A Rare Show Of Public Support For Gay Rights In Iran

By Golnaz Esfandiari, RFE/RL

On May 17, the International Day Against Homophobia, a small group of Iranians publicly displayed support for gay rights despite the Islamic republic’s tough laws against homosexuality and the associated social stigma.

Here are very rare, if not unprecedented, pictures that were reportedly taken in Tehran. Note that the individuals were sure to hide their faces to avoid being identified and harassed. The activists displayed signs and rainbow flags, although many Iranians may not know that the rainbow flag is the symbol of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) rights movement.

One sign apparently displayed on public transport says, “No to homophobia.”

Growing up and living in Iran as a homosexual is not easy, as one Iranian activist told me.

“I grew up with religious and Islamic ideas. ‘Well,’ I thought, ‘I’m a sinner.’ I was trying to become a good person by practicing religious rites, including by praying a lot and fasting,” Arsham Parsi said.

“Becoming good was one of my main concerns, and because of that, I entered a very difficult period. I decided to get to know myself. Now I’m glad that I know myself. I have my beliefs, I believe in my God, and I have my sexual orientation.”

To read more about Iran’s LGBT community and the challenges they face, read this new report by the London-based Small Media research group.

---

Source: RFE/RL,

IAEA chief to visit Iran

Source: Radio Zamaneh

Yukiya Amano, the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, will fly to Tehran on Sunday May 20 to discuss Iran’s nuclear program with that country’s top nuclear negotiators, including Saeed Jalili, the head of Iran’s Supreme Council of National Security.

The Associated Press reports that, according to the IAEA, Yukiya Amano will “discuss issues of mutual interest with high Iranian officials.”

According to this report, a meeting between the agency and Iranian negotiators that had been scheduled for next week in Vienna has now been cancelled.

Analysts say Amano’s trip could indicate the two sides have managed to resolve certain points of dispute.

Unidentified diplomats have told Associated Press that the purpose of Sunday’s visit is to “agree on an accord outlining the mechanics of IAEA access to the sites, information and officials it seeks for its investigation into whether Tehran secretly conducted nuclear weapons research and development.”

The diplomatic sources added that while signing the deal will be a promising start, its actual implementation will be the true test of how well this resolution ends the disputes.

Iranian nuclear negotiators will still meet with the G5+1 representatives in Baghdad on May 23.

Tehran could use any agreement reached with the IAEA as proof of its commitment to resolve international concerns about its nuclear program, thereby strengthening its demand that sanctions be eased.

Parviz Shahriari, Mathematician and Activist, Dies at 85

by MUHAMMAD SAHIMI

A major figure in Iranian education, jailed under the Shah and the Islamic Republic alike.

Parviz Shahriari, mathematician, educator, translator, journalist, and political activist, passed away on May 11. Those Iranians who grew up between the 1950s and the 1990s and were mathematically inclined are very familiar with Shahriari and his achievements through the many books and articles he wrote and translated, and the several scientific journals that he founded and edited for decades. I am personally indebted to him. I loved his stimulating writing on mathematics and science, and studied his works during my high school years and undergraduate studies at the University of Tehran. I still have some of his books.Shahriari was born into a Zoroastrian family on November 23, 1926, in the south-central province of Kerman. (Zoroastrianism was Iran’s dominant religion before Islam.) His father, a peasant, passed away when Parviz was very young, leaving his mother, Golestan Shahriari, to raise him and his two brothers, Sohrab and Hormoz. Shahriari studied at Iranshahr High School in the provincial capital of Kerman; after finishing the ninth grade, he enrolled in a special collegiate prep school, Daneshsara-ye Moghaddamati. He graduated in 1944 and moved to Tehran. Although he wanted to study at the University of Tehran’s Faculty of Engineering, he realized that he could get into the school only through its Faculty of Sciences. He was admitted with a major in mathematics; at the same time, he also studied at Daneshsara-ye Alee (Teachers College) and taught night classes. Though his studies were interrupted on a few occasions, he eventually graduated from the University of Tehran in 1954 with a degree in mathematics.

