But on June 7 a group of Internet activists hopes to give Iranian voters a taste of what an open election feels like by launching an alternative election featuring 20 candidates. The candidates not only include the officially approved eight, but 12 more, ranging from people who failed the official vetting process to reformist leaders and political prisoners.
Radio Free Europe features other stories on Iran’s upcoming elections, of course, but still it’s good to pass along information that indicates interest in more authentic representative government.
Iran’s official elections take place next Friday (June 14, 2013).
The protesters chanted slogans against the government and the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, calling for the “death to the dictator.” Among other slogans, they chanted “The political prisoners must freed” and “Mousavi and Karroubi must be freed,” referring to the leaders of the reformist green movement who are under house arrest in Tehran.
Thousands of Iranians attending the funeral of a dissident ayatollah broke into chants against Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and called for the release of political prisoners, opposition websites have reported.
Amateur videos said to be from the June 4 funeral appear to confirm the reports. RFE/RL cannot verify the authenticity of the videos.
The video appears authentic, according to The Associated Press, with the news service saying it first appeared on an Iranian website before being uploaded to YouTube.
The AP said interviews and analysis it conducted verify the video.
In 2013, the regime has already witnessed signs of discontent even before the vote. On June 4, thousands reportedly turned the funeral for Ayatollah Jalaluddin Taheri into an anti-government demonstration in Isfahan. Taheri had been the Friday Prayer Leader in Isfahan. He had earlier criticized the regime for corruption, eventually resigning from the post. He also called the 2009 election “invalid.”
The daughter of an American woman killed in a firefight in Syria today denied that her mother was a “terrorist” and was a “regular american woman who was misguided.”
The body of Nicole Lynn Mansfield, a Muslim convert from Flint, Mich., was recovered this week following fighting near the rebellious Syrian city of Idlib. The Syrian government labeled her a terrorist.
Young American men continue to slip through a terrorist recruiting pipeline from the homeland to join the ranks of jihadists half a world away in East Africa, with two going as recently as three months ago, according to federal officials.
What’s a nice mom from Flint doing in a firefight in Syria?
Well, it ain’t no sucker punch: the recruitment of Americans into Islamist fighting organizations hit the news big time in 2009 when the bodies of boys from St. Paul, Minnesota showed up in Somalia and associated with the fighting there.
“One day after Masri’s arrest, the FBI charged 14 naturalized U.S. citizens from Minnesota, California and Alabama with providing material support to al-Shabab, a group the U.S. government has designated as a terrorist organization.”
Nevertheless, this ideology persists, and in an age in which ideas and images can travel the globe in an instant, our response to terrorism cannot depend on military or law enforcement alone. We need all elements of national power to win a battle of wills and ideas. So let me discuss the components of such a comprehensive counter-terrorism strategy.
First, we must finish the work of defeating al Qaeda and its associated forces.
By narrowing his war to Al Qaeda and related affiliates, Obama may claim some victories.
By seeking to integrate the Muslim Brotherhood into domestic and international governance, in essence enlarging its operating environment, he may also claim progress: the day of the dictator’s free ride, including when the dictator is ours, may be over — as a rule, the peacocks are strutting through more complex, sophisticated, and varied social environments than ever before, and whether scrutinized by such as the Committee to Protect Journalists or merely surprised by FEMEN, those who a decade ago would have capitalized on watching others are, lo and behold, finding themselves watched by an entire world.
Obama goes on to note, “Beyond Afghanistan, we must define our effort not as a boundless ‘global war on terror’ – but rather as a series of persistent, targeted efforts to dismantle specific networks of violent extremists that threaten America.”
Unfortunately, the attractive quality promoted in warring on the west is of a boundless quality summoned by such as Quran 9:29:
“Fight those who do not believe in Allah or in the Last Day and who do not consider unlawful what Allah and His Messenger have made unlawful and who do not adopt the religion of truth from those who were given the Scripture – [fight] until they give the jizyah willingly while they are humbled.”
Nonetheless, the fronts are boundless too, from the landing zones of distant mountains to proliferation of Facebook and other forums in Intellectual Battlespace, and, frankly, the more conflict is worked around language, the more quickly language may be evolved away from the many curses of the medieval mind and its straying from humanity.
Who, what, where, when, how, and most important, why?
In one instance, toward the end of this post, I’ve noted footage posted over the weekend but actually at least two month’s old.
The YouTube search strings were “Syria, combat, today” and “Syria, refugee crisis, today” and similar. Those yield the most recent uploads on the system, but, as suggested, not necessarily the most recent footage.
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I don’t know the posters of the above data — and it would be nice if they provided more information, not to give away their positions, but to fill in other puzzle pieces.
Whatever they — whoever — are doing Out There, the consequences of the military tit-for-tat may be other than these more notable, definite, predictable, and dispicable ends.
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Note the sectarian aspect in Lebanon as Hezbollah appears to be mobilizing and keeping Sunni and Shiite Muslims become a part of neutral humanitarian security concerns.
As noted in the previous post, some 3.4 million Syrians have been displaced by the civil.
It’s impossible, I think, to look at a MIG bombing run against a town or a rebel hit on a tank and feel any kind of hooray for one side or the other (although Maher al-Assad has probably made the best case for rebellion and revolution ever).
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Nick Paton Walsh’s piece showed up earlier on YouTube on March 6, 2013 . . . .
I haven’t the (uncompensated) energy to track each of these pieces back to their first appearance, and with the combat footage, only God knows who’s collecting and posting those recordings. Still, the principle holds: whatever the fighting may be doing for the Assad regime and for the rebels, whatever either imagine they are fighting for, what the civil war has produced is a civilian catastrophe beyond comprehension.
The numbers — those 3.4 million displaced — provide the barest frame to a story that for each displaced person has only begun.
The official dealership of BMW in Iran is Persia Khodro, a company owned by Rey investment group, which is under control of the Shah Abdol Azim shrine (in the city of Rey) whose director is personally appointed by Iran’s Supreme Leader. This religious foundation is part of a vast financial empire directly under control of Iran’s supreme leader. The conglomerate and those who run it pay no taxes and effectively function independently from the state.
Blogger Saeed Gasseminejad goes on to make this point: “A good question to ask is why BMW is cooperating with this dangerous gang of intelligence officers and with a company that without a doubt is part of Ayatollah Khamenei’s financial empire. While ordinary Iranian people are under huge economic pressure, BMW is providing luxury cars for the scions of the corrupt Mullahs, IRGC officers and IRI officials.”
“Profiles in Courage: Human Rights Defenders in the Struggle to End Violence Against Women”
The public is invited to this official NGO parallel event in connection with the 2013 annual session of the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women.
WHERE: V-Hall Armenian Convention Center, 630 2nd Avenue, New York, NY 10016 WHEN: Monday, March 4, 2013 TIME: 10:30 am
While there’s a general context for the above event, the role women have played in the Islamic Small Wars, directly and indirectly, has been extraordinary.
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