Iran: Iranian Teachers Beaten up Again and the usual suspects' Justification

Potkin:
More Iranian teachers were beaten up outside the Islamic Assembly in Tehran yesterday. Many were prevented from joining the rally by road blocks and fear of previous brutal crackdowns, but despite the smaller numbers yesterday, there was no reduction in the brutality of the Islamic Republic security forces.Some of the teachers were huddled into unmarked cars and taken away to undisclosed locations.

One teacher suffered a stroke and another was unable to talk after having been so savagely beaten up.Amongst the arrested was Sorraya Darabi, whose husband Mohammad Khaksari, editor of a Teacher publication, is still in prison. There are reports that their eldest son, Sajjad has also now been arrested.Of course the Islamic Republic apologists and lobbyists, the current champions of the British academic institutions and the Champagne Socialists, admonish all Iranian dissidents and those who report on such crackdowns.
[...]
In their view while their beloved Islamic Republic is under "external threat", there should be no dissent or reporting of dissent.See CASMII's protest at Znet's mild criticism of the Islamic Republic on 18th May, 2006:, June 11, 2006or an email I recently received from an Islamic Republic apologist, Shirin Saedi (ss725@cam.ac.uk ), from Cambridge Universty and a member of the CASMII editorial, who desperately tried to justify the crimes of Islamic Republic :"....any country under threat passes extraordinairy laws to bypass democratic institutions."--

Shirin Saeidi, a member of the editorial board at CASMII.

The fearmongering by the CASMII et al is nothing but an intimidation tactic to silence dissent and score political points for the establishment who support this ilk. Al-quda and the IRI have declared war against the U.S. (see here, here, and here) Israel, and the West(e.g. recent hostage taking of British Sailors) many years ago and their track record doesn't bode too well for them in that regard.

...The idea that there is a preventive war strategy to change the regime is at best a straw-man argument and at worst a conspiracy theory.Criticism regarding carrier group dispatch is misplaced. First, it is important that Arab states in the Persian Gulf recognize that the United States is going to defend its interests and protect our allies. Second, while Washington assumes events revolve around our decisions, the danger is Iranian overconfidence. Decision-makers in Iran, those in the office of the Supreme Leader and the Revolutionary Guard, may confuse democratic debate with weakness and inadvertently cross a red line. We know from their statements that they do not take U.S. diplomatic demarches seriously. That the United States is willing to demonstrate red lines aids transparency and reduces the risk of accidental conflict.

Then, let me get this, according to Shirin Saeidi's logic, it follows that Iran should not be criticized because any of the criticism can and will be used as a pretext for attacking Iran. Further, all morbid actions by Iran are defensive. Even the "wipe off" other countries comments and weekly death wishes (for 28 years) and "Making the World Without America possible" as the long-term objectives of the IR.

Luckily for dictators around the world, utilizing Shirin Saedi's sophism, we can obsolve democratically elected Hitler, the late Shah, Saadam (100% of the votes were for him), democratically elected Pol pot and all the rest from any crimes they have ever done against their own citizens and against others. Splendid!

Then, lets not criticize Israel and the U.S. at all either as the criticism may lead to terrorist attacks against Americans, other westerners, and Israelis. What a wonderful logic, 'danger of attack absolves from criticism'. Why didn't I think of that? So, Mrs. Saedi, please stop writing your highly anti-American articles because your criticism of USA can subject USA to terrorist attacks. Thanks.

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Iran: Babol University

یکشنبه ۲۶ فروردین ) ۱۵ نفر متحصنین دانشگاه بابل،که سه تن از آنها در اعتصاب غذا بودند، با یورش نیروهای امنیتی و درگیری آنها با دانشجویان متحصن ‌که در دانشگاه تنها بودند، ربوده شده و به مکان نامعلومی منتقل شدند

Akhbar rooz:--15 university students have been abducted in Mazandaran, Iran.

In a related News: Executing thousands of female opponents, which is unprecedented anywhere in the world. In a recent demonstration by teachers asking for better and equal pay, some 10,000 demonstrators, mostly women, showed up.

