It's a great pity such racist war propaganda is consistently allowed on Indymedia UK.

Such a shame that Indymedia has such racist views posted on it. It's flat-out racism towards Muslims, no better than the EDL.

this article is obviously not racist, nor anti Muslim. It is against the barbarity of the Iranian Theocracy. Most muslims do not support such punishments and they are not an intregal part of Islam.

I think a lot of people seem to support it from it's prevalence

I sort of agree with the above comment. I don't think the west telling Iran what it can and can't do is a particularly bright idea - they seem to hold it in great offence.
It's probably best let them get on with it and work it out for themselves. I really do think that much of the middle east in about 400 years behind us in terms of society values. Give them time - they will get their eventually.

Incidentially, I'm sure that top picture is from a fictional film, its not real.

"It's probably best let them get on with it and work it out for themselves. I really do think that much of the middle east in about 400 years behind us in terms of society values. Give them time - they will get their eventually."

The situation as it stands at the moment is that the Iranian people do not want to be governed by religious diktat. They have had enough of religious proscription and being governed by the 'word of God'. There have been widespread protests in Iran as a direct result of religious 'leaders' going to far.

We are seeing two possibilties developing with Iran. Either the clerics are overthrown by the Iranian people in an internal confrontation which is supported by fellow democrats, or the clerics are overthrown by the US military by force. It would be nice if there was a third peaceful alternative but it doesn't exist.

At the moment, we have a battle going on between those who see the current situation as being an excuse to bash the US and those are using the situation as an excuse to defend the US. As usual, everything is about something other than what it is really about, the right of the Iranian people to determine their own future.

We as activists have two choices, either you support the Iranian people so they can dertermine things for themselves, or you wait for the inevitable war, which I can assure you, is coming!

If this argument still isn't convincing for you, imagine how you'd feel if the recently arrested Democracy Villagers were about to be hanged in Parliament Square because the judge decreed that their peaceful protest had angered God! And then imagine how you'd feel if the rest of the world were saying that they'd deserved it, for being foolish enough to protest in the first place!

Yes its very bad that people are killed for breaking a countries law but the USA still has the death penalty to my knowledge, as do many of the countries that the USA and UK support and send free aid to (free aid paid for by us via the tax system, is usually weapons, torture devices, etc.), the death penalty is the death penalty!

its not worse because they are brown and have vast quantities of oil and other resources or their land is on a strategic hot spot.

TBH the USA using the banned chemical weapon white phosphorus on civilians and polluting the land of any country they want to acquire, with nuclear waste and other chemicals that commit genocide over generations through disease and deformities is far worse & is never in the news.

Remember kids its only terrorism when they do it, our actions are sanctified by god & to the songs of a thousand angels!

When we are just then we can judge, until then lets try to tidy up our own actions!

from the archives:


The Great Divide-Iran and Leftists

by Gary Sudborough, 27 June 2009


There seems to be a great divergence of opinion among liberals and leftists about what is really happening in Iran. There are those who think Iran is in somewhat of a vacuum and is only trying to have a democratic election against theocracy and a repressive attitude to women's rights. Other leftists think because the Bush administration in the past had contemplated military action and also covert actions by the CIA against Iran that these facts, among others, argue for an attempted coup taking place, especially given the enormous number of successful and unsuccessful CIA coups which have occurred in the past 60 years. I have an excellent book entitled Killing Hope-US military and CIA interventions since World War 2 by William Blum. I would say that the only countries or continents not to have at least CIA spies in them would be places like Greenland or Antarctica that have little interest for multinational corporations because they are covered with huge ice sheets. Of course, this could change with global warming. You might be served a burger and fries by an Eskimo at the grand opening of McDonalds in Greenland.

Noam Chomsky seems to want to take a middle ground and say that no elections in the US or Iran are really democratic because in the United States only the very wealthy get to choose those candidates who are to run and in Iran it is the clerics who decide the question. He is correct, of course, but that does not solve the problem of whether the CIA and US covert actions are being used in Iran.

Norman Solomon, a leftist writer for Common Dreams and other publications, had an article titled "Full Spectrum Idiocy- the GOP and Hugo Chavez." One of the points of his article is that anyone who thinks like Hugo Chavez and suspects a CIA-instigated attempt to overthrow the Iranian government is an idiot. This is somewhat belligerent. When I wrote my article about Iran entitled: " Iran- Amnesia, Ignorance or Stupidity," and gave my reasons why I suspected CIA involvement in Iran, I at least didn't call those with differing ideas idiots, but gave them three choices, all of which are better than idiot. Hugo Chavez has already suffered one CIA -backed coup in April 2002 in which a portion of the Venezuelan military arrested him, imprisoned him on a military base and installed a Chamber of Commerce man named Pedro Carmona as President of Venezuela. Pro-Chavez supporters in the thousands stormed the Presidential Palace, removed Pedro Carmona and in a while Hugo Chavez was released from military custody, during which he said two uniformed military men from the United States took part. Is Hugo Chavez an idiot or paranoid for suspecting that CIA coups have been perpetrated or are presently taking place in other countries, having experienced one himself? I think he is being perfectly rational, especially since Ahmadinejad is a man like himself in certain respects. Both Ahmadinejad and Hugo Chavez are spending the profits from the sale of oil to improve the lives of the poor in their respective countries.The ruling class of the United States hate this situation. They would rather have the rich in power in other countries so that American corporations can move in, privatize the oil and all other corporations, privatize health care and any benefits like Social Security for the poor and establish sweatshops with no recognition of worker's rights, unions, safety regulations in the workplace or product quality and safety. In other words, they want what Michael Parenti calls a client state government. I call it a puppet government. As Michael Parenti has said: "There is only one thing the rich have always wanted and that is everything."

