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I'm reading a lot of Derrida and Spivak these days for my dissertation, which would be about voice and silence on the internet, based on my own personal experience in the past few years and the shift in my status in the Iranian diaspora blogosphere from the 'Blogfather' to the 'Public Enemy'. I also have this sketchy idea of defining the subaltern on the Internet. But I haven't given up the temptation to wrote a separate essay with this very sketchy idea of internet subaltern, based on the case of Fatemeh Rajabi, who is a pious woman, a pro-Ahmadinejad commentator...
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Mahnaz Afkhami, who happens to be a board member at the NED's international branch (called World Movement for Democracy, or ironically WMD), runs a women oriented organization, named Women’s Learning Partnership for Rights, Development, and Peace (WLP). The following is all NED's grants to Afkhami's organization: 2007 Women’s Learning Partnership for Rights, Development, and Peace (WLP) $25,000 To strengthen and expand the International Women’s Democracy Network. As the secretariat of the Network, WLP will collaborate with regional coordinators to identify and invite into the Network new members, create regional listservs to provide a forum for members to share experiences, and...
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I encourage everyone to read the extensive interview that Financial Times has done with Mojtaba Samareh Hashemi, one of the closest friends and advisor to Ahmadinejad. The following part is particularly important because it reveals how the entire story of Ahmadinejad and Revolutionary Guards (Sepah) is nonsense which was created by Rafsanjanists before the elections in order to discredit this guy. After he won, they also continued with these lies in order to imply that the election was manipulated by the Sepah. The interesting thing is that among all other candidate, it was Baqer Ghalibaf and then Ali Larijani who...
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Two Israeli journalists scrap ethics for scoop (Daily Star) Jewish reporters endanger lives of Lebanese citizens interviewed under false pretences By Nour Samaha Source: http://www.dailystar.com.lb/article.asp?edition_id=1&categ_id=2&article_id=83870 Tuesday, July 17, 2007 BEIRUT: When two Israeli re-porters entered Lebanon under false pretenses last week to conduct reports on Lebanese life a year after the summer 2006 war with Israel, they not only broke Lebanese law, but also violated codes of ethics in journalism and endangered the lives of those they interviewed, according to professors and residents who spoke to The Daily Star Monday. Lisa Goldman and Rinat Malkes flew into Lebanon from Amman...
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Shirin Ebadi tells the 'progressive' Nation magazine: The only sort of sanctions she is willing to support are direct, political sanctions that target Iran's leaders, from those involved in the Iranian nuclear program to the country's highest officials. Such sanctions, she suggests, could restrict these officials' travel abroad and could order the seizure of privately held assets. In addition, Ebadi believes, the world's countries could collectively shun the Iranian state. "What I mean is that all the countries of the world should reduce or lower the level of their political relations with Iran, so that they convince Iran to improve...
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It's sickening how a bunch of Iranian reformists turned exiled-opposition are calling Ahmadinejad a neoconservative, to justify themselves and make their puppet masters at the State Deprtment and Hoover Institute happy. Ahmadinejad has courageously reversed 16 years of disastrous free-market economic policies of Rafsanjani and Khatami which were gradually destroying the entire dream of the Iranian nation who revolted against the tyrannical and dependent regime of the Shah and basically selling Iran to the American corporations, IMF and the World Bank. These are the same people who, in their Persian-language media, have been crying foul the whole past three years...
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I have to say I'm very disappointed that my favourite British weekly, the New Statesman, has started selling its credibility to the U.S. government's embedded 'activists' at the Amnesty International. Especially after seeing its first instalment which was about the NED-backed or at least NED's favourite labour activist in the whole world (Mansour Ossanlu or Osanlou or Osanloo) who, as you can guess, is from Iran. Interestingly, the author of the article, David Cockcroft, has never written for the News Statesman before and has not disclosed that as the secretary general of the NED-funded International Transport Federation (in addition to...
