President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad showed rare defiance of his strongest backer, the Iranian supreme leader, by insisting on his choice for vice president on Wednesday despite vehement opposition from hardliners that has opened a deep rift in the leadership.
Many clerics and politicians have denounced Ahmadinejad's choice for the post of first vice president, Esfandiar Rahim Mashai, because Mashai said last year that Iranians are friends with Israelis. There are also concerns because Mashai is a relative of Ahmadinejad -- his daughter is married to the president's son.
Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei ordered Ahmadinejad to remove Mashai, semiofficial media reported on Wednesday. Arguing for a further chance to make his case, Ahmadinejad said, "there is a need for time and another opportunity to fully explain my real feelings and assessment about Mr Mashai". Clerics on Wednesday demanded the Iranian president obey Khamenei.
Ayatollah Ahmad Khatami said whether Mashai is immediately dismissed "will test Ahmadinejad's loyalty to the supreme leader". "When the exalted supreme leader takes a position explicitly, his statement must be accepted by all means and implemented immediately," he said, according to the Mehr news agency. "Those who voted for Ahmadinejad because of his loyalty to the supreme leader expect the president to show his obedience ... in practice." Iran expert Suzanne Maloney pointed out that the supreme leader has not publicly spoken on the issue and reports of his order have been leaked by hardliners through semiofficial media. "If Khamenei comes out in Friday prayers calling for (Mashai's) removal, then it would be difficult to imagine Ahmadinejad would refuse that," said Maloney, with the Saban Center for Middle East Policy at the Washington-based Brookings think tank. Ahmadinejad is "not looking to open his second term by picking a fight with his most important ally in the system", she said.
Mousavi's wife: Meanwhile, the wife of Iranian opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi has said her 62-year-old brother was among those detained after last month's disputed election in what she called a futile attempt to pressure her husband and herself. Zahra Rahnavard's comments, in an interview published by a pro-reform Iranian news agency on Thursday, were the latest in a series of defiant statements by Mousavi and his allies, who insist the June 12 presidential poll was rigged.
Rahnavard, a prominent artist and academic who broke ground in the conservative Islamic state by campaigning for her husband in the election, told ILNA news agency that her brother, Shahpour Kazemi, was detained more than a month ago. Rights groups say hundreds of people, including senior pro-reform activists, journalists, academics and lawyers, were arrested during a post-election crackdown on the opposition. The authorities say most of those held have been released. A defence lawyer voiced concern on Wednesday about two other detained Mousavi backers, former government ministers Mostafa Tajzadeh and Behzad Nabavi, saying he did not know where they were being held.
Rahnavard said she and other Iranians would not believe any "confessions by force" obtained from her brother."Those who make (such legal) cases should know that by continuing such actions ... the nation will abandon them, and putting pressure on Mousavi and me will not work," she said.
Separately on Thursday, Iranian newspapers said seven members of parliament's national security commission had urged Intelligence Minister Gholamhossein Mohseni-Ejei to air confessions made by detainees on state television. In early July, a senior pro-reform cleric, Grand Ayatollah Yusof Saanei, said "confessions taken while in captivity and under critical conditions, are religiously, legally and logically invalid and worthless," according to his website.
Rahnavard said her brother was a telecommunications expert and not a political figure. "One cannot imagine any accusations against him, such as seeking riots or having relations with foreigners," she said. "But now we are witnessing an organised method of making cases (against people) through immoral ways ... by some people who play with other people's reputation because of their short-term political goals."
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Posted by: Fred ||
07/24/2009 00:00 ||
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#1
TOPIX > RUSSIA AND IRAN WILL NOT ALLOW ANYONE TO GET A FOOTHOLD IN THE SOUTH CAUCASUS; + ONLYA "RANDOM" COURSE OF EVENTS CAN PREVENT IRAN FROM CONSOLIDATING ITS POWER IN REGION [read, US andor Israel milstrike].
* SAME > UPCOMING WAR: IS AZERBAIJAN SECRETLY PREPARING FOR WAR AGZ ARMENIA???
TEHRAN, Iran (AP) The wife of Iranian opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi said Thursday that her brother is among the hundreds arrested in Iran's postelection crackdown, and she warned authorities not to publish any "forced confessions" from him or other detainees.
