[Iran Press TV Latest] As mass trials in Iran hint at opposition's alleged links with the West, defeated presidential candidate Mir-Hossein Mousavi says the biggest lie is to incorporate the nation's desire for "reform" with foreign agendas.
In a meeting with Reformist figures on Wednesday, Mousavi said none of the concerned members of the revolution thought they would see the day that Iran witnessed the recent tragedy that erupted in the aftermath of the election.
The presidential candidate, who suffered a crushing defeat to incumbent Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in a disputed election, added that no one wished a day when "lies after lies" were required to validate a 'fraudulent' election, the Iranian Labor News Agency (ILNA) reported.
"The biggest lie of all is to attach the natural aspiration of the [Iranian] people for reform to foreigners," added the former prime minister, who served under the founder of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.
The June 12 vote sparked massive demonstrations by supporters of Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi, another defeated candidate, who protested against the election result.
Although the Guardian Council, the body tasked with overseeing elections, has ruled that the 10th presidential poll was the "healthiest" vote in 30 years, Mousavi and his supporters continue to defy its results.
Meanwhile, Iranian authorities have moved to try some 200 opposition figures, protesters and journalists as well as those who are charged with espionage and having possible links with Britain and France.
The opposition, however, has slammed the mass trials as "sham", and urged the release of some 300 people who remain in custody.
Mousavi on Wednesday questioned state TV's decision to air the hearing sessions of the "show trials" and claimed the move only served the interests of foreigners.
"What serves the interests of foreigners: the people's protest movement which falls under the framework of the Constitution... or show trials where children of the Revolution are seated next to the hated Monafeqins [anti-Iran terrorists]?" he asked.
"Which one serves the interests of the United States and Britain?"
In an allusion to reports of prisoner abuse following the post-vote events, Mousavi said, "What happens in Iran's prisons these days clearly shows the necessity of a deep change in the country."
The reports of sexual abuse in Iran's prisons have been denied by the Speaker of the Iranian Parliament, Ali Larijani.
Iran's Intelligence Ministry says four members of a notorious terrorist group have been arrested in the southeastern city of Zahedan.
The four terrorists belong to Abdolmalek Rigi's ring, Jundullah, which has carried out terror attacks against Iranian civilians and officials in Sistan-Baluchestan Province.
According to a statement released by the Intelligence Ministry, the terrorists were plotting to "bomb several locations." It added that a large quantity of explosives and weapons was found in their hideout.
Jundullah is responsible for a suicide bombing on a mosque in Zahedan in May that killed 25 people.
Failing in decades of indirect peace talks with Syria, Israel is now seeking to reach a comprehensive peace treaty with Damascus through direct negotiations.
Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon said Wednesday that under the right-wing government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu Israel will not resume Turkish-mediated peace talks with Syria.
"We have enormous respect and great appreciation for the Turkish efforts. But they have not succeeded - not because of the Turks," Danny Ayalon told Reuters, accusing Syria of intransigence.
"We have just benefited from the experience that shows that proximity talks have not worked," Ayalon added.
"If they [Syria] are really serious about achieving peace, and not just a peace process, which may serve them to extricate themselves from international isolation, if they are really serious, they will come and sit with us."
Last year, Israel and Syria held four rounds of indirect talks to reach a comprehensive peace agreement through Turkish mediators.
However, Syria formally suspended the talks in protest at Israel's three-week-long offensive against Hamas in the Gaza Strip, which left about 1,400 Palestinians dead at the turn of the year.
Israel has so far refused to heed Damascus' precondition for resumption of peace talks.
Syria -- favoring indirect talks with Israel -- has repeatedly said that it will resume peace talks with Tel Aviv only after a full Israeli withdrawal from the occupied Golan Heights, which Israel captured following the 1967 Six-Day War. Israel and Syria have officially been at war since then.
Israeli officials have so far refused to leave Golan Heights, saying the plateau is too strategically important to be returned. Golan Heights gives Israel access to the Sea of Galilee -- Israel's main source of fresh water.
After ten years in the job, Iran's Judiciary Chief Ayatollah Mahmoud Shahroudi will be officially replaced by Mohammad Sadeq Larijani in four days' time.
Senior officials, including parliamentarians, will attend a ceremony on August 15 at the Judiciary's main reception hall to mark Shahroudi's departure and the introduction of his successor Larijani, Mehr news agency reported.
This is while earlier reports, citing several lawmakers, had said the handing-over ceremony would be held on the August 16.
Hujjatolislam Mohammad Sadeq Larijani, 48, is currently a politician cleric and a member of the Guardian Council - a 12-member supervisory body tasked with overseeing parliamentary legislations and supervision of elections.
He is also one of the five brothers of Iran's current Speaker of the Majlis (Iran's parliament) Ali Larijani. Another Larijani brother - Mohammad Javad - heads the Judiciary's human rights department.
Mohammad Sadeq Larijani also has a two-time membership of Assembly of Experts of the Leadership, an elected body that picks the leader of the Islamic Revolution, oversees his activities and has the power to remove him.
Continued on Page 47
Posted by: Fred ||
08/13/2009 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[11132 views]
Top|| File under: Govt of Iran
[Iran Press TV Latest] Egypt has denied reports claiming that the country's president has congratulated President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on his disputed re-election.
The website of the presidency of the Islamic Republic of Iran said on Tuesday that the Egyptian president, Hosni Mubarak, congratulated his Iranian counterpart over his re-election.
In a written message, Mubarak praised the victory of Ahmadinejad in the 10th presidential election, the Iranian president's website said.
Egyptian Foreign Ministry spokesman Hossam Zaki, however, told Radiofarda on Wednesday that he could not confirm the authenticity of the report. He did not elaborate on the issue.
[Iran Press TV Latest] After speaker of Iran's Parliament dismissed reports that protesters were 'raped' in detention, a spokesman for Mehdi Karroubi says he will present evidence on the matter.
Leading opposition figure Karroubi claims that he has received reports from former military commanders and other senior officials that male and female prisoners were brutally 'raped' by their jailers to the point of "physical and mental damage."
After calling for a probe, Majlis Speaker Ali Larijani moved to defuse the controversy on Wednesday by denying reports of 'jail rape' in the aftermath of the country's post-vote unrest.
"The issue of detainees being sexually abused is a lie," Larijani told an open session of Parliament. "On the basis of thorough and comprehensive investigations conducted about the detainees at Kahrizak and Evin prisons, no cases of rape and sexual abuse were found."
The Majlis speaker encouraged the defeated presidential candidate to come forward with evidence proving his claims.
If Karroubi could present evidence of such outrages, then Majlis would investigate them, Larijani asserted.
The proposal was welcomed by Karroubi's National Confidence Party (Etemad-e-Melli).
Esmail Gerami Moqaddam, the party's spokesman, said the former presidential candidate's "knowledge about the issue goes much further from mere word of mouth."
Gerami-Moqaddam claimed that Karroubi would definitely provide evidence to validate the reports of 'jail rape.'
Continued on Page 47
Posted by: Fred ||
08/13/2009 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[11137 views]
Top|| File under: Govt of Iran
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
