How the world must respond to Syria crisis

                              Shame to The calamity of  The entire world

This is an article by Frida Ghitis, a world affairs columnist for The Miami Herald and World Politics Review, and a former CNN producer and correspondent. 

The image of 3-year-old Aylan Kurdi lying facedown on a beach, dead, after his family sought to escape the horrors of their country’s civil war, has touched the world. But compassion without action is pointless.
Thousands of refugees are battling European governments. Today, it’s Hungary. Last month, it was Macedonia. Desperate people are paying thousands of dollars to traffickers to take them to safety; scores have died of asphyxia after being locked in trucks that failed to reach their destination; thousands have drowned trying to cross the Mediterranean Sea.
We are living in the worst refugee crisis since World War II, and yet the truth is that world leaders have failed to manage the crisis. They will, of course, answer to history. But in the meantime, the situation will only become worse without drastic action: More will die, more refugees will arrive unwanted, more countries will become destabilized and, if this goes on much longer, we will have a generation of Syrians who have grown up in the kind of conditions that perpetuate conflict.
It is too late to prevent the current crisis, but there is plenty we can try to do moving forward to try to ease it.
What exactly?
For a start, world leaders should convene a top-level emergency gathering to focus on the key aspects of this crisis. The conference should be called by a group of countries, including Germany with strong backing from the United States, and should include the European Union , the United Nations and other world powers, Syria’s neighbors, and also Russia and China. The objective should be threefold: to stop the killing, to help the refugees and to bring an end to the war.
Arab nations must play a major role in addressing the Syrian crisis. We are all responsible. But the people of Syria are their neighbors, their brethren. The conflict is in their midst, its impact close to home. To be sure, the neighborhood has not completely failed Syrian refugees. The overwhelming majority of those who have fled Syria -- millions of them -- are now living in Turkey, Jordan and Lebanon, and Arab states have helped finance those costs. But more is needed.
Once convened, this international conference should work to develop a comprehensive international plan to help refugees, one that involves a much greater role for Arab and other Muslim states. Indeed, wealthy Gulf states should be encouraged to not just make an outsize financial contribution, but countries like the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Oman and Saudi Arabia should be pressed to welcome refugees.
Of course, Europe and the United States should also receive more from among the millions of desperate Syrian refugees fleeing conflict. But so should thriving Muslim states such as Malaysia, Indonesia and of course Iran, whose support for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad means it has additional moral responsibility for what is happening. (And speaking of Asia, this could be an opportunity for a country like Japan, with its demographic crisis, to boost its population, or at least do its part to share the burden of this major humanitarian emergency.)
But giving refuge to those who are fleeing the horrors of conflict is not enough -- the crisis also needs to be tackled at its source. So, to at least try to slow the killing, it is time to give serious consideration to the establishment of safe zones inside Syria, a proposal that is actually more complicated than it might sound.
For example, when Turkey proposed such an approach, some feared that it secretly planned to expel Syrian refugees from Turkish territory and send them back inside Syria to any safe zones. If the system is to work, these zones must come with an ironclad vow from countries hosting refugees not to force anyone to return to Syria before the war is over.
Safe zones will, of course, require a military commitment to be effective, perhaps from the United States, NATO and other allies, to guarantee the 'safe' in 'safe zones.' They will therefore need to become no-fly zones, with air patrols and anti-aircraft support on the ground. The betrayal of so-called safe areas in Bosnia’s Srebrenica must never be allowed to happen again.
Above all, though, it is imperative to bring an end to the war, to defeat ISIS and -- just as crucially, although this point now often gets overlooked -- to bring an end to the regime of al-Assad, whose rejection of peaceful demands for democratic reform laid the groundwork for this epic human displacement and for the upsurge in extremism.
And epic this displacement has truly been -- more than 320,000 people have been killed in the war, according to one monitoring group, and there is no end in sight. Before the war started in 2011, about 23 million people lived in Syria. Fully half of them have been displaced. Some 7.5 million are internally displaced. More than 4 million are registered with the United Nations, and many of those fleeing have not been. It is estimated that there are almost 2 million Syrian refugees in Turkey, at least 600,000 in Jordan and perhaps 1.1 million in Lebanon, where they now make up nearly a quarter of the total population.
Such an enormous movement of people is further destabilizing an already unsettled region, and bringing with it a level of disruption that could very well sow the seeds for another generation of conflict and extremism.
The West’s initial approach, which effectively viewed the Syrian civil war as 'their problem,' has merely underscored how in reality there is no way to contain such conflicts within national boundaries -- this war has spawned ISIS, its videotaped beheadings and sanctioned sexual slavery, scattering its poisonous extremist ideology far and wide. And while an international gathering cannot undo the devastation that has been wrought, it can still be a positive first step toward winding down this conflict.
This is the moral and strategic challenge of our time. So far, the world has failed. But if its leaders can begin to publicly and materially empower those who stand for a pluralistic, tolerant and democratic Syria -- one that will eventually welcome back the millions of citizens who have fled -- then we might be able to turn the compassion we have seen in recent days into a more hopeful legacy for the country and its people.

