Saturday, February 02, 2008

Iran: the fourth option

 
Ali Kazemi:

...A government that knows it has majority support does not act the way the IRI has been acting from its very inception. IRI treats Iranians as the enemy, not citizens. They have executed over 150,000 political prisoners. They try their opponents in Revolutionary Courts where the accused have no rights. The judge and the prosecutor are often the same and the prisoners are tortured until they confess. They are executed for charges such as "Fighting the Will of God" or "Spreading Corruption on Earth". The regime's assassins have killed hundreds of Iranian dissidents including many exiles in Europe.

The rulers of Iran have closed most information outlets from the citizens. Access to the Internet is limited and thousands of political websites are blocked by the government. Ownership of satellite dishes is illegal. Hundreds of newspapers and magazines have been shut down. Journalists and bloggers are imprisoned, tortured and killed...

...Mansour Ossanlou is a bus driver in Iran. He wants an independent union for the bus drivers. In May he was imprisoned and savagely beaten (They tried to cut his tongue off.). The bus workers had a strike in protest, but over 3000 government-paid thugs attacked the demonstrators and over 500 of the workers were imprisoned. Unlike [Poland's Lech] Walesa's, Ossanlou's detention has received minimal media attention in the West...

Iran Bulletin has more on the kidnapping of Ossanlou.

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