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The Iranian terror

Monday, 28th July 2008

I recently had the great pleasure of meeting Roya Hakakian, an Iranian Jew whose family was forced to flee the terror of the Iranian Revolution. Her book Journey from the Land of No, both a tender and loving memoir of her early life in Iran and a chilling chronicle of the events that led her family to flee to America, is a poignant elegy for an Iran whose civilised, cultured, pro-western people have had their freedom snuffed out by the tyrannical mullahs and their barbaric excesses. They are the victims of the Iranian Revolution which continues to enslave, torture and murder them; as I have observed before, the world’s abandonment of these brave people is obscene.

Iran has turned into a death factory against criminals and dissidents alike. Yesterday morning it hanged 29 people for drug smuggling and murder in what the Telegraph reported was the largest mass execution for years. According to Amnesty, last year it executed 317 people, more than anywhere other than China. A bill going through the Majlis would inflict the death penalty upon Iranian bloggers – one of the main windows through which the world can see a little of what is happening in Iran. Read here on Potkin Azarmehr’s blog, for example, not just of the impending execution of Iranian Kurdish teacher Fazad Kamangar but also the kidnap and torture of his 11 year-old nephew.

The writer Amil Imani has delivered this great cry of pain:

The Islamic Republic terror machine once again has taken off at the speed of light in Iran and exemplifies a depraved, clerical system of government, which legitimizes its depravity through a series of terror, fear and intimidation of Iranian people. With the additional handpicking of the newly selected members of the Islamic 'Majles,' the clergies have intensified their terror and war against the people of Iran and their insatiable appetite for another holocaust against the Jewish State, at all cost. The leaders of the Islamic Republic have gone completely mad.

The Islamic Republic has stationed revolutionary and militia troops to actively and deliberately prevent anyone from any demonstrations or objections against the totalitarian regime. They are planning to silence people by any means available to them. Parents who inquire at police headquarters about their arrested sons and daughters could be taken away or simply disappear. Students are tortured and, on many occasions, murdered for crimes they never committed. And yet, we see many western governments are engaging and heavily investing in the Islamic Republic where its survival depends upon shedding the blood of innocent Iranians.

In an earlier piece, Imani made this chilling prediction:

Many Europeans are fleeing their ancestral homeland ahead of the Islamic fire which is engulfing their countries. These are the affluent and the ones with foresight. Others are either oblivious to the threat, aim to accommodate it as the holy grail of multiculturalism, or will end up one day seeing themselves in the fight of their life. For Islam does not believe in multiculturalism. Islam is a mono-culturist: the barbarian culture of Islam. As Islam gains more power, it will inevitably impose itself and its ways on all others. And there will be those who will eventually wake up from their stupor, they will either completely capitulate or fight the Muslims back in bloody bock-by-block, street-by-street battles.

Why aren’t we listening to the voices of Iranian resistance against this monstrous threat that faces us all?

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Rob-NY

July 28th, 2008 8:41pm

It is a disgrace more help has not been afforded to the Sophie Scholls and Dietrich Bonhoeffers of today's Iran. Shame on the pro-fascist left for not protesting the oppression in Iran.

field

July 28th, 2008 8:58pm

We must always be careful not to refer to people executed in places like Iran and China as criminals. Many of them will be entirely innocent of any crime. There are no fair trials in China or Iran.

Paul Hill

July 28th, 2008 11:34pm

About 2% of the current expenditure on the cretinous folly of the Anglo-American ocupation of Iraq would bring the whole rotten edifice crashing down around the Ayatollahs' ears.

Take a good look at team Obama and the brainpower he has mustered in this area.No shrill threats,no brandishing useless firepower,none of the brain dead provocation that the current regime depends on to retain their grip.

Dave M

July 29th, 2008 1:45am

The question then begs to be raised: Why in this world do the so-called "liberals", intellectual clergymen, students and B.B.C. diversity exponents of this country side with Iran over Israel? I mean, I'm no fan of Bush Junior but you ask yourself how come thousands of "yuman rights" activists in this country will march and rant in the street against Bush, yet nothing to be said over Iranian mullahs? I mean, you would think George Galloway and co would have something to say about a regime that executes people in public if Israel's supposed human rights abuses are so often recited? I mean, could you imagine the uproar there would be if Israel carried out such hangings in the middle of Telaviv?