Soleimani to Nasrallah: Don’t Attack Israel; IAEA’s Amano to Visit Iran

by MUHAMMAD SAHIMI

Press Roundup provides a selected summary of news from the Farsi and Arabic press and excerpts where the source is in English. Tehran Bureau has not verified these stories and does not vouch for their accuracy. Any views expressed are the authors’ own. 

2:25 p.m. IRDT, 29 Ordibihesht/May 19 The conservative website Botia News reports that Major General Ghasem Soleimani, commander of the Quds Force — the elite Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps division responsible for foreign operations — has told Lebanese Hezbollah leader Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah (pictured here with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad) that his group must not stage any preemptive strikes on Israel. According to the website, Soleimani has emphasized that Nasrallah must restrain extremist and radical views within his organization, and that the authority of those who believe in attacking Israel must be limited. “Your powerful force and readiness to destroy Tel Aviv and the ability for sustained attacks on Eilat in the southern part of occupied Palestine must not make you proud and arrogant,” Soleimani reportedly told Nasrallah. He attributed what he called the Hezbollah’s military victory over Israel in the summer of 2006 to the power of faith and God’s help, rather than Hezbollah’s arms.According to Botia News, Soleimani further stated to Nasrallah, “The Zionist regime has become isolated and is facing a crisis of legitimacy, [but] any attacks on it will make it a nation to which injustice has been done, and make us the aggressor and oppressor. This will generate sympathy for Israel that is not in our interest. To free the Al-Aqsa Mosque [Islam's third holiest place, in Jerusalem], we must rely on informing people, not our guns.” Javan Online, which is closely linked to the Revolutionary Guards, published a very similar report, but it was removed after a few hours. The same thing happened on the website operated by Fars, the Guard-affiliated news agency.

Poison Names: The Lexicon of Iranian ‘McCarthyism’

by ARASH KARAMI

From “monafeghin” to “fitnagar,” examining a venomous vocabulary.

Arash Karami is a frequent Tehran Bureau contributor.

UAE-based writer Sultan al-Qassemi’s recently published “McCarthyism in Gulf Social Media” offers rare insight into the state of the region’s public discourse, in particular the use of personal insults to discredit those holding different political opinions. Qassemi points to a new trend in labeling political adversaries as “traitors” alongside the old standby of “takfir” – the act of one Muslim declaring another an apostate or infidel, “kafir.”In Iranian discourse, there is a comparable tradition of name-calling against political foes; under the Islamic Republic, name-calling and character assassination has reached absurd levels inside the country and become disturbingly common in the diaspora as well.

In the years before the 1979 Revolution, Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi was derisively called “nokar-e amreeka,” America’s servant, or even “khaen,” traitor, by some elements of the opposition. In turn, he called protestors “ekhlalgar” and “kharabkar,” agitators and vandals. After the Revolution, one of the primary targets of name-calling by officials and advocates of the newly founded Islamic Republic was the Mojahedin-e Khalgh Organization (MKO). Members of the group, who were instrumental in overthrowing the Pahlavi dynasty but quickly lost the subsequent power struggle with Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, were labeled “monafeghin,” hypocrites. In a religious context, hypocrites are far worse, and much more dangerous, than unbelievers because they create disunity. After three decades, Iranian state media and officials still refer to MKO members as “monafeghin.”

Since the 2009 presidential election, Islamic Republic officials have favored a different set of words to discredit their political opponents. Green Movement leaders Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi, who had both played key roles in the Iranian government, were labeled “fitnagar,” seditionists, for steadfastly challenging the election’s outcome and defending the rights of the protestors who took to the streets. The label “fitna” has religious connotations, typically indicating those who attempt to agitate the public and disturb the peace. State media outlets were eventually forbidden to even use Mousavi and Karroubi’s names and they came to be referred to as “saraan-e fitna,” leaders of the sedition. In February 2011, the two leaders — along with Mousavi’s wife, Dr. Zahra Rahnavard — were placed under house arrest without charge, where they remain.

