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Iran: the minority that will not let go

I am thinking about places in the world where women are oppressed. Iran for example. There, I gather, militia roam the streets intimidating and attacking women who behave or dress in ways of which they disapprove. In my country, such militia would be arrested and tried for public order offences. It is not that the British have no opinions about what is acceptable dress or behaviour in public and what is not. Of course we have opinions. But individuals behave in a way that is their own choice, provided that it does not contravene a specific law, and it may be a poor choice, but it is the individual's and not imposed. Live and let live, and mind your own business, are mottos here. And gangs who roam the streets trying to impose their own ideas on others tend to get arrested.
So what essentially is different about Iranians? I suspect, nothing is. A minority of society suppose they have a superior social and ethical code but that is normal in any society. The trouble is that in Iran, this minority has got hold of the levers of power and they will not let go. This minority is headed by people who claim to have special religious status and authority. How do they reconcile that with what seems from the news leaking out from Iran to be a clear case of electoral fraud? Not to mention the fact that in election after election they have disqualified most opposition candidates? In Britain people who commit fraud get put in prison, religious clerics included.
How these people feel they have the right to tell individual women how to dress and behave is worse than perplexing. To have the self-assurance to feel comfortable telling others what to do, or even physically force them to do it, does not mean you are right. It might be a sign of madness.

Comments

Ali Mostofi said…
Well said Jo

Now go and ask the BBC to be a little less pro-mullah.
neil craig said…
Presumably you don't blog about the similar treatment being meted out by our Nazi friends in Bosnia nor the worse treatment in Kosovo (our government are plain thugs & kidnap women to sell to brothels) because, unlike Iran, our politicians committed genocide to set them up & still run these Nazi regimes.
neil craig said…
Perhaps you would care to supply some evidence that the government of Iran has been committing genocide, implicitly on a scale matching our own government's with the enthusiastic support of the "liberal democrats".

On consideration it would have to be very much greater than what the lib dems do for it to be worth you condemning only the Iranians & not your party leaders.
Ali Mostofi said…
http://www.analyst-network.com/article.php?art_id=1325

read this, and then google for more.
neil craig said…
Says only
"Few people would deny any longer that Islam and its variants mean, in practice, bloody terrorism, deadly purges, lethal actions, forced ‘hijabs”, fatal deportations, extrajudicial executions, show trials, and genocide."

This is not evidence. I personally could say "nobody honest denies that all senior members & most ordinary members of the LibDem party are corrupt racist , child raping Nazis personally involved in genocide & cutting people up while they are still alive" but an ordinary person would reasonably require some evidence of this (which fortunately is available in depth on my blog). Obviously you wouldn'r since, being a member, you already know it.

Now where is your evidence?
Ali Mostofi said…
http://blip.tv/file/2260374

And there is more, but I have not got the stomach to find more.
neil craig said…
Which says 8 people have been killed in rioting - that is not genocide & it is less than 1,000th as many as you Nazis have been guilty of.

You have made 2 attempts to justify these racist lies & failed both times.

It seems Mr dinnerjacket is owed a complete & public apology jopined with an assurance not ever, under any circumstances withouit unimpeachable evidence, to suggest the Iranian regime is 1,000th as genocideal as the obscene Nazis running the LibDems.
Ali Mostofi said…
Yeah you are right. One day you will find out more.
neil craig said…
But not here obviously.

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