Revolutie Iran #13

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Iraanse inflatie naar 22,5 procent

Uitgegeven: 12 juli 2009 09:53
Laatst gewijzigd: 12 juli 2009 10:29

TEHERAN - De inflatie in Iran is weer iets afgenomen tot een percentage van 22,5 procent. Dit berichtte zondag de krant Sarmayeh op gezag van maandelijks gepubliceerde cijfers van de centrale bank.

De voorafgaande maand stond het percentage nog op 23,6 procent. In september was het 29 procent.

De geldontwaarding is een van de grootste problemen van Iran.

Voor de nog steeds omstreden presidentsverkiezingen van 12 juni hamerden economen en rivalen van president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad erop dat de regering vier jaar lang onverantwoordelijk met geld heeft gesmeten. Ahmadinejad zou zo de motor van de hoge inflatie zijn.

Begrotingstekort

Ondanks de hoge olieprijzen is het Iraanse begrotingstekort groter dan ooit. De president heeft bovendien ook geput uit een reservefonds dat een voorganger voor magere jaren oprichtte.

De voornaamste oppositieleider, Mir Hossein Mousavi, stelde voor de verkiezingen onder meer dat er niet alleen geld is verkwist, maar ook spoorloos is verdwenen onder Ahmadinejad regering.

De president werd met bijna 63 procent van de stemmen herkozen. De oppositie claimt verkiezingsfraude.
© ANP (via nu.nl)

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Sohran Arabi, 19, died in Evin after arrest at #iranelection protest. Parents to collect his body, his mom is part of "Mothers for Peace"about 12 hours ago from web

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Sohrab becomes the symbol of martyrs of notorious Evin prison. #iranelection #nedaabout 3 hours ago from TweetDeck

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Mousavi's office shut down w/ warrant. http://parlemannews.com/?n=... #iranelectionabout 1 hour ago from web

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Mousavi's office in presidential complex evacuted by officals, Mousavi used the office for about 20 years after Prime Minster. #iranelectionabout 10 hours ago from web

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Op zondag 12 juli 2009 13:47 schreef AlexanderDeGrote het volgende:
Een nieuw slachtoffer uit Evin:

https://www.ina-newsagency.com/News-Details.aspx?newsId=24925&back=1
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http://twitter.com/laraabcnews
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http://twitter.com/iranriggedelect

Mousavi's kantoor opgerold:
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http://twitter.com/iranbaan
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http://twitter.com/omidhabibinia

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Op zondag 12 juli 2009 13:52 schreef Disana het volgende:

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Nergens staat hoe hij aan zijn eind is gekomen. Kan niet anders dan dat hij gemarteld is.

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Op zondag 12 juli 2009 14:04 schreef AlexanderDeGrote het volgende:

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Dat of gebrek aan medische zorg. Wat in feite hetzelfde is.

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Op zondag 5 juli 2009 22:36 schreef Mutant01 het volgende:
Net op CNN: groep geestelijken die ook menen dat er gekloot is met de uitslag.

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Op zondag 12 juli 2009 14:07 schreef Disana het volgende:

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Je hebt gelijk, dat lijkt me ook waarschijnlijker: aangevallen op straat en in de cel aan zijn lot overgelaten.

Intens triest dat een land zo met haar kinderen omgaat.

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Accused of spying: journalist Iason Athanasiadis tells of his time in Iranian jail
For 18 days, journalist Iason Athanasiadis was held in Iran's feared Evin prison, accused of spying for Britain. Now for the first time he can tell his story.

The slap across my jaw from behind me made my ears sting red with anger and embarrassment. I was being punished for daring to glance around the room where I was being questioned - accused of being a spy for Britain.

A few days earlier I had been brought, blindfolded, to the heart of Evin Prison, to begin what my captors believed would be the simple process of establishing my guilt. I was told to sit down, and keep facing the bare wall in front of me, before my blindfold was removed.

On a sheet of official notepaper I was to scribble answers to my interrogator's questions. What had I been doing in the days since the disputed Iranian election? Who were my contacts? Who had I interviewed and what had they told me?

When he stepped outside to talk to intelligence ministry colleagues, I briefly craned my neck to see whether the interrogation suite was equipped with a camera. It was a mistake: quick as a flash the official was back, and I was being punished for my disobedience.

My face still smarting, I whirled round to confront him. It was a visceral reaction and the only time in a week of almost daily interrogations that I stared straight into the face of one of my captors. What I saw was not reassuring. A scruffy white-flecked beard, a contemptuous mouth curling to reveal a flash of gold fillings, and eyes fixed at me in white anger.

