Ijteba Ulhasnain wrote:
Well the Iraqi aggression controlled by America and Brittan was an assault on Iran, not by Iran at a time when they were facing every kind of sanctions and no one was ready to help. So they might have bought arms from the black market from agents like Adnan Khashogi a close-knit of King Abdul Aziz. This is an out-and-out lie that aytullahs used to get funding from Israel and America, I was not expecting from a resourceful person like you. This is the brand of Islam to whom Saudis are funding . On contrast you will never hear any takfeeri (to decalre someone infidel) statements from shias , who are allegedly funded by Ayatullahs.
Lovely sir!
Impartiality is a principle of justice holding that decisions should be based on objective criteria, rather than on the basis of bias, prejudice, or preferring the benefit to one person over another for improper reasons. (wiki) Your source of info is already biased and you still talk of impartiality, this is how some one can defend all types of massacre of Israel through http://www.aipac.org/ I can provide thousands of such links, so shall we accept that all this info is correct? hopefully you will understand the difference between "informed" and "aware" a register and a brain.
ijteba
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Dear Sir,
Why blame only Taliban and Saudi Arabia for Extremism when the same is being preached and practiced in Iran.
Sayyid Ruhollah Musavi Khomeini - Founder of Deviant Islamic Revolution of Iran
There is no difference between Taliban and Khomeini. What Talibans did with Shia Minority in Mazar-e-Sharif, Afghanistan, was also done by Khomeini and Company in Iran with Bahai Minority.
Thanks to Khomeini Disrespecting the dead Cyrus Iranzad March 17, 2005 iranian.com
http://www.iranian.com/BTW/2005/March/Graves/index.html
I viewed with great interest the pictures of the destruction of Bahai graves in Yazd. I was neither shocked nor surprised, maybe because similar incidences have happened to the resting places of some of my own relatives who died in Iran both before and after the revolution.
The main Bahai cemetery in Tehran, for example, which had thousands of graves, and was more a meticulously kept garden than a cemetery, lined with trees and flowers (and was appropriately named "Golestan-e Javid" or Eternal Garden), shortly after the victory of the Islamic Revolution was taken over by the new government, which gleefully destroyed its graves and ordered a government building constructed on the land.
Another case that I know of is that of my great grandfather. Years before the revolution, my great grandfather passed away in a town in central Iran and according to his wishes was buried in his orchard, which he loved so much. Nearly two years after his death, however, his tomb was raided by thieves.
Some in my family think the robbers were after what they had presumed was a valuable ring on his finger. Though it is true that Bahais put a special ring on the corps of the dead, the ring itself may very well be plastic and has no material value. It has a holy script written on it. The grave raiders may very well have been anti-Bahai hate-mongers, something Iran has seen plenty since the beginnings of the Bahai religion in the 19th century.
After this incident, my grandfather decided to rebury his father in a more secure place. This time he was buried inside a chamber which was part of the orchard and which had a locked door. Iindeed, the tomb now looked more like a mausoleum, and thus a proper setting for a man of the stature of my great grandfather, who had the respect of hundreds of friends and townspeople of all faiths. I remember as a child having visited my great grandfather's mausoleum in the orchard with my dad and each time I had said a little prayer in his honor.
Soon after 1979, when the mullahs, mob rule and revolutionary fervor took hold of Iran, nearly all of my family left Iran as the regime consolidated power and began persecuting, imprisoning and executing people for a variety of alleged offenses including the religion one belonged to.
As a result of the Islamic Revolution, I now have as many as 300 cousins and relatives, all descendants of my great grandfather in about 10 countries worldwide, anywhere from Canada, Britain, Venezuela, Romania, China and New Zealand. Though we were mere middle class folk in Iran, many of my cousins have achieved fair amounts of financial and educational success -- and I suppose in an ironic way they have Ayatollah Khomeini and his followers to thank.
With the election of President Khatami, a moderate among the ruling mullahs, many Iranians including religious minorities felt safe enough to visit Iran. Despite some initial hesitations and even chastisement by a cousin, in 2003 after 24 years of having lived abroad, I too decided to go back.
Naturally, among the places that I felt obliged to visit was the burial site of my great grandfather. I thought it only proper to do so and had planned on saying a short prayer and paying my respects to him whose legacy and lineage continues to live in Iran and a myriad other lands.
Though I had heard rumors that the local government was aching to take over my great grandfather's orchard (though legally belonging to his surviving children), I never believed that they would do such a thing, especially not under Khatami's rule. Nor did I believe that they would dare disturb my great grandfather's resting place. Surely at least the dead are respected under the Islamic Republic, I naively assumed.
