Bombing Iran; the monarchy; and happiness

I am speaking on the bombing of Iran and the monarchy on the Last Word programme on More4 Channel TV tonight at 11:05pm. Watch it if you can.

The Blanket: Profile on Maryam Namazie

The Blanket has just published the following profile, written by Anthony McIntyre, which you can read at http://lark.phoblacht.net/AM04040610g.html.

Maryam Namazie

How nice of them!

Abdul Rahman, the convert to Christianity, who had been deemed an apostate and faced execution in 'liberated' Afghanistan, has been granted fast-track asylum, and spirited to Italy. We are told he will eventually be able to decide whether he will remain in Italy or move to Germany!

Ahh, how nice of them.

They are letting him choose.

Umm, hadn't Abdul Rahman already reached the relative safety (or so he thought) of Germany some while back, lived there for nine years and was forced to return after having been deemed a 'failed' asylum seeker.

Not 'genuine' - like most of those fleeing Iran, Iraq or Afghanistan - until today...

Well, better late than never I suppose. At least for Abdul Rahman who managed to evade death.

Now what about the rest?

Maryam Namazie

On Reza Moradi

Thanks to all those who have asked about Reza Moradi and how they can help. We are now in the process of finding a solicitor and organising a campaign in his defence. We'll need loads of help then.

If you want to know a little bit more about what happened, see the upcoming TV International English programme (broadcast Sunday) where I interview him and also show my speech at the March 25 demo for free expression.

We'll keep everyone posted on any new developments as soon as possible.

In defence of the Iranian asylum seekers participating in a sit-in at the British parliament right now

People fleeing political Islam must be given asylum, full stop.

You may think that this statement is outrageous. Aren't most of them 'failed', 'illegals', 'scroungers'? Isn't only a handful 'genuine'?

No, they all are genuine. And for the very simple reason that medieval Islamic laws are antithetical to 21st century lives and values.

Let me explain. I say this not just because of outrages like sweet 16 Atefeh Rajabi, hung from a city square for 'acts incompatible with chastity' or Maryam Ayoobi, stoned to death for having sex outside of marriage, or Abdul Rahman, facing execution in Afghanistan for converting to Christianity... I say this not even because of the brutal attack and arrest of women at a March 8 rally in Tehran or the arrest of Tehran bus workers, including some of their wives and children, for demanding basic labour rights.

I say this for the everyday, more 'subtle' things - if you can call them that. For the teacher threatened in Afghanistan, for doctors being beaten in Iraq for treating female patients, for the students prevented from studying because they did not pass the Islamic ideological test in Iran, for the very fact that you cannot even give your child a non-Muslim name, for the limited rights to divorce, for the reason that you cannot hold your lover's hands and walk down the street...

The law, government agencies, army, baseej and militias, just won't let you be. They just won't let you live your life even if you have no intention of being politically active. They dictate your dress, your sexual relationships, even the music you listen to.

And so we see that even though the British government is jubilant that the asylum numbers are at a 13 year low in the UK, Iranians, Iraqis, Afghans are still in the top ten ranking of asylum seekers coming here and seeking refuge. Because they have to keep on coming and it's not for the incentives the UK government keeps deceptively insisting. Does having more shelters give women the incentive to be beaten or those with homes to become homeless?

They have no choice but to come, thanks in large part to this government's own policies in the region. But also thanks to cultural relativism which deems that people deserve to live the way they are forced to. Peace is at hand then - but according to Afghan standards; and Iranian prisons are satisfactory then - for third world standards! It also has to do with the close relations between governments and mostly because if they did grant asylum, it would reflect most badly on them; after all Iraq is their swamp; Afghanistan is not fit to live in...

Saying that all those who do get here from Iran, Iraq and Afghanistan deserve the right to asylum is not so farfetched. It is like saying all those who fled the racial apartheid of South Africa had a right to asylum; or all those who fled Nazi Germany had a right to asylum.

So too people fleeing political Islam have a right to asylum. Full stop.

To see pictures of the sit-in, click here.

To read more about the bogus UK asylum policy, click here.

To support the sit-in and the International Federation of Iranian Refugees' campaign, click here.

Support Iranian asylum seekers' sit-in
Three days sit-in in London in protest to the Home Office's asylum laws
(27-29 March in front of parliament)

Thousands of asylum seekers who have fled the Islamic regime of Iran and have come to Britain are faced with appalling and inhumane conditions. Many have either been refused asylum and issued removal orders or are in the precarious situation of waiting. An illegal, unsafe and unprotected life has been imposed on many of them.

