On the Occasion of another Sangsar in Iran

From:  hbzadeh@btinternet.com
Date:  Sat May 26, 2001  3:37 am

Subject:  Re: [iranscope] [repost] On the Occasion of another Sangsar in Iran
 

Thanks again for your compliments. As you have observed, things (on HR
in Iran) have not moved alot since then. Best ragards,

-hossein

Sam Ghandchi wrote:
>
> From: Sam Ghandchi ghandchi@home.com
> Date: Friday, May 25, 2001 9:00 PM
> Newsgroups: soc.culture.Iranian
> Subject: [repost] On the Occasion of another Sangsar in Iran
>
> khabar kootah bood. on May 21, 2001, an Iranian porn movie
> star was stoned to death in Evin's prison, when the agents of
> this Islamic Republic of Iran frequent all kinds of porn shows
> in the West, by their own admission on soc.culture.iranian
> newsgroup, and these agents have posted all kinds of pornography
> on SCI in the last few years and these hypocrites stone a porn
> movie star.
>
> The news about the stoning of this woman is available on the net now.
>
> I first wrote the following article in 1994 on the occasion of stoning
> an Iranian woman in Iran and this article gave rise to a human rights
> action group on SCI, which became Iranian Human Rights Working
> Group (IHRWG) and it has been campaigning for human rights in
> Iran in the last 7 years, thanks to the tireless efforts of people like
> Dr. Hossein Bagher Zadeh. Below is a link to his new article
> on this sangsar:
>
> www.iran-emrooz.de/yaddasht/bagerz0302.html
>
> My congratualtions to the IHRWG and Dr. Hossein bagher Zadeh
> for its worthwhile activities in the last 7 years (www.ihrwg.org)
>
> - Sam Ghandchi, Publisher
> IRANSCOPE
> May 25, 2001
> http://www.IRANSCOPE.com
>
> ***************************************
> Here is what I wrote in those days:
>
> http://www.ghandchi.com/27-Stoning.htm
>
> Stop Stoning the Women in Iran
> [Five Years Later]
>
> From: Sam Ghandchi <ghandchi@home.com>
> Newsgroups: soc.culture.iranian
> Subject: [Five Years Later] Stop Stoning the Women in Iran
> Date: Sat, 04 Dec 1999 09:51:59 GMT
>
> Hello Everyone,
>
> The following is a repost of my March 15, 1994 article
> in SCI, with the same heading. This article led to the
> formation of Iranian Human Rights Working Group (IHRWG).
> Please see the following URL for details (which is
> also attached at the end below):
>
>
> http://iranscope.ghandchi.com/Anthology/IHRWG.htm
>
> Now looking back, I would say if I was writing this article
> today, surely I would not write it the same way, but the gist of
> it would be the same, and in fact it proved to be true that
> the campaign for stopping stoning and other similar barbaric
> practices of Islamic Republic of Iran (IRI), even within the
> IRI, was possible and actually this is what five years later,
> moderates of this very system itself, the journalists of "Zan"
> magazine in Iran, were trying to do, when asking for ending
> this barbaric practice of stoning, using religious arguments,
> right before being shut down.
>
> These are the kind of demands that the reformers of the system
> like Ayatollah Nouri and Shamsolvaezin today, are going to jail
> for. So I would not care as much that they are the ones who
> supported this system five years ago. Instead, I think what they
> say today shows that thanks to the efforts of Iranian people and
> the human rights activists, even a segment of the regime itself
> is now believing and demanding the end of such practices, within
> this system.
>
> But I think today it is not enough to ask for ending these
> practices within this theocracy of Islamic Republic of Iran.
> I think it is now obvious for Iranian people that no reform
> within the religious apartheid system of Islamic Republic
> of Iran can end the human rights abuses in Iran.
>
> It is now obvious that religious state, theocracy itself, must
> be voted out and should be replaced with a secular democratic
> republic of Iran. Anything short of this is really not conducive
> to democracy and realization of human rights in Iran. Theocracy
> should be put to a referendum in Iran and should be *voted out*.
>
> Asking for separation of state and religion is not just a
> theoretical conclusion today. It is the result of 20 years
> of religious apartheid in Iran that Iranian people see it
> so well that they do not want a mollah government and want
> the separation of state and religion and want a democratic and
> progressive government that can guarantee the human rights
> and progress for Iran, as humanity enters the 21st Century.