When I got to the town and neighborhood where my great grandfather was supposed to have been buried, I could neither find his orchard nor his mausoleum. I could only see some flat barren land and no trees. I also saw some construction equipment and newly built structures nearby. I inquired from an old man who was in the area if he knew who my great grandfather was and where I could find his orchard and grave. The old man responded: "You mean 'Baagh-e Bahaeeya' (The Bahai Garden)? ... They [the government] have destroyed it!"
The old man, who was not Bahai, showed me where the orchard used to be and I vaguely found the site of what may have been my great grandfather's mausoleum: There was nothing left. It was all destroyed with virtually no trace of any walls or a room. All I was able to retrieve was an old brick, a 'khesht', as a memorabilia. The ground seemed disturbed and I would not be surprised if the local authorities had dug up what remained of my grandfather's coffin (Bahais normally bury their dead in coffins) and dumped the bones.
Needless to say, when I came back to Tehran I felt extremely sad and rather angry as a result of that experience. Soon after, however, especially on my flight out to Frankfurt, I had an incredible sense of peace, one which other Iranians, Bahai or not, may relate to.
You see, in Central Asia, where my work has often taken me, I have come across old cemeteries which have grass grown all over them. Often one sees herders with their cows and sheep in the streets and near such cemeteries, but never in the cemetery compound. Many of the graves belong to non-Muslims (Russians and other Slavic peoples which the USSR had sent there to work) whose descendants are now nowhere to be found, many living in Russia.
What was interesting to me was that the shepherds, many of whom are extremely poor and are always looking for fresh forage for their animals, appeared to not to allow their herds graze on the grass grown in the old cemeteries. One of my friends from Tajikistan told me that to do so would be considered bad omen, that treating someone's grave with disrespect such as allowing an animal to walk over it would surely bring bad luck.
Now, I am not a superstitious person, but when it comes to messing around with the dead, I have found myself to be one. Indeed, the mullahs of Iran and their followers may toy with the living and surely have the blood of tens of thousands of innocent Iranians of all faiths and ideological backgrounds on their hands; and it is hoped that they would someday answer to a court of law or to the almighty for such crimes, if not in this world for some of them, at least in the next.
But what may indeed put certain mullahs over the top and into the dustbin of history is when they play with the corps and spirit of the dead. An admonition in Islam goes: 'Namaaz dar khaane-ye ghasbee haraam ast', (prayer in a confiscated house is forbidden). Still, Ayatollah Zahremaar takes over my family's ancestral house and make condominiums instead. And for laughs and spite, the Islamic government and its rapidly dwindling fanatic following destroy my great grandfather's grave, and those of others they consider infidels in Tehran, Yazd and other places in Iran.
I have come to believe, however, that The Good Man or Woman upstairs will deal with this and other abhorrent, despicable acts of the mullahs in due time and with a justice that will shake the turbans and slippers off the miscreants who are ruling over our Iranian motherland. In a strange way, therefore, I and my great grandfather are both at peace.
Iran: Allow Baha’i Students Access to Higher Education
http://www.hrw.org/en/news/2007/09/19/iran-allow-baha-i-students-access-higher-education
Government Discriminates against 800 Students on Basis of Faith September 19, 2007
This week, as universities begin the new academic year, hundreds of Iranian students will be absent from campuses because of blatant religious discrimination.
Joe Stork, deputy Middle East director at Human Rights WatchIran should immediately end practices aimed at barring Baha’i students from attending universities, Human Rights Watch said today. The government should quickly resolve the situation of some 800 Baha’i students whom it prevents from obtaining their educational records and completing the university admission process.
International Baha’i organizations and Baha’i students in Iran reported to Human Rights Watch that authorities at the National Education Measurement and Evaluation Organization have denied 800 Baha’i students access to their National Entrance Examination scores. The test is a national matriculation exam required for admission to Iran’s universities.
“This week, as universities begin the new academic year, hundreds of Iranian students will be absent from campuses because of blatant religious discrimination,” said Joe Stork, deputy Middle East director at Human Rights Watch.
Students who have taken the National Entrance Examination can obtain their results and check the fields they are eligible to study on the website of the National Education Measurement and Evaluation Organization. In the past, the authorities published results in newspapers and made them accessible to the general public. The government shifted to an electronic format two years ago, making the test results available only to individual students checking their scores.
The 2007 National Entrance Examinations were administered on June 28-30, and the National Education Measurement and Evaluation Organization made the first results available on their site (www.sanjesh.org) on July 31.
This year, when some 800 students of the Baha’i faith logged on to the website, they received an error message informing them that their files were “incomplete.” Three of these students told Human Rights Watch that authorities at the National Education Measurement and Evaluation Organization did not respond to numerous phone calls and letters requesting clarification about why their test results were inaccessible.
