Iran: Government Says, "Overweight? Try Prison"
Enduring America / Scott Lucas
23-Aug-2009 (2 comments)

From Press TV, “Ahmadinejad aide says jail improves health condition”:

Amid concerns over health conditions and treatment of Iran’s post-vote detainees, an aide to the Iranian president moves to defuse the controversy by saying that serving time in prison helps you understand the importance of keeping your weight under control.

Ali-Akbar Javanfekr, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s advisor for press affairs, addressed concerns over health conditions of jailed Reformist figure Mohammed-Ali Abtahi.

Former Vice President Mohammad Ali Abtahi, a Reformist cleric, appeared in one of Iran’s mass post-election trials saying that the three opposition leaders – Mir-Hossein Mousavi, Mehdi Karroubi and Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani formed an alliance in which they “promised to always back each other up” in their efforts to rob the presidency from its ‘legitimate winner.’

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FG

Goebbels!

by FG on Sun Aug 23, 2009 07:41 AM PDT

The Enduring America article contrasts photos of a smiling Reformist figure Mohammed-Ali Abtahi prior to his arrest and a frait Abtahi afterwards.  With the public drawing the "wrong" conclusions, the regime now seeks to suggest its political prisoners have attended a spa of sorts. 

From whom did these thugs learn their propaganda techniques if not Goebbels?  The official's statement recalls a phony camp the Nazis set up in Czechoslovakia to allay worldwide suspicions over inmates elsewhere.   The camp showed happy, smiling inmates, including children on playground equipment.   A few months later it was closed and occupants exterminated. 

TACTICAL SUGGESTION: When and if these tortured prominent prisoners are released, Ali Abtahi and others must get together to tell their stories to the world as a group, not just individually and in a way that regime can't easily thwart.  The shrewdest approach might be a pre-arranged session before the Grand Ayatollahs and other top clerics in Qom.  Any family members who were threatened by the authorities to keep silent should alsobe invited to attend (I read somewhere that Abahti's family was threatened with rape).  Testifying before Khamenei's puppets won't suffice.  Newpaper testimony would be censored,  As in the case of rape testimony, parliament members would likely be ordered to be silent on what they heard.



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FG

LA Times quote is as funny as Ahmadinejad's peach-eating remark

by FG on Sun Aug 23, 2009 08:51 AM PDT

"It's natural that when someone has become fat, in prison he understands that his fatness harmed his body and spirit," said Ali Akbar Javanfekr (left)."So maybe Mr. Abtahi took advantage of this opportunity to lose weight."

Does this guy seriously actually believe anyone will believe such nonsense? 

The trend in Iran reminds me of how Nixon's credibility unraveled gradually after Watergate.   What began as a trickle became a river, as each new bombshell shook up the public until Nixon was forced to resign.   Show trials, reports of mass burials, stories of torture and mass rapes of male and female inmates are having the same effect on Iran's regime. 

 The lies Ahmadinejad and Khamenei come up with to hide their brutality backfire as much as any of the above discoveries.  When censorship fails, rumors spread.  Having destroyed all independent sources of information, the regime finds itself with no believable independent source to confirm its denials. 

See: //latimesblogs.latimes.com/babylonbeyond/2009...

 

 


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