"Didn't I tell you never to turn around?" he snapped. "Now turn away from me."

My first interrogator was like that. Sometimes his carefully cultivated voice oozed false sympathy. Occasionally, his solicitousness appeared downright sarcastic. When I refused to reveal the names of my Iranian contacts, he assured me that they need not fear. "They are fellow Iranian citizens like myself, Mr Iason," he purred. "Why would I ever hurt my own flesh and blood?"

At other times he flew into blind rages, prodding me aggressively in the back while making a point - perhaps about the perfidy of supporters of Mir-Hossein Mousavi, the presidential candidate who is still disputing the outcome of the election.

He may have been angry because one of his female relatives had been struck by a stone during the rioting. Or perhaps he was simply angry because I represented the West.

"You think you're treated so badly," he snapped at me, "but what is our treatment in London or Heathrow? Every time in that airport it is four or five hours interrogation for us."

In fact my background is more complex. Born in Greece to historian parents who met at Oxford University - my father English, my mother Greek - my childhood was spent surrounded by the paraphernalia of the East. I am a citizen of both Greece and Britain, but have spent little time in the UK.

At university I studied Arabic and Middle Eastern Studies, then worked in Egypt, Syria and Yemen as a journalist - before moving to Iran in 2004, to study for an MA.

I was there in 2005 when Mahmoud Ahmadinejad swept from nowhere to win the presidency, and I returned to Tehran last month as an accredited journalist to watch him apparently sweep the 2009 election again.

Tehran was a city on edge on election day, and in the days that followed smoke and teargas mingled with cloud from the unseasonally stormy weather. But the following Wednesday I had to leave, with just hours to spare on my seven day visa. Just past passport control came the moment that every reporter dreads. "Please follow me," said a man wearing a brown shirt and jacket. "You won't be travelling tonight."

Two of his colleagues quickly appeared. One flashed me a threatening grin as he shook my hand; the other just regarded me with contempt. "Where are we going?" I demanded. They had no arrest warrant. "For a long talk," the first man crooned.

Disappearing into the clutches of the intelligence ministry was not a desirable prospect. I had to get word out of my arrest. I dropped on to the floor, hung on tight to my camera and laptop bags and began shouting that I was a Greek journalist being placed under arrest.

My guards' violent response - putting me into a neck hold while they hauled me off, punching all the way - produced screams of pain which resounded around the terminal, but at least my detention had been noticed.

I was driven straight to Evin Prison, the bźte noire of liberal Iranian dissidents. Its current guests include pro-Mousavi politicians, intellectuals, activists and a growing number of journalists. But I was the first non-Iranian journalist taken there in living memory. In arresting me, the Iranians had broken through a psychological barrier. Soon afterwards they would pick up a 23 year old French teacher, also accusing her of espionage.

Old Mercedes buses trundled through the metal gates, carrying tired and bloodied protesters who had been beaten and then arrested. But I was not destined for their overcrowded cells. Instead, I was blindfolded before being taken into a windowless building: Evin's notorious Section 209, the part of the prison wholly controlled by the Intelligence Ministry.

My questioning over the next three weeks was haphazard: my interrogators seemed puzzled by me and my grasp of Farsi, and wholly ignorant of my activities during the three years I had lived, with official blessing, in Iran. Gradually their questions became less specific and more philosophical - and, as the violence against me ceased, time became my greatest enemy.

In a cell which remained brightly lit 24 hours a day, I was allowed no reading material, no radio and no other kind of distraction - except a well-thumbed copy of the Koran.

Inside it I discovered an aphorism written in Arabic: "Shackled in chains without guilt; except a tendency towards the fields of jihad." On the wall, the same hand had written: "I seek recourse in Allah from idiots and stupidity."

Eventually, as my interrogators conceded that perhaps I was not, after all, a spy, I was moved to one of Evin's prisoner processing centres. Rows of blindfolded men sat cross-legged in corridors, some facing the wall, as officials dashed in and out of offices or pulled prisoners out for questioning.

I saw men in the communal showers, heard the hubbub of voices from interrogation rooms and noted the doorways of officials' carpeted rooms, a jumble of slippers and sandals. Intelligence officers pored over surveillance photos from the demonstrations, trying to identify repeat offenders.

Then, late on July 5, the door of my cell clicked open. Three jailers stood there. "It's over," one of them said.

