May 19, 2024

Archives for 2009

Profile: Mir-Hossein Moussavi

He is known as “Khomeini’s prime minister during the Iran-Iraq war.” This aptly depicts Mirhossein Mossavi’s position as the regime’s prime minister during the destructive eight year war with Iraq.
Moussavi was born in 1941 in northwestern Iran. He was virtually unknown among intellectuals and political activists prior to the 1979 revolution which overthrow Shah’s dictatorship. […]

UN human rights office welcomes release of Iranian detainees in Iraq

UN News Center
9 October, 2009
United Nations human rights officials today welcomed the Iraqi Government’s decision to release 36 members of an
Iranian dissident group who had been detained since July when security personnel used force to take control of the camp where they had been staying. Rupert Colville, a spokesperson for the Office of the UN […]

Anglican Church leader concerned about Iraq’s Camp Ashraf

Reuters
Sun Sep 20, 2009 9:29am EDT
LONDON (Reuters) – The spiritual head of the Anglican Church expressed concern Sunday about Iranian exiles living in a camp in Iraq, saying they faced “human rights violations” that needed to be addressed urgently. Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams said both the United States and the Iraqi government had a […]

Can the Obama administration deliver the tough Iran sanctions it has pledged?

IRAN HAS finally offered its response to an international call for negotiations on its nuclear program, ahead of a late September deadline set by the Obama administration. But the “package of proposals” Tehran delivered to representatives of the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council and Germany on Wednesday did not even address its continuing […]

US ambassador tries to allay fears about Iranian dissidents in Iraq

Agence France Press
WASHINGTON — Christopher Hill, the US ambassador to Iraq, sought Thursday to reassure lawmakers who fear for the safety of more than
3,000 Iranian dissidents in a camp in Iraq.
Hill, testifying before the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said the US government would work to ensure that 36 People’s Mujahedeen
members arrested after a […]

A Hunger Strike to Remind U.S. of a Promise to Iranian Exiles

By Robert McCartney
Washington Post

On a sunny patch of Pennsylvania Avenue a half-block from the White House, middle-aged men and women recline on beach lounge chairs under four canopies festooned with colorful flags. They haven’t eaten solid food in a month. Before them stands a row of large photographs of 11 men, each draped with a […]

Hunger Strike a Daily Reminder of U.S.’s Forsaken Promise to Iranian Exiles

By Robert McCartney
The Washington Post
On a sunny patch of Pennsylvania Avenue a half-block from the White House, middle-aged men and women recline on beach lounge chairs under four canopies festooned with colorful flags. They haven’t eaten solid food in a month. Before them stands a row of large photographs of 11 men, each draped with […]

Going, Ready or Not

By Mohammed Hussein
New York Times
BAGHDAD– The withdrawal of American forces from Iraqi city centers is a remarkable moment in Iraq’s modern history. The Iraqi government publicly celebrated that event as never before, linking it to the 1920 revolution against British forces in Iraq, and describing it as “the day of victory.”
But Iraqis have their worries: […]

Expect More Adventurism From Iran

By MOHAMAD BAZZI
Wall Street Journal
Beirut
Shortly after the rigged election and popular uprising in Iran, a seductive conventional wisdom emerged in Western policy-making circles: The Iranian regime, if it survived, would be significantly weakened by internal problems and would abandon its regional ambitions. Tehran’s influence in the Middle East will diminish as the hardline regime scrambles […]

Editorial: Camp Ashraf

In a letter to a British parliamentarian last month, a senior State Department official insisted that the United States was “doing its utmost” to ensure that Iraq’s government would treat 3,400 Iranian exiles living at Camp Ashraf in eastern Iraq “humanely.” Two weeks later, a clash between the exiles and Iraqi police left 11 Iranians […]