UPDATE: Saberi's released! As I said, pawn of political game, and Ahmadinejad's election tactic! Lunatic!
I have been silent on this case because I have been trying to figure out "which political group" has designed "which political gain" from her case. This is a media circus, staged on the occasion of Iran's upcoming election. This is also a media circus to anatagonize Obama, because frankly, Obama has been antagonizing Iran. Iran's political leaders have been mildly suggesting to Obama to adjust his tone and use proper language. But hat Hillary woman is going around, barking off like a bitch on Zionist's leash! Saberi, is thus used as a sign to America: "we are not afraid of your new version of saber rattling--no matter what kind of cotton your president is pampering the saber in!"Of course, Saberi's case is not unique. Same happened to Haleh Esfandiari, Parnaz Azima, Ramin Jahanbegloo. What is fascinating is that Iranians arrest people who actually CARE about Iran, who are doing best to build bridges! This confirms the fears of many who suggest Iran is run by lunatics! I won't call them lunatics; but I consider them machiavellian psychopaths! (But I also question their independence and their motivations, suspecting them to be different from what it seems!)
Perhaps something that makes Saberi, Esfandiari and Jahanbegloo more vulnerable than hordes of other "peace missionaries" who travel, report or even SPY in Iran is that perhaps they operate closer to home: Iran. They can perhaps make an impact on intellectual discourse within Iran more than merely being a publicist for "come look Tehran is so pretty and Tehranis have nose jobs!"
I don't know much about Saberi's work, but her close relationship with Bahman Ghobadi-an upcoming cinema director (from Iran's Kurdistan provinces), who is internationally praised, but nationally banned-may not be fully unrelated to her case.
On April 22, Ghobadi came out with a public plea, that "Saberi's his fiancee, that she is a "weak" person who didn't "dare to spy" and that she had only stayed n Iran for him to finish his underground film; and now that he film was done they were planning to move to the US! On April 23rd, announcement came that his film (No One Has Heard of The Persian Cat) was nominated for one of the competition categories of the Cannes Film Festival!
It is slightly cruel to be cynical perhaps ... but, could it be that those staging this circus are holding the puppet strings from elsewhere?! Demonizing Iran's image is a lovely enterprise for many a Western institutions!
Remember how every time the world pressure on Israel for "peace" intensifies, a palestinian suicide bomber goes up the smoke? In Iran, everytime talks of peace intensify, an American-Iranian gets jailed!! (I think Iranian puppets are not stupid enough to be manipulated to blowing themselves up with their American captives!!)
I am still watching this case! And I wish Iran's leaders took a lead to end this fiasco sooner than later! In fact, they should make a public display of the idiots who come up with such political designs! (They should also have prosecuted those responsible for accidental death of Zahra Kazemi). They just discredit Iran's government.
On April 22, Ghobadi came out with a public plea, that "Saberi's his fiancee, that she is a "weak" person who didn't "dare to spy" and that she had only stayed n Iran for him to finish his underground film; and now that he film was done they were planning to move to the US! On April 23rd, announcement came that his film (No One Has Heard of The Persian Cat) was nominated for one of the competition categories of the Cannes Film Festival!
It is slightly cruel to be cynical perhaps ... but, could it be that those staging this circus are holding the puppet strings from elsewhere?! Demonizing Iran's image is a lovely enterprise for many a Western institutions!
Remember how every time the world pressure on Israel for "peace" intensifies, a palestinian suicide bomber goes up the smoke? In Iran, everytime talks of peace intensify, an American-Iranian gets jailed!! (I think Iranian puppets are not stupid enough to be manipulated to blowing themselves up with their American captives!!)
I am still watching this case! And I wish Iran's leaders took a lead to end this fiasco sooner than later! In fact, they should make a public display of the idiots who come up with such political designs! (They should also have prosecuted those responsible for accidental death of Zahra Kazemi). They just discredit Iran's government.
28 comments:
You can only shame those stupid men.
Remember the case of Agha-jeri; fought in the War of Sacred Defense, lost his leg, lost his brother in the War and yet condemned to death for questioning the role of mullahs in Iran.
