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 funds though the Solidairty Center) has followed Osanloo's case for the past couple of years.
http://www.solidaritycenter.org/content.asp?contentid=694
This week it was about China and I'm sure when in one of the coming weeks it's about Venezuella, John Pilger would be very angry at them.
To be honest, even though I really admire Pilger's unconditional objection to foreign intervention, i wonder why he doesn't apply the same standards when it comes to Iran. Is he too frightened of the 'Islamist extremist' label that the Foreign Office's embedded 'leftist' and 'activists would put on him?
If that's the case, it's entirely understandable, but it would reveal a major inconsistency in his positions. But I'm not ruling out that he is not knowledgeable enough about what is really happening in Iran.
P.S: Would it be lovely if the Amnesty International would take me to court because I said they have been hijacked and utilized by the Foreign Office, NED etc.? I am way ready for that.
| 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: | 2004 2004 |
| 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 against women, and focuses on vulnerable women with legal problems that cannot be solved by themselves. During the first two years of its existence, Raahi offered counselling services to more than 800 women who came to Raahi mostly for family related problems (divorce, domestic violence). The Centre also defended almost 100 women in court, including women in critical conditions, eg. women facing the death penalty for self-defense, stoning for adultery, or long-term sentences (10 years or more). In 2005 Raahi saved 5 women from death penalty in 2005. Raahi established a Network of Volunteer Lawyers; at present encompassing 40 lawyers in four provinces. Raahi advocates for changes in the legal system, such as developing a new legal procedure for women accused of adultery, and has developed good working relationships with (semi)governmental institutions and the judiciary. Raahi is active part of a campaign to ban stoning forever. This campaign receives national attention and even support of the head of the judiciary, and international support. Hivos supports Raahi as it is the only institution that provides free legal advice and services to women with a women's human rights perspective. Its work is highly relevant and Raahi has so far proven to work effectively and efficiently. Its activities fit very well under the Gender Women and Development 2007-2010 company plan, and contribute to combating violence against women and to increased public demand for gender accountability: no to discrimination and gender inequalities. |
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| IR002G01 - Establishment of the Women's Centre for Legal Counselling, 2004-2006 | |
| DAC-sectors: | Reproductive and sexual health (BSS) Legal and judicial development |
| Location: | Tehran |
| Beneficiary: | indigenous peoples, ethnic/religious/cultural minorities |
| activity | Establishment of service centre |
| Direct outreach | 1000 - Beneficiaries: poor and/or marginalised women and men |
| Indirect outreach | 50 - Policy level/ institutional |
| Contract total: | 116.500 |
| Contractperiod: | 01-07-2004 untill 31-12-2006 |
| description: | |
| The new centre will be registered as a legal firm providing legal services to women free of charge. Office space will be hired in Tehran and staff will be recruited. The centre is planned to start its activities in July 2004: - Counselling services to women in the areas of family cases (divorce and domestic violence), criminal cases with women as offenders (such as abortion, homicide, indecent behaviour) and criminal cases with women as victims (honour killings, sexual harassment). It is estimated that in two years time several hundreds of women will be given legal advice. WCLC will accept about 25 cases for legal representation to courts. - WCLC will produce 8 articles and papers on women's issues and publish them in magazines and on the website. The papers will address fundamental legal problems of women in Iranian laws. - The Centre will conduct four workshops and seminars on women's legal rights. - A website will be built providing information and publish articles. The staff of the centre will consist three full-time staff including a professional attorney, a case manager and a director of legal affairs. The full-time staff will cooperate with a team of voluntary lawyers and attorneys, who will offer their services free of charge to women clients of WCLC. |
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| IR002G02 - Women's Access to Justice 2007 - 2009 | |
| DAC-sectors: | Human rights Legal and judicial development |
| Location: | Iran |
| Beneficiary: | indigenous peoples, ethnic/religious/cultural minorities |
| activity | lobby and awareness raising on womens legal rights |
| Direct outreach | - Policy level/ public opinion |
| Indirect outreach | - Policy level/ institutional |
| Contract total: | 240.000 |
| Contractperiod: | 01-01-2007 untill 30-09-2009 |
| description: | |
| Since its start, many women have turned to Raahi for support. As Raahi can only handle a limited number of cases itself, the next period is dedicated to increase its outreach, especially vulnerable women in South Tehran and provinces. Raahi will focus on the following three objectives: To improve the access of at least 3500 vulnerable women to legal empowering support: - Raahi will offer legal, social and psychological face to face counselling to 750 women (3 years) in South Tehran. - Raahi will train 15 students of law (men and women) in gender justice, women's human rights, counselling skills. These students will visit women in their neighbourhood and offer mobile legal counselling services to at least 300 women in total. This will be done in 5 deprived areas of Tehran, to be increased to 15 in 2009. To increase the number of lawyers, social workers, and professional counsellors (men and women) with gender and human rights perspective that offer organized services to vulnerable women - The Network of Volunteer Lawyers that has been established during the previous phase, will be further expanded from 40 to 100 volunteers, based in different parts of the country. These volunteer lawyers are trained by Raahi, and will offer legal counselling and services to at least 300 female prisoners. - Raahi will set up a Task Force of Volunteer Social Workers To influence the process of change in policies and laws in at least three main fields regarding women's rights - 18 articles regarding problems of women that came to the centre, will be published - Raahi will be actively involved in campaigns promoting women's rights and equality. |
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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
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 the State of Israel as part of a deal with the U.S., though this is down from the 55 percent we found in June.
59 percent of Iranians also support the government of Iran providing military and financial assistance to Iraqi Shiite militias (33 percent oppose), while 61 percent back such assistance to Hezbollah in Lebanon (32 percent oppose).
From World Public Opinion's 2007 poll on Iran: (Full report in PDF)
A large majority of Iranians have a negative view of Israel’s influence in the world, while nearly half of Americans concur. Iranians and Americans have largely opposing views about the influence of a number of countries and actors in the Middle East, with Iranians having mostly positive views and Americans having chiefly negative ones.
Asked about the influence of Syria in the world, a majority of Iranians (61%) said it had a “mainly positive” influence, while a majority of Americans (71%) said “mainly negative.” Similarly, a large majority of Iranians (73%) said the Palestinians’ influence in the world was positive, while the exact same majority of Americans (73%) said it was mainly negative.
These divergent views extend to non-state actors in the Middle East. A majority of Iranians (56%) said the influence of Hamas was mainly positive, while 77 percent of Americans said its influence in the world was mainly negative.
The contrast in views of Hezbollah, a Shiite organization, is even more striking: 75 percent of Iranians thought HEzbollah's influence in the world was mainly positive, while 80 percent of Americans believed it was mainly negative.
Iranians also had a positive opinion of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah. A large majority of Iranians (81%) had a favorable view of Nasrallah, inclusing 59 percent very favorable.
The pattern of diametrically opposed Iranian and American evaluations of Middle Eastern actors is broken in the case of Israel. While an overwhelming majority of Iranians (83%) said they believed Israel had a mainly negative influence in the world, a plurality of Americans (48%) shared that view. Forty-four percent of Americans said Israel had a mainly positive influence.