House Approves Iran Freedom Support Act

The House voted Thursday to impose mandatory sanctions on entities that provide goods or services for Iran's weapons programs. The vote came as U.S diplomats continued to press the U.N. Security Council to penalize Tehran if it fails to end its uranium enrichment program.

House sponsors of the Iran Freedom Support Act said they expected the Senate to act quickly on the measure, sending it to President Bush for his signature this week.


via The Spirit of Man

  

 

I try to find the words to describe what reads inside me. I am atop the roof and down on the sands. I am tired-happy-mix! This, my dear is a quarter off a poem. I am writing to remember. I am honest when the sky shakes and the waves echo the sea. Virgin breaths, sands reopening the floors. And I am honest to god honest... and boxed accordingly.

I like it alright!

  

 

Iranian Ex-Lawmaker Alleges Torture

Nora Boustany: "I am held in solitary confinement and interrogated four times a day," Khoini reportedly shouted. "They wake me up in the middle of the night to interrogate me. They are trying to turn me to a mental patient." Referring to Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, he added, "They are forcing me to denounce my beliefs, to repent for my activities, and to ask forgiveness from Khamenei."

  

 

If you have been to Pakistan you know how the country is! When I left Zahedan for Quetta the whole experience came heavy on me. As an Iranian girl growing up in Iran safety was never an issue because there were none! With a Murderer regime arresting, and killing children to adults. Who could feel safe! But Pakistan was a different story. When I moved there General Ziaulhaq had just been killed. There was a Sunni verses Shiite power struggle but the more you traveled up in the country... the central government had less power and a sect verses the other less meaning. The counties and cities are the Utopia of every criminal. Why should religion or ethnicity be of more importance! This I say in light of Musharraf's recent comments. The last surviving member of the Gentleman club and I wonder...

  

 

A Virtual US-Iran Dialogue

I got an e-mail from them (here) to post my comment. Here is my take...

Dialogue/talk/diplomacy or whatever else we want to call it is not going to stop the Iranian regime from getting the bomb. If they are intended as warm-up to a post-nuclear Iran, the story is different. And if the US is getting ready for a world where the regime has its fingers on the nuclear trigger, it should also start making serious strategic adjustments as correctly pointed out in Plan B for Iran: What if Nuclear Diplomacy Fails? One important adjustment that was not mentioned in that document is that the US should start making a U-turn with respect to its middle-east democracy agenda. Why? Because the regime strategy is rather obvious: “expansion through low intensity violence and use of proxy groups in the region while deterring the threat of American conventional force via the nuclear bomb.” American insistence on elections in the region will be the best opportunity for mullahs’ proxies to gain power through a well-coordinated campaign of deception, coercion, and violence. Lastly, the regime-US talks will have another profound impact. Rafsanjani who was regime’s president for 8 years once said that the pro-American Iranians should know that when the time comes, Americans would be throwing them away like a piece of toilet paper. The talks will not stop mullahs from going nuclear but will surely prove Rafsanjani right.

  

 

Amnesty International: "Despite the seriousness of his medical condition, prison authorities are allegedly not permitting Ahmad Batebi to receive any medical treatment beyond a few pain killers. According to a press report, Dr Hesam Firouzi, Ahmad Batebi's doctor, wrote to the authorities on 6 August stating that his patient was at risk of paralysis or heart attack, and needed to receive specialist treatment outside prison."

  

 

Niloufar sent this (here) yesterday. I would like to see one of her works next time I am in Europe.

  

 

Soon... I am having readings... to promote my book of English poems, Echoes in Exile. It is a bit unnerving. I am a writer not a speaker! If you are in L.A. April 11th... you are welcome to join me at Poetry at the Loft and more...


a note: If you decide to buy the book... you should know the money --that is my share-- goes to the breast cancer research foundation in Connecticut, USA.

  

 

No "Grand Bargain" for Iran

Kenneth R. Timmerman: "There can be no doubt: The State Department and the CIA want the United States to fail in stopping Iran from going nuclear, because they fear confronting the mullahs running the show. Since 2003, the Europeans have been "negotiating" with Tehran’s mullahs over their previously undeclared (and thus, illegal) nuclear program. Here we are, more than three years later, and Iran continues to enrich uranium, in utter defiance of the Europeans, the IAEA, and now the UN Security Council. And Condi and the CFR actually believe we are going to achieve something through yet more negotiations?"

  

 

Ramin Jahanbegloo, Hossein Derakhshan and openDemocracy

Danny Postel: "OpenDemocracy owes its readers an explanation for its decision to publish an article that justifies the repression of intellectual freedom - a position that stands in direct contradiction of the magazine's core principles. Essential to Derakhshan's assertion is his view that Jahanbegloo is in fact guilty. Of what? Of "indirectly helping the Bush administration in its plans for regime change in Iran through fomenting internal unrest and instability." And how, precisely, did Jahanbegloo do that? By conducting "comparative analysis of socio-political change in contemporary east-central Europe and the Islamic Republic of Iran" with "financial support" from American think-tanks."