I have discovered a very interesting thing about Venezuela. The CIA is still organizing coups against Hugo Chavez. The Cato Institute, a right wing think tank in the United States, recently paid an anti-Chavez student organizer a half a million dollars to stir up trouble against Chavez. It is called the Milton Friedman Award, but let's get real. This is nothing more than a bribe to help overthrow a democratically elected government. The student's name is Yon Goicoechea. I couldn't get a break in remembering this name by having him called Juan Gonzalez or some other easy name. If I had accepted money from a foreign government, let us say the Soviet Union when it was in existence, to overthrow the government of the United States, I would be classed as a traitor and either executed or would be spending a lot of time behind bars, probably in solitary confinement. However, Yon Goicoechea is now in Mexico from certain reports and probably spending his half an million dollars and enjoying himself immensely. Is Hugo Chavez an idiot for thinking that perhaps Iranian students, like Venezuelan students in Venezuela, are being paid money by US institutions to foment revolution in Iran? I think not and believe the real idiot to be Norman Solomon.

Another very prominent leftist in the United States is Michael Moore. He is a man who has done great work with movies like Roger and Me, Fahrenheit 9-11, and Sicko, with a new movie coming out in October on all the thefts and frauds committed by the banks and financial institutions of the United States that have contributed to the present world-wide depression. I give him enormous credit for at least keeping track of the carnage in Iraq and Afghanistan and posting on his web site the news of the latest US drone strikes that have killed numerous civilians in Pakistan and Afghanistan. However, he is another who sees the situation in Iran in isolation and thinks it is all about democracy. Michael Moore has long been a union man and I believe it was his father or another relative who was involved in the famous sit down strike at General Motors in the 1930s. I, too, have long held a passionate affinity for unions. Some of the earliest books I read were about the IWW in the United States and their heroes like Joe Hill, Elizabeth Gurley Flynn and Big Bill Haywood. I am just speculating here, but I think one of the things which swayed Michael's opinion on Iran was that the bus drivers union came out in support of the protesters and threatened a strike. The real tragedy here is that unions in other countries have often been infiltrated by the CIA.
In Latin America there was an organization called The American Institute for Free Labor Development. It was ostensibly run by the AFL-CIO, but was funded almost exclusively by the Agency for International Development and was an instrument of the CIA. One of its missions was to teach the unions in Latin America to be virulently anti-communist and to help with strikes any coups that the CIA was organizing in Latin America. Consequently, it is a big mistake to think that unions are always on the moral, just and democratic side of an issue.

One of the greatest problems that I perceive confuses many Americans, including many leftists, is a separation in their brain between domestic and foreign events. Most Americans realize the effects of capitalism at home. After all, in just the last 30 years there have been the scandals of the sub prime mortgage swindle by the banks, the Enron debacle where some people in California actually lost their lives due to planned blackouts, the accounting crimes of Arthur Andersen and others, which caused stocks to be greatly overvalued and led to a stock market crash and finally to the great savings and loan theft, which cost every American family approximately 5,000 dollars to remedy. They, also, realize that a great deal of their tax money is going to the very rich people who robbed them in the first place. The amazing thing is that these same Americans often believe that their foreign policy is motivated by humanitarian and democratic concerns, instead of the greed and avarice they experience at home. They point to the humanitarian aid given to other countries. Incidentally, much of this so-called humanitarian aid is actually money to build the roads and ports so that American corporations can make even more profit by not having to pay for these expenses. What American aid there is in terms of food, medicine and other things which are truly humanitarian is very miserly, especially since the demise of the Soviet Union, when there was obviously a competition between the countries. Now, US humanitarian aid is near the bottom in terms of that aid given by the other industrialized countries. Americans, also, point to the Marshall plan to rebuild Europe. That was obviously meant to prevent all the countries of western Europe from going communist because most of the resistance movements against German fascism in those countries were lead by communists. Finally, there is the American fascination with the "good war." I am speaking of World War 2, when American forces actually did fight on the right side against German and Japanese fascism. They relate that to other wars and think the United States is always correct when it decides to intervene in other countries.

Finally, let us return to the question of why if domestic policy in the United States is determined by very wealthy capitalists, why that same greed and desire for profits and power should not also extend to foreign countries? Those who own a country also control the repressive apparatus of the state. In other words, the police, army and the national security apparatus are in the control of the capitalists. If one doubts this fact, look at the history of Europe. Weren't nearly all the wars caused by the territorial and monetary aspirations of the rich nobles and kings? Does one notice any massive demonstrations by the poor for a war which does not benefit them in the least? Consequently, if the ruling class of the United States control the armed forces would they not use that army to satisfy the same hunger for wealth and power which they exhibit at home? I believe the answer is an emphatic yes, and all those leftists who believe the United States is not involved in the least in Iran are dead wrong.