According to reports published by the Home Office, in 2005 alone more than 600 Iranian asylum seekers were deported back to the Islamic regime of Iran and many more are at risk of being deported in the future. Deporting Iranian asylum seekers to an Islamic dictatorship is taking place despite the fact that any opposition is violently crushed, dissidents suppressed, executions have increased, unfair trials are norms, freedom of speech and press is denied, and human rights are violated with impunity.

In recent months, several political activists have been executed; a number of young, teenaged gay boys have been hung publicly in Mashhad; hundreds of opponents in different cities and towns have been arrested and imprisoned and the Islamic government is intending to execute some of them. Also some labour activists have been arrested, tortured and imprisoned.

The flagrant violations of human rights by the Islamic Republic of Iran have concerned many human rights organisations and even some western governments! They have condemned state violence against the population at large. It is interesting to note that the British government is amongst those countries condemning the Islamic regime of Iran for violating human rights but the truth is that its condemnations are nothing more than politicking for its own political benefits not anything else!

The British government is not concerned that people in Iran are stoned to death, executed, imprisoned, tortured and faced with sexual apartheid. All it wants is to stop asylum seekers from coming here at any cost. The fact that people, who flee persecution, are directly or indirectly victims of British or western government’s policies, is not of any concern to them.

The current policy of the British government towards asylum seekers is totally arbitrary, irresponsible and inhumane Following our “life without fear” campaign and in protest against these inhuman policies, the International Federation of Iranian Refugees in the UK is organising a three day sit-in protest on Monday- Wednesday 27- 29 March in London in front of Parliament.

The International Federation of Iranian Refugees (IFIR) in the UK and the participants of this sit-in demand the following:

1- Iran under the Islamic Republic is not a safe country. No Iranian asylum seeker should be deported to Iran;
2- There should be an immediate stop to all detentions of Iranian asylum seekers. All those currently in detention in British prisons for the ‘crime’ of seeking asylum should be freed;
3- Given the present suppressive nature of the Islamic Republic of Iran, the British government must change its policy towards the asylum seekers and grant them refuge.

We urge all humanitarian organisations and individuals, trade unions, and all freedom lovers to support our campaign for “a life without fear” and our three day sit-in.

For more information, please contact Siamak Amjadi, the Secretary of the International Federation of Iranian Refugees, UK Branch.

Tel: 07946 75 25 34 or 07931 866 985
ifiruk@yahoo.com
BM Box 1919
London WC1N 3XX

Maryam Namazie

Err, secularism is not a religion

Today, I took part in the Heaven and Earth TV Programme on BBC with Stephen Green of Christian Voice infamy. The bible-thumper (he had actually brought his bible with him) kept equating his religious belief with my demand for secularism and said basically that if one is to be imposed why not his 'world view' from the middle ages...

Err, because secularism isn't a religion. Secularism is a basic minimum for society and says you have a right to belief or superstitious mumbo jumbo as long as it is kept apart from the state and educational system. This benefits the religious as well as the non-religious though of course not the likes of him but they aren't happy unless there is a stoning taking place.

Now, this isn't rocket science. Even if someone is a Christian, she or he doesn't necessarily want to live under the system Green has in mind (now that's an understatement). Also, there are a lot of other people in society with other religions and with no religion who won't survive a second under Green's heaven on earth.

And of course there is that one small problem; even if there is historical amnesia about Christianity's inquisitions and witch burnings - there are ample current examples of religion in power – none of them very pretty I might add - to turn anyone off.

Maryam Namazie

Freedom of Expression: No ifs and buts

* In Iran, Tehran bus workers demanding their rights have been arrested, including their wives and children, and some tortured.
* In Afghanistan, teachers defending the right of girls to an education are threatened with death.
* In Iraq, women's rights activists are threatened for demanding equality and freedom.
* In Iran, journalists who published a satirical article comparing the advent of Khomeini to AIDS are languishing in prison...
* In Yemen, Mohammad Al Asadi, an editor, is facing execution for recounting how Mohammad approved of the killing of a woman who had insulted him.

The list is endless...

Too many more nameless, faceless human beings across the globe are maimed, threatened, killed, bound and gagged for speaking out and expressing themselves.

And it's not just 'over there', but right here...

