Consequences of Legitimizing Tyrants via Glorious Talks!

[...]Three weeks have passed, so it's fair to ask: Has there been any positive change in Syrian behavior -- any return gesture of goodwill, however slight?Mr. al-Bunni might offer the best answer -- if he could.

On Tuesday, one of Mr. Assad's judges sentenced him to five years in prison. His "crimes" were to speak out about the torture and persecution of regime opponents, to found the Syrian Human Rights Association and to sign the "Damascus Declaration," a pro-democracy manifesto.

Similarly, in his recent piece, Lee Smith wrote the following:

Another source explains that Syrian activists believe Pelosi's trip gave the Asad regime much needed breathing room. "Whether there is a real connection or not, political dissidents note that Anwar al-Bunni was sentenced to five years in prison in the wake of Pelosi's visit."Another opposition figure, Muhammad Ma'moun Homsi, a former Syrian MP who was imprisoned for five years beginning in 2001, and who has now fled Syria, revealed that he had sent a letter to Pelosi asking her not to come to Damascus. In an interview on an Arabic-language website, Homsi added that the idea of engaging such regimes is "a very dangerous proposition cause next will be a call to engage terrorist organizations."

Since that article came out, the regime seized Homsi's assets, stripping his family of its home ownership, in order to pressure him and his family. That happened the same day Rice met with Syria's FM at the Iraq conference in Egypt.The latest news came today, when dissident Kamal Labwani, who was arrested in 2005 for meeting with State Department and White House officials to call for democratic and human rights reforms in Syria, was sentenced to life in prison, commuted to 12 years with labor. (And the NYT never questioned the Syrians' bull when they said they sentenced a suspected al-Qaeda member for 3 years!)This is what you get when you engage Syria: intransigence in foreign policy (a euphemism for the regime's policy of sponsoring terror and destabilizing its neighbors), and wanton brutality domestically, against brave civic and human rights activists.I'll end with the words of the Post's editorial: "The danger of offering 'friendship' and 'hope' to a ruler such as Mr. Assad is that it will be interpreted as acquiescence by the United States to the policies of dictatorship."

Reprinted from Across the Bay

Read more!

Plea For Perspective and Sanity

I hereby, beg, grovel, plea, implore, beseech, supplicate to the Supreme Eminences and Grandest of Grandest Ayatollahs of the Islamic monarchy to please tell us what is the logic behind kicking and beating up women and banning imported tea and sugar(including sugar cubes) in the holy and martyr-raising goverment offices of nation of Iran? Is there a correlation or a causal relationship that us earthly peons cannot begin to grasp?

Kamangir has this surreal report from Iran: [...]

1- The executive deputy of the president published a statement banning the usage of sugar and sugar cubes in government offices. The statement emphasizes the use of alternatives, including dates and raisins, instead (Mehr).

2- The executive deputy of the president mandated government offices to only use Iran-grown tea (Baztab).

However, in the same country, the Police literally kicks a girl into a car. Her “crime” is to take her veil off in public, according to my understanding of the video.

Read more!

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.

Read more!