SAN FRANCISCO, California, Dec 14, 2010 (IPS) – While Iran gears up for a second round of nuclear talks with Western countries next month, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s abrupt dismissal of his foreign minister on Monday indicates a new power struggle with moderate conservatives that could alter the tone and face of Iran’s foreign policy machinery in the years to come.

Manouchehr Mottaki is the seventh cabinet minister dismissed by Ahmadinejad over the past five years, while two others have resigned. Ahmadinejad sacked Mottaki while he was on an official trip to Senegal.

Mottaki had held the portfolio since 2005. Continue reading Minister’s Sacking Shores Up Ahmadinejad’s Power Base →

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is in trouble. Recently, the Iranian president faced an insurrection among lawmakers, who are seeking his impeachment for various law violations. Pro-democracy politicians, reformists, moderate conservatives and even Ahmadinejad’s former allies are still calling for reform. Key religious leaders have repeatedly shown their dissatisfaction with Ahmadinejad, who has had to travel to the holy city of Quom several times during the past few months to heal the divide. And observers within Iran believe that, due to multilateral sanctions and the government’s economic policies, the president’s powerbase is eroding.

Ahmadinejad’s “domestic political aggression might lead the country into social and political instability—similar to or even worse than what the country went through after the 2009 Presidential elections,” Ali-Akbar Mousavi Khoeini, a former Iranian lawmaker told The Daily Beast in an interview Thursday. “The move by the Iranian parliament to question and to [try to] eventually impeach Mahmoud Ahmadinejad indicates a serious divide amongst the conservatives in power.” Continue reading So Long, Ahmadinejad →

SAN FRANCISCO, California, Nov 10, 2010 (IPS) – “The U.S. intentionally confuses al Qaeda with other groups around the world fighting for their independence or liberation, but it’s [just] a convenient way to whip up support and get people very afraid,” says author and journalist and Reese Erlich.

“There is no war on terrorism,” he tells IPS.

Based on original research and firsthand interviews, Erlich’s new book “Conversations with Terrorists” draws fresh portraits of six controversial leaders: Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad, Hamas top leader Khaled Meshal, Israeli politician Geula Cohen, Iranian Revolutionary Guard founder Mohsen Sazargara, Hezbollah spiritual advisor Grand Ayatollah Mohammed Fadlallah, and former Afghan Radio and Television Ministry head Malamo Nazamy. Continue reading Q&A: “There Is No War on Terrorism” →

by OMID MEMARIAN and TARA NESVADERANI[ primer] Iran’s youth have been politically active since the 1953 ouster of Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh. The death of three students in protests against Vice President Nixon’s 1953 visit — to support the shah after a CIA-backed coup against the elected government — is still a national holiday. The young were key players in the 1979 revolution. Today, their strength is also in numbers. A baby boom after the revolution almost doubled the population from 34 million to 62 million in the first decade. Iran is now one of the youngest societies in the world, skewing politics, the economy and social pressures. The demographic bulge is one of the biggest threats to the status quo.

The youth bloc has been shaped by political and military crises. In the 1980s, they were the majority of combatants in the eight-year war with Iraq; even pre-teen Basij volunteers became human minesweepers. In the 1990s, Iranian youth demanded their post-war due in politics, the economy and society. By 1997, their growing numbers helped elect reformist President Mohammad Khatami. But as he failed to produce change, the young pulled back. The partial youth boycott of the 2005 presidential election was key to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s election. Their reentry into politics in the 2009 election seriously altered Iranian politics. Continue reading Iran Primer: The Youth →

SAN FRANCISCO, California, Sep 28, 2010 (IPS) – A week after Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad told heads of state gathered for the U.N. General Assembly in New York that his government does not jail its citizens for expressing their opinions, Iran’s Revolutionary Court sentenced Hossein Derakhshan, an internationally known Iranian-Canadian blogger, to 19 and a half years in prison.

On Monday, the conservative website Mashreq announced the verdict issued by Branch 15 of the Revolutionary Courts.