* A website in Sweden publishing the Mohammad caricatures is shut down.
* Editors are fired in France.
* The Behzti play is shut down after Sikhs are offended by it.
* A Scottish cancer charity is intimidated into not accepting money raised by Jerry Springer the Opera.
* Writers living and writing here, including myself, are threatened with death on threads of umma.net.
* People are arrested and summoned to court for carrying placards or flyers with the Mohammad caricatures on them [in fact Reza Moradi was told he will be summoned to court for 'offending' someone because he carried a placard with the Mohammad caricatures at the March 25 free speech rally - more on this later].



Clearly, free speech and expression are not luxuries or western values. They are essential for people everywhere.

And what more and more people are standing up and saying after government upon government and organisation upon organisation demanded apologies for the Mohammad caricatures and gave them on all our behalves is that they are not up for sale.

We know better.

Any limits on free speech & expression are really attempts by those in power or vying for power to limit our rights and the rights of the population at large.

Don't be duped into thinking otherwise.

And that is why the defence of free speech and expression are so intrinsically linked to the defence of other rights. You cannot defend one without the others. You cannot defend one without also defending the right to asylum, the right to strike and organisation, labour rights, women's and children's rights, the right to live in a secular society, the right to equality and freedom, universal rights, the right to religion and atheism and belief as a private matter, the right to live lives worthy of 21st century humanity and of course vice versa. You cannot defend humanity without defending its right to speak and express itself...

For this, nothing can be deemed sacred except the human being.

Defining certain expressions and speech as sacred is merely a tool for the suppression of society; saying speech and expression offends is in fact an attempt to restrict it.

And of course what is held most sacred and deemed to offend the most especially in this New World Order is criticism and ridiculing of religion and its representatives of earth.

Why do it if it offends? Because it must be done.

Because ridiculing is a form of criticism, is a form of resistance, is a serious form of opposing reaction!

Whilst we may all be sometimes offended by some things, it is religion and the religious that are offended all of the time. They alone seem to have a monopoly on being offended, saying their beliefs are a no go area, and silencing all those who offend.

And don't think this reactionary rightwing political Islamic movement is only offended by a criticism of Islam or Mohammad. [I am focusing on this because it is a movement in power.] It is offended if you hold hands on the streets, have sex outside of marriage; it is offended if you are unveiled or improperly veiled; it is offended if you listen to certain music or if you teach evolution and science or if you dare to teach girls; it is offended if you are gay; if you are a woman; – many of which are by the way punishable by death or at the very least flogging and imprisonment in many countries under the rule of Islam....

It is interesting how the political Islamic movement kills, it maims, it humiliates - with Islam as its banner - and we are not even allowed to ridicule and criticise it.

Religion considers a woman as worth half a man, gays as perversions, sex outside of marriage as sinful, and so on and so forth but it is a few caricatures that are offensive!

Offensive or not, sacred or not - religion and superstition – Islam, Christianity, Hinduism, Judaism, Scientology and so on - must be open to all forms of criticism and ridicule.

It must be first and foremost because religion is not something from eras past but because it is as a political movement wreaking havoc across the world. Not a second passes without some atrocity being committed by it. It hangs people from cranes and lamp posts, it stones people to death – in the 21 century – with the law even specifying the size of the stone to be used, it amputates and decapitates.

It must be criticised and ridiculed because that is how throughout history reaction was pushed back.

That is how throughout history society has managed to advance and progress.

Why this should be seen as an attack on Muslims or Christians or Sikhs or Scientologists per se is beyond me. Is an attack on the belief and practice of Female Genital Mutilation an attack on girls who have been mutilated? Is the criticism of Israeli state terrorism an attack on Jews? Is an attack on the BNP that promotes Christian culture or the Christian Council of Britain it has recently established, or the ridiculing of Jesus racism against Christians? No of course not. And the same applies to the Muslim Council of Britain, Hamas, the Islamic Regime in Iran and the Mohammad caricatures.

Islamophobia - and now by the way the Church has asked that Christianity-phobia also be included in UN rights terminology – none are racism because criticisms of a religion, idea, a belief and even the practices that result from beliefs – even a phobia and hatred against beliefs have nothing to do with racism against real live human beings.

Saying it is so is merely part of the effort to make it such in order to silence criticism of religion and the political movement that holds it up as its banner.

The world is today threatened and taken hostage by two poles of terrorism. The state terrorism led by the United States on the one hand and the political Islamic movement on the other share a lot more than they let on. After all they were former friends and many of them still are. Both use religion to attack the gains made by humanity in centuries past. Both defend religion and use it.