phil

July 29th, 2008 8:25am

I wrote this on an earlier thread -it is still pertinent

"Very recently I have had the good fortune to meet socially some young Iranian people working in Europe and was astonished to find how educated and pleasant they were -Their description of Iran was very different from the one we all have come to accept -they say that 70 percent of the population have nothing to do with Islam ,want a new regime and fair elections and obviously have admiration for the western way of life

-so what do we do to encourage this population to find a way out of this isolation that the mullahs have brought about .I have to say it was a shock for me to see such a different picture than I had anticipated because I know I had started out with a prejudicial view of them -They are also the victims of this crazy regime and perhaps we need to offer help to the appropriate sections there rather than threats to those that do not represent the views of the majority -I realise it was a snapshot view but I know many of their friends and my view is in accord with those I trust -My point is talk and communication can only help ,in this case it was to those who wish to talk and eventually it is them who will bring influence to bear on the masses .

Tiberius

July 29th, 2008 12:17pm

Dave M: you're spot on again.

What might be termed "Western sensitivity" towards Islam is in fact discriminatory and patronizing. We defend practices which we condemn in any other creed with a kind of "they don't know any better" flavour. The US, Britain and Israel, of course do know better, and so, like loving parents, should make allowances.

Well it's time to end this.

Mostafa S

July 29th, 2008 2:19pm

Its not just the right-wing think tanks who want Hizb-ul-Tahrir banned, traditional Muslims in Britain, particularly the older generation are horrified by their children being snapped up by these extremist Islamic cults, they want these groups banned too.

Why isn't the Labour government listening?

Miranda Rose Smith

July 29th, 2008 3:21pm

It always makes me smile when the same people who howl "Biased and inaccurate" when Amnesty International issues a report on Israel quote Amnesty International APPROVINGLY. KIDNAP is, as I've mentioned on this post before, a VERB or an ADJECTIVE. The NOUN is KIDNAPPING.

Miranda Rose Smith

July 29th, 2008 3:25pm

Dear David M.: Tel Aviv is two words. It means "Hill of Spring."

Tiberius

July 29th, 2008 4:32pm

Mostafa S: one of the things that would be helpful and welcomed by "right-wing think tanks" is louder protest to government from those Muslim groups you mention. They are in a far better position to effect fast change if they really have the will because they can better police the habits of their children. But so far, coordinated protest has sadly been absent.

cletus

July 29th, 2008 6:47pm

There is nothing wrong with capital punishment for murder

That said, the leaders of Iran are scum of the highest order

Philip

July 29th, 2008 6:48pm

If the muslims want a holy war, we should give them one! That or wait until we're too weak to do anything other than submit...

jerry

July 30th, 2008 6:15am

Re Phil and good Iranians, I am certain that there were good Germans in Nazi Germany. It is a question of idea change, not regime change. Good people have to accept slaughter by bad people as their fate. The good Iranians will be forced to join the Iranian army and walk through the minefields until the ideological underpinnings of triumphalist Ayatollahs is destroyed. That is where the West must make its stand, on the battlefield of ideas. Unfortunately, it is precisely the weak ideological (read: thoughtful) basis of the West that is permitting defeat by default in Europe.

The example here is sufficiently on point. How is it exactly that any thoughtful person can accept that the death penalty is cruel and unusual punishment and stand silent in the face of medieval public hangings in Iran? If the searing truth is "better them than me," then that is the point of at which Europe folds and goes home. Oh, they are home. I forgot.

phil

July 30th, 2008 9:30am

JERRY my point is that we have to encourage the people in Iran who wish for change and help them believe we are behind them -it must feel awfully scary to resist with no backing -just note the apathy here ,you are the only one to have addressed my point-plenty of gung -ho but no help .

Michael B

July 30th, 2008 1:32pm

Hear, hear.

Three cheers to Ms. Phillips for continuing to bring Iran's dissidents to the fore and three cheers again to the dissidents themselves and those who suffer, who suffer so profoundly under the Mullahs and under the regime as a whole.

Meanwhile, the Left retreats from the stark realities this totalitarian and incredibly oppressive regime presents to the people of Iran and to the world at large - applauding themselves in the process for being at the vanguard of the world scene. In sum, business as usual for this self-regarding political class - the linguistic and egoistic commodification of politics; but not politics only, of conscience as well.

Old Nick

July 31st, 2008 12:47am

Paul: You're a little dense, right?

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Melanie Phillips is a Daily Mail columnist. She also writes for the Jewish Chronicle and is a panellist on BBC Radio Four's Moral Maze. Her most recent book is 'Londonistan', published by Encounter and Gibson Square.

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