agreement with mullahs means more executions

   agreement with  mullahs means more executions

The following is an article written by Karim Moradi, an Iranian human rights activist and member of the Society of Iranian Political Prisoners. His article was published in The Hill.
I am often asked by my American friends what I think about the Iran deal. As someone who spent seven years of his life imprisoned in Iran, it is difficult for me to give a simple answer. I have spent the past few weeks reflecting not on the nuclear deal with Iran, but on the summer of 1988, when Iran systematically massacred 30,000 political prisoners in a matter of weeks. 
I was born in 1958 in the beautiful city of Shiraz in southwestern Iran. I was a student activist against the Shah’s dictatorship but after the 1979 uprising, I felt that my values stood in sharp contrast to the clerics, who had usurped the popular revolution. I felt closer to the People’s Mojahedin of Iran, (PMOI/MEK) an opposition organization that espoused a democratic interpretation of Islam and stood for a secular and democratic republic. 
I was arrested by the clerical regime for selling opposition newspapers in January 1982. I was 23 years old when after a sham trial I was initially sentenced to 10 years in prison. I was then tortured and later sentenced to death by a judge named Ramazani. 
While in prison, I was whipped with cables on my feet and back, and was routinely beaten. My cellmates, all political prisoners, were hung from the ceiling, sometimes for hours, or had parts of their bodies gradually burnt. I also heard about women, including two sisters of a family friend, who were raped before they were executed. 
Although our days were filled with isolation and torture, we would often find time at night to whisper poems and revolutionary songs together, both to stimulate our spirits and for momentary escape. Through these small acts of defiance, we were able to strengthen our resistance and maintain high spirits in what was living hell.  
I was released through a rare stroke of luck, two months before what would be the largest massacre of political prisoners in the history of Iran. My father was able to use a judicial contact in Supreme Judicial Council to overturn my death sentence and secure my release on medical grounds.  
The order for the massacre came from Khomeini directly in the form of a fatwa (religious decree), calling for the execution of all who remained steadfast in their support for the MEK. Prisoners were asked a simple question: do you still support the MEK? Those who answered yes were executed, even if their original sentence had ended. Many of my closest friends were executed. 
The vast majority of the victims were MEK members and supporters. They were hung in groups, sometimes 10 to 15 at a time, and later buried in mass graves. The scale of the massacre remains unknown, as no formal investigation has taken place, but opposition groups estimate as many as 30,000 were killed that summer.  read more

Truth behind the Iran lobby in US

Trita Parsi and its Iran lobby NIAC funded by the clerical regime in Iran

In the weeks since the Obama administration announced the perilous international Iran nuclear deal, growing attention has been paid to the network of organizations and foundations that have been actively lobbying in an effort to normalize relations between Washington and Tehran.
Rightly, that network is being referred to as the “Iran lobby.” The welcome and much-needed scrutiny of its workings and contacts provides a salutary lesson in how to identify enemies who present themselves as friends.
At the head of the pack is the Washington, DC-based National Iranian American Council (NIAC). Led by Trita Parsi, a Swedish-Iranian immigrant, NIAC has artfully worked itself into the center of the Iran policy debate. The organization has close relations with many liberal Democrat legislators and progressive outfits like J Street, the small Jewish-but-anti-Israel advocacy group, as well as minted foundations including the Ploughshares Fund and the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, both of which have donated generously to NIAC’s coffers. Some of its alumnae, like Sahar Nowrouzzadeh, have even made it into the White House—in her case, as desk officer for Iran.
NIAC presents itself as a moderate, thoughtful organization. It also claims to advocate on behalf of human rights in Iran, but check the page on its website ostensibly devoted to the subject, and you will see the odd press release urging the release of Iranian-Americans currently incarcerated by the mullahs interspersed with plenty of propaganda defending the nuclear deal. Executions, torture, repression of religious minorities, systemic anti-Semitism and homophobia are all staples of the Iranian regime’s outlook and behavior—but in NIAC’s airbrushed world, such matters don’t even exist.
Indeed, NIAC’s repeated denials that it is formally connected to the Iranian regime sound increasingly hollow. As the investigative journalist Lee Smith reported a few months ago, when writing about NIAC’s legal campaign against Hassan Daioleslam, an emigre Iranian who has doggedly exposed the truth about the organization, “The U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia found in 2012 the work of NIAC, which wasn’t registered under the Foreign Agents Registration Act, ‘not inconsistent with the idea that he was first and foremost an advocate for the regime.’”
Last week, The Daily Beast published a further expose on NIAC authored by “Alex Shirazi,” an Iranian dissident who wrote pseudonymously out of the fear that his family back in Iran might be targeted for reprisals. Shirazi chronicled NIAC’s evolution within the broader ambitions of the Namazis, a little-known but influential Iranian family that first rose to prominence under the Shah and returned to Iranian public life following the death of Khomeini in 1989. Among the consultants affiliated with Atieh Behar (AB) Consulting, a company with strong institutional ties to influential elements within the regime, was Trita Parsi.
According to Shirazi, “While serving as president of NIAC, Parsi also wrote intelligence briefings as an ‘affiliate analyst in Washington, DC’ for AB, focusing on such topics as whether or not the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) would revive its anti-Iran campaigning on the eve of the Iraq war, or on efforts by the Mujahideen-e Khalq (MeK), the Iranian opposition group that exposed Natanz in 2002 would get itself de-listed as a terrorist entity by the U.S. State Department.”
A good insight into NIAC’s slipperiness was gleaned from an interview with Carl Gershman, the president of the Congressionally-financed National Endowment for Democracy. Expressing regret at his decision to fund NIAC and its Iranian partner Hamyaran, a regime-sanctioned NGO, to the tune of $200,000 between 2002 and 2006, Gershman said that NIAC had misrepresented itself: “We weren’t aware when these grants were made that NIAC were presenting themselves as a lobby...We were trying something that might be a way to help people on the inside [of Iran]. But that quickly became unworkable; the grant didn’t work. Then NIAC showed itself as a lobby organization, so we have nothing to do with them anymore.”
Better late than never. Now that the truth about NIAC is emerging, one has to ask why anyone who seeks respectability in Washington would have anything to do with Parsi and his cohorts.
NIAC’s overarching aim is to strengthen the Iranian regime by boosting its ability to trade with America and its allies. That’s accompanied by lots of airy, disingenuous talk about how economic openness leads to more accountable government, but there is precious little sign of the regime reforming itself. If anything, the nuclear deal has persuaded the mullahs that they achieve better results by doing the exact opposite!
What is really irksome is NIAC’s presentation of its agenda as somehow in accord with the national interests of the U.S. Moreover, NIAC flaks, like its Research Director Reza Marashi, have even indulged in a bit of good ol’ Jew-baiting—after Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) came out against the deal, Marashi accused him of putting “Israel’s interests before America’s interests.” Students of anti-Semitism will immediately recognize this deployment of the familiar “dual loyalty” smear; what makes this example especially rich is that it comes from the stooges of a regime whose slogan is “Death to America!” and whose military interventions across the region have claimed the lives of hundreds of American personnel. NIAC even insults America by claiming that it works for “human rights” in Iran and “civil rights” in the U.S., insinuating that this country is on the same moral level as one of the darkest, most repressive regimes in recent history.
When the time comes to reckon with Obama’s legacy on Iran, the role of NIAC will be understood as more than a mere footnote. Yet we shouldn’t make the same mistake as the enemies of the Jews by assigning any lobby group a mystical power. read more

