Nazanin Fatehi appears to have committed a murder in self-defense as a 17-year-old girl in 2005. The regime initially found her guilty of murder and sentenced her to death by hanging. The human rights community took up her cause and the lunatic processes of what passes for justice in Iran released her (with financial obligations) in 2012. She has disappeared.
Nazanin Afshin-Jam, an Iranian-Canadian possessed of gorgeous looks and multiple talents took up Fatehi’s cause on top of the cause of freedom in Iran and became part of the run-up to the 2009 challenge to the regime. As an advocate for Nazanin Fatehi, she published a book, The Tale of Two Nazanins (2012).
Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe is today a British citizen held by the regime on secret charges — an affront to British Power, a potential casus belli — and part of an absurd diplomacy involving provocative behaviors (e.g., seizing patrol boats in open waters) that appears to play out between Iran and its western marks with fair regularity.
Posted to YouTube December 22, 2006.
Posted to YouTube April 27, 2007.
Posted to YouTube June 21, 2009.
Posted to YouTube June 3, 2012 (22-minute interview).
Posted to YouTube May 10, 2016.
Posted to YouTube December 19, 2016.
As of July 2012, the whereabouts of Fatehi, age approx. 25, were reported as unknown by individuals in the West with whom she had prior contact, with current contact being only the most sporadic.[2][6][10] A book from Canadian supporter and activist Nazanin Afshin-Jam appeared in 2012 chronicling the divergent lives of these two Iranian Nazanins, whose lives intersected during the period of Fatehi’s trial;[11] media responses to the book were generally positive
Eight hundred years ago next month, on a reedy stretch of riverbank in southern England, the most important bargain in the history of the human race was struck. I realize that’s a big claim, but in this case, only superlatives will do. As Lord Denning, the most celebrated modern British jurist put it, Magna Carta was “the greatest constitutional document of all time, the foundation of the freedom of the individual against the arbitrary authority of the despot.”
‘No free man shall be arrested, imprisoned, dispossessed, outlawed, exiled or in any way victimised, or attacked except by the lawful judgement of his peers or by the law of the land’
This right is most famously contained in the American Bill of Rights embodied in the constitution of the United States of America.
Delara Darabi was put to death by hanging on May 1, 2009.
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Crocodiles smile too.
What can be said about such pleasant looking men whose mirrors wall them off from the blood and horror suffered directly at their own criminal will?
One may only imagine how modern Iranians feel knowing that the murder that will take place about 6 days from this one is not an aberration in the politics attending their lives but perfectly normal now, an atmosphere of fear maintained for Persians in a manner no different than that which would be meted to them by any other conquering agent in history. In fact, Ayatollah Khamenei and President Rouhani, Iran’s two leading political sadists and sociopaths, have obtained from Iranians in general what conquest obtains: compliance, passivity, plunder, silence, and subjugation.
What follows has been only loosely put together, but as so much of blogging may be, it’s a snapshot of the Jabbari case as emblematic of the regime’s despotic, misogynist, piratical, and sadistic mentality and the machinations and politics attending it.
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President Hassan Rouhani’s public criticism of Mr Cameron came as Amnesty International warned of the imminent execution in Tehran’s Evin Prison of a 26-year-old woman found guilty of murder.
If Reyhaneh Jabbari is hanged, she would be the 600th person to suffer the death penalty since Mr Rouhani took office in August last year – giving Iran the highest number of executions anywhere in the world, apart from China.
Therefore, Jabbari was sentenced to death for her action under the Islamic judiciary system of Iran. Why would a young professional woman be executed for defending herself against unwelcome actions from her superior, a sexual abuser?
The profound irony, and the peak of the Islamic Republic’s hypocrisy, became clear this week in a speech marking Women’s Day, when Iranian president Hassan Rouhani made international headlines by condemning any form of sexual discrimination and advocating for equal opportunities and rights for women.
Nazanin (Mahabad) Fatehi (Persian: نازنین فاتحی, born 1987) is an Iranian woman who was sentenced to death for stabbing a man who allegedly tried to rape her and her 15 year old niece, events occurring when she herself was a 17 year old. After more than 2 years in jail, Fatehi was cleared of intentional murder, ordered her to pay diyeh (blood money for the death), and released on bail (January 2007). As of 2012, Fatehi’s whereabouts were reported to be unknown to concerned supporters outside of Iran.
She was arrested after being raped by a 51 year old man. But according to Islamic Sharia Law, she was convicted for ‘crimes against chastity’, based on her admission, obtained through torture, that she repeatedly had sex with a 51-year-old ex-revolutionary guard turned taxi-driver Ali Darabi, a married man with children.[1] She was raped and tortured for 3 years,[2] a secret from both her family and the authorities. However, while in prison, she finally told her grandmother, saying that afterwards she could only walk on all fours because of the pain.[3] In the court the judge was Haji Rezai. As Atefah realised she was losing her case, she removed her hijab, an act seen as a severe contempt of the court, and argued that Ali Darabi should be punished, not she. She even removed her shoes and hit the judge with them.[4] The judge later sentenced her to death.
On August 15th, 2004 a 16-year-old girl was hanged in a public square in Neka, Iran. Her death sentence was for “acts incompatible with chastity”. Her name was Atefah Rafavi Sahaaleh. The only evidence against Atefah was her own forced confession.
Rouhani’s justice minister, Mustafa pour-Mohammadi, has been accused of executing thousands of Iranian political prisoners in 1988. [7] As a matter of formality, both US and EU officials have publicly criticized Iran’s human-rights records under Rouhani, but at the same time they have restarted trade in exchange for Iran dismantling its nuclear program.
Rouhani has filled his cabinet with wealthy ministers. According to Elias Naderan, a member of Iran’s parliament, several ministers in Rouhani’s cabinet have wealth of around 800 to 1000 billion tomans (US$265 to $330 million) – the toman is a superunit of the rial. [8] While most Iranians are suffering from poverty, Rouhani’s wife gave a lavish party on April 19 in the previous Shah’s Sadabad Palace, which raised strong criticism in the Iranian media. [9]
Setad has become one of the most powerful organizations in Iran, though many Iranians, and the wider world, know very little about it. In the past six years, it has morphed into a business juggernaut that now holds stakes in nearly every sector of Iranian industry, including finance, oil, telecommunications, the production of birth-control pills and even ostrich farming.
The organization’s total worth is difficult to pinpoint because of the secrecy of its accounts. But Setad’s holdings of real estate, corporate stakes and other assets total about $95 billion, Reuters has calculated.
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