More than 500 people remain imprisoned after the heavy crackdown against protests that erupted in support of Mousavi after the disputed June 12 election. Among them are many top politicians from pro-reform political parties, human rights lawyers, journalists and activists.
Mousavi's wife, Zahra Rahnavard, told the semiofficial ILNA news agency that her 62-year-old brother was arrested more than a month ago. "We have tried all legal and peaceful means to try to win the release of him and other detainees," Rahnavard said, adding that she was speaking out now because some officials have spoken of allegations against her brother.
She said her brother, Shahpour Kazemi, a communications engineer, was "apolitical" and that "accusations of provoking riots or connections to foreigners ... are unimaginable."
She warned those that are making accusations against detainees that "a divine anger will catch them and the nation will reject them."
Rahnavard, a former dean of Tehran's al-Zahra University, campaigned alongside her husband in the election, a rarity for a candidate's wife, which made her a star among women and student supporters. Her original name is Zohreh Kazemi but she changed it in the 1960s when she became an activist against the U.S.-backed shah, and she was a prominent activist in the 1979 revolution that brought the Islamic Republic to power.
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Posted by: Steve White ||
07/24/2009 00:00 ||
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For the first time ever, the United Nations on Thursday accused Hezbollah of violating the UN-brokered cease-fire that ended the 2006 Second Lebanon war, fought between Israel and the Shi'ite militant organization.
It's sad, but the hoary joke applies: expect a strongly-worded declaration ...
The UN's Under-Secretary-General for Peacekeeping Operations, Alain Le Roy, said Hezbollah had been operating a weapons depot in south Lebanon that was the site of an explosion last week. He told member states there was solid evidence that the cache belonged to Hezbollah, but added that it was not known whether the weapons had been stockpiled there before or after Resolution 1701, which called for the cease-fire, was passed.
Le Roy also touched upon claims that Hezbollah is disrupting the activities of UN peacekeepers in south Lebanon. He said there was evidence that Hezbollah organized the group of villagers that prevented UNIFIL soldiers from searching an abandoned building near the structure that blew up last week.
The official made the comments during an emergency closed-door meeting of the UN Security Council. The United States called the session to discuss the situation in south Lebanon following a number of security incidents in the area. The session was the first time when the UN explicitly accused Hezbollah of breaching the resolution; all 15 Security Council members, apart from Libya, agreed that Hezbollah was responsible for the violation.
A senior Hezbollah official said Wednesday, the explosion along the border with Israel was set off by old shells, not a secret arms cache.
The UN peacekeeping force in Lebanon called the ammunition that had exploded a serious violation of the ceasefire. Resolution 1701, which was accepted by both Israel and Hezbollah, called for the disarmament of all armed groups in Lebanon.
The Permanent Mission of Israel to the UN said Thursday the closed-door meeting was called after Israeli Ambassador to the UN Gabriela Shalev sent two letters of complaint to the Secretary-General and Security Council.
On Tuesday, the Lebanese Army said it had uncovered a militant Islamist network that had been plotting to carry out attacks against UN peacekeepers in southern Lebanon and the army itself.
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Posted by: Steve White ||
07/24/2009 00:00 ||
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#1
ION HIZZIES HEZZIES HUZZIES, CHINESE MIL FORUM > HEZBOLLAH? WHICH HEZBOLLAH? ARTIC Interviewee claims instigators of 07/5/2009 Uighur Rios were dedicated Members of CHIN-BASED, REGION-BASED UNDERGROUND HEZBOLLAH GROUP-NETWORK. Latter has alleged etablished covert Membership in CHINA, AFGHANISTAN, + PAKISTAN [10,000 Members as of 2008] WHOM DESIRE TO SET UP AN ISLAMIC/ISLAMIST STATE + SHARIA LAW -HOWEVER, said Hezzies do not have the support of most local Uighurs, etal. in Xinjiang = Western China. UIGHURS > XINJIANG to them is the HISTORICAL/ANTIQUITOUS "LAND OF THE UIGHURS", AND NOT + NEVER WAS "EAST TURKESTAN" {Contempor Weird Islamist, Western label]???
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For the first time ever, the United Nations on Thursday accused Hezbollah of violating the UN-brokered cease-fire that ended the 2006 Second Lebanon war, fought between Israel and the Shi'ite militant organization. 
