Iran student to be flogged 74 times, serve 2 years in prison

[truthpusher]

http://www.iranfocus.com/modules/news/article.php?storyid=1315



Iran student to be flogged 74 times, serve 2 years in prison

Sat. 22 Jan 2005
Iran Focus

Tehran, Jan. 22 – An Iranian medical student was sentenced to two years prison time and 74 lashes by Iran's Revolutionary Court on political charges, according to a state-run news agency.

Reza Ashrafpour, a young man studying dentistry in Iran's University of Medical Sciences had been charged with "acting against national security", "propaganda against the regime", "spreading panic in society", and "insulting the Supreme Leader".

It is believed that authorities were looking to convict Ashrafpour for the past two years.

Security forces have in recent months launched a new clampdown on youth and women in universities as part of a new campaign to stem the spate of anti-government protests in the country.

http://www.iranfocus.com/modules/news/article.php?storyid=1315

[Rockerdem]

1. It looks as though militant fundamentalism is on the march . . .

and gaining strength, not losing it.

[McKenzie]

9. it certainly is. The Christian Taliban for example...

<snip>

The Army of God is an underground group of anti-abortion extremists who believe that it is justifiable to use deadly force to stop abortion. The Army of God has claimed responsibility for arsons, bombings and murders.

<snip>

http://www.prochoice.org/about_abortion/violence/james_kopp.html

[proud2BlibKansan]

2. Just what we need

a reason to invade Iran. Seems like our newly crowned leader and he peeps would have learned a lesson about going after cruel regimes. Somehow I doubt it.

[skylarmae]

3. Iran, Iran, Iran, Iran...

Oh, yeah, this sounds familiar. We're already there folks. We just have to figure out what pretext georgie porgie will use to actually invade...

[ET Awful]

4. Those charges sound oddly like what Freepers accuse us of. . .

Hmmmmmm, go figure.

[ckramer]

5. Pretty soon all DUers would get the same flogging treatment

[Rockerdem]

6. You would have expected a couple of these treatments out of Aschroft

He must be slipping in his later years. Gonzalez is more into that sort of thing, I guess.

[lonestarnot]

7. Strikingly familiar accussations...we use tear gas here...D.C. protestors

and who knows what behind close doors in the name of homeland security.

[Boredtodeath]

8. For a minute, I thought they were talking about Gitmo

But the flogging part fixed that real quick - what we do is torture, not flogging.

But let's see......we've been holding Gitmo prisoners for what......3 years? and torturing them.....

So we, the almighty righteous US, once again stick our hypocrisy out for all the world to see by complaining about inhumane treatment of Iranians, right?

Pardon me while I go puke.....

[thebigidea]

10. gee, we better hurry up and install Shah 2: Electric Boogaloo

that'll make human rights SO MUCH BETTER.

as if the neocons care if Persians are oppressed.

[UL_Approved]

11. This is why the U.S. made such a mistake in Iraq

In Iraq, Saddam was certainly deadly and ruled with an iron fist. But he had things under control. We went in and destroyed the situation.

In history, we had a chance to invade in 1996 when an uprising was occurring. We looked the other way. And now, when the situation was stabilized in some manner, we invade and destroy the balance of power.

And the worst thing is, we now have now authority to take on any country that DOES have a legitimate rebellion going on. We have removed our ability to speak and act morally without massive hypocrisy.

[ashmanonar]

13. and they probably would have had some sort of powerful leader

if they were really in an uprising in 96...we could have supported that person, maybe been able to get saddam without 1400-3000 dead. (the admin says 1400, but i don't believe that for a second)

although the leader then was probably one of those militant islamics like the christians rail against...not that it stopped us before, in iran, afghanistan, etc.

ugh. honestly, this stuff has been 30 years in the making and we're getting too late to stop it.

[TexasLawyer]

12. Someone's liberty is being compromised....

Tyranny is on the march in Iran. Time to flatten Tehran with bombs, and kill everyone there in order to liberate them. Time to spend another trillion dollars and kill and maim thousands more US troops.

Not that I think the Iranian theocracy is any great shakes-- far from it. But it is not America's place to rush in, guns ablazin', and force our brand of "liberty" down their throats.

I get the distinct feeling from looking at the "IranFocus" home page that the site's promoters are unhappy with the current state of Iran. If anyone were to, say, promote the idea that Iran is tyranical, liberty-hating, and freedom-trampling, this would be the place to send folks who need convincing.

