Excerpt: “An unassuming college math student has become an unlikely hero to many in Iran for daring to criticize the country’s most powerful man to his face. Mahmoud Vahidnia has received an outpouring of support from government opponents for the challenge – unprecedented in a country where insulting supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is a crime punishable by prison… The session began with a speech in which Khamenei told the students the “biggest crime” was to question the results of the June 12 presidential election that returned hard-liner Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to power. Khamenei himself declared Ahmadinejad the victor despite opposition claims of widespread fraud. After the speech, Vahidnia raised his hand, then for 20 minutes he criticized the Iranian leader over the fierce crackdown on postelection protests, in which the opposition says 69 people were killed and thousands were arrested… In brief excerpts broadcast on state TV, the thin, bespectacled Vahidnia was shown standing behind a podium, gesturing at times for emphasis. ‘I don’t know why in this country it’s not allowed to make any kind of criticism of you,’ said the student, wearing a long-sleeved blue polo shirt and appearing calm. ‘In the past three to five years that I have been reading newspapers, I have seen no criticism of you, not even by the Assembly of Experts, whose duty is to criticize and supervise the performance of the leader,’ he said, referring to the clerical body that chooses the country’s supreme leader.”
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“The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance; it is the illusion of knowledge.”
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Obama claims the US does not intervene in Iranian affairs
http://mideastreality.blogspot.com/2009/11/obama-claims-us-does-not-intervene-in.html
“greens” in iran openly called to Obama to support them. Of course, it says something about the nature of “green revolution” (if somebody STILL need it)
so-called “Arab leaders” are mostly puppets of USA (and Israel)which prop them against their own people. Exactly because of it USA and Israel want to turn Iran into one more client state.
Israel desperately accuses Iran of “war crimes” to fend off Goldstone report
There’s something downright bizarre and pathetic about Israel accusing Iran of “war crimes” whilst it was busy dumping phosporous bombs on the heads of defenseless refugees in a concentration camp called Gaza. I guess they’ll do anything to try to desperately shift the focus off of the Goldstone report on Israeli war crimes — which was just endorsed by the United Nations General Assembly as well as the head of the UNHCR despite US attempts to kill the report at the UNHC , and is now off to the Security Council (where the US will have to take the rather embarassing step of yet again using a veto to kill the report … by which time the damage will have been done. the US will simply be seen as exercising raw power to cover up documented war crimes by Israel. Ain’t that a wonderful position for a self-proclaimed defender of human rights around to world to be in?)
http://www.iranaffairs.com/iran_affairs/
Lidia — you make me want to throw up. I mean, even if you hate Israel, I can’t see why you wouldn’t support the legitimate right of Iranians to rise up for democracy and human rights?? Can you really be that hypocritical??