Water shortage catastrophe, consequence of mullahs and IRGC

 

catastrophe, consequence of  mullahs

The first step in overcoming this unparalleled crisis is establishment of democracy
Shocking admissions by regime’s leaders on water shortage and attempts to conceal reason behind it

Mrs. Maryam Rajavi , President-elect of the Iranian Resistance, described the catastrophe of water shortage in Iran a consequence of Iranian regime’s antinationalistic policies and the unbounded plunder, jobbery and corruption of this regime’s leaders and the revolutionary guards (IRGC) in wasting country’s assets in nuclear projects and export of terrorism and fundamentalism. She emphasized: The first step in saving the country from this crisis unparalleled in Iran’s history is to topple the religious fascism and establish democracy.
To resolve this crisis, not only all economic and industrial resources have to be used, but antinationalistic nuclear projects and the export of terrorism and fundamentalism have to be done away with and their colossal expenses should be allocated to restoring and revitalizing the water resources. However, as long as this Iranian regime that has just brought poverty and death and destroyed the national wealth of the Iranian people is in power, it will continue with its destructive policies that spread and exacerbate the water shortage catastrophe.



Water shortage in Iran

After years of concealing the water shortage crisis, in the recent months, regime’s leaders have been compelled to acknowledge some aspects of this crisis that has spread to most of Iran’s provinces and cities. Meanwhile, they hide the real causes of this tragedy and attempt to blame the situation on natural phenomenon or to place the blame on unrestrained and excessive usage of the water resources by the people or at the very most blame it on mismanagement of former government officials.
Issa Kalantari, advisor to Rouhani and General Secretary of regime’s Agriculture House, acknowledged a few days ago: “Water is considered a recyclable natural element, but this is no longer the case in Iran due to excessive use.” He went on to add: “We have around 100 billion cubic meters of recyclable water in the country and we should use 40 billion cubic meters of it and not any more. But today, we use 96% of this water which is a catastrophe… Due to the unmethodical usage of country’s natural resources and water… most lagoons that are very important resources of country’s environment, have been destroyed and dried up in the recent years.” (IRNA state news agency – September 9, 2015)
“By using 97% of surface waters, practically all rivers have dried up and there is no longer any water left in the nature” and “in not too distant a future, around 70% of country’s population needs to immigrate,” he had similarly stated on April 27, 2015.