The winner of that election, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, was soon doomed to the same name-calling fate. His closest adviser and father of his son’s wife, Esfandiar Rahim Mashaei, who had been attempting to build a popular following (possibly in hopes of running for president next year) by emphasizing Iranian history — at the expense, according to ideological adversaries, of the Islamic history long promoted by the Islamic Republic — was labeled “monharef,” deviated or perverted. (Islam in the Qur’an is referred to as the “straight path,” sirat al-mustaqim.) Friday Prayer leaders, members of parliament, and even the head of the Guardian Council, Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati, issued statements warning of the dangers of the so-called “deviants” group. Those aspersions have reflected on the president, whose decline in popularity has been so precipitous that Ahmadinejad’s own sister could not win a seat in parliament representing her hometown in the elections held in early March.

Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei likes to direct the insult “bi basirat” against those who disagree with him. Literally, it means those who lack insight or discretion. Though Khamenei does not name whom he has in mind, many believe that the phrase’s main target is Ayatollah Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani. Rafsanjani, one of the most significant figures in the history of the Islamic Republic, did not take a clear line against the “seditionists” — that is, the Green Movement protests. Although Rafsanjani’s choice of a more moderate, understanding position was motivated primarily by antagonism toward the upstart Ahmadinejad and not necessarily sympathy with the pro-democracy stance of the Green Movement, he eventually paid a price for his “lack of insight,” losing his post as head of the Assembly of Experts, the body that nominally oversees the Supreme Leader. Although the wily Rafsanjani was recently able to retain his chairmanship of the Expediency Discernment Council, he has nonetheless seen his powers diminished tremendously in the last several years.

Character assassination via name-calling is a tactic employed not just by the current power elite in the Islamic Republic. As can be observed in social media such as Facebook and Twitter, Iranians in the diaspora have adopted their own lexicon of terms meant to denigrate those with whose political views they differ.

The term “regime apologist” is frequently and glibly aimed at those who endorse diplomacy, are opposed to sanctions aimed at crippling the Iranian economy, or happen to offer an Iran-centric viewpoint much more often than their critics would like. The term “neo-con” or, much worse, “vatan foroush,” literally one who sells his homeland, is used against those who support sanctions, do not want dialogue with the Islamic Republic, and favor more severe actions against Iran’s government.

For Iranians in the diaspora, name-calling is not exactly destroying reputations and careers in the same manner that Senator Joseph McCarthy did in 1950s America in the purported cause of rooting out Communism. Still, Iranians in the diaspora — only a minority, perhaps, but a highly active one — have sadly taken it upon themselves to mimic the Islamic Republic in their adopted countries by resorting to character assassination at the first sign of disagreement. This tactic of ad hominem assault, of course, serves as a convenient means to avoid substantively addressing a given issue, which can be especially challenging if the facts at hand contradict one’s firmly held beliefs.

As tensions continue to rise between the United States and Iran, with possibly devastating consequences for both countries, it would seem urgent that the Iranian American community, the largest in the Iranian diaspora, put an end to this tactic. For those who sincerely wish to move forward, it would be wise to introduce a new political vocabulary that is devoid of the name-calling. Given that the past 33 years has seen not only the continuation but the exaggeration of a much longer tradition, however, it is unlikely that there will be any end soon to this destructive discourse.

Source:  Tehran Bureau

Arte TV: “Dies ist kein Film” – 23. Mai 2012, 23.10 Uhr

Letztes Jahr lief in Cannes “Dies ist kein Film” (bei ARTE am 23. Mai um 23.10 Uhr) von Jafar Panahi. Der regimekritische Film wurde in einem Kuchen aus dem Iran geschmuggelt, da Panahi bereits im Gefängnis saß, verurteilt zu einer sechsjährigen Haftstrafe wegen Unterstützung der iranischen Opposition.