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Bekijk Volledige Versie : Bush heeft plannen voor grootste propaganda compagne ooit, tegen Iran



Victory
16-02-06, 22:17
Bush plans huge propaganda campaign in Iran

Ewen MacAskill and Julian Borger in Washington
Thursday February 16, 2006

Guardian

The Bush administration made an emergency request to Congress yesterday for a seven-fold increase in funding to mount the biggest ever propaganda campaign against the Tehran government, in a further sign of the worsening crisis between Iran and the west.

Condoleezza Rice, the US secretary of state, said the $75m (Ł43m) in extra funds, on top of $10m already allocated for later this year, would be used to broadcast US radio and television programmes into Iran, spreading propaganda inside the country.

Although US officials acknowledge the limitations of such a campaign, the state department is determined to press ahead with measures that include extending the government-run Voice of America's Farsi service from a few hours a day to round-the-clock coverage.

The sudden budget request, which follows an outlay of only $4m over the last two years, is to be accompanied by a diplomatic drive by Ms Rice to discuss Tehran's suspect nuclear weapons programme. She is to begin with a visit to Gulf states. Ms Rice told the Senate foreign affairs committee that Iranian leaders "have now crossed a point where they are in open defiance of the international community".

She added: "The United States will actively confront the aggressive policies of the Iranian regime. At the same time, we will work to support the aspirations of the Iranian people for freedom and democracy in their country."

The US is to increase funds to anti-Iranian groups, including the terrorist group MEK. It officially began funding such bodies last year for the first time since Washington broke off ties with Iran in 1980. A US official said all existing citizens' groups and non-governmental organisations in Iran had been heavily infiltrated by the Tehran government, so the US would seek to help build new dissident networks.

US officials depicted the new pro-democracy spending as just one side of a multi-faceted diplomatic offensive aimed at increasing pressure on Tehran. They said Ms Rice would make Iran a focal point of her talks with Middle East leaders in her tour next week, put it centre-stage at the upcoming G8 meeting in Moscow, and call a meeting of political directors from the Nato alliance in late March or April solely to talk about policy towards Iran.

US propaganda efforts in the Middle East since September 11 have been relatively unsuccessful. Analysts say its Arabic news station al-Hurra (the Free One) is widely regarded with suspicion in the Middle East and has poor listening figures.

The move follows talks in Washington last week with British diplomats specialising in Iran. The Foreign Office yesterday welcomed the US move, noting it meant the continued pursuit of diplomatic means rather than hints of military action.

A senior US official claimed there was now "a broad degree of concern" in the Middle East and around the world about the recent actions taken by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and that the proposed US offensive had been greeted "very enthusiastically".

The stand-off between Iran and the west worsened on Tuesday when an Iranian official said Tehran had resumed small-scale uranium enrichment for research.

Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2006

Dolle Fatima
16-02-06, 22:19
Daar hoeft ie toch niet zoveel werk voor te doen?

Doet Betty Mahmoody ook mee?? :denk:

David
16-02-06, 22:23
Hier een bijdrage. Gratis, en het is nog waar ook:



February 08, 2006

An Iranian Trans Torture Victim Speaks from Inside Iran

The latest testimony from a victim of the Islamic Republic of Iran’s lethal anti-gay pogrom comes from inside Mashad, the ultra-conservative city under strict religious control where two teenage gay boys were hanged for their homosexuality in July of last year. Mekabiz is a 21-year-old, self-described “transsexual man,” from a middle-class family (his father is a retired senior army officer.)

Rejected by his family for his sexuality, arrested, tortured, and thrown into prison -- where he was repeatedly gang-raped with the complicity of his jailers -- Mekabiz is today homeless and living on the streets of Mashad, but remains in contact with the city's underground gay community, which helped arrange this interview. In the following interview via Internet (translated from the Persian by Ava of the Persian Gay and Lesbian Organization) Mekabiz tells his tragic story:

“I’ve always been attracted to people of my own gender, even as a child,” Mekabiz relates. “I was five years old when I had my first sexual experience, with my neighbor’s son. Even in elementary school I always befriended the good-looking boys among my classmates, although in that period the only person I was intimate with was my older cousin. I‘ve always had a big body build -- when I was four I looked like I was eight.

