Stop Fundamentalism, 20 August 2011 – During an exhibition to show Ayatollahs capabilities in cyber warfare in Tehran, an Iranian internet official told reporters that, “Social networks such as Google Plus pose extreme danger for Iranian internet surfers.”
He said that such social tools are play grounds for enemies and asked Iranian’s active in social space not to enter these networks.
Stop Fundamentalism, 20 August 2011 – Its all about destruction of things with the Mullahs’ regime it seems; this time on the internet.
Following setbacks on Iran’s plan to prevent people from having access to free internet and its failure in filtering the medium, now it seems Iran is looking for some way of showing a little mussel on the internet.
According to state-run news agencies, regime’s ministry of Intelligence has now found and destroyed what it describes as an anti-religious network on the internet.
Stop Fundamentalism, 20 August 2011 – Demonstrations continue across Syria in Damascus and other cities. 19 protestors were killed Friday when their rally was met by security forces’ machinegun fire. News agencies report that besides those killed, over 300 demonstrators were arrested.
Dissidents announced yesterday that there is growing opposition among the ranks of the Syrian military in Hama and a number of officers confronted Bashar Assad’s plainclothes agents. The officers announced that they have organized groups to protect demonstrators and people.
Stop Fundamentalism, 18 August 2011 – Wednesday 9 people were killed by the military forces of Syrian President Assad in the city of Hama.
Some of those killed, died near a mosque where a number of demonstrators were chanting and calling for overthrow of Assad, after the afternoon prayer and in time for Eftar (time of breaking fast during the month of Ramadan).
Syrian demonstrators condemned the killing of Palestinian refugees in a camp by Latakia and chanted in their support.
Dr. Sharam Taromsari
By now, it should no longer be necessary to rehearse the evidence as to the danger Iran represents to Western interests. Iran’s pursuit of nuclear weapons, its violence in Iraq and elsewhere, and its sponsorship of terrorism (even conspiring with al-Qaeda) are all well-documented, not least by the US government.
While Libya and Syria are rightly condemned for profound abuses of their citizens, there seems to be silence from Western governments on Iran, with the main opposition group remaining on the State Department’s terrorist list and denied US protection in Iraq. While it is important for democratic politics and the human rights of those who must live under such regimes that there is honesty about the foreign policy choices that the West is making, let us stick with realpolitik and focus firmly upon US foreign policy interests.
Reza Fard
Developments in the Middle East and North Africa, widely described as Arab Spring, highlight a missing key element that in order to remove a tyrant people of a country need and that is a viable opposition movement to set out the plan for overthrow and the future of their countries.
Despite widespread protests and international support for uprisings in Syria and Libya, the dictators are still resisting and holding on to power. For most part it is because they have done their homework well to crackdown on their opposition and employ the Iranian agents’ many years of experience on how to crackdown on their people.
Alex Jeferson
In recent weeks, the Iranian regime’s elusive and well-funded lobbying machine in Washington has been focusing exclusively on smearing and discrediting the main Iranian opposition. The so-called National Iranian American Council (NIAC), and its founder Trita Parsi, have been lobbying desperately to prevent what the Iranian regime fears the most: The removal of the largest and best organized Iranian opposition, the Mujahedin-e Khalq (PMOI/MEK), from the State Department’s list of terrorist organizations.
NIAC’s campaign includes dozens of roughly identical opinion pieces and articles published under different names, as well as dedicated web pages, YouTube videos, petitions, letters to legislators, seminars, webinars, and tweets. All of them bear the following message for Washington: Do not delist the MEK.
That message has clearly been one of the main demands of the Iranian regime. In fact, when the MEK was first designated in 1997, U.S. officials acknowledged that the “goodwill gesture,” was in response to Iranian regime demands to facilitate dialogue with Tehran.
Report by: Omid Biniaz
On July 7th, 2011, the families and friends of the residents of Camp Ashraf who attended a congressional hearing into Iraq’s massacre at Camp Ashraf last month, and its implications for US policy, faced a terrifying experience of their own. Two NIAC operatives were following them and taking their pictures.
The hearing was held by the Oversight and Investigations Sub-committee of the House Foreign Affairs Committee. On April 8, 2011, Iraqi forces raided Camp Ashraf, killing 36 residents and wounding 345 others.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is reportedly close to announcing her decision to whether or not remove Iran’s major opposition, the Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK) from the Department’s list of terrorist organizations. The law says this decision must be based on the anti-Terrorism Statute not politics or policy considerations. The US Congress and field experts agree and call for ending the designation.
Her predecessor’s 1997 decision to blacklist the group was definitely a political one and a total disregard of relevant laws. The move by Madeline Albright, the then Secretary of State, was carefully crafted to send a definitive and meaningful welcome-to-office present to the newly-elected president of Iran, Mohammad Khatami, the darling of the phantom “reform” movement crowd in Western capitals.
By all indications, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is about to release the result of her Department’s court-mandated review of the January 2009 designation of the Iranian opposition MEK, as Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO). Legal experts agree that the mere observance of the Law, subtle suggestions of the US Court of Appeals, and the statuary requirements, would lead her to one and only one outcome: End the MEK’s designation. This could very well explain the State Department’s delaying tactics to announce the review.
