Free Republic

By stating his wish to see Ariel Sharon, “the criminal of Sabra and Shatilla dead and joining his ancestors”, the news Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad demonstrated that not only he is genuinely anti-Semite, but he has not the slightest human compassion and feeling. "Hopefully, the news that the criminal of Sabra and Chatilla has joined his ancestors is final", the extravagant, islamo-populist Ahmadinejad told hard line religious students in the holy city of Qom, known as the “cradle” of militant Shi’ism, where he took his cabinet for meeting on Thursday. His remark were so shocking that most of Iranian press,...

DUBAI, Dec 31 (Reuters) - A little-known Sunni rebel organisation says it has abducted nine Iranian soldiers to pressure Tehran to free imprisoned members of the group, Al Arabiya television said on Sunday. A caller speaking for the Jundollah (God's Soldiers) said the soldiers were seized near Iran's border with Pakistan, and demanded the release of 16 group members, the satellite television channel said. Iranian officials were not immediately available to comment. In July, the group said it beheaded an Iranian security agent it had abducted the previous month. Iran's remote southeastern areas on the border with Pakistan have seen...

China's government yesterday demanded that the Bush administration lift sanctions imposed on six companies on charges of illicit sales to Iran, saying the action undermined Beijing's cooperation with the United States. New details of the arms-related transfers were disclosed yesterday, including two chemical shipments from India to Iran, and Tehran's purchase of 800 high-powered sniper rifles from an Austrian gun maker. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang told reporters in Beijing that the sanctions were unjustified and should be lifted.

The take of Iran’s conservative media on an article published last week in the German magazine Spiegel once again highlighted their disconnection with the real world, especially on issues relating to Palestine. Spiegel published a satirical article on Iranian president Ahmadinejad’s suggestion of moving Israel and the Jews to Europe, which in itself was received with chuckles and cynicism in Europe. But the conservative press in Iran and even the influential newspaper Resalat devoted its main headline (issue no 23) to the Spiegel’s article, referencing it as a “document attesting the righteousness of president Ahmadinejad’s suggestion.” In this article, I...

The Greater and Lesser Tunbs and Abu-Musa Islands are situated near the Straight of Hurmuz in the Persian Gulf, south of Iran. The Lesser Tunb is 22 miles from the mainland of Iran. The Lesser Tunb is 17 miles from the Iranian land. Both of them are not able to sustain living and they had never inhabitants. Abu- Musa is the home for a limited number of people (less than 50 households). The Greater and Lesser Tunbs and Abu-Musa Islands have been part of Iran since the times immemorial. In the Nineteenth Century, they were parts of the "Lengheh Territory"...

Maryam swept expertly down the mountainside before swivelling to a halt, sending a spray of snow over her male companion who was waiting for her by the chair lift at the base of the slope. The 21-year-old lifted her Raybans from her eyes, ran her fingers through her bleached blonde tresses and leant towards him for a congratulatory kiss. Such coquettish behaviour, although officially banned, has become commonplace on the ski-slopes of the Islamic Republic of Iran. The country's middle classes fear that under the hardline fundamentalist presidency of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who was elected in June, their freedoms will soon...

Iran's hardline President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has packed his government with former security and intelligence officials responsible for serious human rights abuses, including the killing of thousands of dissidents in Iranian jails, a leading human rights group said yesterday. After Mr Ahmadinejad caused renewed international outrage by calling the Nazi Holocaust of Jews a "myth", a report by Human Rights Watch, based in New York, took aim at his hardline cabinet - in particular the new interior minister, Mustafa Pour-Mohammadi. Mr Pour-Mohammadi, a notorious former deputy intelligence minister, held the post from 1987 to 1999 at a time when his agents...

Washington Prism – Babak Yektafar It was strange watching Brian Lamb, the founder of C-SPAN, on TV at a party in mid-town Tehran last month. Stranger yet, was the number of people at that party who were familiar with him, and his call-in show, Washington Journal. After talking to a few people at that party, and later on at another gathering, I came to realize that Brian Lamb, the pride of Lafayette, Indiana, actually has a small and rather cultish following in Iran. C-SPAN is carried via World Net satellite network, which among other programs, carries programming by the US...

Click HereVideo: Jay Leno goofs of Iran's space program Very funny stuff It requires Real Audio

The United States and its allies have to help the democratization of the Middle East, and Islamic Republic is the centre Islamic republic has got twenty seven years of history behind it, starting with the slogan "Freedom". What the ordinary Iranian people thought of that was democracy and human rights. But what the leaders of Islamic Republic really meant was freedom for themselves to destroy our country first and then export this so-called revolution to the Islamic world and in order to destroy the entire Western civilization and replacing it with Islamic fanatic ideas. But the success of the Iranian...

