Iran

Sentenced to 90 lashes and a year in prison.

That’s was the verdict Marzieh Vafamehr received. Her crime? Acting in a film about an actress whose work is banned by Iranian authorities. No prizes for spotting the irony there.

Public whippings should outrage and anger us. Yet compared to a year in jail, these 90 lashings will most likely be the humane aspect of the sentence.

Continue reading "Cruelty just a part of everyday life in today’s Iran" »

Today’s news that an Iranian actor faces a year’s jail and 90 lashes for starring in a South Australia-funded film is an affront to justice, artistic license and about 100 other things. It is, however, very good news for a certain K Rudd.

The man who was Prime Minister until he walked backwards into a very long scimitar has had a good week. Not since he confronted a jaded John Howard and his despised WorkChoices at the 2007 election has Rudd been presented with such a string of scenarios tailor-made for his popularity.

If politics is normally the equivalent of facing missiles hurled at 100 miles an hour, this week has been T-Ball for Rudd. First, he out-manouevred Gillard with the Kuta Kid, owning the news cycle and making Gillard’s phone call to the boy’s cell look like a desperate grab for attention. Now he’s got the chance to go into bat for Iranian actor Marzieh Vafamehr.

Continue reading "This must be a job for SuperKevin…" »

In a letter to IOC boss Jacques Rogge, Iran’s Olympic Committee chief Mohammad Aliabadi has today declared the London 2012 Olympics logo racist, because apparently, you can see the word Zion in it, if you twist your neck 45 degrees and drink half a bottle of the kind of spirit which is heavily frowned upon in Iran.

The obvious cynical, Western reaction is to point out that Iran is trying to distract its own populace from overthrowing the state by drumming up anger about yet another trumped-up fiendish Israeli plot.

But here at The Punch, we’re not so sure. We think the Iranians may actually be onto something. Because if you look at Olympic logos down the years, it appears many of them were trying to tell us something we were all too swept up in Olympic fever to notice.

Continue reading "Is the London 2012 logo a racist, Zionist plot?" »

In the last few days we’ve seen that the rumours of the demise of the green movement in Iran have been greatly exaggerated.

With thousands taking to the streets with chants of ‘Mubarak, Bin Ali – It’s your turn Sayed Ali’, many are asking the question whether Iran be the next Egypt. The simple answer is no.

Iran isn’t the next Egypt. In fact, in a few months it’ll be more likely that Egypt will be the next Iran. To understand what I mean we have to go back a little more than three decades.

Continue reading "Tragically, Iran will not be the next Egypt" »

We have all met “truthers”. You know, the kind of conspiracy theorist who believes that every evil event was concocted at a secret military facility in the basement at Fort Dix, Georgia, or some such place.

Last week Iran’s President Ahmedinejad’s appeared before the UN General assembly. He told the assembled leaders that most of the world believed that the US government was responsible for the destruction of the World Trade Centre in 2001.

So now we have the phenomenon of a national leader as a “truther”. Ahmedinijad’s bizarre speech – the latest in a long series – gives an important insight into the nature of the regime in Tehran, a regime which may soon have its finger on the bomb.

Continue reading "Sanctions the best way to crush Ahmedinijad - for now" »

War broke out between Iraq and Iran today in 1980 following weeks of border clashes between the two nations.

And it’s Wednesday at The Punch, so what’s on your mind? Share it here.

Considering the complex cloak and dagger diplomacy surrounding US-Iran relations deputy US State Department Spokesman Robert Duguid comes out with a pretty open account of how and why the State Department asked Twitter not to close down during the post-election uprising in Iran. 

“We don’t have anyone on the ground in Iran; we haven’t since our hostages were set free in 1981. So for us just knowing the information was coming out that this real information, or at least piecemeal information that you knew was happening on the day was important,” Mr Duguid told The Punch from Washington.

“It was also evident to us that without social media being available that those groups who were opposing the crackdown and opposing the election results would not have a voice. So yes we learnt that Twitter was going to go down for maintenance. So we talked about it upstairs at the public affairs section, and one of our number knew the folks at Twitter.”

Continue reading "The diplomatic tightrope in the age of Social Media" »

There’s a story, though it may be apocryphal, about Henry Kissinger and the Chinese leader Zhou EnLai.

Kissinger was in Beijing preparing the ground for what was to become the historic rapprochement between the US and China, and one afternoon, while strolling in the garden,  he asked the Premier what he thought were the historical consequences of the French Revolution.

“It’s too soon to tell”, was the septuagenarian Zhou’s reply. It’s not a bad joke, but like a lot of good jokes there’s something in it.

Continue reading "A democratic future for Iran? It’s too soon to tell" »

Note: The ABC’s Mark Colvin from the PM program gave this speech yesterday at the Media140 conference in Sydney.

Since I’ve been asked to speak about Iran – and I will speak more about it shortly – I want to begin by acknowledging that in the last 24 hours, people – many of them young people – have been shot at, beaten and arrested in Tehran and other Iranian cities.

It’s the thirtieth anniversary of the sacking of the US Embassy in Tehran - a key part of the Iranian Revolution – which turned into the Islamic Revolution – and demonstrators have been out on the street, turning the Republic’s own slogans against it, shouting ‘Marg bar Diktator’, Death to the Dictator, instead of ‘Marg bar Amrika’, Death to America.

The reaction has been swift and violent. It’s a reminder that whatever power Twitter may have it is as nothing against determined men with guns and batons. I’m reminded of Peter Cook’s evaluation of the power of satire. It “did so much”, he said, “to prevent the rise of Hitler in pre-war Germany”.

Continue reading "Iran, Twitter and the new media world" »

At some ungodly hour this morning I was standing in my dressing gown on the driveway with the neighbours waiting for someone to come and turn off the deafening fire alarm - there was no fire.

As I stood there contemplating the sheer injustice of losing 20 minutes sleep I was overcome with the urge to Tweet about my peril.

Luckily, before I unleashed my self-indulgent rant I looked at the Twitter feed on my phone and all of a sudden my situation didn’t seem quite so bad.

Continue reading "The Iran election has changed the mood on Twitter" »