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Commentary
by U.S. Alliance for Democratic Iran
Of
Gallows and Heroes in Iran
Gallows are being erected all over Iran.
Construction cranes are used to build and
develop everywhere else. In Iran of ayatollahs,
however, they are used to destroy, to take life.
Yes, in Iran, construction cranes are the main
instrument of mullahs’ industry of death and
used for public executions.
This week, Iran’s clerical regime, which has
perfected the skill of staging barbaric
spectacles of public executions, could not
restrain itself form another display of savagery
even while Mrs. Louise Arbour, the UN High
Commissioner for Human Rights was visiting Iran.
Her visit and subsequent speech at the
ayatollahs-sponsored ministerial meeting of
Non-Aligned Movement on human rights, in midst
of appalling rise in the number of execution and
public hangings was a slap in the face Iranians
aspiring fro democracy and human rights. As
expected, the visit was hugely exploited by the
ayatollahs as sign of UN satisfaction with their
human rights practices.
Meanwhile, Amnesty International, noting that at
least 210 people including two child offenders
have been executed in Iran since the start of
2007, issued a statement saying that it was
“appalled at the reports of the execution of 21
people in Iran”, earlier in the week.
Only in Iran of ayatollahs 21 individuals are
executed, many in public, while a conference on
human rights is held in the capital. And only in
Iran of ayatollahs the foreign minister has the
despicable audacity to propose “that the
Regional Bureau for Human Rights in Southwest
Asia be stationed in Tehran” while a few blocks
away, Iranians are getting lashed and arrested
for mal-veiling
To be sure, Ayatollahs and the former
assassin-turned-president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad
are not oblivious to audacity or timing of their
actions, but they are desperate. With economy in
shambles and Iran’s growing isolation as a
result of the leadership’s heightened
belligerence, the anti-government protests are
on the rise. Without gallows and public
hangings, amputation of limbs, gouging eyes and
humiliating lashing of disenchanted youth,
without kidnapping and torture of dissidents,
the tyrant mullahs would not be able to keep
their house of cards. Without a reign of terror,
they would not be able to quell the rising
opposition to their nuclear program and
financing of terrorism in Iraq while more than
half of Iran’s population lives in poverty.
Iran rulers need to sow seeds of terror and
savagery to survive. Lacking any capacity to
deliver their almost three-decade long promises
of peace, freedom, economic and social
prosperity; and lacking any respect for the
sanctity of life; their solution for rising
demands of Iranians for change is to kill, to
maim, and to terrorize.
And when the international objections to their
heinous and rogue behavior rise; their response
is to escalate efforts to make nuclear weapons,
to plunge Iraq in sectarian bloodshed, and to
kill Iraqis and Americans with exported IEDs.
On some occasions,
however, acts of pure resistance thwart their
wicked schemes.
Last month in an elaborate spectacle, the
ayatollahs’ regime publicly executed Majid
Kavoussifar, 28, and his nephew Hossein
Kavousifar, 24; two years after they shot a
notorious judge, Hassan Moghaddas to death.
Moghaddas, well-known for his role in 1988
whole-scale massacre of Iranian political
prisoners as well as execution and imprisonment
of dissidents, journalists and free thinkers,
was killed by the two individuals on the 17th
anniversary of the massacre.
On the day of execution the Kavousifars told the
prosecutor Saeed Mortazavi, the killer of
Iranian-Canadian journalist Zahra Kazemi in
2003, that they did not regret what they had
done. At the scene, Majid was all smile and
unwavering, refusing to show any sign of fear.
With tremendous struggle he moved his
hand-cuffed hands from behind to his side to
wave at people. With a huge smile on his face,
he told them “God bless you, I am at your
service.” A moment later the construction crane
lifted him and his young nephew to death.
In those few minutes, with a smile, with a
gesture of hand, and utterance of just a few
words, Majid mocked mullahs’ reign of terror,
uplifted Iranians long-held tradition of
resistance against tyranny, and immortalized
himself in the psyche of Iranians forever.
Just barely over a year ago Valiollah
Feiz-Mahdavi, another Iranian hero, was executed
by the ayatollahs in Gohardasht prison. He was a
sympathizer of Iran’s main opposition movement,
the Iranian Mujahedeen and never submitted to
demands for TV confession even under sever
torture.
In a translation of his last recorded voice
message to Iranian people from prison, obtained
by the Women’s Forum Against Fundamentalism,
Feiz-Mahdavi said:
“I truly
believe that freedom, democracy and justice are
as vital to human life as the air one breathes.
I thus permit myself to ask you not to abandon
Iran’s just fight against the oppressive regime
of the mullahs. I also have a few words for the
leaders and minions of the regime: we will never
resign ourselves to the ignominy of surrendering
to your repressive dictatorship, even if it will
cost us our lives.”
This spirit, the sprit of resistance against
tyranny, embodied by Kavousifars, Feiz-Mahdavi
and thousands of other Iranian women and men who
fought and died for liberty; is what would
ultimately bring the rule of Iran tyrants down.
This spirit is what the Iranian people should be
recognized with, not by the anti-Iranian,
anti-life, terror-sponsoring ayatollahs that
rule them with gallows, whips, and bayonet. And
this is the spirit we need to cultivate in Iraq
in order to defeat the evil of Tehran-exported
fundamentalism and bloodshed.
(USADI)
USADI
Commentary reflects the viewpoints of the US Alliance
for Democratic Iran in respect to issues and events
which directly or indirectly impact the US policy toward
Iran |