“My mother discovered I was having relations with my neighbor’s son when I was six years old. She beat me with a garden hose -- she hit me so hard I couldn’t get out of bed for a month. She begged my father to change our house and move to another neighborhood, but she didn’t tell him anything about my sexuality, because my father was strict career military man, and if he had known he would probably have killed me.

“The second time my mother found me having relations with my 18-year-old cousin I was in the fifth grade in elementary school. She had a violent argument with my cousin, threw him out of our house, and never spoke to him again. And she punished me by burning my feet, hands, and behind.

“After that, I was under strict surveillance by mother, who no longer trusted anyone of my acquaintance, until high school, so I had few opportunities for sex. After enrolling in high school, I started having sex with my classmates, or older boys who were available. Sometimes I would get into a taxi that had a young driver and offer sex, I satisfied myself this way. But my mother‘s and sister‘s constant berating tortured me.”

Mekabiz was first arrested last year. He was on a motorcycle with an acquaintance, a student named Ali, who was taking him home for sex. “On the way, a traffic policeman stopped us to see if Ali had the authorization papers to be in the city and to check his driver’s license,” Mekabiz continues. “I was wearing women’s clothing (manto roosari), which was very tight and hugged my body -- and sadly, my manhood was causing a visible lump. That made the traffic officer suspicious that I might be smuggling drugs or something. A woman officer was called from headquarters. She touch my legs, lifted up my clothing, and screamed, ‘He’s a man!’ The male officer hit me in the mouth so hard that two of my teeth broke.”

Both Mekabiz and Ali were taken to police headquarters under arrest. “Ali denied knowing me at all. He lied, telling them, ‘I thought he was a girl and I wanted to take him home with me, but thank god you guys stopped us and now I know that this piece of garbage (he meant me) is a guy. In the end, Ali was punished with only 15 lashes and set free. I was locked up.

“In the three weeks in jail before my trial, police officers would come and beat me up because of the way I was, every single day, as well as making fun of me in a very insulting way and playing very nasty pranks on me. When I finally got to court, I tried to claim that I was wearing women’s clothing to joke around with my friend Ali. But Ali’s confession had ruined everything, he sold me out so he wouldn’t get into trouble.

“The judge treated me like a dirty animal. Once I asked him, ‘Your honor, why do you treat me as if I’m an animal?’ The judge snarled, ‘You are dirtier and lower than a pig,’ and sentenced me to three months in Vakil Abad prison and sixty lashes.

“When my lashing came, the officer in charge said, ‘Get yourself ready for a good beating, our masseurs are famous!’ I was taken to a big room, stripped naked, and held in a standing position with my hands tied. The began reading from the Koran, then the beating started. They hit me so hard that after 13 lashes I passed out. They brought me back to consciousness and started to hit me again.”

“In prison, I had never suffered so much in my life. They put me in section one which was the special place for drug dealers and lifers. Those bastards put me in a place where the youngest inmate was 39 years old. When I asked the guards why they wouldn’t put me in the special section reserved for young people, they simply sneered at me, saying, ‘You’ve been with so many young people, now you can service your fellow inmates -- they’re people too, they’ll never have real sex again, and you know that masturbation is no fun!’ Every single prisoner in section one raped me -- all of them. They even tattooed graffiti on my backside -- on one side they wrote, ‘Souvenir from Vaki Abad prison.’ You can’t imagine what kind of hell I went through. I always prayed for god to kill me.

“I even attempted suicide. I asked one of the guys who raped me frequently to give me some opium. He gave me some, and I ate it all hoping to die. But instead of dying I became a drug addict. Initially I was unconscious for three days -- but after that, the guys would force me to do drugs and rape me, they destroyed me. When I once tried to complain to the prison authorities about my being raped, they laughed and said, ‘We know you’ve already had a lot of sex, you like it, so just take it, enjoy it, and shut up.’ The guards bullied me, saying, ‘Hey, sister, how are your husbands?’ Whenever the boss saw me, he acted as if he had seen the devil, cursing me in Arabic.”