Going to very popular leftist web sites and finding myself seemingly all alone in this opinion, I was very despairing that people who understood capitalism could not understand its consequences, namely imperialism. Now, I see that Paul Craig Roberts, Phil Wilayto, James Petras and others have joined me in my opinion. Michael Parenti once called the CIA, "Capitalism's International Army," and I couldn't express the situation any better.

"Yes its very bad that people are killed for breaking a countries law but the USA still has the death penalty to my knowledge, as do many of the countries that the USA and UK support and send free aid to (free aid paid for by us via the tax system, is usually weapons, torture devices, etc.), the death penalty is the death penalty!"

"TBH the USA using the banned chemical weapon white phosphorus on civilians and polluting the land of any country they want to acquire, with nuclear waste and other chemicals that commit genocide over generations through disease and deformities is far worse & is never in the news."

The US does still have the death penalty and just a few weeks ago allowed a man to be executed by firing squad...the man chose the method of his execution but the fact that this 'choice' is still on the US statute books belies the underlying barbarity that underpins the US.

But we need to understand that the death penalty in whatever form it takes is not just about punishing those who transgress the law. It is also used to legitimise and consolidate the states power and authority over the people it governs.

What is the difference between an execution which is carried out in a room, away from the public gaze, and an execution that takes place in a public square, while the locals are forced out into the road to 'observe'?

I'll tell you. One is state santioned punishment to uphold the law (a disgusting waste of human life), and the other is the law being used to impose power over the people and to underpin the authority of the state and the party that makes up the state (a disgusting waste of innocent human life). In Iran, they have already rejected the President and have charged him with defrauding the people by corrupting the election of 2009. The executions which have followed...are illegitimate displays of power, that the Iranian people do not accept nor consent to allow.

The death penalty, is not just the death penalty.

And what will happen if the Iranian clerics receive sufficient protection from current anti-US feeling and survive until 'the next time'? Will the 'left' be comfortable with 'surviving' a regime that carries out hangings in public, limb amputation in industrial metal presses for petty crimes, the continued execution of women for offending male sensibilities. The continued execution of those who protest in Iran and are likely to sanctioned by an entity (God) that they cannot appeal to nor plead with.

While the 'left' turns a blind eye to the needs of the Iranian people, then the 'left' is every bit as illegitimate and as belligerent as the object of its ire. The 'left' needs to understand that the approaching confrontation, is likely to leave it dead in the water, morally, ethically and ideologically.

The Iranian people need our support, our expertise, our knowledge and our concern for humanity. The coming confrontation is going to happen. In reality, the antiwar movement is not going to be able to prevent this. You either support the Iranian people so they can take control for themselves and will be well placed to avoid the baggage that will appear from US speculators (who are sure to arrive if they smell a profit) or you simply wait for the inevitable, and pointlessly charge up and down the street with placards trying to engage a British public who have nothing but scorn for you for allowing yet another war!

The Iranian people should expect to be able to relieve themselves of the religious elite, while at the same time being able to control what comes next.

If people think that oppsing this extreme mysogeny is islamaphobic, then i am a proud islamaphobe. this woman will die by stoning because iranian islamiclaw allows it. This is disgusting. this woman and many others like her will die because of organised religion.
This is nothing new and is not at all restricted to islam. Organised patriarchal religion has always killed women. We must resist it now.
Women will always be oppressed and hurt by religion, even in its moderate forms.
No masters no gods.
Now is the time for a militant anarchist feminism. Anarchist women must come together, before its too late.

Apart from the Neda photo the others are fake, staged photos to demonise Muslims.

Hi Purple,

Don't you believe there are stonings happening in Islamic countries? In Iran they are state sponsored acts, but even in countries where criminal Sharia Law is not practiced by the state, there stonings sometimes taking place (like honour killing crimes) because unfortuntely the mentality permeates. I was really surprised to learn recently that even in a modern country like Turkey, such stonings occasionally occur in more remote villages which really surprised me as I know many Turks are really keen to get into the European Union.

For anyone interested: you can join the following protests in the next few days on this issues.

Iran Solidarity will be protesting outside the IRI (Iranian) embassy in London on Friday evening from 5pm against the stoning sentence of Sakine Mohammadi Ashtiani and in memory of the student uprising in Iran in 1999. Members of IS will stage a stone-in act.

IRI embassy, 16 Prince's Gate SW7 1PT
Friday, 9 July
5pm

And on Saturday 10 July Iran Solidarity will be doing a caravan through London against stoning in Iran. We will be meeting at 2pm on Trafalgar Square to do a stone-in act and then move towards other points in London staging more stone-in acts and to raise awareness of Sakine's sentence.

If you are interested to join us this Saturday or to stage your own acts against stoning please contact us:

 iransolidarityuk@gmail.com or call 07507978745