People suffering from water  shortage in Iran
On 16 August 2015, regime’s Energy Minister Hamid Chitchian noted: “Every year, the situation for water deteriorates and if nothing is done, peasants will lose their jobs, we will have more unemployed people that come to the cities, and most important of all, food security will be imperiled… 7000 hectares of pistachio lands have dried up and the lagoons of Urmia, Bakhtegan, Gavkhooni and Hamoun have dried up” (Jahan Sanat state daily). Last year he had stated: “There are 609 plains in Iran. 296 of the plains have negative usage of water. In a sense, one can say that 296 lakes like Urmia are drying up…” (Tasnim news agency– September 19, 2014)
“Two years ago, 80,000 hectares of Golestan [Province] was used to grow rice. Last year, this area was 50,000 and this year it dwindled to 28,000 hectares,” stated regime’s Agricultural Minister Mahmoud Hojjati (Jahan Sanat – August 16, 2015).
Deputy Interior Minister and head of the Organization for Management of Crisis Esmail Najjar said: “520 cities suffer from shortage of potable water” (Tabnak Website – May 5, 2015). A few weeks later, Deputy Energy Minister Sattar Mahmoudi stated that last year we had 517 cities that experienced water shortage. This year, we have 10 more cities. This problem is more acute in Sanandaj, Bandar Abbas, Kerman, Esfahan and eastern Tehran (Fars News Agency– June 13, 2015).
Shortage of water even involves sections of the country like Mazandaran with ample water. IRNA reported on July 4, 2015 that “Kelardasht in western Mazandaran -- a county that enjoys many springs and a river like Sard-Abroud with lots of water -- is experiencing an acute shortage of potable water.”
Parliamentarian Javad Harvi stated that water crisis has resulted in 200 villages in Sistan and Baluchistan Province to be deserted and in the next five years, no one will be living in the eastern areas of the country (September 30, 2014).
Gholamreza Manouchehri, advisor to the Energy Minister, noted, “Drought and climate change only plays a 10% role in the water shortage; the remaining 90% is due to excessive usage, population growth, and widespread industrial activity. Water usage in Iran is twice that of the world and has passed the red line” (IRNA – September 28, 2014).
One of the main causes of this situation is uncontrolled construction of dams in the past three decades. Right now there are over 550 dams in Iran. Five-hundred have been mostly built by the revolutionary guards and 300 companies affiliated with it during the mullahs’ reign without due technical assessment. Building of dams is one of the main resources for plunder by regime’s leaders.
These dams provide water to a meager percentage of the agricultural land and provide even a smaller percentage of country’s electricity, but they have dried up most of the rivers and destroyed much agricultural land around the dried up rivers causing many villagers to leave their dwellings and come at city outskirts. Many of the dams have been constructed to bring water to regime’s weapons’ industry or nuclear sites, while others are aimed at bringing water to lands and fruit farms usurped by the revolutionary guards and state organs at the expense of destruction of the natural resources and destroying the lives of large numbers of people.
Gatvand Dam that was built by the regime and Ahmadinejad inaugurated is a catastrophic example that turned into desert hundreds of thousands of hectares of Khuzestan’s agricultural land. The lake behind the dam has become a mega storage of salty water that severely damages the environment.
Along dam construction, diversion of waterways and rivers and uncontrolled digging of deep wells by state organs has caused the recession of underground water sources. In some areas it has become almost impossible to access water any more.
Construction of nuclear facilities that consume huge amounts of water in areas such as Qom, Natanz and Esfahan that are relatively dry has aggravated the water shortage. One of the reasons for Zayandeh-roud River to dry up is the concentration of military industry in Esfahan Province and the diversion of the water of this river to these industrial sites. Reciprocally, shortage of water has afflicted vital industries. According to parliamentarian Nasser Moussavi, shortage of water has caused a slump in the steel industry in Esfahan that now operates at 40% capacity (Khaneh Melat Website – September 12, 2014).
Construction of dams and diversion of rivers for military and governmental purposes has dried up many lagoons and lakes such as Urmia, Hamoun and Bakhtegan that is disastrous for the livelihood of the people living in these areas, as well as for the environment.
According to the authority responsible for the Bakhtegan National Park, “The drying up of the 120,000 hectare lake of Bakhtegan has led to salt storms and various diseases for the population” and “made the agricultural lands salty. This lake gave humidity to the air and thus fruitfulness of fig, almond and olive trees. As this lake has completely dried up, the fruit farmers are having problems. This lake was home to flamingos, shelducks, Western reef egrets, gulls, spoonbill birds, pelican ducks, geese and cranes that migrate to Iran from Russia and Siberia.” State media-July 11, 2015))
According to regime’s officials, two thirds of Hour al-Adhim lagoon in Khuzestan Province that is one of the richest lagoons in the region in wild life and plants has dried up. This in turn has destroyed dozens of villages and rendered homeless thousands of villagers in addition to causing sand storms that is one of the main elements of increase of dust to 20 times the normal level in Khuzestan.
The Iranian Resistance calls on the Iranian people, especially the youth, to use the slogan of “water, water, is the irreconcilable right of Iranian people” to confront the anti-popular policies of the mullahs’ regime and the improper use of country’s water resources by the IRGC, including the destructive dam constructions, and not allow their further destruction of the country.

Secretariat of the National Council of Resistance of Iran
September 19, 2015

Why is the migrant crisis erupting now?

Asylum seekers in desperate need of help

After more than 4 years of fighting in Syria and also across the Middle East and North Africa, what has provoked this new influx of asylum seekers into Europe?
They flee a country at war where the West resists any major military or political engagement.
They flee a country where NATO-led forces fought for more than a decade to achieve stability.
The stories of Syria and Afghanistan are two cautionary tales of our time.
Old wars don’t end. New ones get worse.
No matter what the world’s great powers did or did not do, growing numbers of Syrians and Afghans are taking their future into their own hands. They make up the two largest groups in this mass displacement of people across Europe and beyond.
Never has there has been such an ingathering of people sending the most pointed public message to their own leaders and the world at large: 'You failed.'


A Syrian man holds a sign declaring his gratitude to German Chancellor Angela Merkel

It’s the people’s version of the Live Aid concert organised by the world’s musicians 30 years ago to raise money for the Ethiopian famine.
This time, people are no longer waiting for a more peaceful and privileged world beyond to come to them with aid. They’re coming to that better safer place themselves - no matter what it takes.
And as this human stream rushes unabated, it starts to change course and political colour.
Now there are growing numbers of Iraqis, the other major international engagement of the decade past. Eritreans flee well-documented repression, Somalis escape a chronic instability that is now a way of life and even Pakistanis are on the move to get out of harm’s way at home.



'Is there a war in Pakistan?' I ask two men who also spill out of a bus packed with Syrians and Afghans when it pulls up to the last muddy crossing in northern Greece on the Macedonian border.
'Bombs are exploding around Lahore,' one young man insists, bowing his head to show me what he says is a scar on the back of it.

No easy divide
This seemingly unending flow of people making perilous journeys across the Mediterranean and running the gauntlet across northern Europe underlines how difficult distinctions and decisions will have to be made between refugees with a 'well-founded fear of persecution' and those with an understandable desire to seek a better life.
But the neat binary divide between economic migrants and refugees no longer fits a messy world of fragile and failing states and 'post-conflict' conflicts.
Many countries, including the United States, Britain and Canada, have made it clear they are now only opening their door to allow in thousands, possibly tens of thousands, more Syrians.


Sami Khazi Kani is trying for the second time to reach the West

'Its absolutely unfair,' Sami Khazi Kani declares as he waits for his turn to cross the last metal barrier manned by Greek police.
He tried and failed a decade ago to get asylum in Britain. When he was deported to Afghanistan his risks only grew when his English language skills landed him a job as an interpreter for US troops. Now he’s trying to reach the West again.
'The Taliban are killing us, the Taliban are kidnapping us,' he says bitterly. 'But the media only broadcast what is happening in Syria.'
Taliban attacks are on the rise in Afghanistan but Syria is undeniably the war of our time. It’s a country so ravaged that many dare to state the unspeakable: that Syria as we knew it is no more.
This is a place where more than half the population of 22 million people is displaced, dead or a refugee.