When Mekabiz was finally released from prison, he says, “I rented a car to go home -- but when I got home, my father declared I wasn’t his child anymore and kicked me out. My family -- who all have university degrees, I’m the only one with just a high school diploma -- doesn’t care about me and won’t pay any attention to me. Since I came out of prison I have no one. Right now I sleep in cartons on the streets in Mashad. Sometimes I sleep at some rotten people’s houses who I’ve befriended just so I can have a place to sleep. They demand that I smuggle drugs because I require money for my living expenses. This is not living! Please help me!

“All I want is to get a job with a steady paycheck so I can have a place to live and get out of the horrible situation I’m in. My only goal is to achieve peace with another man, I mean I want to marry a guy who loves me and have a peaceful life -- but unfortunately this is impossible in Iran.

“My biggest fear is being arrested again, because I had sworn in front of the judge that I wouldn’t be who I am any more and act the way I do. But that, too, is impossible.”

David
16-02-06, 22:26
En nog een:




January 15, 2006

As the Islamic Republic of Iran's lethal anti-gay pogrom -- the government's intense persecution of its own citizens for homosexuality, including the execution of at least a dozen young gay men -- proceeds at a terrifying pace, the victims of this oppression, despite great obstacles, continue to try to flee from the largest religious prison in the world to tell the story of the inhuman treatment they have suffered.

You may have read my previous interviews with two gay refugees from Iran's sadistic repression of same-sexers: Amir and Mojtaba. The latest escapee to testify to this anti-gay reign of terror is a 28-year-old man caught up in the government's extensive Internet entrapment campaign targeting gay men. We'll call him Sam, and we cannot identify his hometown to protect his real identity.

Sam is the son of a very religious family, most of whom do not know he's gay. He lived in a smaller town in which -- like so many in Iran -- most of the people are also intensely religious, consider homosexuality the ultimate sin, and agree with the Islamic Republic's law mandating the death penalty for any person caught in a homosexual act. Isolated and unable to frequent his few gay friends, constantly living in fear of being arrested and tortured, perhaps executed, Sam became increasingly depressed, and even attempted suicide.

Because there is nowhere in Iran where gay people may legally assemble -- private gay parties are frequently raided by the police, and the government has an extensive network of gay informers whose cooperation has been obtained by torture, blackmail, and intimidation with threats of prison or death -- like many gay Iranians, particularly those outside the largest cities, Sam's only way of meeting other gay people was through the Internet. Here, translated from Persian, is his story:

Last Spring, Sam related, "I was in a gay Internet chat room for Iranians. A boy in the chat room was sending repeated messages saying that he was looking for a sex partner and was up for anything. He said he was 23 and very handsome. I finally got up the courage to arrange a rendezvous with him somewhere in tow -- he said that after meeting we could then go to his house, as there was no question of his coming to mine.

"We met at 3:00 in the afternoon, and, as the young man was very good-looking, I agreed to go with him by taxi to his home. A taxi rapidly arrived -- there was a person sitting in the front next to the driver, and another in back. We got into the taxi, and my new friend suggested that I should be the one to sit in the middle in the rear, with him sitting next to me.

"As we drove away, it didn't take long for them to shove my head down between the rear and front seats and begin beating me. They put a blindfold around my eyes, calling me all sorts of names and threatening me with the worst as the blows continued to rain on me."

It turned out that both the young man Sam had met in the chat-room, and the others in the taxi, were basiji. The basiji are an unofficial religious parapolice composed of thugs under the control of the Intelligence Ministry and operating with the authorization of the religious authorities. They are recruited from the criminal and under-classes, and are employed by the Islamic government to do its strong-arm dirty work. For example, when the government repressed student demonstrations in universities last year, it was the basiji who were assigned to beat the student demonstrators and throw them out of the windows, so that the government could deny responsibility for these violent repressions, in which a number of students were killed. The basiji are a potent weapon frequently used in the government's anti-gay crackdown, and it is from their ranks that the human bait used in its Internet entrapment campaign is recruited. Many of the basiji are young.

"After about 15 minutes," Sam continued, "we arrived at a location -- as I was blindfolded, I had no idea where I was. I was in a state of shock -- I could not believe this was happening to me. The eventually took off my blindfold, and then began the worst event in my life. I was surrounded by men in civilian clothes, all of them wearing pagers, and some of them were armed. They all had beards, and some of them were quite young, in their late teens. Their boss was almost bald, and had a big stomach -- if he'd had a turban around his head he would have looked like a mullah, perhaps he was a mullah in civilian clothes, I don't know. I quickly concluded I was in some sort of basiji headquarters. It was an old building; part of it was a school.