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Partner details Print partner details Women's Centre for Legal Counselling Raahi - WCLC IR002G - http://www.raahi.org Organisation type: Service organization /non-profit Sector:Gender, Women and Development Founded :Counterpart since:20042004 description: Women in Iran face different barriers and obstacles, when trying to access justice: unequal laws and procedures, legal gaps, no protective system, lack of gender or human rights perspective within judiciary, and lack of women's ability in defending themselves. In 2004 the organisation Women's Centre for Legal Counselling or Raahi was established, the first and only of its kind in Iran. Raahi aims to eliminate legal and de facto discrimination...
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Finally I sat down and wrote about 'Persepolis', Marjane Satrapi's anti-Iran's Spielberg-backed piece of propaganda. Here it is: Marjane Satrapi's 'Persepolis': Good versus evil, again (The Guardian) Persepolis is a black-and-white film which also adopts a very black-and-white view of Iran, Hossein Derakhshan writes. May 15, 2008 Marjane Satrapi's film, Persepolis must have made George Bush and his new ally, Nicolas Sarokzy, quite happy. After all, despite Satrapi's rhetoric against the two leaders, her film's core argument is one that Bush and Sarkozy have long been busy constructing: the evil state versus the wonderful people. Read the full article...
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From Terror Free Tomorrow's recent poll on Iran (Full report in PDF): 63 percent of Iranians oppose any peace treaty recognizing the State of Israel and favor all Muslims continuing to fight until there is no State of Israel in the Middle East. Only less than a quarter of Iranians favor a peace treaty recognizing the State of Israel, even if an independent Palestinian state is established. Likewise, more than 60 percent support the government of Iran providing military and financial assistance to Palestinian opposition groups such as Hamas and Islamic Jihad. 45 percent of Iranians would, however, favor recognizing...
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I was a guest last week on the BBC World's Have your say programme, talking about Iran, Syria and Israel's nuclear programmes. Predictably, the other guests were all Pro-Israel Jewish Americans, but I think I didn't do that bad in challenging their usual self-fulfilling prophecy. Does anyone know if a transcript is available? Here is the official BBC description of the show: Does every country have the right to be nuclear? (Listen to the entire show - MP3 file) 25 April 2008 America has accused Syria or developing a reactor with North Korea's help. If it was there, it's not...
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During the 2005 presidential elections, I made loads of short videos with my little Canon photography camera, mostly from the reformists campaign where I spent most of my time. Then when I got back, I was invited to have a little presentation in the Middle East department at the Columbia University about what I saw in the elections. I decided to put them together in a few chapters and make a longer version documentary. I wanted to put it in this blog before the recent parliament elections, but I didn't manage to. Here it is now: Watch: Iran Elections 2005...
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Sometimes they give it to you so frankly and beautifully that you can't believe it. This is from the Voice of America's Persian section programme schedule for yesterday. Isn't it like poetry? I wish I had a rock band and I could use this in a song. Today’s Woman features a profile with. Dr. M. Zuhdi Jasser, former U.S. Navy Lieutenant Commander, and Founder of American Islamic Forum for Democracy, regarding his views on Iranian women activists....
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I'm not surprised to see Ramin Jahanbegloo, a former fellow at the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), coming out supporting the NED-funded and organized bogus Tibet protests and its fake leader, Dalai Lama. Are you? Neith I am surprised that you can't find a single word of support or sympathy in Jahanbegloo's work for, say, Gazans who are living in the largest prison on the planet by the people Jahanbegloo never wants to anger. Or perhaps the universal rules of human dignity that Jahanbegloo praises, do not fully apply to anyone that the Israeli establishment doesn't agree with. As the...
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Looking deeper at the Dutch government-funded Radio Zamaneh's 'Andisheh' (or Ideas) section reveals an uncomfortable truth about what this project actually pursues. Abdee Kalantari, a U.S.-based regular contributor to this section (and his friend Mehdi Khalaji) has for over the past year consistently recycled Bernard Lewis' arguments. He explicitly dismisses the entire idea of colonialism and advocates such a Eurocentric and Universalist inquiry that, if translated into English, could even be shockingly racist. (Example: Why is the West Afraid of the "Islamic Bomb"?) The most interesting aspect of all this is that his shallow, racist, and Orientalist articles are not...
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