After 30 years of dealing with the United States and Europe, the Iranian regime has mastered two qualities: How to achieve objectives by bullying and blackmail; and, how to recycle its political refuse and reuse it in the US.Mohammad Khatami’s recent candidacy for presidency illustrates Mullahs masterful art in selling an archaic political system as an example of good governance and indigenous democracy. The United States has been so far one of the prime consumers of this Iranian “democratic” masquerade.

In the last three months, Amnesty International has received reports of waves of arbitrary arrests and harassment, directed particularly against members of Iran’s religious and ethnic minority communities, students, trade unionists and women’s rights activists.

Mr.Alizadeh was arrested for the second time on 15 January 2009 and is reportedly held in Sanandaj interrogation centre- in the Iranian Kurdish region- and is under intense interrogation and torture.

All seven arrested are part of the known “Iranian Bahai Assembly” and had been arrested on 14 May 2008 during an attack by security forces on their homes.

The announcement of who is in charge of Iran affairs in the State Department emerged in form of rumors immediately following election night. Dennis Ross was the name dropped everywhere in Washington as a fit candidate for the job. His perceptive expertise as a diplomat and a Middle East negotiator under two former presidents made him the obvious front-runner. However, one side of the equation was not happy about Mr. Ross’s name appearing in the media as such. Tehran’s regime, and its friends in Washington, began screaming hard as soon as they found out about President Obama’s possible appointment.

Iran is uniquely susceptible to financial pressure and we hope the IBR can educate investors, policymakers, and other individuals on companies reported to have been doing business in Iran.

Information-technology experts say that the companies’ “monitoring centers” are used to track mobile and land-line telephone conversations, and that their “intelligence platform” systems allow the Iranian secret service to track financial transactions and airplane movements. The technologies could also be used to monitor persecuted minority and dissident groups in Iran.

مناظره حسن داعی از سوی پیک با فاطمه کشاورز از آی اف پی در تلوزیون صدای آمریکا
Hassan Daioleslam (PAIC) debates Fatemeh Keshavarz (IFP) on Voice of America TV in Persian.

Parsi’s article is a clear example of how pro-Tehran advocacy groups in Washington have pursued two simultaneous goals: to portray the Iranian regime as a victim rather than partly responsible for the Middle East turmoil and to present Israel as the main entity responsible for the impasse in Iran-US relations. In fact, they have “used” the Israeli decoy as an important part of their overall campaign to lift the pressure off the Iranian regime.

The residents of a village near the city of Solmas have filed a formal complaint against the “Army of the Guardians of the Islamic Revolution” (Sepah-e Pasdaran) for its systematic torture and abuse of the residents of this village.