"After several hours of torture, they asked me to write a statement in which I would promise not to ever use a gay chat room again -- if I did, they told me, even heavier punishment would be waiting for me. They told me that if they had caught me having sex they would have hanged me.

"I refused to sign their statement, so they began beating me with a heavy metal cable. God knows how barbarous it was -- they beat me at least 30 times, while kicking me with their shoes. I couldn't bear the pain any more, and I begged them to stop. I knew they would not stop until they had the signed statement in their hands, and that is why I agreed to sign it.

"But even when I got up from the floor to sign their statement, I asked why -- this made their boss very mad, and he ordered his men to resume beating me with the heavy cable, which they did while yelling more threats and insults. The screaming intimidation felt like a hammer on my brain, it was worse than the cable and the beatings. One of them hollered, 'We'll round up all you fags until there aren't any left to make a chat room and play your fag games.'

"The beatings, verbal abuse, and intimidation continued until 8:00 p.m. the next day. I was finally thrown into a storage room -- the room was filthy and full of rubbish and had a very bad smell. They kept me locked up in that stinking little room for seven or eight days.

"One day they finally let me out, once again blindfolded me, and shoved me into a car. We drove around for about 30 minutes -- but it seemed like 100 years because they were beating me all the time. They dropped me off somewhere and told me not to take off my blindfold until they'd left. When I could no longer hear the sound of their car, I took off the blindfold and saw I was on a deserted dirt road somewhere outside town. I finally flagged down a truck and persuaded the driver to drop me off in town."

When he got home, Sam said, he faced intensive questioning from his family, who wanted to know where he'd been.

"But they do not know I'm gay, so I had to lie to them. But I could not give them a plausible answer. I finally called a friend and asked him to take pictures of my wounds and bruises from the beatings so I'd have some evidence -- but my friend doesn't know I'm gay either, so I had to lie to him too. I was afraid if I old him the truth the situation would go from bad to worse, so I said the basiji had caught me when I was drunk and beat me. When I got back home, the only member of my family to whom I could tell the truth of what had happed was my brother, who left Iran four years ago, and who is also gay -- so I sent him an e-mail."

"I had never considered leaving my country before this horrible episode," Sam said, "but after it I could sense the shadow of death and torture on my back, so I decided to escape to save my life."

It took Sam six months after his kidnapping by the basiji before he could arrange to escape from Iran. Four months ago, Sam made his way to Pakistan. There, he filed a request for asylum with the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, and eventually got in touch with the Persian Gay and Lesbian Organization, the largest Iranian gay organization, which has secretariats in several countries. The PGLO, which has helped me in my previous reportages on the gay tragedy in Iran, asked me to help Sam tell his story to the world. For as Sam said, "Iranian homosexuals have had all their rights taken away from them, and face a bitter destiny."

Sam today is in Pakistan, still waiting for the UNHCR to recognize as legitimate his demand for asylum in a gay-friendly country.

Victory
16-02-06, 22:27
Niemand in Iran kan zich schelen om homo's, dus daar kan je echt geen propaganda mee maken.

De TV en radio zenders van de V.S. hebben tot nu toe zwaar gevaald in Iran.... maar dat is ook niet raar als je naar hun radio/tv kijkt.... het is zo absurd dat je constant in een deuk legt.

MaRiaH
16-02-06, 22:27
Iran voert zelf de grootste anti-campagne tegen zichzelf. :fplet:

Bush hoeft ze alleen maar in te koppen.. :rolleyes:

schot voor open doel.. etc. etc. :D

David
16-02-06, 22:28
http://www.coc.nl/documents/1_IranHangingFlag.bmp

Victory
16-02-06, 22:28
Geplaatst door MaRiaH
Iran voert zelf de grootste anti-campagne tegen zichzelf. :fplet:
Voor mensen zoals jij die de moslims al haat, wel ja. :fplet:

David
16-02-06, 22:30
Geplaatst door Victory
Voor mensen zoals jij die de moslims al haat, wel ja. :fplet:



Je vaalt :moe:

MaRiaH
16-02-06, 22:31
Geplaatst door Victory
Voor mensen zoals jij die de moslims al haat, wel ja. :fplet:

Een dergelijke opmerking vind ik op zijn zachtst gezegd nogal sneu.
Is dat je laatste redmiddel?