Two other students who inquired in person to the National Education Measurement and Evaluation Organization office in Tehran told Human Rights Watch that officials said explicitly that they had been targeted because they were Baha’is. One student said that an official told him they had “received orders from above not to score the tests of Baha’i students.” Another student said that the official he spoke to suggested that he would be able to receive his test scores only if his family renounced their faith.
Iran is party to the International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights which obligates it to make higher education equally accessible to all without discrimination. Iran is also a party to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, Article 18 of which guarantees freedom of thought, conscience, and religion.
With an estimated 300,000 members, the Baha’i community is Iran’s largest religious minority. The Iranian government considers Baha’is to be apostates from Islam and does not recognize their faith as legitimate, unlike Iran’s Jewish, Christian, and Zoroastrian communities. Baha’is in Iran cannot practice their faith in a public manner.
Until 2004, the Iranian government required a declaration of religious affiliation on the application for the National University Entrance exam. The application included slots only for Muslim, Jewish, Christian, and Zoroastrian students, effectively disqualifying Baha’i students. After the requirement was dropped in 2004, Baha’i students were able to participate in the exams, but their applications were rejected at later points in the admissions process until 2006, when over 200 Baha’i students were allowed to enter national universities.
Why condemn only Talibans????
Muslim terrorist group that opposes the West and Israel, and seeks to create a Muslim fundamentalist state modeled on Iran
http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/groupProfile.asp?grpid=6256
Receives aid from Iran and Syria
States that it "sees no legitimacy for the existence of 'Israel'"
Sheikh Mohammed Hussein FadlallahHezbollah, whose name means "Party of God," is a Lebanese organization of several thousand Shiite militants that opposes the West and Israel, and seeks to create in Lebanon a Muslim fundamentalist state modeled on Iran. Its primary mission is to destroy the state of Israel, and in the process to murder as many Jews as possible. Describing itself as "an Islamic struggle movement," Hezbollah condemns "the Zionist occupation of Palestine" and candidly states that it "sees no legitimacy for the existence of 'Israel.'"
The Hezbollah Founding Statement contains a section titled "The Necessity for the Destruction of Israel, which reads: "We see in Israel the vanguard of the United States in our Islamic world. It is the hated enemy that must be fought until the hated ones get what they deserve. ... Our primary assumption in our fight against Israel states that the Zionist entity is aggressive from its inception, and built on lands wrested from their owners, at the expense of the rights of the Muslim people. Therefore our struggle will end only when this entity is obliterated. We recognize no treaty with it, no cease fire, and no peace agreements, whether separate or consolidated. We vigorously condemn all plans for negotiation with Israel, and regard all negotiators as enemies, for the reason that such negotiation is nothing but the recognition of the legitimacy of the Zionist occupation of Palestine."
Inspired by the Iranian Revolution of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, Hezbollah was formed in 1982 with the aid of at least 1,500 Iranian Revolutionary Guards; its immediate priority was to fight the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) that occupied Lebanon at the time, and to help spread Khomeini's Revolution across the Muslim world. Embracing the distinctly Shiite Islamist ideology developed by Khomeini, Hezbollah gradually coalesced and grew when a number of Shiite groups -- such as Islamic Jihad, the Organization of the Oppressed on Earth, and the Revolutionary Justice Organization -- were assimilated into it. By 1988 Hezbollah had replaced Amal as the predominant Shiite force in Lebanon. Its base of operation is in Lebanon's Shiite-dominated areas, including parts of Beirut, southern Lebanon, and the Bekaa Valley. Moreover, U.S. intelligence reports say that Hezbollah has set up working cells in Europe, Africa, South America, and North America.
According to the U.S. State Department, Hezbollah receives "substantial amounts of financial, training, weapons, explosives, political, diplomatic, and organizational aid from Iran and Syria." The organization's annual operational budget is believed to be between $200 million and $500 million, including some $100 million from Iran.
Hezbollah plays an important role in Lebanese politics. It won 8 new Parliamentary seats in Lebanon's 2005 elections, giving the group a total of 23 seats in the 128-member Parliament. In addition, two Hezbollah members serve as ministers in the Lebanese government. Hezbollah also operates the Al-Manar satellite television channel and broadcast station.
Sheikh Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah, the fiery preacher of jihad, is considered to be Hezbollah's current spiritual leader. Imad Fayez Mugniyah, who trained with Yasser Arafat's Fatah organization in the 1970s, is Hezbollah's key planner of worldwide terrorist operations. And the organization's senior political leader is Hassan Nasrallah, a former military commander who studied in centers of Shiite theology in Iran and Iraq.