Some 1,000 women teachers were arrested in one fell swoop by the Suppression forces and transferred to various prisons. The head of Islamic Iran's National Prisons Organization recently admitted there were over 100 "independent" prisons around the country, each run for their own use by various so-called security or intelligence organizations. Most are only quasi-official and some definitely "illegal" if such a word can be applied to the Islamic administration of Ahmadi-Nejad in particular and the Mullahs in general, where their very presence has illegal roots and foundation.

Finally, Human Rights
Watch demands release of the detained teachers.

Link via sheema

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Iran: Teacher and Journalist Brutally beaten up in Evin Prison

Teachers and Journalist in Evin Prison:

Potkin: Its the Iranian New Year, Nowrooz, and hundreds of Iranian teachers are in Evin prison. They should have spent Nowrooz with their families, around the Haft-Sin table waiting for the exact hour, minute and second when the Spring Equinox takes place. Their children should be thinking of nothing but their new clothes, and their new presents. Yet all they have on their mind is when will Mum or/and Dad come home?

What is the "crime" of Iranian teachers? Why are they in prison? According to the Islamic Republic, they have threatened the national security of the regime by peacefully demonstrating for a better standard of living!! What an insecure regime this Islamic Republic is that its security is so easily threatened. In fact all the teachers have asked for, is the enactment of a public sector pay bill passed by the parliament!

I wish I had time and could translate this article in this Iranian blog:
http://sajjadkhaksari.blogfa.com/
It is written by a reporter who got mixed up with the hundreds of teachers who were arrested. More than 50 plain clothes agents on motor bikes attack the teachers, and the reporter is taken along with the rest of the teachers to an abandoned house, where cleric judges decide who should go to Evin prison in summary trials that lasts a few minutes. He then describes how these ordinary decent people were treated. How men and women, old and young were beaten up and what kind of vulgar insults were hurled at the women teachers. How their headscarfs were pulled off and when the male teachers stood up for their female colleagues, how badly they were beaten up.

The army conscripts seem to be apologetic and sorry. One of them tells the inmates "Please forgive me for what they have made me do to you". But the plain clothes cavemen seem to be from another planet or another age! Everyone is asking "what kind of animals are they? Don't they have wives and kids themselves? Where are they from?"

And it wouldn't surprise me, if one day we find out these cavemen were imports from Iraq. May be Moqtada Sadr's followers who have escaped from Iraq recently.

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Iran Crushes Teachers ' Protest

Guardian: The authorities in Iran have arrested up to 1,000 teachers in a brutal crackdown that signals their determination to break a pay revolt. Riot police beat demonstrators with batons as they tried to gather outside Iran's parliament and education ministry and herded them into police vans and buses before transporting them to detention centres across Tehran.

Around 150 of those arrested in Wednesday's protest are still in custody, with the ringleaders believed to be in the capital's notorious Evin prison. Others were released after signing a commitment not to participate in "illegal" demonstrations.

The clampdown follows recent rallies outside parliament, which drew up to 10,000 demonstrators, many of whom displayed banners criticising President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's government as part of their campaign for higher pay. An average university-educated secondary-school teacher earns £160-180 a month, below the poverty line and much less than workers in other government sectors.

Last week, police arrested six teachers' union leaders in an unsuccessful attempt to stop a gathering that coincided with a planned women's rights demonstration

Update1: During the final hours of yesterday, came the news that intelligence agents attacked the homes of cultural activists and arrested 5 of them, taking them to an undisclosed destination.

This attack began at about 11pm last night and continued until four in the morning, Tehran time. The names of those arrested in as follows:

1-Ali Akbar Baghani, Secretary General of the Kanoon Senfi-e Moaleman (Teachers Professional Association)
2-Mahmud Beheshti Langaroodi, spokesperson for the Association
3-Alierza Hashemi, Secretary General of the Teachers Association
4-Mohamd Davarai, member of the central committee of the Teachers Association
5-Ali Poor-Soleiman, member of the central committee of the Teachers Association

Those knowledgeable in the events said that some 20 individuals had been arrested, among whom were activists of the professional organization in the provinces, and towns across Iran. Some of these activists were on their way to Tehran to participate in the peaceful demonstrations that were to be held the next day in front of the Parliament buildings.

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