Mr. Karrubi had to come back from Saudi Arabia from an official visit to deal with "this dishonorable verdict".
"He who rapes his own mother, God knows what he does to others." as the Persian saying goes.
Where is the Law, Where is Justice, Where is Islam?
I am very very disgusted by all of this.
pen Name
Pen, at least ou know how to speak the mullah language. so why don't you raise your voice and say something. Or why doesn't your "Dr Ahmadinejad" do anything?!
MAybe he is gift-shopping to give Roxana when she is released?
Naj:
Dr. Ahmadinejad has already done what he could by publicly issuing a request for the case to be treated based on Law, Justice, and the Rights of the Accused.
That is all he could do under the Iranian Law.
I am too afraid to say anything.
Also, these judges are very independent. Mr. Shahroudi has banned the issuing of stoning verdicts yet this judge issued one and it was carried out last year. Eventually that judge was removed but the damage was done.
If Shahroudi cannot do much, what do you expect of people like me.
My father is also very upset - he calls the whole thing "Nekbat-e Islami" - Islamic Disaster.
I hope God helps us.
pen Name
Pen, from what you say I am gathering you are from a "rowhani" family?
Yes I know Shahroodi and Ahmadinejad have made a half-ass announcement about this.
but WHO THE HELL ARE THESE Mafisos??
I don't blame you for being afraid. Frankly, I am afraid to go to Iran these days as well. Something tells me I should stay away from Iran for at least after election!
Naj:
I am not from a religious family.
Many Iranians are not capable of working together - they are narrowly focused on their own self-interests and their families. They are mercurial and emotional. And would do anything to advance their narrow interest – even when it results in harming Iran and Islam. [Truly it was the Hand of Ghaem Al-e Muhammad that made the Iranian Revolutions of 1905 and 1979 possible.]
When in 1991, Mrs. Mitterrand came to Iran to look over the Iraqi refugees, she was favorably impressed by the way Iranians treated the Iraqi refugee situation. Mr. Mitterrand was going to visit Iran that summer for an official visit to Iran This visit was going to be reciprocated by Mr. Rafsanjani’s visit to France. On August 6, 1991, Shapour Bakhtiar was assassinated in Paris by 3 Iranians – 2 of them fled to Iran and a third was convicted and jailed in France.
Mr. Bakhtiar was not a threat to the Islamic Republic of Iran –he was too old and for too long out of political action. But someone or some group of people ordered him killed to create an incident to sabotage the normalization between Iran and France (and later between Iran and Europe and even later with US). That they harmed Iran and Islam did not matter to them – they had their own agenda.
Likewise, during Mr. Khatami’s presidency, incidents with Europe and American visitors were created to discredit his normalization efforts. Those responsible were apparently powerful enough not to fear retaliation by other factions. Mr. Agha-jeri’s case was the last straw – it showed that these people had no decency, that they had turned their back on Islam, and they were truly Munafiq – as mentioned in the Quran. Hanging is too good for them.
I do not know if Miss Saberi’s case is one of those. I hope not. And I hope that powerful people like the President and the Head of Judiciary will be able to resolve this case. I think that this might be a case of Ahmadinejad’s enemies – they do not want his efforts in making Iran a normal country to succeed.
به امید امداد غیبی
pen Name
Pen, you are such a rational human until you start talking about "emdaad-e Gheibi" lol
Yes, there are "hands" that are preventing IRan's relationship-normalization and I am bound to put my money on Zionists. A powerful and well connected IRan will completely render Israel's functional necessity to the West irrelevant!
Yes this mafia is brutal. What htey did to Bakhtiyar, to foroohars or even to ttheir own Sa'eed Emami ... they instill fear by the brutality of their torturous acts ... it's not that they kill people, it's that they kill opponents in BRUTAL ways.
Yet, If IRI has been able to protect Shirin aabedi, and Simin Behbahani, then they shoudl be able to protect Saberi as well! So, I don't buy the half-assed attempts of Ahmadinejad. Ahmadinejad is a populist; and an opportunist. He is an educated version of Bush!