Exhilarated, I kissed all three before being led, blindfolded again, past rows of my fellow inmates' cell and through the administrative section - to be handed back my clothes, my telephone and my laptop.

In the police station at the gate of Evin crowds of rioters, criminals and over-perfumed prostitutes swathed in chadors waited. I was photographed, fingerprinted and taken into a car. My guard for the trip to the airport was the portly man who had manhandled me on the night of my arrest. He flashed me a reconciliatory smile.

The streets to the airport were gridlocked with traffic and all protest appeared to have died down.

I was met by the Greek ambassador, Nikos Garilidis, whose intervention helped speed my release. But the moment he left, the atmosphere changed - and I found myself arrested again.

Before the officials could take my telephone this time, I called Mr Garilidis, who was furious. I had to spend a further night in a jail cell at the airport, followed by more negotiations next day - until I was finally safely on board an Iran Air flight to Dubai.

As I accepted a plastic-wrapped rose from a headscarfed stewardess, I wondered if I would ever dare to return to Tehran. That was what my interrogators had asked me, too - but my ambivalent answer had disappointed them.

"You shouldn't be so negative about your experience," the senior interrogator said.

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Op zondag 12 juli 2009 15:51 schreef Zith het volgende:
"You shouldn't be so negative about your experience," the senior interrogator said.

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Op zondag 12 juli 2009 15:54 schreef HiZ het volgende:

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Tja, maar wat gebeurt er nu? Naast de gebrekkige nieuwsvoorziening heb ik nu toch ook niet het idee dat er nog veel gebeurt. Behalve dan dat de dictatuur de touwtjes aantrek en waarschijnlijk binnenkort er koppen gaan rollen in het 'hervormingskamp'.

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Breaking News: Ayatl. Rafsanjani will lead Fri Prayers on Jul 17. Green movement is planning 2 attend. #iranelection13 minutes ago from TweetDeck

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Grand Ayatollah Montazeri’s Fatwa

Grand Ayatollah Montazeri’s Fatwa: an Unfair Supreme Leader is Illegitimate

By MUHAMMAD SAHIMI in Los Angeles | 12 July 2009

[TEHRAN BUREAU] In a very important development, Grand Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri, the most senior cleric living in Iran, and one of the top two* marja’ taghlid (source of emulation) in Shiite Islam, issued a series of Fatwas, calling the Supreme Leader illegitimate and saying that he was working with the government against religion. Montazeri has called on people to take action against this injustice, even if they have to pay a heavy price for it.

Ayatollah Motazeri, who has long been one of the most outspoken critics of Iran’s hard-liners, issued the Fatwas in response to a letter that Dr. Mohsen Kadivar, a progressive cleric and a former student of his, wrote asking for answers to several pointed questions. (Dr. Kadivar was jailed a few years ago for his outspoken criticism of the hard-liners and now lives in the United States.)

The letter congratulates the Grand Ayatollah on the occasion of last week’s anniversary of the birth of Imam Ali, the Shiites’ first Imam, and a cousin and a son-in-law of the Prophet Mohammad. The letter says that the anniversary has fallen at a time when peaceful protests against rigged elections have been met by injustice by the government, which has resulted in tens of deaths, hundreds of injured, and thousands of arrests — all carried out in the name of Islam and Shiism by those who use Imam Ali’s name but take the path of his enemies instead.

The letters continues,

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Op zondag 12 juli 2009 22:47 schreef speknek het volgende:
Eh, wauw. Zou dit echt waar zijn?

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Op zondag 12 juli 2009 22:50 schreef SeLang het volgende:
Als dit waar is...

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Op zondag 12 juli 2009 22:58 schreef MoltiSanti het volgende:

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WTSHTF

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Op zondag 12 juli 2009 22:59 schreef Hukkie het volgende:

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Hmm, ben redelijk thuis in internet termen, maar WTSHTF ken ik nog niet?

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Op zondag 12 juli 2009 23:06 schreef AlexanderDeGrote het volgende:

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When The Shit Hits The Fan?

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Op zondag 12 juli 2009 14:04 schreef AlexanderDeGrote het volgende:

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Dat of gebrek aan medische zorg. Wat in feite hetzelfde is.

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(12 July 2009) Iranian authorities have informed the family of Sohrab Aarabi, 19, that he died of gunshot wounds to his heart, 26 days after he disappeared during a demonstration on 15 June, the International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran reported today.

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U.S. worried about American scholar detained in Iran

Reuters
Monday, July 13, 2009 4:31 PM

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States called on Iran on Monday to release U.S. citizen Kian Tajbakhsh and said it was "deeply concerned" about the scholar, who was detained in Tehran last week and has previously been accused of spying.

Tajbakhsh, an Iranian American who holds a doctorate in urban planning from Columbia University, was arrested by Iranian authorities in May 2007, charged with spying and then released after more than four months in Tehran's Evin prison.

It was not clear why Tajbakhsh was detained last week.

Iran has sought to crush demonstrations after its disputed June 12 presidential election, which defeated candidate Mirhossein Mousavi says was rigged in favor of hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Iranian authorities have accused foreigners of fomenting the demonstrations.

In 2007, Tajbakhsh was one of several Iranian Americans who were jailed by Iran and became pawns in the strained relations between Tehran and Washington. Iran does not recognize dual nationality.

The United States, which cut diplomatic ties with Iran after the 1979 Islamic Revolution, accuses Iran of seeking to develop nuclear weapons. Iran says its nuclear program is to generate electricity so it can export more oil and gas.

"We're deeply concerned (about) reports that an Iranian-American scholar has been unjustly detained in Iran," State Department spokesman Ian Kelly told reporters.

"We have urged the Iranian authorities to immediately release Kian Tajbakhsh, as well as return the passports of all Americans being kept in Iran on groundless charges, he added, citing Iranian American graduate student Esha Momeni.

Momeni visited Tehran to research a master's thesis on the women's rights movement in Iran and was arrested on October 15 on a traffic violation. According to Kelly, she has been barred from leaving the country since her release from prison in November.

(Editing by Mohammad Zargham)

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Young Election Protester Buried in Tehran
By Robert Mackey
This image of Sohrab Aarabi, a 19-year-old protester who was buried on Monday, was uploaded to TwitPic with the caption: “We will never forget you.”

Iran’s opposition movement consecrated another martyr on Monday, with the funeral of a 19-year-old named Sohrab Aarabi, whose family just discovered on Saturday that he had died last month of a gunshot wound to the heart. Mr. Aarabi had been missing since the huge opposition rally in Tehran on June 15, which was followed by clashes between opposition protesters and Basij militia members during which several people were shot and killed.

On Monday, bloggers posted tributes to Mr. Aarbai online. This video recounts the story of his disappearance and shows his mother asking for information about him outside the gates of Evin prison before his death was announced and then crying inconsolably over his body during his funeral:

Bloggers using Twitter added the tag #Sorhab to many of their updates on the post-election turmoil, alongside the tag #Neda, indicating that he has become, like Neda Agha-Soltan, a martyr.

The International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran, a New York-based group, explained that news of Mr. Aarabi’s death was apparently withheld from his family until a sensitive anniversary had passed:

Mr. Aarabi’s mother, Parvin Fahimi, a member of the Mothers for Peace organization, tried repeatedly to get information about his situation, taking his photograph to prisons, courts and other addresses. Finally, on 11 July, after the protests commemorating the “18 Tir” student demonstrations in 1999, the family was summoned by the Revolutionary Court and referred to the Investigatory Bureau (Agahi), and asked to identify Sohrab from among several photographs of corpses. According to family members interviewed by the Campaign, his body had arrived at the coroner’s office on 19 June, five days after his disappearance.

A spokesman for the human-rights group, Hadi Ghaemi, demanded an investigation into the death and the delay in notifying the family, asking: “If Sohrab was shot on the street on 15 June, why was it recorded by the coroner only on 19 June?”
Sohrab Aarabi on his 19th birthday.

On the evening of Monday, June 15, when Mr. Aarabi went missing, members of the Basij militia were filmed shooting into a crowd of protesters during clashes near Tehran’s Azadi Square. Within hours, graphic video of wounded and dead protesters being carried from the scene appeared online.

As my colleague Robert Worth wrote in The New York Times on Monday “The reports of Mr. Arabi’s death renewed widespread claims that the number of protesters killed during the unrest was much higher than the official government figure of 20.”

The International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran emphasized that the treatment of Mr. Aarabi’s family has heightened those fears:

The lack of transparency and calculated delay in releasing the information about Aarabi’s unexplained death only raises anxieties about scores of others who are among the disappeared as well as those who have been held in incommunicado detention, with no contact to family members or lawyers, many for almost a month. An additional approximately 190 persons were arrested following the most recent demonstrations on 9 July.

nytimes.com