These were the news/commentary items from the home page's right-hand menu.


from Iran Focus correspondents

Iran denies allowing women to take part in presidential elections: Update (2005/1/22)

Iran student to be flogged 74 times, serve 2 years in prison (2005/1/22)

Some 16,000 unemployed doctors in Iran (2005/1/22)
Father of political prisoner in Iran says son in solitary cell (2005/1/21)

90 percent of Iran population under poverty line: MP (2005/1/21)
More »

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Nukes And Mullahs

Don't let Iran go nuclear

How to halt nuclear terrorists

The Iranian bomb




Iran Nuke Project

Diplomats: Iran Readies Uranium for Nuke Enrichment

Iran Using Lasers to Enrich Uranium - Exile Group

Iran's nuclear ambition

Iran said to be developing weapons-delivery systems

Iran 'breaking nuclear deal with secret site'

Iran's Nuclear Freeze

Preparatory text for European proposals on Iranian nuclear program

Iranian opposition makes allegations on Tehran

Iran Still Buying Centrifuge Parts Abroad: Intelligence Officials


Book Reviews

Modern Iran: Roots and Results of Revolution - Nikki R. Keddie

All the Shah's Men: An American Coup and the Roots of Middle East Terror - Stephen Kinzer

Enemies of the Ayatollahs: The Iranian Opposition and Its War on Islamic Fundamentalism - Mohammad Mohaddessin

Unveiled: One Woman's Nightmare in Iran - Cherry Mosteshar

[truthpusher]

14. Two edged sword here...

...problem is: of course these actions are horrible but they are a great excuse for Bush to invade Iran, right? The way I look at it is, Bush will invade any way he can anywhere he can. The value in posting this article has more to do with trying to understand what people are going through at the time, and getting some truth in observation, prior to Bush dragging out Condi Rice with her list of reasons why the war in Iran is justified.

[Monkie]

15. site is not news site - only anti-iran propaganda - info it might be fake

for a start the whole frontpage is only iranian bad news,i have never seen a credible news-site that only prints bad news on a single subject.

so i get the domain info for the site:

Administrative, Technical Contact:
naseri, sara [e-mail]
Association Libertes
5 rue de Douai
Paris, 75009
FR
so its a french organisation called Association Libertes

so i google "Association Libertes" iran
and get as a first result a post on some forum from 2002 where someone was wondering the same as me ;)
quote from post:
"whois on iranfocus.com

Administrative, Technical Contact:
rajabi, sara [e-mail]
Association Libertes
24 rue roger tagliana
Auvers-sur-Oise, Val d'Oise 95430
FR
0033616989739


ok.. so now i do a whois on europe.com - turns out that it's run from the U.S in New Jersey.

Administrative Contact:
Email or abuse inquiries contact [e-mail]. Law enforcement issues contact 425-226-9011
Easylink Services Corporation
33 Knightsbridge Road
Piscataway, NJ 08854
US
Phone: [phone]
Email: [e-mail]

Upshot of it , is that you've got a site with a press contact in France, but ultimately run from the States.

Shades of CIA disinfo stuff going on there like."

note how the whois info since 2002 to remove references to america

[Ms. Clio]

17. Yes, reminds me of similar "news sites" about Iraq

Before we invaded to bring them "freedom" and "democracy."

[Monkie]

20. websites must have valid contact info in domain registry

you can search that registry at www.whois.net
the technical contact info MUST have a working phone nr./email
so that email/phone/address is important to check the background of..
the second thing to check is the nameserver in the whois info,the nameserver is the server that maps ip addresses to domain names eg:

Domain servers in listed order:
NS1.PRIMARYDNS.COM
NS2.PRIMARYDNS.COM

and then you whois primarydns.com (in this example) to see where the website is hosted.
and then you search google for the names addresses and companies you discovered from the whois info.
its not always conclusive and there are often alternate explanations for the information you come across,but if for example you find a jihad site hosted in texas by a consultancy firm (i'm not joking) you have reasons for suspicion ;)

[Psephos]

22. Easy to get around disclosure by using a domain registration proxy

A number of companies offer this service. Not a bad idea, actually, in these privacy-challenged times.

[truthpusher]

19. Excellent work! I will watch these guys....

What did you do to get all the info - I checked source on my web-browser, is that how you go about it?

[Monkie]

21. oops replied to the person above you

see my previous post in this thread sorry

[TexasLawyer]

23. Good sleuthing!

The site seemed fishy to me too. It is very one-sided, and with your info it looks as if whoever runs the site has taken pains to conceal his/their motives.

[ithacan]

16. Bush propaganda: Invade Iran!!!!

that nasty iranian government is evil and oppressive!!!
We need to invade them to liberate Iran!!!

Believe me, this is the first stage of the Bush propaganda blitz for an invasion of Iran.

It was exactly the same before Iraq invasion. Suddenly the mainstream media, and especially "liberal" publications like Atlantic and New Yorker, were full of stories about how evil Saddam was, torture, anti-women, etc. etc. pushing all of those liberal buttons.

Looks like the propaganda machine is cranking up again to rally / manipulate americans to support invading Iran...

[spanone]

18. That Iran Focus website looks like an Iran hate site. CIA ?

There is nothing that tells us who owns it. I googled it and could only find stories that route me back to their websites, hangings, rigged elections, floggings, not a very flattering view of Iran. Anybody know anything about Iran Focus? Check it out: www.iranfocus.com This site is set up to spew anti-Iranian 'news'.