MaRiaH
16-02-06, 22:32
Geplaatst door Victory
Niemand in Iran kan zich schelen om homo's, dus daar kan je echt geen propaganda mee maken.



Dat is nu net dat inkoppertje... :moe:

Victory
16-02-06, 22:33
redmiddel? Het is toch zo. Je haat alle echte moslims. De enige moslims die jij leuk vind zijn de Marokkaanse comedian types.

MaRiaH
16-02-06, 22:33
Geplaatst door David
http://www.coc.nl/documents/1_IranHangingFlag.bmp


Afschuwelijk! :tranen:

MaRiaH
16-02-06, 22:34
Geplaatst door Victory
redmiddel? Het is toch zo. Je haat alle echte moslims. De enige moslims die jij leuk vind zijn de Marokkaanse comedian types.

:jammer:

Ik hou van mensen.... :blauwkus:

gh.wille
16-02-06, 22:39
Geplaatst door MaRiaH
Iran voert zelf de grootste anti-campagne tegen zichzelf. :fplet:

Bush hoeft ze alleen maar in te koppen.. :rolleyes:

schot voor open doel.. etc. etc. :D

Als het niet zo intens triest was om een bevolking zo te indoctrineren ,
dat ze bijna gaan geloven dat ze onoverwinnelijk zijn,en geen enkel respect te hebben voor alles wat leeft, dan zou het indd om te brullen zijn .
Helaas is de werkelijkheid dat bij een eventuele confrontatie ,
De WERELD wel eens voor de DERDE keer in brand zou komen te staan !
En of deze nog ooit te blussen valt ,dat is nog te bezien.

mark61
16-02-06, 22:52
Geplaatst door Victory
Voor mensen zoals jij die de moslims al haat, wel ja. :fplet:


Sneu is het juiste woord.

MaRiaH
16-02-06, 22:56
Geplaatst door mark61
Sneu is het juiste woord.

Je kan je beter slachtoffer voelen dan kritiek serieus bekijken en er wat van leren, toch?

Zo leg je de oorzaak lekker buiten jezelf en gewoon bij die ander

Tactiek die helaas veel mensen toepassen.
Ik kan er niet wakker van liggen..
tis inderdaad sneu..
:moe:

Bar
16-02-06, 23:01
Geplaatst door Victory
Niemand in Iran kan zich schelen om homo's, dus daar kan je echt geen propaganda mee maken.


Je hebt zelfs niet eens door hoezeer je het iraanse volk ontmenselijkt.

Victory
16-02-06, 23:02
Slachtoffer? Jullie durven wel he? Stelletje viespeuken.

Victory
16-02-06, 23:02
Geplaatst door Bar
Je hebt zelfs niet eens door hoezeer je het iraanse volk ontmenselijkt.
Ik ben geen mens.

MaRiaH
16-02-06, 23:04
Geplaatst door Victory
Ik ben geen mens.

zelfs gij, brutus..

mark61
16-02-06, 23:07
Geplaatst door Victory
Ik ben geen mens.

Ah u is ook homofiel? :(

David
16-02-06, 23:18
Geplaatst door mark61
Ah u is ook homofiel? :(


Schaap II

mark61
16-02-06, 23:19
Geplaatst door David
Schaap II

:verrassin

dr SiliconValley
17-02-06, 00:28
Cetero censeo Republica Islamica delendam esse

mark61
17-02-06, 00:31
Geplaatst door zoroaster
Cetero censeo Republica Islamica delendam esse

Ceterum ... Res Publicam Islamicam :hihi:

Die hadden het ook al niet op Berbers. Tis een barre wereld.

Als je het vantevoren aankondigt werkt t niet meer zo, denk ik.

dr SiliconValley
17-02-06, 00:39
Geplaatst door mark61
Ceterum ... Res Publicam Islamicam :hihi:

Die hadden het ook al niet op Berbers. Tis een barre wereld.

Als je het vantevoren aankondigt werkt t niet meer zo, denk ik.

:hihi:

Zo is het maar net! ;)

Lang geleden trouwens, die latijnse teksten op school... :maf2: