Posts for 31 Oct: Ashtiani's son and lawyer tortured, Khamenei's speech at Qom, "Islamization is no crime", Bibles desecrated in Malawi, Oklahoma's Sharia ban, Maldives' denigrating "vows exchange", Iraqi church-goers kidnapped

1. Lawyer and son of condemned woman tortured: Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani‘s son Sajjad Ghaderzade and lawyer Javid Hutan Kian have been tortured since being arrested earlier this month.
2. Khamenei's speech in Qom: he strongly criticized Iran’s enemies, saying they sought to denigrate its citizens’ religious faith, the key to Iranian success. He noted that even though the enemies attempted to sever the bond between the Iranian public and the regime, the participation of 40 million Iranians in the last presidential election showed the public’s support for the regime and Islam. The enemy’s scheme failed, and the riots that broke out after the election made Iran immune to the “social and political microbes” that threatened it. He added that, using the media, Iran’s enemies are trying to promote two ideas: Islam without clerics, and separation between religion and politics.
3. Hamas: "Islamization is no crime", among other news. We have the right to control our life according to our religion, not according to your religion. You have no religion, you are secular,” said Zahar, who is one of the group’s most influential and respected voices
4. Malawi: Bibles' desecration could signal new Muslim militancy, priests' worries. Although the school had made it clear that no Bibles were to be given to the Muslim pupils and that no one was obliged to take a copy, some Muslim youths created an uproar. They tore up the Bibles, threw them at their teachers and then threw torn pages on the streets. Some of the students denounced the Bible distribution to their religious leaders as an “insult to Islam” and claimed that they had been forced to accept a Bible.
5. Oklahoma may ban Sharia Law. Voters in Oklahoma next week will be asked to consider an unusual ballot measure: whether the state’s constitution should be amended to outlaw Sharia, the sacred law of Islam.
6. Maldives: Police arrest "celebrant" of degrading "vows exchange". Under Maldivian law non-Muslims are not permitted to marry in the Maldives, but many resorts offer ‘renewal of vows’ ceremonies. The men have not yet been formally charged, “but this is a very serious issue related to our economy,” (Police Sub-Inspector) Shiyam said.
7. Iraq: Gunmen take church-goers hostage after killing 2 at stock exchange. The gunmen are demanding that the Iraqi government release a number of detainees and prisoners inside Iraqi prisons, saying the Christian hostages will be freed in return, according to the police officials.
   

Iran Conducts Missle Tests During "War Games"

Via FOX and the AP comes the latest from the Slow Motion Train Wreck.

According to the Ayatollah Ali Khamenei the newly revealed second nuclear plant with soon become operational "and will make the enemies blind".

Now there's a redundancy. Maybe this will open a few eyes:

Report: Iran Tests 2 Short-Range Missiles in War Games
Sunday, September 27, 2009

Iran tested two short-range missiles Sunday as its elite Revolutionary Guards began several days of war games, state television reported. Press TV reported that the missiles tested were the Fateh-110 and Tondar-69, but did not give specifics on the range or other details. The report said the tests also included a multiple missile launcher.

"Iran tests two short-range missiles," Press TV said in a scrolling headline. Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps announced Saturday it would begin war games which would include surface-to-surface missile launches.

Reuters reported state radio as also saying Sunday that Tehran would test-fire a missile Monday capable of hitting Israel and U.S. bases in the Gulf region. The missile maneuvers coincide with tension over Iran's nuclear program following the disclosure of a second uranium-enrichment plant in the country.

The U.S. and its five partners trying to stop Iran's suspected nuclear weapons program plan to tell Tehran in a key meeting on Thursday that it must provide "unfettered access" to its previously secret Qom enrichment facility within weeks, an official said.

The six countries will demand that Iran prove to the increasingly skeptical group that its intentions with its various sites are peaceful and energy-related, as Iran claims, and not for weapons development, as the West believes, the official said Saturday.

Reuters reported Iran's ambassador to the U.N.'s nuclear agency watchdog, Ali Asghar Soltanieh, as saying Sunday that "fabricated Western clamor" over the facility would negatively affect its talks with world powers.

Iran's nuclear chief had said Saturday his country will allow the U.N. nuclear agency to inspect its newly revealed facility.

An aide to Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was also quoted as saying that the facility will soon become operational.

"This new plant, God willing, will soon become operational and will make the enemies blind," Mohammad Mohammadi-Golpayegani, who heads Khamenei's office, said, according to the semi-official Fars News Agency.

Washington Times: Obama Wrote to Iran's Khamenei Before Election

The Washington Times is reporting that prior to this month's elections in Iran, Obama wrote to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

By Barabara Slavin
Wednesday, June 24, 2009

Prior to this month's disputed presidential election in Iran, the Obama administration sent a letter to the country's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, calling for an improvement in relations, according to interviews and the leader himself.

Ayatollah Khamenei confirmed the letter toward the end of a lengthy sermon last week, in which he accused the United States of fomenting protests in his country in the aftermath of the disputed June 12 presidential election.

U.S. officials declined to discuss the letter on Tuesday, a day in which President Obama gave his strongest condemnation yet of the Iranian crackdown against protesters.

An Iranian with knowledge of the overture, however, told The Washington Times that the letter was sent between May 4 and May 10 and laid out the prospect of "cooperation in regional and bilateral relations" and a resolution of the dispute over Iran's nuclear program.

The Iranian, who asked not to be named because of the sensitivity of the topic, said the letter was given to the Iranian Foreign Ministry by a representative of the Swiss Embassy, which represents U.S. interests in Iran in the absence of U.S.-Iran diplomatic relations. The letter was then delivered to the office of Ayatollah Khamenei, he said.

The letter was sent before the election, whose outcome - delivering a supposed landslide to incumbent President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad - has touched off the biggest anti-government protests in Iran since the 1979 Islamic Revolution.

The Obama administration, while criticizing a violent crackdown on demonstrators by Iranian security forces, has said that it will continue efforts to engage the Iranian government about its nuclear program and other issues touching on U.S. national security...


In a lengthy sermon Friday that reaffirmed the disputed re-election of Mr. Ahmadinejad, Ayatollah Khamenei made an oblique reference to a letter from the U.S. but embedded the reference in a diatribe against purported U.S. interference in Iranian affairs.

"The American president was quoted as saying that he expected the people of Iran to take to the streets," Ayatollah Khamenei misquoted Mr. Obama as saying, according to a translation by Mideastwire.com.

"On the one hand, they [the Obama administration] write a letter to us to express their respect for the Islamic Republic and for re-establishment of ties, and on the other hand they make these remarks. Which one of these remarks are we supposed to believe? Inside the country, their agents were activated. Vandalism started. Sabotaging and setting fires on the streets started. Some shops were looted. They wanted to create chaos. Public security was violated. The violators are not the public or the supporters of the candidates. They are the ill-wishers, mercenaries and agents of the Western intelligence services and the Zionists."

Read the rest at the WT.

No wonder getting Obambi to denounce the attacks on protestors was like pulling teeth. Assuming revolution does not happen and the election stands, will he follow up on the contacts proposed in that letter anyway? And what position will Khamenei, Ahmadinejad and the rest be able to assume in those circumstances? If K&A planned for this rigged election to act as the starting bell for the all-out race to nuclear capability, did the track just get faster or sloppier?