  

 

Today is a day when Iraq attacked Iran… and two nations faced death, and destruction because of their cut throat regimes.

Forked Tongue, knifed Eyes

Every morning we lift our heads, straighten our back, walk out of the door. Every morning I wonder if my daughter will have her breakfast or not. I tell her there are children starving in the world. Every morning I have to come up with a new trick out of my magic hat for her to have that breakfast. Every morning I ask my husband if he will like tea or coffee with his breakfast. Every morning we leave the house to a world where being Iranian is equivalent to being a terrorist. Every morning we leave home to be treated as a Khatami, an Ahmadinejad, a Rafsanjani, a Khamenei, a Khomeini, A regime’s representative! And all this regardless of whom we are and what we have endured to be here, regardless of how many times we have been bruised and cut, regardless of how many times death has knocked on our door because of living in Iran or when leaving Iran... Today... we still carry a full bag of identity mixed and merged with the occupying regime... and our face; accent, walk, and place of birth give away that identity.

  

 

The Iranian President: "We love everyone in the world - Jews, Christians, Muslims, non-Muslims, non-Jews, non-Christians... We are against occupation, aggression, killings and displacing people - otherwise we have no problem with ordinary people."


We are a Nation that uses phrases such as I will kill you to express the anger... and I will eat you to express the love! Which one... Ahmadinejad's falls under?

  

 

Nema Milaninia: "The November elections are around the corner and we need more Iranian-Americans, particularly our generation, to get out there and vote. With your help as part of the blogging community, I was hoping that you’d put out the word to inspire more Iranian-Americans people to vote."

  

 

thinking and thinking...!

How should I know Whitney is a male name! I am not an expert in names and am not an expert in spelling either! It's the same when I am referred to as Mr. Sheema Kalbasi... between you and me it's absolutely true that I am thinking about a laser hair removal and killing my $1350 for a chin and upper lip cleanup -- that's another physical change motherhood has endorsed me with -- anyway... I am thinking about signing my name as Sheema Kalbasi (lioness). I suggest you do the same – to those of you who are bad in spelling (me) and want others to know what gender you belong to...
Once I get my Ph.D. I will just add Dr. to my name and the lioness will be over and done… the real reason: Once I earn my Ph.D. I will probably be in my eighties and all my god-given-teeth are replaced by my retirement- payment plan-teeth.

  

 

Listening to a few Argentinean students on NPR I couldn't believe my ears. Was I the only one who heard this group and their double standard and views on politics? that they don't want their country to be like Cuba but have great respect for Fidel Castro because he stands up to the U.S. ... unfortunately that is not all. I have heard similar views from Europeans and some Anti Bush Americans that Ahmadinejad, the little known man is now a gigantic figure for standing up to the United States. Whenever I hear such understatements of the Iranian regime my response is how would you feel if your women were chained and stoned to death? Would you survive a day as a political opposition if you were persecuted and sentenced to years in prison or executed! People in the U.S. have the chance to vote for a new president every four years... in our case if we demand our rights to be respected... we bleed to death! Let me reassure you Iran under the current regime is no place to live and those who rule the country are not to be trusted. If you ask me... Ahmadinejad should be checked for radiation as he enters the United States for his U.N. speech.

  

 

I was working on my media kit for Echoes in Exile last night ... and I recalled my friend Roger Humes' words (here)

if exile will be the only home you will ever know

if exile will be the only words you will ever write...

  

 

Happy Birthday Elham jan.

  

 

Salman Rushdi is Out! Pope is In!

In a world where taboos have run out of their juicy sausages and children grow out of their rattles everyday ... we have to fear what we (Muslims or a non Muslim) say about Islam or Muslims. Ok! Pope is the Pope and one expects much more from a religious figure than his racist mindset has disclosed to us publicly (what was that about Christianity blossoming in Europe and not in the Middle East because of social and cultural... something... something... and problems of multicultural coexistence? -- he is German, right?!) but he has the right to say what he wants... and there is some truth... to his remarks on Islam too... but it needs to come from the Muslims. I hope he will outlive David Irving's prison sentence and the Mujahideen Army's suicide attacks.

jesus christ! What's up with us-- the Muslims! We can't take one remark by Pope... and as I blog... the ones suffering from the mad cow disease a.k.a. Jihadists are mapping Pope's and their individual blowup plans!... just look at the latest news on Pope.

  

 

If you are into Iranian music it doesn't get any better!(here).

