Kermit the frog supporting Green Movement

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/12/10/kermit-the-frog-sings-in_n_387912.html

16 Azar article from New York Times

picture taken from http://www.nytymes.com/

Beirut, Lebanon-Thousands of people rallied against the government on MOnday at universities across Iran, defying a wide-ranging effort to suppress the protests and bringing a new ferocity to the opposition movement's confrontation with the state.

The protests, taking place on National Student Day, set off battles in and around campuses, witnesses said. Protestors hurled rocks land set fires amid clouds of tear gas, while a vast deployment of police officers and plainclothes Basij militia members used chains, truncheons and stun guns to beat back chanting protestors.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/08/world/

middleeast/08iran.html?_r=4&ref=global-home

We can't keep avoiding the discussion

We have to start discussing where we want to go with our new desire for change. If we keep going on without an end-goal in mind, we will have a very disappointing result.

I will throw my opinion out there, maybe some discussions will happen:

I think that since the supreme leader showed fault in his decision to back the obviously un-elected ahmadinejad, that the position of the supreme leader was proven as ineffective. He did not practice neutrality, as he should have. I believe that whatever happens next, the position of the supreme leader should be considred for elimination. Iran has the governmental organs of the president and the parliament, a supreme leader is unnecessary and unproductive.

I invite comments for discussion.

An Iranian is to be Executed, please do what you can to help

According to the Kurdistan Human Rights Organization, Ehsan Fattahian, 28-years-old, is charged with acting against national security in the lower court, sentenced originaly to 10 years in exile, is going to be executed on Wednesday, 11.11.2009. He was arrested in July 2009. He was charged with acting against national security by branch of the Revolutionary Court in Sanandaj and was sentenced to 10 years in prison in Ramhormoz provinces. The above ruing was protested by his lawyer. At the same time it was also protested by the Public Prosecutor of Kamyaran provinces who was asking for the death sentence. This week the appealing court has rejected the laywers appeal and accepted the Public Prosecutor protest and ruled the execution to be effected by 11.11.09. Due to the urgency of the case and in order to save a human life, we would appreciate your extended coverage and broadcasting of the above urgent developement and cry tor the international bodies to interfere and stop the execution, immediately. On behalf of Mr. Fattahian and all the people who are inhumanely treated we thank you and appreciate your help.

http://friendfeed.com/aryaban/1a26558b

The Green movement's Nov 4th, 13th of Aban, demonstrations a success!!

I always remembered as a kid being forced to step on the American flag in elementary school in Iran.

I never thought I'd see the day that we get to stomp on Khamenei's photo. Yeah! And there was an Iranian girl that took off her scarf, demonstrations everywhere in Iran for change.

I would say the Green movement had a good day!!

Qods Day

Demonstration in Iran on Sept 11, 2009.
Date: Friday, September 18, 2009
Time: 10:00am - 9:00pm
Location: All around the world !

Thirty-six army officers arrested in Iran over protest plan

Officers planned to attend sermon by former president Hashemi Rafsanjani in military uniform

The Iranian army has arrested 36 officers who planned to attend last week's Friday prayer sermon by former president Hashemi Rafsanjani in their military uniforms as an act of political defiance, according to Farsi-language websites.
The officers intended the gesture to show solidarity with the demonstrations against last month's presidential election result, which was won by Mahmoud Ahmadinejad but which has been clouded by allegations of mass fraud.
Rafsanjani used the sermon at Tehran university to challenge the authority of Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, by questioning the result in the presence of the defeated reformist candidate, Mir Hossein Mousavi, and tens of thousands of his supporters.
Security forces used teargas and arrested dozens of those in attendance in a sign of the authorities' nervousness over the event.
The officers were rounded up on Friday morning by army intelligence agents who had caught wind of the plan. They are said to have been arrested at their homes and taken to an unknown location.
Peiknet, a Farsi website, said the officers had agreed the action at a weekly prayer meeting the night before at the Shah Abdolazim religious shrine in Shahr-e Rey, on Tehran's southern outskirts. "They decided to attend the Friday prayer in their military clothes as a sign of protest against the cruel massacre of people by the basij and revolutionary guards and to show their objection against this process and support for the people," the site said. It named 24 of the officers, who included two majors, four captains, eight lieutenants, six sergeants and four warrant officers.
The arrests expose the authorities' sensitivity to signs of mutiny among the various branches of the security forces.
Reports last month suggested that a senior revolutionary guard commander, General Ali Fazli, had been arrested for refusing to obey orders to suppress protests against election result. The reports were later denied but some sources say Fazli remains under pressure to toe the line.
While the army is considered to be secondary in importance to the revolutionary guards in the regime's military hierarchy, it is still under the command of Khamenei, who yesterday appointed a cleric, Hojatoleslam Mohammad Ali Al-e Hashem, as the new head of its political ideology section.
Khamenei has declared the election result fair and overseen a fierce crackdown that has led to at least 2,000 arrests and a death toll the government puts at 20 but which some human rights groups say could be in the hundreds

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/jul/19/iran-army-officers-arrested

Pressing Charges Against Ahmadinejad in the International Criminal Court

در خصوص جنبش اعتراضی مردم ایران، باید ها و نبایدهاو چشم انداز این جنبش، با پروفسور حمید دباشی، استاد ایرانی دانشگاه کلمبیا و رئیس دانشکده مطالعات خاورمیانه و آسیای این دانشگاه به گفتگو نشستیم. وی که از چهره های دانشگاهی نهضت ضد جنگ آمریکاست، "جنبش سبز" را نقطه عطفی در فرهنگ سیاسی ایران می داند و می گوید: "خانواده کشته شدگان حوادث اخیر باید در دادگاه بین المللی جنایی اقامه دعوی کنند تا این دادگاه، همانند مورد سودان، برای محمود احمدی نژاد هم حکم جلب صادر کند".
این گفتگو در پی می آید.

آقای دباشی، در یک نگاه کلی احساس و نظر شما در مورد تحولات جاری در ایران که به کشته شدن دهها تن و بازداشت هزاران نفر منجر شده و نیز جنبش اعتراضی که پس از انتخابات شکل گرفته، چیست؟
احساس اولم، احساس غرور تعلق به ملتی است که مصداق شعر مولانا است :خنک آن قمار بازی که بباخت هر چه بودش / بنماند هیچش الا هوس قمار دیگر. احساس همدردی با خانواده های جوانان معصومی که با شقاوت کشته شدند؛ به جرم ازادی خواهی. احساس تعلق به صدها، بلکه هزاران مرد و زن دلیر و فرزانه ای که در بند این حکومت بیدادند. احساس می کنم ما در برهه ای حیاتی در تاریخ پر فراز و نشیب خودمان هستیم. فکر می کنم نهضت سبزی که ما امروز شاهد آن هستیم، نقطه عطفی در فرهنگ سیاسی ماست و ما در بدو نهضت کسب آزادیهای مدنی خودمان هستیم. من به این نهضت، نه بعنوان یک انقلاب دیگر که به صورت شروع جنبش احقاق حقوق مدنی و شهروندی نگاه می کنم؛حقوقی ابتدایی و بدیهی ای که بدون آن صرف اطلاق لفظ "جمهوری" معنی خود را از دست می دهد.

http://www.roozonline.com/persian/news/newsitem/article/2009/july
/19//-cc536d3f6d.html