Iranian Suffering Dwarfed By Jackson Death
It’s a strong indictment of our MSM (main stream media) and perhaps of our western society too, that the saddening and historic events that are taking place in Iran have been pushed off of the headlines because of Michael Jackson’s death.
Human Rights Watch just reported that the Iranian paramilitary Basij forces are now carrying out nightly raids and “trashing entire streets” in an attempt to stop rooftop revolutionary cries. It says that the Basij are “breaking down doors and beating residents in an attempt to stop protests against Iran’s disputed election”.
One witness to the attacks in the Velenjak district said, “On June 22, while we were shouting ‘Allahu Akbar’ from the rooftops, the Basiji entered our neighborhood and started firing live rounds into the air, in the direction of the buildings from which they believe the shouting of ‘Allahu Akbar’ is coming from”.
A second witness reported, “Basijis climbed over walls to enter homes after they failed to kick down doors when people were shouting from rooftops on June 23. When they entered the homes, they beat the residents. The neighbors took to cursing the Basijis and throwing stones at them to divert them from beating the residents, but then the Basijis attacked those neighbors’ houses and tried to enter them”.
Another eye witness said, “the Basijis spray-painted a sign on the doors of houses in a central district where they thought protesters had fled. A few minutes later, they came back and attacked the marked houses, breaking down the doors and entering them. They beat the owners, and broke the windows in the house and of their cars”.
Human Rights Watch says that similar reports have come in from other parts Tehran including Farmanieh, Niavaran, Saadat Abad, Shahrak Gharb, and Vanak Square, all of which might be considered upper-class districts.
What has not been widely reported is why Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is using the Basijis and not the Revolutionary Guard to crush dissent.
General Ali Fazli, who was the head of the guard in Tehran refused to fire on his own countrymen and was subsequently arrested.
The Guard has its own institutions, and is to a large degree independent of the both the government and Khamenei’s Guardian Council, and it now seems likely that there will be a division of religion and state, with the guard effectively operating a military dictatorship.
It is clear that Obama hadn’t and hasn’t got a clue as to what or say or do about the situation, and similarities are already being noted between him and Jimmy Carter, who famously talked of “America’s inordinate fear of Communism”, but later implemented a military buildup that Reagan continued with, and which Obama is now threatening to reduce.
What Obama has referred to as the “robust debate” taking place in Iran, has so far meant the deaths of hundreds of debaters being killed, and who knows how many others being clubbed, and then thrown into jail, where they are most likely still undergoing torture and abuse.
One can only wonder if he held such robust debates at Harvard.
Last 10 posts by Michael Redbourn
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