Migrant crisis in graphics

’Burden sharing’It’s also described as the largest, most expensive aid operation of modern times.
Even before this current crisis erupted, the world’s major aid agencies had repeatedly warned that the global humanitarian system was at breaking point, cracking under the weight of Syria as well as protracted conflicts in the Central African Republic, South Sudan, Iraq and more.
'Burden sharing' has been the buzzword in aid circles for many months with growing calls for wealthy Gulf states to do more and for countries in all corners of the world to play their part.
Some countries are doing more and giving more but even the most high-profile aid operations like Syria keep running out of cash .
'Don’t say there is no solution to what is a man-made crisis,' Jan Egeland, the head of the Norwegian Refugee Council told me a year ago. 'There are more than 190 countries in the world.'

There is no humanitarian solution for this tragic humanitarian crisis
Antonio Guterres, UN High Commissioner for Refugees

Now there’s a call for quotas among European nations to share responsibility for about 160,000 refugees, mainly from Syria. But it may not work.
So when Western politicians say people must stay where they are, to be helped closer to home, their pleas now ring hollow. Governments in Jordan, Lebanon and Turkey, hosting the overwhelming majority of Syrian refugees, are under mounting strain.
The head of the UN’s Refugee Agency, Antonio Guterres, has repeatedly invoked one mantra: 'There is no humanitarian solution for this tragic humanitarian crisis.' The only real solution is political.

Maps and groups
And yet, even as this crisis explodes with unprecedented human force, the fate of one man, Bashar al-Assad, seems to matter more, to all sides, than the fate of 22 million people.
Russia and Iran are rushing to bolster the government’s increasingly embattled position. Western powers focus on ramping up air strikes.


 Greek police man the metal barriers
The UN’s new political plan is a long-term process of working groups to study a 'roadmap for peace' to try to encourage warring sides to come to the negotiating table.
But Syrians, worried that aid is running out, fearful of multiplying threats from extremist forces like ISIS, and losing hope that this war will ever end, are deploying their own maps and groups: Google maps from the internet to chart their journey to Europe and Facebook groups to get advice from those who’ve gone before.
And many others from many places are coming with them.
'Are you sure you will be offered asylum?' I ask a young Iraqi man from Baghdad who tells me he’s exhausted after a journey that’s already lasted 10 days just to get him to northern Greece.
'I am sure,' he says confidently on a cold, dark night as the rain pours down on the open field. He covers his head with some plastic sheeting offered by some local volunteers and rushes to catch up with the next group making its way across a short no-man’s land towards the next border.
A slogan once brandished in what was called the Arab Spring seems to have resonance again: 'The power of the people is greater than the people in power.'
But the lesson of that earlier moment was that those in power still have the ability to determine the people’s chances to succeed, or fail.

Iran: regime agents deny medical care for political prisoner Narges Mohammadi

Political prisoner Narges Mohammadi

Political prisoner Narges Mohammadi, already deprived of a phone call with her twin children for over two months now, is currently under extremely harsh physical conditions imposed by the Iranian regime agents, reports indicate.
The mullahs’ judiciary officials are preventing her transfer to a hospital despite the fact that medical specialists and even Evin Prison physicians have emphasized on her need to be hospitalized.
Mohammadi is facing charges such as collusion, assembly against national security and propaganda against the state. She is scheduled to be prosecuted on October 7th by Salavati, a so-called judge in branch 15 of the regime’s courts in Tehran
In addition to polititical repressions against Iranian women,more women in Iran become unemployed&live in poverty

Last year the International Monetary Fund said Iran has an unemployment rate of 11.2%, ranking 26th in the world in this regard.In recent years a significant increase in women’s unemployment has played a large role in the calculation of unemployment in Iran. Women who are both educated and yet unemployed. Last week the Iranian regime’s vice president in women and family affairs said more than 40% of college educated women in Iran are unemployed.
“Unemployment amongst women with higher education and single mothers not only plays against their interests, it also has a majorly negative impact as the country is not being able to take advantage of these human resources,” Molavardi said.
“Currently, not only are women who have been deprived of education and necessary skills more likely to fall into crimes, but also there is a high number of educated women that are engulfed in economic problems and have resorted to committing crimes,” said Hossein Raghfar, a university professor. (State-run Fararu.com website – September 12, 2015)
The state-run Mizan news agency wrote the following piece: “A report of the Census Center on unemployment rates in spring 2015 shows unemployment amongst the country’s above 10 population standing at 10.8%. This is 9% amongst men and 19.2% amongst women. Unemployment amongst men in various age groups is 21.8%, and 47.2% amongst women.”