>
> ******************************************
> From: Sam Ghandchi
> Newsgroups: soc.culture.iranian
> Subject: STOP STONING THE WOMEN IN IRAN
> Date: Tues, 15 Mar 1994
>
> Dear X,
>
> Actually I was planning not to do any thing else and just
> spend two weeks with my family until I received the
> IRAN TIMES and I could not think of any other place
> except SCI to express my pain. (BTW, to answer your
> question not to be confused with Tehran-based Tehran
> Times, Iran Times is published out of Washington DC, I do
> not know who the publisher is and I can look it up if you
> want me too. Once I wrote an article in Persian and I
> mailed it to a few newspapers abroad and it happened
> that they published it. This is the same way I publish
> scientific articles in the American journals. If I like to
> publish in a journal, I submit article. They may accept it
> or they may reject it. I do not need to know the publisher's
> name. See my article entitled "Intelligent Tools,
> the Cornerstone of New Civilizations" with almost similar
> discussions, as the one I published in Iran Times, in the Fall 1985
> issue of AI Journal, the scientific journal of American
> Association for Artificial Intelligence (AAAI). So I have no
> affiliation with Iran Times except being a subscriber. I pay $70 a
> year for my subscription. You can do the same. I
> think they are the best newspaper I have ever seen
> published in Farsi. They are not a sensationalist paper.
> Unfortunately most of the Iranian newspapers such as
> the Keyhan (old version, IRI version, and the London
> version all three are this way) have large MISLEADING
> headings, and when you search the news content, you
> will see the discrepancy. In the old days, Iran Times was
> Shah-i and was distributed by Iranian Embassy in
> Washington and I did not care for it. Now they are
> independent and the closest you can get in the Iranian
> press, to what scientific journalism is supposed to be,
> something like New York Times, Washington Post, and Le
> Monde.). So much for the meta-talk.
>
> In the following, "S" indicates my own (Sam Ghandchi)
> previous posting and "X" indicates X's posting.
>
> S) Anybody who claims to be religious, whether pro-IRI
> S) or not, knows Jesus- the Prophet, right? Do you
> S) remember when Jesus saw a mob wanting to stone a
> S) prostitute, he stopped them by saying only that one
> S) among you, who has not sinned, cast the first stone.
> S) Then the mob dispersed. Can't some real Muslim in
> S) Ghom go and do the same to these mobs who are acting
> S) so barbaric?
>
> X) Well, there were and are a lot of discussion about the
> X) condition of stoning and as I know there are a lot of
> X) people against this HOKM among the scholars because
> X) of the condition in Iran and there are some who
> X) support. As I know IRI tried to stop the prtacticing of
> X) these kind of HOKMS untill the society becomes an
> X) Islamic society.
>
> As you have pointed out in the above passage and
> Dr. Hossein Bagherzadeh noted passages in his posting;
> there are Muslim scholars and theologians who do not
> think of Stoning as a proper Islamic action. Thus it shows
> that Muslims as well as non-Muslims have a choice to
> support this practice or to condemn it. My request is that
> regardless of our political, philosophic, or religious
> differences, we should do our part to put an end to this
> practice in Iran. This is a cultural issue. It is something
> very barbaric in our culture; and it must be and can be
> stopped if enough concerned individuals raise their voice.
>
> Just like the way Ozgooz is collecting a petition for
> Ayatollah Khamenei to become the Marja, we could write
> a petition and ask for the discontinuation of the stoning
> practice. I am not good at writing petitions, but I know
> there are many people on this forum and the Islamic
> forum who can do that.
>
> BTW, I think any ways the Shia followers want to choose
> their Marja is their business, but if I may , I would like to
> say that I praise Ozgooz's approach with his forms and
> petitions. Maybe in some forums it can intimidate
> Sunnis, but I would dare to say that Ozgooz's approach is
> much more democratic than the ways Marjas were
> selected in the past. In our history mostly Marjas were
> appointed by the King of the time.
>
> In the Catholic Church the ecclesiastical reform of the
> Eleventh Century and formation of the General Councils
> paved the way for scholars such as St. Thomas Aquinas