As for Iranian's selfishness ... I agree! Last week, I was put to SHAME by the completely out of whack behavior of Iranians that my European hosts had to witness. To repsect me, they took me to an Iranian restaurent where the owner tried to cheat us by giving us a small plate of "mirza ghasemi--which lacked garlic, eggs and eggplants--and charging it as three orders (12 Euros!). Then my friends took me to an Iranian film, which was sold out and people including us were on waiting list. again, my hosts were shocked by Iranians cutting i line in front of us, and LYING (I could translate what they were saying in persian to themselves) that hey HAD reservation, and then arguing, halting the line and completely oblivious to the fact that 50 people were politely waiting their turn.
I tend to stay away from Iranian communities abroad, but everytime I get to participate in a community event, I am left DISGUSTED by how frozen in time these nagging people are!
And yes, intellectual laziness ... yet another feature of most of the upper middle class Iranians!
"nagging people" are alive and well in Iran.
Only the peasants and the lower middle class are not nagging.
The events that wrote about was not done by Zionists.
So those Iranians abroad behave just like those in Iran.
My father used to say: "Will take a hundred years for them to become adam (adam be-shavand)!".
That was 40 years ago.
pen Name
من هم سرکار عالی را از نظر فکری جذاب مییا بم.
قلم نام
Yup, and frankly, the wisdom of peasants is far more superior to many of the city dwelling "tazeh be doran resideh"!
Did you happen to catch
Amy Goodman's interview with Shirin Ebadi? It takes a few seconds to load, but it fast forwards to that part of the show, which is a new feature that I like.
I agree with you that she is a pawn in a political game. I can't remember the names, but supposedly the US military is holding 3 members of the revolutionary guards that were picked up in Kurdish Iraq. There are a
few different articles on the HuffPo, but I haven't read them all, and I can't remember which one mentioned the revolutionary guards.
yes, that "prisoner exchange" is another theoretical possibility. Thanks for the links Nunya!
Naj, I'm confused. What do the religious hardliners get out of lousy relationship with the West?
Nunya: to religious hardliners opposition to the west is a form of protest to west's materialism, west's colonialism.
Their opposition aims at antagonizing the "bully".
In Iran, anti-westernism (read nationalism) has been mobilized under religious flag. Iran is a heterogeneous country, culturally and ethnically. You cannot have people fight for the country as "Persians", because not everyone is Persian; but you can have everyone fight for it as a Muslim. And throughout Iran's post-Arab-attack history, Siism has been the strongest and most reliable force to have kept Iran from becoming a colony-unlike India, Iraq, or even parts of China--all of which culturally rich and ancient nations!
The opposition of Religious hardliners in Iran then needs to be seen through the same lens as Mandella's, Ghandi's, Castro's and Mossadegh's is seen. It has far less to do with religion than with demanding "respect" and equality through accepting cultural difference.
Unfortunately, the current cosmetics of the government in Iran are not refined enough to be effective in selling the package. Unfortunately, people who are the "obvious" supporters of the current regime are not well groomed, well spoken, well mannered. But, there is an elite behind the scene (and Larijani or Rafsanjani or Khatami are examples of that elite) who know exactly what they are doing--I don't know why they don't hire me :D
Unfortunately, American/Zionist funding is most likely to end up in the pockets of the fundamentalist lunatics ... and history's my witness on that!
lol
I am amusing myself today ... my mother will disown me if she reads my comment above!!!
naj:
Once again you have gone into a fanatsy history.
Iran exists today because of the Safavids - those religious Shia speaking Turkish.
They revived the idea of Iranian state 800 years after the collapse of the Sassanid Iran.
You are also wrong about the cosmetics - that is what & who we are. Some areas are good, some areas are disasters.
Your characterization "religious hardliner" is also incorrect. There are factions and most are based on confused ideas. The phrase "religious hardliner" is devoid of analytical content - it does not describe the reality of Iran.
In regards to US, we have not yet seen any concrete steps from US government. What we have seen has been words.
200 words are not worth a half deed.
pen Name
naj:
Once again you have gone into a fanatsy history.
Iran exists today because of the Safavids - those religious Shia speaking Turkish.
They revived the idea of Iranian state 800 years after the collapse of the Sassanid Iran.