News - Maryam Rajavi Messages Iran opposition leader hails Iran human rights session at UK House of Commons

Iranian opposition leader Maryam Rajavi

The following is the text of a message by Iranian opposition leader Mrs. Maryam Rajavi , President-elect of the Paris-based National Council of Resistance of Iran, to a meeting on human rights in Iran at the United Kingdom House of Commons sponsored by the all-party British Parliamentary Committee for Iran Freedom.
Maryam Rajavi’s message to a meeting on human rights in Iran at the UK Parliament
September 15, 2015
We call on Britain, Europe and all the world to stand by human rights, freedom and the Iranian Resistance and respect the Iranian people’s desire for regime change. There is such power and influence in this struggle that the world needs
The British Human Right Session,
The honorable members of the British Houses of Commons and Lords,
Dear friends,
I salute you and appreciate your attention to the issue of Iran and its victimized human rights and freedoms, particularly, the prominent parliamentarians Messrs. David Jones and David Amess, the sponsors of this meeting.
It has been years that human rights and freedoms in Iran have comprised a common struggle for the Resistance movement and for the honorable members of the British Houses of Parliament in the British Parliamentary Committee for Iran Freedom.
The people of Iran must have the right to freedom from arbitrary arrests, torture and extrajudicial executions.
They must have the right to enjoy personal freedoms and security and be equal to others before the law. They must have the right to be heard in fair trials before the courts. They must have the right to have their house and private life and their manners of clothing and their movements protected against attacks. They must have the right to freely express their opinions, freely write and read and freely form any gathering they desire. They must have the right to have free elections.
How much longer must the Iranian people only dream of enjoying their most basic rights? How much longer must Iranians give their blood and lives to gain a miniscule part of these rights?
Unfortunately, the issue of human rights and freedoms in Iran were overlooked more than ever in the past two years while the nuclear negotiations and its ultimate agreement were ongoing.
Taking advantage of western governments’ ignorance and irresponsibility, Iran’s ruling mullahs stepped up their suppression and clampdown on freedoms over the past two years. According to Amnesty International, the number of executions in the first half of 2015 amounted to nearly 700 which is highest record of executions in the past quarter of a century. The number of executions in the two years of Rouhani’s tenure has exceeded 2000.
During this period, the record of human rights has deteriorated in all areas. Teachers and workers’ protests are responded to by expulsions from work. The rights and freedoms of lawyers, human rights defenders, web bloggers, reporters, new Christian converts, Bahaii’s, Sunni youths, Kurds, Baluchis and more than anyone, the women and youths of Iran are trampled every day.
In the meantime, the mullahs’ oppressive hand has extended beyond its borders and tightened the siege onCamp Liberty, the seat of Mojahedin members. So far, 27 people have lost their lives due to lack of prompt and timely access to medical treatment.more

Iran: 46,000 new repressive agents

Security forces harassing women in Iran

Deputy chief of the headquarters of “Enjoining Good and Forbidding Wrong” said 4,600 groups, each with 10 members, have been trained and organized to deliver “verbal warnings” to the public across Iran. This entity carries out its activities under the direct supervision of Khamenei and is chaired by Ahmad Jannati, also chair of the conservative Guardian Council.
Mehdi Amini, a senior official in this organ, said on Wednesday, September 9th that with the adoption of the law on “enjoining good and forbidding wrong” preparations have been made to recruit and organize 10-man groups to deliver “verbal warnings” to the public.
This official said 4,600 such groups are to be organized across the country. (State-run entekhabkhabar.ir website – September 11, 2015)

Mahiyare Nadaf, a member of Iran’s Baha’i minority

 Suppression is a general culture in Islamic republic of Iran,Mahiyare Nadaf, a member of Iran’s Baha’i minority community, took part in the national exams in the field of liberal arts and was ranked 1,829th in Iran. However, after she entered her specifications in a government website to thus seek higher education, she received a message saying she is banned from going to college. The reason behind this is that she belongs to Iran’s Baha’i minority community.
Depriving Baha’is of higher education in Iran is based on a resolution adopted by the regime’s “Supreme Council of Cultural Revolution” on February 25, 1991 depriving Baha’is of occupation in government facilities and college education. Based on article 3 of this resolution, not only must Baha’is be prevented from even registering in any colleges, in fact even if an individual is discovered of being a Baha’i after entering college, they too must be deprived of education.

Delusion of finding Iran mullahs becoming liberals and moderates is long dead

Rest assured that nothing will come out of these talks

Some western leaders are trying to induce this perception that mullahs ruling Iran, be it the so called ’hardliners’ or supposedly ’moderates’!!, will eventually have to change their mind-set and adopt a civilized and democratic approach to both domestic and international issues. What a delusion!
The argument that the advocates of Obama nuclear deal with the mullahs invest on is that the deal will have positive effects on Iran’s politics; that Iran’s rulers will become more moderate and democratic in 10 or 15 year as a result; therefore, one should not be too concerned about Iran’s nuclear capabilities then.
The argument asserts that the deal reduces threats to the fundamentalist rulers, which in turn will result in a reduction of repression.  The removal of sanctions and the reduction of repression will allow the middle class to grow and thus strengthen pro-democracy forces and human rights activists.  These forces will compel the fundamentalist rulers to moderate their behavior in domestic and foreign realms.
The above argument ignores the history, logic, and nature of the Shia fundamentalist oligarchy that rules Iran.  The Iran-Iraq war provides an excellent precedent to analyze the nuclear conflict.  The same arguments were made in 1988 that with the end of the war, the regime would reduce repression, allow democratization, and integrate into the international community as a responsible actor.  In actual reality, however, the reverse became true.  During the war, the regime had held large numbers of political prisoners.  In late August 1988, a few weeks after the end of the war, the regime mass executed about 4,000 political prisoners who were supporters of the PMOI, many of whom had been arrested as teenagers whose sole crime was distributing leaflets of the group, and the revolutionary courts had given them prison sentences.  And in September the regime mass executed about 1,000 Marxist political prisoners, who had been merely jailed and tortured before the end of the war.  The prisoners were asked whether they regarded the Koran as the word of God.  Those who refused to answer or replied in the negative were executed as apostates.  Then in February 1989, Khomeini issued his death fatwa against Salman Rushdie for apostasy. The Rushdie controversy arose in early 1988, and Khomeini had remained silent throughout the war while there were numerous protests in the Islamic world causing many deaths.  Khomeini’s attack on Rushdie occurred not during the war but after the war ended.  Even more significant, whereas the regime tolerated many moderate political figures during the war, the regime launched a massive campaign of assassinations and repression of these respected figures in what became known as the “Chain Murders.”  For example, Dr. Kazem Sami, a well-respected liberal Islamist, who had served as Minister of Health in the Provisional government was murdered on November 23, 1988.  One of the leaders of the Iran National Front, Dr. Shamsaldin Amir-Alaee -- who had served in Mossadegh’s cabinet in the 1951-53 period as Minister of Interior -- was murdered in 1994.  The National Front’s top leader, Dr. Ali Ardalan, was so severely tortured that he suffered two heart attacks under torture. 
The reason that the regime increased repression after the war was that it feared that the people who had endured hardships during the war would demand freedom.  If the regime reduced repression, then the pro-democracy forces would have utilized the opening to demand democracy.  Therefore, the logic of survival demanded that the regime increase repression.more