> and William of Occam (do you remember Occam's razor in
> logic?) to grow. Before then, the occupation of the
> Catholic fathers was issues of chastity of virgins and the
> prohibitions of married couples' intercourse before
> Sunday mass, or the sin of suicide.
>
> For example, six centuries before the reforms,
> St.Augustine in his "City of God" (410-412 AD) has a hard
> time to prove why suicide is a sin when he is reminded of
> Samson's suicide. He finally says that Samson was an
> exception. Does it ring a bell?
>
> When the virgins in Rome were raped by the Goths, St.
> Augustine did not know what to say about the guilt of the
> women who lost virginity, so he solved it by saying
> virginity is in your mind and if you did not feel pleasure
> when raped then you are OK. Does it ring a bell?
>
> St. Augustine also states that if you have had intercourse
> the previous night, you cannot enter the church. And
> here is why love and sex should be done as guilty actions.
> Eustochium wrote "Ever let the privacy of your chamber
> guard you; ever let the Bridegroom sport you within. Do
> you pray? You speak to the Bridegroom. Do you read?
> He speaks to you. When sleep overtakes you He will
> come behind you and puts His hand through the hole of
> the door, and your heart shall be moved for Him; and you
> will awake and rise up; "I am sick of love," Then He will
> reply" 'A garden enclosed is my sister, my spouse; a
> spring shut up, a fountain sealed". These passages
> remind me of MKO who call each other "sister" and
> "brother" and they marry each other. Their words sound
> like incest to me.
>
> At any rate, the works of the people like St. Thomas
> Aquinas and William of Occam put an end to all these
> nonsensical occupations of the Catholic Church and the
> Church started to become more interested in more
> interesting issues of natural and social sciences. Of course
> their work was not easy and for example Occam was
> summoned for charges of heresy, etc. But the work of
> these people is what remains today as the treasures of
> the Jesuits (Catholics). If you live in the San Francisco
> Bay Area, it is hard to miss their contributions to learning
> if you just pay a visit to the University of Santa Clara
> which is a Jesuit institution.
>
> I think condemning practices such as stoning and starting
> to think about real issues of our times is the contribution
> that many Iranians, Muslim or not, can make to the
> development of our culture.
>
> - Sam Ghandchi
>
> *********************************************************
> Following text was provided by IHRWG in Dec1998
>
> http://www.sciran.net/SCI/ihrwg.htm
>
> Iranian Human Rights Working Group (IHRWG) is a an Internet-based
> community of individuals committed to campaigning for the
> improvement of human rights in Iran.
>
> The following text was provided by IHRWG.
>
> It all started with the news of a yet another stoning (to death)
> in Iran in March 1994. Sam Ghandchi was outraged and posed the
> question in the electronic bulletin board soc.culture.iranian (SCI)
> if something could be done by way of petition to stop this
> barbaric practice. Hossein B. Zadeh followed it up by arguing
> that the real evil is the death penalty itself - human beings
> allowing themselves to take lives of other human beings. Then
> followed a series of correspondence in which Hossein also invited
> a group of other like-minded SCI contributors to take part.
>
> In the discussions that followed, a number of human rights issues,
> including torture and various forms of death penalty in Iran
> were raised. It was realized that organizing a thorough and
> effective campaign against any of these abuses of human rights
> in Iran required more self-education as well as a forum for
> discussion and planning actions. And so the idea of forming
> the Iranian Human Rights Working Group (IHRWG) was born.
>
> Some 14 members of the people who were involved in the discussion
> welcomed the idea and registered themselves as "founding members"
> of the group. They approved a Charter for the group and elected
> a 5-member Steering Committee in May 1994 after which the group
> was officially launched.
>
> Early in 1995, proposals were put forward for some changes in
> the Charter. As a result of these changes, the number of Steering
> Committee members was raised from five to eight and their terms
> of office from one to two years (elected on a roll-over basis).
>
> For more information about IHRWG visit their website at:
>
> www.ihrwg.org
>