Islamic Civic Society

Rooz Online:

President Ahmadinejad’s Minister of the Interior announces his program to be the Islamic Civic Society. While former president Mohammad Khatami spoke of the Islamic Democratic Society, Mostafa Pourmohammadi, the new Interior Minister says “Political and social freedoms and the right to form political parties will be permitted within the confines of the law”. He is among the cabinet nominees who did not have any dissenting Majlis (Parliament) deputies during his legislative confirmation. And with the new rules that the Majlis Speaker enacted yesterday, those supporting him too were deprived of such an occasion, since there were no dissenting voices. READ MORE

Some of the deputies have already expressed their objections to the rule pointing out that why were the rules not applied to the other cabinet nominees for the ministries of Foreign Affairs and Intelligence. An in anticipation of some unusual events, the speaker of the reformist minority faction in Majlis, Tabesh confirms the no-comment position of the minority deputies. But another deputy from the reformist camp has made his voice heard by saying that the Speaker has twisted things in a way that the proponents of a nominee would actually be allowed to speak as opponents, so that real opponents are thus deprived of an opportunity to comment on the nominees. He cites his own example where he objects to the proposed Minister of Welfare and Social Security, Hashemi, on grounds that he has absolutely no experience in anything except military affairs, but because of the new imposed rules in the Majlis, he is not allowed to speak his mind.

As the new Minister of the Interior repeatedly emphasizes the freedom of political parties within the legal bounds, cleric Mehdi Karoubi, who lost the presidential race in the June 2005 elections announced that he has finally obtained a license for his political organization, “the National Trust Party” and its newspaper, monthly magazine, and quarterly journal. This is a record in the Islamic Republic where something like this would literally take years to obtain. Karoubi further announced that he would begin his television broadcasts using satellite networks that were in line with the policies of the Islamic Republic (meaning they do not belong to the opposition groups outside Iran) but would eventually, in a matter of 3 months, switch to an independent satellite system.

Yesterday the second Iranian was released from Guantanamo prison run by the United States who will return to Iran through Afghanistan. Following this, Ali Larijani, the head of the country’s Supreme National Council made his first official remark regarding the United States. While attributing the creation of the Taliban and the Al-Qaeda to the United States says that “US strategy today is to raise their stick and force weaker states to commit suicide.”

While the Wall Street Journal, the spokesmedia for the American doves, advocates abandoning the US military option for Iran and focusing on barring the Iranian soccer team from participation in the world soccer cup, Iranian athletes make their own protests. The Washington Post carries a story that clears Iran of the responsibility for the finding a few years ago of enriched uranium particles on its equipment thus confirming that Iran had purchased contaminated parts and was probably not producing such material at home. An American specialist, whose article appears in Baztab website, claims that Iran is on capable of producing nuclear weapons any time soon, while another American writer claims that World War II will begin if US bombs Iran.

Europeans formally announce that their talks with Iran whose next session was to be held on August 31st, are officially off. The French Foreign Ministry spokesman explained “talks cannot move ahead. Because Iran has resumed its nuclear reprocessing activities. They have decided to suspend the Paris agreement that froze their activities. There will be no talks so long as they continue they remain outside the Paris agreement.”

And as expected and predicted in an earlier ROOZ editorial, it is now Germany’s turn to be the object of death slogans in Iran, after the UK and France, calling the “evil of axis”!! The demonstrators who chanted these slogans repeated president Ahmadinejad and Ali Larijani’s words that “we are no longer in the 19th century.”

Yes we certainly are in the 21st century. Still human rights are somewhere else in history in this land. In a report published on Iran’s human rights situation. 113 instances of violations were recorded by human rights organizations in just one month. Hashemi Shahrudi, the head of the judiciary of Iran once again talked of the ban on torture in his domain. Al Afshari a one time student and political activists who had been imprisoned announced that everything he has written and said in prison was under duress. Abolfattah Soltani still awaits permission to visit her son behind bars after a 22 day request. Borhan Zare-tan Lahoni, the managing director of the weekly Ashti is summoned to court on charges of violating national security. Amanat weekly publishes a blank issue in Azarbaijan to protest the policies of the Ministry of Culture of the province. And finally Akbar Ganji’s wife expresses her appreciation and gratitude to all who supported her and her husband, adding that some officials had visited Ganji and some arrangements and agreements have been made regarding his status.