Watch Where Your Money Goes in Iran, Exiles Say to US

the word Iranian exiles say no to US nuclear deal with Iran

“Don’t” is the word Iranian exiles have for US businesses looking to open their doors in Iran.
To a person, they are warning that doing business with the theocratic regime of Iran’s Khamenei was fraught with risk.
“Americans who develop a business in Iran will find that not a penny they pay in fees to the government will go to help the poor, the 70 percent-plus of Iranians in their teens and 20s who are unemployed, or the teachers who haven’t been paid in six months,” said Allen Tasslimi, New Jersey venture capitalist and president of the Association of Iranian-Americans of New Jersey, whose younger brother was executed by the clerical regime in the 1980s.
Tasslimi predicted that money paid to the Tehran regime by U.S. businesses for opportunities in Iran “would go to [Iran’s] Quds Force,” its brutal branch blamed for spreading terror throughout the region.
The Quds are headed by the notorious Gen. Ghasem Soleimani, branded “a cold-blooded killer” by Sen. John McCain for overseeing the manufacture of armor-piercing bullets that have killed more than 500 U.S. Marines.
Tasslimi, along with other exiles, strongly believes that an enhanced Iranian elite military unit “will provide even greater assistance to the terrorist clients that Khamenei and the regime already service: Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Houthis who have toppled the government of Yemen, and Assad’s murderous regime, which has forced tens of thousands to flee to Europe.”
The shot at American companies was loudly voiced on Saturday by Iranians among the more than 200 guests attending the 50th anniversary celebration Saturday of the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI) — known formerly as MEK and the largest Iranian opposition group — in Washington, D.C.
Now that President Obama’s controversial Iran deal is sure to clear Congress, many businesses are poised to open operations in the country long off limits to them after sanctions are lifted.
A voice from the past is driving their pleas. A book written before the U.S. was at war with Germany admonishing American entrepreneurs might be read as a cautionary tale.more

Americans are not behind Iran deal: Mark Mellman

Americans rallying in New York against Iran nuclear deal

The Hill, 8 September 2015
By Mark Mellman
In our representative democracy, public policy only imperfectly reflects public opinion.
Fortunately, Democrats passed healthcare reform despite the fact that, among the public at the time, opponents outnumbered supporters by 5 to 15 points. Republicans shut down the government in 2013 despite 3-to-1 opposition from voters. 
And, of course, Republicans stopped legislation mandating background checks for all gun purchasers even though voters favor the proposal by a 75-point margin.
The Iran nuclear agreement is about to join this list of legislation whose ultimate disposition is contrary to the desire of the majority of Americans.
Of course, the path to that outcome is paved by unusual rules: Only one-third of one chamber of Congress is required to “pass” the agreement.
If it were up to voters, though, Congress would reject it.
The most recent surveys on the deal, by Quinnipiac and Pew, found voters opposing it by 30 and 28-point margins, respectively. Moreover, by 2-to-1, Americans say it will make the world less, rather than more, safe.
A somewhat earlier CBS News poll found voters opposing the agreement by a 13-point margin. In the same survey, Americans opined that “the United States could have negotiated an agreement that was more favorable” to us, by 2-to-1. 
Of course, a few polls of late have offered divergent results.
One, from the University of Maryland, was not intended to measure opinions but rather to create them. It gives respondents literally a page and a half of explanations and arguments before soliciting their views.
In other surveys, the cues have been more subtle.
In an earlier column, I explained that survey questions that argue, in effect, that it’s a good deal, find Americans supporting it. However, when people are asked their opinion in an unbiased way that reflects their own understanding of the agreement, they oppose it.
Americans, I argued, would favor an agreement with Iran that worked. Most doubt this one will and therefore oppose it.more