We will use force, Blair warns Iranians By Anton La Guardia, Toby Helm and David Rennie (Filed: 28/10/2005) Tony Blair delivered his strongest warning to Iran last night, saying Teheran would not be allowed to become a "threat to our world security". He hinted that the West might have to resort to force. The Prime Minister said western allies would meet in the next few days to decide how to react after President Mahmoud Ahmedinejad called for Israel to be "wiped off the map". Tony Blair felt a 'real sense of revulsion' at the remarks While the initial response is...

Major fires hit oil, gas pipelines in southwest Iran TEHRAN (AFP) - Two major fires in oil and gas pipelines in Iran's southwestern province of Khuzestan have left one guard dead and disrupted the supply process, state television said. The first fire broke out during welding on a crude oil pipeline and was immediately extinguished, the Iranian police information centre said. The cause of the second inferno was not yet clear. State television said firefighters had been battling the second blaze for more than 13 hours. That fire, which broke out shortly before midnight Friday, was sparked by an explosion...

The Iranians are conducting a clandestine nuclear program in parallel to the public one, the aim of which is clearly the acquisition of nuclear weapons. The Israeli intelligence assessment speaks of three or four years; the Americans add another year or two to this timetable. The Americans conducted a large-scale operation in Iraq in order to bring down a regime which was engaged, it was thought at the time, in supporting terrorism and having weapons of mass destruction programs. Iran is clearly in the same category, and therefore it is concerned about an American/Israeli operation against its nuclear facilities. From...

An outlawed Iranian opposition group, which obtained a permit from the New York Police Department to hold a demonstration in front of the United Nations today, attracted an estimated 2,500 supporters to protest the presence of Iran’s president at the annual meeting of the UN General Assembly. But many of the crowd, coming from Denmark, Germany, Canada, Eritrea and Sudan, acknowledged that they had been recruited by the organization to attend the rally for money, and that all their expenses – including international air fare, hotels, and a daily stipend - had been paid by the organization. “Basically, what you...

TEHRAN, Sept 13 (Reuters) - Back in 1968 Mick Jagger had plenty of "Sympathy for the Devil", but his first wife Bianca is far more critical of "The Great Satan" and fears U.S. unwillingness to talk to Iran could lead to conflict. Rights campaigner Jagger, the Council of Europe's goodwill ambassador, has travelled to Iran with a group called "U.S. Academics for Peace", seeking to ensure the Islamic Republic does not become the next Iraq. The group argues the mudslinging rhetoric branding the United States as "The Great Satan" and Iran as part of the "axis of evil" is one...

Why Iran, asked friends and relatives. Why should a group of women journalists decide to go on a busman’s holiday to Iran of all places? “You will have to cover your heads and won't be allowed to talk to men,” exclaimed a colleague. Iranian embassy officials were equally curious. The usual reasons were trotted out — it is an unlikely destination for a holiday with the family, but it is of interest to journalists as an important country in India’s neighbourhood. The visas finally arrived, just as we were giving up hope, and were accompanied by elaborate instructions — heads...

Assets held by Iranian nationals residing in the United States reached $800 bln last year, said an economic expert. Bijan Bidabad told Fars news agency that the latest estimates by University of Massachusetts show that the Iranian American community held $600 bln in 2003. He further noted that restrictive laws have put investment security at stake in Iran, stressing that the country has failed to encourage investors to keep their capital at home. Investments usually seek places with adequate security, because capital always moves away from the insecure areas gradually, he noted, adding that when investors see their capital at...

The Iranian government must investigate the deaths of at least 17 people at the hands of security forces in the western province of Kurdistan over the past two weeks, Human Rights Watch said today. Security forces reportedly also wounded hundreds when they opened fire on demonstrators protesting the killing of a young Kurdish man, Shivan Qaderi, on July 9. In addition, the government forces arrested hundreds of people throughout the province, including Roya Toloui, a women's rights activist, and several other leading human rights defenders and journalists. On July 9, security forces shot and killed Shivan Qaderi in Mahabad. Kurdish...

The Iranian government has deployed large numbers of troops in cities in the northwestern region which borders Iraq in an effort to quell three weeks of civil unrest that has left up to 20 people dead and more than 300 wounded, according to reports from dissident groups. They said as many as 100,000 state security forces, backed up by helicopter gunships, had moved into the region to crack down on pro-Kurdish demonstrations. The claims, from Kurdish groups in Iraq, could not be independently verified, and Iranian officials remained silent about the unrest. The state-owned news agency IRNA said the trouble...

WASHINGTON — Free speech advocates are frustrated with a host of American companies they say have been collaborating with oppressive regimes in countries like China, Iran and Saudi Arabia, to help them filter and monitor the Internet activity of their citizens. Big technology names like Microsoft, Yahoo! and Cisco have been criticized roundly in recent years for providing foreign governments with the tools they need to crack down on Internet use, but critics say they have not been able to do much more than complain. "These companies' lack of ethics is extremely worrisome," said Lucie Morillon, the Washington representative of...