Freedom of speech and expression are one of the few means at the disposal of many to resist this terrorism and its attack on universal values and norms.

We must defend it unconditionally. There can be no ifs and buts.

The above was Maryam Namazie's speech at a free speech march in Trafalgar Square in London on March 25, 2006.

Sad but true

There has been much talk about my participation and that of others in the March for Free Expression which was held on March 25 in Trafalgar Square. Though much of it is quite absurd, some need commenting nonetheless.

Let me first say that I find the criticism of being allied(!) with or even in coalition with the rightwing because some loathsome rightwing organisations also had speakers at the event quite astounding. The march wasn't organised by the rightwing, had a very sensible statement of purpose, and many other good speakers. With this logic, I would be allying myself with Stephen Green of Christian Voice notoriety for debating the notion of religion and the public sphere on BBC TV's Heaven and Earth programme the day after. And maybe also allying with the BBC – known for its manufacturing of consent... Follow this logic and I would have allied myself with the political Islamic movement had I spoken at an antiwar rally (which I would have if I had been allowed).

This unfortunate stance only helps maintain this Left's irrelevance by giving it the excuse it needs to turn its back on the power struggles taking place on crucial issues over the fate of society.

They rather scurry off and leave the scene to be dominated by the right – even when no such hegemony exists!

My dear friends, the strike-breaking, reactionary rightwing is incapable of defending free speech and expression as those freedoms cannot be defended in a vacuum.

Rather than stepping in to unequivocally defend these freedoms, you scurry off and vacate the scene, call on others to do so as well and label all who speak or attend as allying with the right! Please do not give away the efforts of others to the rightwing to excuse your own inaction!

I on the other hand believe it my duty to fight at the forefront of the political scene and confront other tendencies and perspectives where I can.

Of course, let me add that I am addressing those who can still be called Left.

For those who deem any defence of universal rights, freedoms and norms, racism against Muslims I can say only this: Allying with the right is something you actually seem to know a lot more about so please do tell – what do you think the political Islamic movement you defend is?

Maryam Namazie

Not another Iraq!

On the anniversary of the war on Iraq, we watch on our TV screens with complete disbelief and horror at the abyss that was once a country albeit a dictatorship. Though we always said this would happen, it is still so hard to believe that things can actually always get so much worse than we had allowed ourselves to imagine.

U.S. Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld says that terrorists in Iraq are attempting to stoke sectarian tension and spark civil war. What else did he really expect when all they have done is divide and compartmentalise the country into ethnic and religious blocks via their own form of state terrorism?

The current situation is a direct result of the USA's war and policies on Iraq. Of course Islamic terrorists are taking advantage of the situation to gain access to power – though some have already been mainstreamed into the Iraqi government, thanks to the USA. They too have turned Iraq into their killing fields.

As every day goes by, it becomes painfully clear for all that neither the Islamist herds, nor the ethnocentric gangs and thugs let loose on society, nor the US-led 'liberators' can bring about a humane and 21st century solution to this swamp that was once called Iraq. They are in fact themselves the problem.

And in all this tragedy and chaos, UK Foreign Secretary Jack Straw says he wants to help the Iranian people have a freer and more prosperous future – that the Iranian people deserve better! Isn't that what they said about the people of Iraq and Afghanistan! And we have seen the prosperity they have brought for them!

To Jack Straw and Donald Rumsfeld: Please, if anyone is going to and can bring freedom, equality and prosperity, it is not you but the revolutionary movement fighting for the overthrow of the Islamic Republic of Iran. Your alternative is no alternative at all but more of the same.

Stand back and let us show you how it's done.

Maryam Namazie

Public Meeting on 21 March - the Islamic regime of Iran, political Islam and the right to asylum

"Life without Fear"
Public Meeting
Islamic regime of Iran, political Islam and the right to asylum

Tuesday 21st March 2006
6:00pm-9:00pm
Conway Hall
Lion Square
London
WC1R 4RL

Speaker: Maryam Namazie

Campaign for the rights of Iranian asylum seekers in the UK

We urge you all to support and join "Life Without Fear" Campaign. Together we can make a difference!
http://www.hambastegi.org/ifiruk/eng-page.htm

For more information, please contact:
Siamak Amjadi
Secretary of the International Federation of Iranian Refugees, UK Branch.
Tel: 079 4675 2534 or 079 3186 6985
ifiruk@yahoo.com