  

 

Iran out of UN

Nobel laureate Elie Wiesel added his name to a small but high-power international group of private citizens who are pushing to have Iran thrown out of the UN in response to Iran's violations of the 1948 Convention to Prevent and Punish the Crime of Genocide.

  

 

October 31st.

When the mind hunts for small words, half inches of memories coming forth, unwritten sentences from the future, and a woman chained to a while ago... words homeless by grief... exceed the streets, the mind, fingers, and the measurements. Rain washes me true and the beats star-free the time... I lean against the one dry wall... ache and remember you... my eyes are embroidered... my heart carefully is listening... your birthday is closing by... listening for your day... listening for your day... Mama.

  

 

Ok! Let us say Harvard is not funding terrorism but the school sure loves to give voice to a terrorist or it wouldn't invite Khatami over! How about inviting David Irving or David Duke (and these two... haven't acted out their hate!) Are we Iranians less of a nation that our dead and our suffering are not counted as equal to those of others? How can it be that Khatami who headed a terrorist regime and during those years several activists were arrested, and murdered, and the stoning of the Iranian women continued to pace its way to even higher numbers... is invited to speak of civilization at Harvard! Khatami is mocking the very idea of a Dialogue Among Civilizations.

  

 

Some questions are better to remain unanswered. Answering them is legitimizing the questions such as Holocaust happened or not or what the evidence for the executions of the Iranians by the Iranian regime is.

  

 

When I heard the good news about Khatami being served ... I said... That's more like it. The only concern is if he had received Diplomatic visa.


WASHINGTON — When Iran's ex-president was having his picture taken with admirers at a gala dinner sponsored by the Council on American-Islamic Relations in northern Virginia, he received an unexpected message from some of his former countrymen. It was a summons to appear at the U.S. District Court of the Southern District of New York in Manhattan.

On Thursday, lawyers representing seven Iranian Jewish families living in Los Angeles filed a lawsuit demanding that Mohammed Khatemi pay compensation for the disappearance of 12 of their relatives, who were detained, imprisoned, and in some cases tortured as they tried to leave Iran for Pakistan between 1994 and 1997. Mr. Khatemi became president of Iran in 1997.

  

 

Samira Mohyeddin: "It was under Khatami's watch that the student uprising of 1999 was violently suppressed and that Khatami himself referred to those students as "a bunch of hooligans". May I remind him that it was under Khatami's watch that Dariush and Parvaneh Forouhar had their throats slashed and were left for dead."

  

 

Ethics of Tolerance in the Age of Violence

What is Khatami going to talk about? He knocked down the bricks of his dialogue of nations when Iranian students were beat up, jailed, and killed during his presidency. He and all the Iranian regime's men promote nothing but ideology of hatred. As for Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney... well... I salute him and he has my vote if he decides to run for presidency. I sure don't want my tax money be paid for Khatami's protection. oh! did I mention P is going to the demonstration against Khatami's visit. Well! after all he gave up his job as a rocket scientist for a job in education... and we don't want to educate our daughter with the wrong information... that representatives of the occupying regime in her parent's country... can come and go to the the United States -land of the free, home of the brave- when Iranian university students are denied entry but a terrorist gets to come and lie to our face... some more...

  

 

This blogger is one of the very few bright and intelligent Iranian/bloggers... see if you can help him...

Brooding Persian: "I have lost a chunk of my memories and my sense of direction has been decimated. My language skills have also deteriorated considerably. My literary Farsi (native) has suffered. My other languages have variously been affected. To top all, I just got out of jail and am on temporary disability and a ward of the courts. Do you know of any institution, or any arrangements whereby I can contribute my body, various parts there of or DNA and Cells in exchange for competent medical care please?"

  

 

Protest against Mohammad Khatami in Washington DC


The "Student Movement Coordination Committee for Democracy in Iran" (SMCCDI), base on it’s mission, invites all our fellow Iranian citizens all over the World, to attend in the Committee demonstration, to be part of the voice of protest of millions of Iranian inside Iran, and show that the Iranian nation will not stop the protest till the abolition and annihilation of the dictatorial and despotic Islamic regime.

Place and time of demonstration:

Time: From 5:00pm, Thursday September 7, 2006 (16th of Shahrivar, 1385); Place: In front of National Cathedral Church, Wisconsin and Massachusset, Washington DC

  

 

The occupying regime in Iran has again murdered another Iranian freedom fighter. As for the recent visit of Khatami to the U.S. my question to the current U.S.administration is... WHY? Recently several Iranian university students with U.S. visa in their passports were denied entry, labeled terrorist, and were handcuffed and returned to Iran. This is when the regime's former president is granted U.S. visa! This is the same president Khatami who is directly kinked to supporting the terrorists in Lebanon and the killing of an 18 year old Jewish American who was visiting Israel. This is the same president under whose presidency the best of Iran were arrested, and murdered.