Iran regime thugs continue misogynist brutality. Iran Focus: 'Iranian authorities have launched a crackdown on “mal-veiling” in society and have stepped up arrests of women caught breaching the Islamic dress code. The new crackdown, which began in mid-April, coincided with a call by Majlis (Parliament) deputies for the adoption of a bill to regulate women’s attire during the hot summer months. ... Penalties for disobeying the dress code are severe. Women caught flouting the code can receive lashes, jail sentences, and large fines.' Photos at the link. Also from Iran Focus: ' Iranian authorities flogged 54 people for attending a mixed-sex party in the northern province of Mazandaran, a state-run daily reported. The men and women were arrested by the “anti-vice police” in a park in the suburbs of the town of Babol as they were partying during the night, the daily Iran wrote on Thursday.' (Iran Focus)
IRI continues anti-spritual, anti-intellectual persecutions. The Iranian regime continued its war against religion by arresting 52 Sufis and their lawyers, Iran Focus reports: 'Dozens of Islamic mystics and their lawyers have been sentenced to jail and flogging, a state-run daily reported on Thursday. Altogether, 52 Islamic mystics, or Sufis, were sentenced to jail time and flogging and received a fine, the daily Kargozaran wrote. They were charged with “disrupting public order”. They were from among 1,000 Sufis who were arrested in February for taking part in anti-government riots in the holy city of Qom, south of Tehran. Their two lawyers, Farshid Yadollahi and Omid Behrouzi, were also sentenced to one year behind bars and 74 lashes and fined 10 million Rials ($1,000). Both of the men were also barred from working as lawyers for five years.' Meanwhile, a leading Iranian-Canadian intellectual has been jailed in Iran. The Scotsman reports: 'A prominent Iranian philosopher and writer has been arrested on suspicion of espionage, it was reported yesterday. Iran's judiciary confirmed the arrest, without specifying the charges brought against Ramin Jahanbegloo, who also holds Canadian citizenship. The first high-profile intellectual arrested since the election of the president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad last June, Jahanbegloo is being held at Tehran's notorious Evin prison, where most of Iran's jailed political dissidents are kept.' BBC: 'A leading Canadian-Iranian intellectual, Ramin Jahanbegloo, has been arrested at the airport in Tehran.
A prominent dissident cleric described Mr Jahanbegloo's arrest as "the height of lawlessness and insecurity". At a gathering to celebrate International Press Freedom Day, Mohsen Kadivar said Mr Jahanbegloo was one of Iran's philosophical journalists. ... Mr Jahanbegloo is a well-known Canadian-Iranian professor with doctorates from the Sorbonne and Harvard University. He has written and edited more than a dozen books on philosophy and political science.' The CBC has this update: 'A friend says former University of Toronto professor Ramin Jahanbegloo, an Iranian-Canadian detained in a prison in Tehran since last week, has been transferred to a hospital. Shahram Kholdi told CBC News on Thursday his contacts in Iran alerted him that Jahanbegloo is in hospital. He is not sure whether the hospital is within the Evin prison, where the writer and philosopher was being held, or is a separate institution. ... Jahanbegloo's family and friends fear he has been tortured. Evin is the prison that Montrealer Zahra Kazemi was trying to photograph when she was arrested on June 23, 2003. Kazemi was beaten so badly by interrogators that she died.' Some sources via Regime Change Iran and Free Iran News Forum. (various)
VDH: The calm before the storm. Victor Davis Hanson at RealClear Politics: 'In the brief present window between Iran's enrichment and its final step to weapons-grade production, we must keep calm and give Ahmadinejad even more rope to hang himself. As his present hysteria grows, exasperated Europeans or jittery neighbors in the region may even prod the U.S. to take action - indeed, to be a little more unilateral and preemptive in letting the Iranians know that their acquisition of a nuclear weapon will never happen.'
Is hanging too good for him? "You're slowly hung," in the words of a former Supermax inmate quoted at AmbivaBlog. For more on Moussaui's new home, go to the link. (AmbivaBlog)
Debka: US says it's on Zarqawi's trail. A current bulletin at Debka reports: 'The US military in Iraq says it is hot on the heels of Abu Musab al Zarqawi. Documents and an unedited video of him were found in a rural hideout near Baghdad. Spokesman Maj.-Gen Rick Lynch said Thursday that al Qaeda’s leader in Iraq was throwing all his resources into attacks in Baghdad and was probably somewhere south of the capital where US forces this week launched a series of raids. “We believe it is only a matter of time until Zarqawi is taken down.” He told reporters. “It’s not if, but when.” ' (Debka)
COMMENTARY: The fraying fabric (and nerves) of Middle Eastern islamo-fascism can be clearly seen in today's items. Moussaoui won't get his virgins; he will be left to literally rot in a Rocky Mountain panopticon. He will be sealed away like the toxic waste that he is. Meanwhile, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Tehran's one-trick pony, can only re-hash the same song and dance routine for so long. Terrorizing women and torturing Canadian writers are old acts, and they'll provide scant security for the IRI regime in the months to come.
Cross-posted at Dreams Into Lightning - TypePad.