Arrested in October 2008, Derakhshan had been charged with “cooperation with hostile states” and “propagating against the regime”, among other counts, the site said. In addition to the lengthy prison term, he was fined and banned from membership in political parties and work in the media for a period of five years. Continue reading Iran’s “Blogfather” Gets 20-Year Prison Sentence →

SAN FRANCISCO, California, Sep 28, 2010 (IPS) — A week after Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad told heads of state gathered for the U.N. General Assembly in New York that his government does not jail its citizens for expressing their opinions, Iran’s Revolutionary Court sentenced Hossein Derakhshan, an internationally known Iranian-Canadian blogger, to 19 and a half years in prison.

On Monday, the conservative website Mashreq announced the verdict issued by Branch 15 of the Revolutionary Courts.

Arrested in October 2008, Derakhshan had been charged with “cooperation with hostile states” and “propagating against the regime,” among other counts, the site said. In addition to the lengthy prison term, he was fined and banned from membership in political parties and work in the media for a period of five years. Continue reading Iran’s “Blogfather” Gets 20-Year Prison Sentence →

NEW YORK, Sep 17, 2010 (IPS) – Speaking at a press conference in New York Friday, Shirin Ebadi, a highly-regarded Iranian attorney and the 2003 Nobel Peace Prize laureate, warned that the human rights situation in Iran is deteriorating, particularly for the many journalists and civil society activists considered political prisoners.

“If Mr. Ahmadinejad claims that Iran is a free country, he should let Physicians Without Borders go to Iran and visit the prisoners in bad health condition,” Ebadi said ahead of the visit of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to address the U.N. General Assembly Sep. 23.

The event was organised by two New York-based rights groups, the International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran and Human Rights Watch, as well as the Nobel Women’s Initiative. Continue reading Activists Warn of Rights Crisis Ahead of Ahmadinejad Visit →

IWPR– By Omid Memarian – 17 Sep 10The release this week of Sarah Shourd, one of three Americans held for more than a year on spying charges, has been presented as an act of clemency by the Iranian regime. But by claiming the credit for freeing Shourd, the government reveals serious inconsistencies with its own account.

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has portrayed himself as Shourd’s benefactor, but it was his intelligence service that held her for 14 months. He was thus directly responsible for her detention without trial.

Shourd was freed on September 14, just a week before Ahmadinejad was due to travel to New York to attend the 56th session of the United Nations General Assembly. Continue reading Ahmadinejad Was Freed Hiker’s Captor, Not Saviour →

Huffington Post- I recall a Muslim friend of mine once asking me what I thought of the United States? I responded that the US is the kind of country which after living there for only a few years, you could grow to love it in such a way that you could sacrifice your life for it. Today, the Quran burning phenomena and anti-Mosque movement has made a mockery of that image. How can we expect this episode and the intolerance around it to not translate into a growing sentiment of “Islamophobia” and violations of American Muslims’ First Amendment rights? How can it not result in discrimination and radicalism at home? It’s disturbing that, beyond the surface of public debates, Pastor Jones and those who are opposed to the building of a mosque near Ground Zero both see Islam and Muslims behind the 9/11 tragedy or somehow responsible for it. Continue reading To Build or Not To Build: American Muslims, the Rise of Bigotry and Religious Intolerance →

FOREIGN POLICY, Sep 8, 2010- Faezeh Hashemi Rafsanjani, daughter of Iran’s powerful Ayatollah Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani and a prominent advocate of the Green Movement, speaks to Foreign Policy about the future of Iran’s opposition and her (low) opinion of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
Faezeh Hashemi Rafsanjani, 48, was one of Iran’s leading members of parliament from 1992 to 1996 and the founder and editor of Zan, Iran’s first-ever daily women’s newspaper. She is also the daughter of Ayatollah Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, one of the country’s most influential men and strongest opponents of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. During the widespread protests that followed Iran’s contested presidential election last year, Hashemi was a vocal supporter of the Green Movement and was briefly imprisoned by the Iranian government for her activism. She spoke to Omid Memarian about how Iran has changed since that election and the future of the Green Movement. Continue reading Green Light, an Interview With Faezeh Hashemi →