections with at least seven serious candidates, and another 14 less serious contenders. One assumes that, had they known they would be facing such a figure, they would have tried to rally round a single candidate.
Some of Rafsanjani’s allies have claimed he was waiting for the approval of the supreme leader before putting himself forward. Two weeks ago he said he would only go ahead if Khamenei wanted him to do so, but a few days later there was a slightly different version: he would only put his name forward if the supreme leader did not object to his nomination. His telephone conversation with Khamenei1 or one his close advisers2 (depending on which version you read) only took place at 4.30pm Tehran time on May 11 - less than one and a half hours before the deadline. Rafsanjani’s daughter confirms this.3
Whatever the truth, Rafsanjani, who is now benefiting from the full support of the ‘reformist camp’ led by Mohammad Khatami, is no opponent of the Islamic regime. In fact he does not even claim to be a reformist: he is, in his own words, a “moderate”. Some consider him to be a “pragmatist conservative”4 - someone who tried to mediate between the ‘reformists’ and the conservatives after the debacle of the 2009 elections. Now he has, according to Khatami (Iran’s last ‘reformist’ president) made a “major sacrifice” and come forward to fulfil his duty to the “nation, the Islamic Republic and the faith”. ...
http://www.hopi-ireland.org/c/iran-boycott-vetted-election-not-mass-protests |
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| ramonmercado Psycho Punk
Joined: 19 Aug 2003 Total posts: 17933 Location: Dublin Gender: Male |
| Posted: 23-05-2013 14:13 Post subject: |
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Full text at link.
| Quote: | Iran: Election farce exposes regime’s crisis
http://www.hopi-ireland.org/c/iran-election-farce-exposes-regime%E2%80%99s-crisis
The Iranian elections are a travesty that demands a boycott, says Yassamine Mather
Supporters and apologists of Iran’s Islamic Republic in Respect,1 Counterfire2 and the Socialist Workers Party3 have in the past told us that Iran is not a dictatorship. It has democratic elections to determine the president and the composition of its parliament ...
The regime’s 11th presidential elections have demonstrated how far removed this is from reality. Having arrested and imprisoned all serious opposition, including the regime’s own ‘reformists’, the remaining factions, despite being at each other’s throats, are all agreed that only those candidates for president who completely uphold the line of the supreme leader may be permitted to stand. So not only has the favourite of outgoing president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Esfandiar Rahim Mashaei, been barred. So too has the moderate centrist and former president, ayatollah Hashemi Rafsanjani.
The omens were not good from the beginning. The supreme leader, ayatollah Ali Khamenei, had disowned his chosen candidate of 2009. Ahmadinejad, who came to power following a controversial vote in elections many Iranians believed to be rigged, is now considered an enemy. In fact, despite the careful vetting of candidates for this and other elected posts on religious grounds, as determined by the constitution, Iran’s clerical dictators, in the form of two supreme leaders, have ended up falling out with almost everyone who has occupied the presidency, beginning with ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, who famously turned his back on the regime’s first president, Abulhassan Banisadr.
Rafsanjani, who was Khamenei’s first president, fell out with the supreme leader. So did Mohammad Khatami, a vetted, obedient servant of the regime - he was out of favour by the end of his first term and definitely an enemy by the end of his second. Last but not least, for all his earlier support for Ahmadinejad against leaders of the green ‘reformist’ movement, the supreme leader fell out with his chosen president in the first months of his second term and in the end it could hardly be any worse.
What is different this year is that the entire electoral process has become a joke even before the election campaign has started. Because Khamenei was determined to reduce electioneering from months to only three weeks, it was not until May 21, just 24 days before the polls, that Iranians got to know the final list of candidates. However, Khamenei had apparently been concerned that the absence of any known figure, never mind a controversial one, might lead to a lacklustre campaign and no doubt this played a part in the supreme leader’s quiet encouragement of Rafsanjani to enter the foray. |
Edit: Fixing link. |
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| ramonmercado Psycho Punk
Joined: 19 Aug 2003 Total posts: 17933 Location: Dublin Gender: Male |
| Posted: 30-05-2013 13:58 Post subject: |
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Full text at link.
| Quote: | All this is happening in the middle of an election farce in Tehran. A day before the Senate resolutions, Iran’s religious supervisory body, the Guardian Council, announced the final list of eight candidates it deemed acceptable to contest the presidential elections on June 14. It did not include either the former president and main hope of the ‘reformists’, Hashemi Rafsanjani, or the outgoing president’s chosen successor, Esfandiar Rahim Mashaei.
Although the remaining candidates all promise to ‘resolve the nuclear issue’, the US administration has made up its mind: bar a miracle, conflict with Iran, most likely in the form of Israeli air attacks, is now inevitable. Even if one of the remaining centrist or ‘reformist’ candidates gets elected, Washington does not believe such an individual will be strong enough to convince the country’s supreme leader of the need to compromise. By all accounts, Rafsanjani was the only candidate capable of arguing the case for ayatollah Ali Khamenei to ‘drink the poison’ and make a U-turn either on the nuclear programme or on Syria.
Whoever gets elected on June 14, Iranians are resigning themselves to the fact that confrontation with the west will continue, and so crippling sanctions and devastating economic hardship will persist. The supreme leader had promised an ‘epic year’, when massive participation in the elections would prove the nation’s tenacity in confronting the foreign enemy. But the final list of mediocre candidates will make it difficult for even the most hard-line supporters of the regime to muster any enthusiasm.
