Eight employees of the British embassy in Tehran have been arrested:
The arrests were first reported by Iran’s semi-official Fars news agency.
“Eight local employees at the British embassy who had a considerable role in recent unrest were taken into custody,” Fars said, without giving a source.
No evidence has been provided either.
This is not 1979. Local employees do not have diplomatic immunity, so that Rubicon has not been crossed. However, it is an ugly echo, perhaps intended on the part of the regime.
What to do? Javanmardi! This short post and video at Potkin Azarmehr’s blog caught my eye earlier today. It is reproduced here with his permission:
We Are Iranians and You Should be Too
Look at the nobility of the Iranian freedom protesters once again. The riot guards are trapped in what seems to be a dead end. The mass of protesters facing them are ready to give them a battering they deserve, yet the Iranian trait of ‘Javanmardi’, the noble tradition of the strongmen protecting the weak, shows again in this clip. Leaders tell the protesters to hold back and one of them is heard telling the riot guards, ‘We are Iranians and you should be too, so be off’. Will all these honourable virtues finally have an impact on these brainwashed savages?
There are daily demonstrations outside the Iranian embassy in London at 16 Prince’s Gate SW7, starting at 6 PM on weekdays and 4 PM on weekends. Please join in if you can.
No javanmardi for Daud Abdullah and Mohamad Nasrin Nasir. In an obscene gesture, next month they will deliver speeches on “liberation” at the Islamic Centre of England, a face of the regime in London.
The universal theology of Liberation: Views from Muslim history
22 July 2009Talk and Q&A with Dr. Mohamad Nasrin Nasir and Dr. Daud Abdullah.
With a set by performance poet ‘Truthseeker’Wednesday 22 July 2009
6.00 – 8.30p.m.
Programme starts with light buffet, tea and coffee
The Library, Islamic Centre of England, 140 Maida Vale, London, W9
Entry is freeProfiles of speakers
Dr. Nasir is a colleague from Malaysia. His research interests include the spread of the Ibn al-‘Arabi school to southeast Asia, Malay Sufism, Islamic thought in general and the school of Mulla Sadra in particular. He is a co-editor of Palestine Internationalist which is a web based journal focusing on Palestinian affairs. He was formerly Head of the MPW Department at University College Sedaya International in Kuala Lumpur. The Department was responsible for teaching philosophy of Morals as well as Islamic studies and Malaysian Studies. He is also part of the academic staff at the Islamic College for Advanced Studies in the UK.Dr. Daud Abdullah is senior researcher at the Palestinian Return Centre (www.prc.org.uk) based in London, UK, and is a well known writer and activist on issues pertaining to Palestine. He is author of A History of Palestinian Resistance, and lectures in Islamic Studies at Birkbeck College, University of London.
Nasir’s “Palestine Internationalist” is a pathetic Israel hatred journal where you will find articles by luminaries such as Victoria Brittain, Sukant Chandan, Rashid al Ghannoushi, Roland Rance and Yvonne Ridley.
For the Maida Vale centre’s politics, please see this ode to Khomeini from a conference held there earlier this month. A sick-making sample:
The Conference was opened by the welcoming speech of Hujjatul-Islam Moezzi director of the Islamic Centre of England. Mr Moezzi called Imam Khomeini a revolutionary and inspirational figure for the Muslim world, when the Ummah was in the clutches of oppression and tyranny. He described Imam Khomeini as an unparalleled revivalist of the Ummah (Islamic world wide community). Hujjatul-Islam Moezzi added that one of the contributions of the Imam was that the revitalization of Islam by re-establishing it as a religion of active movement together with the rejection of injustice and oppression.
Some people don’t even know what nobility is.
