Persian Realm

Too much emotion - no practical solution

Such attacks on "government" are useless and couterproductive. We see the same nonsense here in US. Too much emotion and insults. The intention is to antagonize and not to improve. I don't like him.

Who's being naive?

Take a vitamin and come back to reality. The U.S. is NOT going to attack or invade anybody.

There's no one left to send into battle.

As far as having the right to investigate......the idea of the IRI conducting any kind of investigation is laughable. THAT'S what the issue is. The idea of the IRI being able to properly investigate anything is a joke!! They are corrupt from head to toe and they are saying now vee maast eenvestigate. Maraz daaran.

Kos-e-sher migan, va tow mikhaye ghaboul koni.

You want to say they have the right, go right on ahead. They have the right to investigate, and everyone has the right to be a fool and believe that such an investigation will be an honest one and not another farce, like everyhting they have done since 1979. I exercise my right not to.

I'm against foreign intervention as well. But you're giving the VOA too much credit. It's going to take a lot more than a short wave radio to have any real effect.

No one looks at VOA as a friend or a reliable source of information. People pay attention to get a grasp of what the U.S. is saying, but they're not paying it any mind.

Kaveh please stop being naive.

what do you mean im joking? the name says it itself, its voice of AMERICAAAAAAAA. the same america which invaded afghanistan and iraq. and wants to invade IRAN. so yes. it has a RIGHT to investigage this. i didnt say it should imprison him, kill him, or even suggest he is a traitor. I just said they should see what the deal is. thats all. VOA is not our friend. its not voice of IRAN or IRANIANS. its voice of AMERICA. and is funded by that terrorist group, you know the CIA?

This has nothing do with with islamic republic. this has to do with making sure our independence is preserved. and most iranians are against foreign intervention in their country. you know the ones that arent vatan foroosh lol.

Here is another scandle in

Here is another scandle in the "godly" Islamic republic:

درست هنگامی که ستاد انتخاباتی این کاندیدا (که جزو زنان اصولگراست) آکنده از مردم و طرفدارانش بود، ناگهان زنی به همراه یک کودک وارد ستاد می‌شود و سراغ رئیس ستاد - که شوهر کاندیدای مذکور و از چهره های سرشناس شهر است - را می‌گیرد و پس از مواجهه با او با فریاد می‌زند که تا کی باید بچه اش بدون شناسنامه باشد و او برای حمایت از برادرش به یک زن و یک کودک بی پناه ظلم کند؟

این زن با صدای بلند به حاضران می‌گوید: ای مردم بدانید به چه کسی رأی می‌دهید ؛ من 8 سال پیش به عقد موقت برادر این مرد (که او هم از چهره های معروف شهر است) در آمدم و اکنون که بچه مان 7 ساله شده، ما را رها کرده و حتی هنوز برای بچه مان شناسنامه نگرفته است و وقتی هم که این مساله را پیگیری قانونی کردم، همین آقای رئیس ستاد (که می‌خواهد زنش را به مجلس بفرستد) با اعمال نفوذهای گسترده خود نمی گذارد حق من و این بچه داده شود و الان هم که بچه ام بایدبه مدرسه برود بدون شناسنامه نمی توانم ثبت نامش کنم. من آمده ام بگویم کسی که این طور حق یک زن و کودک 7 ساله را این طور زیر پا می‌گذارد، حالا می‌خواهد زن خود را به مجلس بفرستد که از حقوق شما دفاع کند؟!

//www.iranpressnews.com/source/037607.htm

VOA,

Iran has the right to investigate this? Please say you're joking.

That rationale is on par with what Eliot Spitzer had been doing, which was investigating and prosecuting people engaged in criminal activity while engaged in criminal activity himself, before being caught.

The Tehran police chief was recently caught in a whorehouse. Who should investigate him? His assistant?

The End Is Near!

"Is this the begining of the end ? ..."

It certainly looks like it!

Re:VOA Government of Iran is

Re:VOA

Government of Iran is not our friend and much more destructive and toxic than any foreigners.

The mullahs are not there to serve Iran or improve Iranian's economic or social status. The mullahs are there to exploit and rob Iran's national wealth and it's oil revenues to either line their own pockets or fund the terrorist around the world.

Oh Yeah ? What about her then ? ...

Khomeini Granddaughter Slams Hard-Liners

Khomeini Granddaughter Slams Hard-Liners

By LEE KEATH and ALI AKBAR DAREINI
Associated Press Writers

She is a granddaughter of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, founder of the 1979 Islamic revolution, but Zahra Eshraghi has long been a leader of reformers seeking to liberalize Iran.

She sees dark days for the country, at least in the short run, given the hard-liners' lock on power. To break that hold, she says, former reformist President Mohammad Khatami must run against hard-line leader Mahmoud Ahmadinejad next year.

"The only way to save the country is for Khatami to run next year in presidential elections. He is the only one who will defeat Ahmadinejad," Eshraghi told The Associated Press in an interview conducted in Farsi.

She spoke against the backdrop of this Friday's parliament elections that Ahmadinejad allies and other conservatives are expected to win, maintaining their hold on the legislature. Reformists are crippled because most of the 1,700 candidates disqualified by Iran's clerical leadership were reformers.

Khatami has said he has no desire to return to the presidency, which he held in 1997-2005.

But he remains the most charismatic figure of the reform movement and is under pressure to run. In recent months, he has stumped for little-known reform candidates, giving speeches that have drawn crowds of thousands in a campaign that otherwise has been met with public apathy.

To Westerners, Eshraghi may seem an unusual figure to be in the reform movement's ranks.

Her grandfather brought the idea of "velayat-e-faqih" - rule by Islamic clerics - into reality in Iran with the popular uprising that chased out the shah in 1979.

In the system that has evolved, the powers of unelected clerics, headed by supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, trump those of Iran's elected government. They can overrule laws and bar from elections any candidate deemed insufficiently adhering to the Islamic republic system.

Ahmadinejad allies and other conservatives are running in Friday's election under the title of "Usulgerayan" - Farsi for "principlists" - touting their loyalty to Khomeini's revolution.

Eshraghi, who didn't seek to be a candidate in Friday's election, argues that religious hard-liners have hijacked the revolution, which she says was meant to bring freedom to Iran.

"This is totally against the goals of the revolution and contrary to the views of Imam Khomeini ... With this trend, nothing remains of the republic. And they have left nothing of freedom," she said.

Because of the wide disqualifications of candidates, "I don't think there will be even a powerful minority bloc of reformists in the next parliament," said Eshraghi, who is married to Khatami's younger brother, Mohammad Reza, himself a reformist leader.

Despite her gloom, Eshraghi predicts the hard-liners will fail in the long term. "In this era of communications and flow of information, the young generation won't accept that few hard-liners decide their fate," she said.

Reformists want the powers of the clerical leadership to be limited. Eshraghi's husband has said Khamenei - who became supreme leader after Khomeini's death in 1989 - should not act as if his authority is absolute, a rare public criticism that could have gotten him arrested.

Some conservatives who wholeheartedly support the clerical leadership have criticized Ahmadinejad's presidency, saying he has gone too far in monopolizing power for his allies and been too harsh in pushing out opponents, including some clerics with longtime roots in the revolution.

Even Khomeini's family has not been immune from the rhetoric of Ahmadinejad's allies.

Eshraghi's brother, Ali, sought to run in Friday's elections, but was disqualified. He was later reinstated, but then decided to drop out of the race to preserve the Khomeini dignity after hard-liners began to criticize his family.

Hard-line media and Web sites unleashed a wave of criticism last month against Eshraghi's cousin Hasan Khomeini after he criticized the head of the Revolutionary Guards military corps for making a speech seen as backing Ahmadinejad's camp in the election.

Some of the hard-line attacks aimed at his integrity, accusing Hasan Khomeini - who is caretaker of his grandfather's sprawling tomb complex on Tehran's outskirts - of taking gifts from reformers.

More moderate conservatives eventually came to his defense, and the editor of one of the hard-line Web sites was jailed for insulting the Khomeini family.

Eshraghi was firmly in the reformist camp long before Ahmadinejad came to power, as an advocate for women's rights and an influential party figure during the reformists' stint in power.

Khatami was swept into the presidency by a landslide in 1997 elections. Three years later, reform candidates swept elections to take over parliament, and the president's younger brother, Eshragi's husband, became deputy parliament speaker.

It was a brief heyday for the reformers. They were able to bring a more liberal atmosphere, loosening Islamic restrictions on women's dress, music and other social activities.

But hard-liners, backed by the clerical leadership, blocked concrete political change. In 2004, most reformist lawmakers were barred from running for re-election, and hard-liners took over the legislature. A year later, Khatami had to step down as president because he had served the limit of two consecutive terms, and Ahmadinejad won the presidential vote.

Khatami is eligible to run again now, and as a respected cleric he would be a difficult candidate for the clerical Guardian Council to disqualify.

But he appears reluctant to face what would likely be a bitter campaign. And some reform supporters see him as tainted by the failures of his government to make more widespread changes, saying he was too hesitant to push hard for change.

Eshragi said that even under the current conditions, reformers have to at least try to make a comeback.

"It's our country. Why should we hand it completely over to the hard-liners," she said.

Indeed Kaveh Jan

Thank you Kaveh Jan for your regular support ( even if I don't always answer back I always read and appreciate them).

//www.youtube.com/watch?v=l7qKD-Ph7ds

CIA outlet.

Come on guys, Iran has every single RIGHT to investigate this. VOA is funded by CIA. It is no friend of Iranian independence. US government is using VOA as a part of its agenda to assert its hegemony in the region, and this parliamentery member by speaking to them makes it shady. so iran has to investigage this to make sure whats going on. government is not a government if it doesnt. stop acting like everyone is innocent. VOA is not our friend.

DK....

Let us hope so.

I cannot think of a better way to start the New Year.