You are also wrong about the cosmetics - that is what & who we are. Some areas are good, some areas are disasters.
Your characterization "religious hardliner" is also incorrect. There are factions and most are based on confused ideas. The phrase "religious hardliner" is devoid of analytical content - it does not describe the reality of Iran.
In regards to US, we have not yet seen any concrete steps from US government. What we have seen has been words.
200 words are not worth a half deed.
pen Name
Naj and PenName,
I read your comments and now I'm more confused than ever. I understand not wanting to be a colony. It's just that sometimes I throw my hands up in disgust and say "Who knows why rich people do what they do?" I tend to be pragmatic, rather than ideological.
nunya:
I accept what and who I am - too old to be otherwise.
I also accept Iran and the Iranian people for what they are.
We will never be like you in US or Western Europe. We cannot.
What is confusing?
naj:
It was my observation that US women are very self-reliant and competent.
Many are extremists when it comes to men but their self-reliance and competence predates their rebellious anti-man attitude of the last 40 years.
In in English (or in French) to my knowledge there is no world for "mamman khamiri". Or "khale Zanak".
In fact, treating woman as an equal - with mechanical precision for adjudication of rights and responsibilities - is the most certain method of loosing that woman.
Man is the gardener of woman. A man cannot be too generous to his wife or lover since the woman has given him all that she has.
But I agree with you in general sentiment that you have shown - that man & woman complement each other but they are not equal in the sense of behavior, expectations from life, psyche etc.
But too many women are being kept down in Iran and are discrimanted against. While I cringe to see it, I am - again - powerless to do anything aboout it. I take heart that the Islamic Government at least has dragged these women out of the enclosure of their homes and their men (fathers, husbands, sons, brothers, etc.) cannot prevent it any more.
Ok Pen Name,
I'm going to ask a really basic human question.
Why is the US' support of Israel and the hatred of Zionist a national pastime in Iran? I mean, really?
If you think about it, the Jews have their own religious claim to that territory also, and it goes back further than Islam. Just because Mohammad came along and said, "That's it, this religion is the shit, end of discussion," doesn't mean that the Jews and the Christians were gonna accept that, you know?
And, anyway, hominids have been migrating, and evolving, and displacing other hominids for hundred of thousands of years.
I kind forgot to mention all these other religious faiths also.
Nunya:
Why is the US' support of Israel and the hatred of Zionist a national pastime in Iran?You don't seem to have been listening to anything i have been telling you; or you suffer memory/attention loss!
Pen: Your response to Nunya lacked clear indication that it was "YOUR" personal perspective, and not a national one. Hence, no place on my blog for hate mongering! Start your own bog if you wanna rant nonsense and wanna attack anyone!
naj:
Once again we are at the parting of ways.
Once again you cannot stand the Truth when you hear it.
pen Name
Ok. Sorry dear. I didn't mean to piss you off again. I know I'm not alone in feeling frustration in the seemingly intractable situation in the Middle East. It's very difficult for me to understand the willingness to die over a piece of land, or a religion.
Hey folks, let us not forget that Palestine is NOT a religion, although some would like to make it so. The first Palestinian I met was a Christian who gave me a ride from Ankara to Aleppo, where his family lived after 1948.
You are wrong.
He had nothing to do with it.
She had in her posession notes on a secret document.
Iranian Intelligence was aware of her 2006 trip to Israel.
If she had shared anything with them she would have been in real serious trouble.
If an Iranian-American had been caught in a similar situation in US, would a court of appeals commute that persons sentence?
pen Name
give me a break: secret document?!
Everyone in Iran has "secret documents", guess why: EVERYTHING IN IRAN IS ILLEGAL!
Or can be rendered illegal!
Come on ... this girl was no spy! Israeli spies probably have a beard and a "prayer mark" on their ugly foreheads!
I know she is not spy.
She is too unique and visible.
If she were she would have been dead by now.
But she had done something woring.
Judging by her choice of lover, she seems to be prone to poor judgement.
[She should have been married by now. I do not understand why she has not had any khastegar - I certainly would have - had I been unmarried and young.]
pen Name
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