Between 1982 and 2005, Hezbollah was responsible for some 200 terrorist attacks that killed many hundreds of people. Among these actions were a number of kidnappings of Westerners; the 1983 suicide truck bombings in Beirut that killed 241 U.S. Marines in their barracks; the 1983 U.S. embassy bombing (also in Beirut) that killed killed 63 people, including 17 Americans; the 1983 bombing of the French multinational force headquarters that killed 58 French troops; the 1985 hijacking of TWA flight 847, in which one American passenger was murdered; the 1992 bombing of the Israeli embassy in Argentina, which killed 29; and the 1994 bombing of a Jewish community center in Argentina, which killed 95.
Hezbollah's popularity in Lebanon received a great boost in May 2000, when Israel withdrew its troops from that country's southern region after having maintained a continuous military presence there for 18 years. Hezbollah depicted the Israeli withdrawal as a great victory for the Muslim "resistance," and continued to periodically shell Israeli forces in the Shebaa Farms border zone. It also continued to work against Israel by: helping terrorists and collaborators use foreign documents to gain passage through the border crossings; establishing a terrorist infrastructure inside Israel and in Judea, Samaria and the Gaza Strip; smuggling weapons and terrorists across Israel's borders; and giving financial support to militant Palestinian organizations. Moreover, between 2000 and 2006 Hezbollah armed itself with an estimated 13,000 military rockets (with ranges of 12 to 40 miles) supplied by Syria and Iran.
Since 2003 Hezbollah has worked more closely with other Palestinian terrorist organizations such as Islamic Jihad, Hamas, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, and, especially, Tanzim. Hezbollah has also been a major supplier of weapons to Hamas.
In July 2006 Hezbollah conducted a surprise raid on a border post in northern Israel, taking two Israeli soldiers captive. The abductions prompted an Israeli military campaign against Lebanon, to which Hezbollah responded by firing hindreds of rockets across the Lebanese border and into heavily populated Israeli cities. It launched these rockets from civilian areas in Lebanon, making it impossible for Israel to retaliate without causing civilian casualties, which Hezbollah then exploited for propaganda purposes. On July 14, 2006, Hezbollah struck an Israeli Saar 5-class missile ship and an Egyptian-crewed cargo ship with highly sophisticated C-802 anti-ship missiles. Manufactured in China, these missiles need highly trained operators to crew them -- a function that most likely was performed by Iranian Revolutionary Guard troops. The fighting continued for a month, during which Israel targeted many Hezbollah strongholds, and Hezbollah launched more than 4,000 rockets into Israeli cities, killing 43 people and injuring thousands.
On December 10, 2006, hundreds of thousands of Hezbollah members and their Shiite allies rallied to demand that Lebanese Prime Minister Fuad Saniora, a Sunni, establish a "national unity government" wherein Hezbollah would be allotted one-third of all Cabinet posts. Hezbollah deputy leader Sheik Naim Kassem declared that his side was willing to stage street protests for months to achieve its goal. "Does Bush want popular expression in Lebanon?" Kassem thundered to the crowd. "Do the West and the Arabs want to hear the voice of the people in Lebanon? Tell them 'Death to America!' Tell them 'Death to Israel!'"
In May 2007 Kassem stated that all of his organization's policies and activities are coordinated with, and ultimately controlled by, Iranian leadership. "Even when it comes to firing rockets on Israeli civilians, when they [Israel] bombed the civilians on our side, even that decision requires an in-principle permission from [the ruling jurisprudent]," Kassem said in reference to Supreme Iranian Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. "Hezbollah relied and relies still in its Islamic religious position, which has to do with its activity in general and its jihadist activity in particular, on the decision of [Khamenei]. The ruling jurisprudent is the one who allows and the one who prohibits."
Also in May 2007, it was reported that Hezbollah had set up a training facility in a relatively secluded area on the Paraguay-Argentina-Brazil border, in preparation for attacks against the United States.
In July 2007, Hezbollah leader Sheik Hassan Nasrallah said -- in an interview aired by Al-Jazeera and Al-Manar television -- that his group possessed an arsenal of rockets capable of reaching "any corner and any point in occupied Palestine" (i.e., Israel), including Tel Aviv.
Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah
At a nine-nation security conference held in Jerusalem in May 2008, U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said that Hezbollah -- "in terms of capabilities, in terms of range of weapons they have, in terms of internal discipline" -- makes al Qaeda look like "a minor league team." Israeli analysts agreed that Hezbollah was the top terrorist organization in the world. According to Dr. Walid Phares, director of the Future Terrorism Project at the Washington-based Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah had "basically defeated" American efforts to build democracy in Lebanon. "His model will be used [by Hamas] in Gaza," said Phares.
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