Iranian Mullahs spend billions on terrorism

Iranian training terrorists

A private U.S. government report ordered by Sen. Mark Kirk has learned Iran has been sending billions of dollars to fill the pockets of terrorist fighters across the Middle East, including in Yemen, Syria, Lebanon and the Gaza Strip, The Washington Times reported on Saturday, September 5th.
Iran’s defense budget ranges anywhere between $14 billion to $30 billion a year and much of that money goes to fund terrorist groups and rebel fighters throughout the region, according to the Congressional Research Service report conducted at the request of Mr. Kirk, an Illinois Republican.
The report, first viewed by The Washington Free Beacon, discloses that funding for these terrorist groups could be much higher than originally estimated, as Iran often hides public records about its defense spending.
“Some regional experts claim that Iran’s defense budget excludes much of its spending on intelligence activities and support of foreign non-state actors,” the report states, stressing that actual military spending could far exceed the $30 billion that Iran discloses annually, The Free Beacon reported.
“Similarly, another study claims that actual funding for the [Iranian Revolutionary Guard Force’s Al Quds Force] is ‘much greater’ ” than the amount allocated in the state budget, as the group’s funds are supplemented by its own economic activities,” the report said.
The report gives “low-ball” estimates for each of the groups supported by Iranian funding. Researchers estimate Iran spends between $100 million and $200 million per year on Hezbollah, $3.5 billion to $15 billion per year in support of Syria’s Assad Regime, $12 million to $26 million per year on Shiite militias in Syria and Iraq, $10 million to $20 million per year to support Houthi rebels in Yemen and tens of millions per year to support Hamas terrorists in Israel.
In Syria, for example, Iranian-backed fighters are paid between $500 to $1,000 a month to fight in support of Bashar Assad’s regime, according to the report.
Afghan fighters in Syria have disclosed that they “had recently returned from training in Iran and planned to fight in Syria,” the report notes. These militants “expected to receive salaries from Iran ranging from $500 to $1000 a month.”
The report comes as the Obama administration gained the final critical vote needed to suppress a resolution to disapprove a nuclear deal with Iran. Under the deal, the U.S. and other world powers will gradually lift economic sanctions on the Islamic Republic in exchange for dismantling its nuclear weapons program.
Similar reports from watchdog groups have revealed that releasing Iranian assets sanctions could allow Tehran to spend more money on its terrorist-link Quds force, as well as beef up its own military in general.more

Kuwait Parliament rises against Iran’s terrorist threats

 

Mullahs’ regime security forces demolished a social club belonging to the Christian community of the capital Tehran. According to a statistics, more than 300 churches and Christian religious congregations have been destroyed or brought down in mullahs’ ruled Iran and dozens more are left half destroyed without permit to rebuild or repair. Concerning the external policy by Mullah's regime in Iran its meddling in Arab countries still continue

The Kuwait-based al-Ray daily published a piece on Sunday, September 6th saying following terrorist threats and conspiracies by the Iranian regime against Arab countries of the Persian Gulf, Kuwait lawmakers are now insisting on the necessity to escalate security cooperation.
Kuwait MPs said the security package signed by the Gulf Cooperation Council Foreign Ministers in 2012 has yet to be adopted by the [Kuwait] Parliament and it should be adopted by this house. Government officials are seeking the adoption of the GCC security package by the Parliament.
Kuwait MP Dr. Abdulrahman al-Jiran called for a Kuwait Parliament emergency session to adopt the GCC security package.
“Now that Iran is advancing its expansionist agenda, to confront this we need to adopt the security package. The GCC states are a united entity that cannot be divided. The rulers of Tehran are against the GCC unity and have attempted to create divides amongst them,” he said.
Abdulrahman al-Jiran added Iran has accepted and trained militants and terrorist networks to gain control over the of GCC countries, and this has threatened our security and stability. Iran only understands the language of force, he said.

 

EU must move beyond crisis mode on migration

The causes of the current migration crisis in Europe will not be resolved in the short term, so the EU must face facts and deal with this issue fairly and decisively, writes Ana Palacio in the Irish Examiner, Sept. 1, 2015.
Over the past seven years, Europe has been in crisis mode almost without interruption. From Ukraine to Greece, events have led the continent from the frying pan into the fire and back again, with all of the attendant summitry, declarations, and brinkmanship.
Now, it is a migration crisis — one that is unlikely to be resolved in the foreseeable future — that is commanding the European Union ’s attention. But, if Europe is to respond effectively, it must move beyond crisis mode to understand both what it is facing and what it wants to achieve.
It is indisputable that migration deserves the EU’s focus. Not only are migrant flows into Europe shattering records from one month to the next; migrants’ primary entry points are changing as well.more

EU companies run the risk of providing the tools for oppression in Iran

suppression in Iran by Mullahs

The following is an article written by Julie Lenarz  and Benjami Weinthal in the Independent on Sunday, August 30th, 2015. Julie Lenarz is the Executive Director of the London-based Human Security Centre. Benjamin Weinthal is a Berlin-based fellow for the Foundation for Defence of Democracies

The UK along with the other world powers reached agreement last month with Iran to curb elements of its nuclear programme. With the gold rush mentality infecting Germany, Italy, Austria, France and Switzerland to secure billion dollar deals, their investments are far from risk-free and may create an unseemly backlash.
The Faustian bargain - a feeble nuclear deal in exchange for the lifting of economic sanctions - has pushed the vision of a free and democratic Iran into a dim distance. Put simply, a sizable chunk of the estimated $150 billion in sanctions relief will be used to repress Iran’s civilian population. One of the greatest beneficiaries is the hard-line Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) with its extensive tentacles in the economic realm wielding control over strategic industries and black market enterprises.
Take the case of Western technology used to execute Iranians. Just last month, the CEO of the Austrian giant crane manufacturer Palfinger described Iran as a “promising market” with great needs, although it has been alleged that at least one Palfinger crane was used in an execution after being resold to Iran.
Iran is currently murdering prisoners at the rate of more than three people per day. 694 executions have been carried out as of mid-July, approaching the total number of executions in all of 2014. Amnesty International has warned that state-sanctioned deaths could top 1,000 by the end of the year.
There is no shortage of evidence of how in the past Western-supplied goods became tools of repression. This is best illustrated by the salient example of the former Finnish-German venture Nokia Siemens Networks, which supplied censorship and surveillance technology to Iran allowing the IRGC to monitor and disrupt mobile and internet usage of pro-democracy activists during uprising against the officially declared victory of Ahmadinejad in 2009.
Iran’s trade with the EU last year totalled €7.6 billion and officials from different member states have already flocked to Tehran to get a piece of the boom-time pie which could grow by 400 per cent by mid-2018. The EU’s biggest trading giants have wasted no time in gaining a head start in the race to win billions of euros’ worth of business.more