No-one should underestimate the severity of the current situation. Iran is completely isolated internationally and regionally, while its support for the Syrian government has brought it into direct conflict with Saudi Arabia, the Gulf States and the Muslim Brotherhood, in addition to the usual suspects. Economically the country is bankru ...
http://www.hopi-ireland.org/c/iran-boycott-sham-elections |
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| ramonmercado Psycho Punk
Joined: 19 Aug 2003 Total posts: 17933 Location: Dublin Gender: Male |
| Posted: 17-06-2013 00:19 Post subject: |
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| ramonmercado Psycho Punk
Joined: 19 Aug 2003 Total posts: 17933 Location: Dublin Gender: Male |
| Posted: 20-06-2013 14:04 Post subject: |
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Full text at link.
| Quote: | Iran election: Not a victory for progressives
A massive protest vote humiliated the conservative candidates. But paradoxically the election of a centrist can boost the regime, argues Yassamine Mather
On Friday June 14, Iranians voted in large numbers for ayatollah Hassan Rowhani, a regime insider who was elected as Iran’s president with 50.71% of the vote. A centrist, not a ‘reformist’, he became the candidate of an unofficial coalition between ‘reformists’ and ‘centrists’ forged three days before the vote, after green leader and former president Mohammad Khatami asked the ‘reformist’ candidate, Mohammad Reza Aref, to withdraw from the elections.
Rowhani won not because of who he is, but as a result of a massive protest vote against the candidates associated with various ‘principlist’ factions of Iran’s Islamic regime. Iranians opted once more to use the electoral system to show their hatred for the conservatives and principlists who have been in power for the last eight years. These groups promised ‘social justice’ and a clampdown on corruption in 2005 and 2009, yet the gap between the rich and the poor is far wider than when they took office and corruption now engulfs every institution of the state. Nor is it surprising that the people blame them for the sanctions and Iran’s disastrous economic position.
This was a vote for the least worst candidate. And in desperation the supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, is now ready to compromise with the centrist factions of the Islamic regime. Last week former ‘reformist’ president Hashemi Rafsanjani, who was not accepted as a candidate this time round, warned that Khamenei must wake up to the realities of Iran’s current situation. Whether because of this, or out of a concern that after a lacklustre electoral campaign turnout would be low, Khamenei intervened forcefully to encourage people to vote. Even those who “do not support the Islamic system” should come out and vote for the sake of the country, he said. That was an historic first - Iran’s top religious leader has never previously addressed opponents of the Islamic Republic in this manner.
In the last week of the campaign Khamenei went out of his way to emphasise that no-one around him knew his personal choice and, as far as he was concerned, all six candidates on the ballot paper were acceptable. Saeed Jalili, and to a certain extent Ali Akbar Velayati, had been touted as the leader’s favourites by their respective campaign offices. Khamenei’s statement meant that no cleric could whisper at a religious meeting or in a mosque that, although this was a ‘free vote’, the supreme leader had a particular candidate in mind. On election day itself, at many voting stations outside Iran in consulates or offices set up by the government, women were allowed to vote without wearing the compulsory headscarf. Even inside the country some women wearing only symbolic head cover rather than a proper hijab were allowed into voting stations. ...
http://www.hopi-ireland.org/c/iran-election-not-victory-progressives |
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| ramonmercado Psycho Punk
Joined: 19 Aug 2003 Total posts: 17933 Location: Dublin Gender: Male |
| Posted: 05-08-2013 12:39 Post subject: |
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| Quote: | Iran: No let-up on sanctions
http://www.hopi-ireland.org/c/iran-no-let-sanctions
How long after the inauguration of Rowhani before disillusionment sets in? Yassamine Mather discusses the limitations of Hassan Rowhani
Iran’s new president, Hassan Rowhani, will take office on August 3. He faces major internal as well as international problems. It will be interesting to see how a man who describes himself as a ‘centrist’ will try to reconcile the warring factions of the Islamic Republic, but also the increasing divide between ordinary Iranians - victims of sanctions, poor economic management, as well political repression - with an increasingly paranoid religious dictatorship.
However, the new president’s biggest and most immediate problem will be the nuclear issue. He was, after all, elected on the basis of promises to ‘resolve’ it and thus remove sanctions. In the month and a half since his election he has already faced some serious setbacks, particularly over sanctions.
Iran is now facing more sanctions than the day he was elected - including the academic boycott of research by Iranian scientists and engineers. They have only just begun to take effect, even though they were passed by the US Congress and approved by the Senate in early 2013.
In what is an unprecedented move against Iranian academics, major publishers are instructing journal editors that, in accordance with US department of the treasury regulations, they should not be involved in the management and processing of any manuscript through peer review with any author or co-author who is acting directly (as an employee) or indirectly on behalf of the government of Iran - which includes “any political subdivision, agency or instrumentality thereof, [including] the Central Bank of the Islamic Republic of Iran”. ... |
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| ramonmercado Psycho Punk
Joined: 19 Aug 2003 Total posts: 17933 Location: Dublin Gender: Male |
| Posted: 14-09-2013 14:15 Post subject: |
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