India: Peaceful protest becomes persona non grata
After police used tear gas and batons to stop a celebrity on hunger strike, what hope is there for non-violent protest in India? Leo Mirani reports.
Superman and other heroes
You may have seen Superman in action, flying in to join Iranian protesters on the streets of Tehran in the current 900th anniversary issue of Action Comics, its already being reprinted. Disappointingly, the superhero doesn’t achieve much in rescuing anyone, but his visit sparks him to renounce his American citizenship, saying, “The world’s too small, too connected.”
Now boxer Muhammad Ali enters the picture, earlier this week making a plea to the Iranian government to release the American hikers held in Iran since August 2009 on spying charges. His may actually be the most effective voice — a true champion in Iranian eyes and Muslim too. Great film stars and huge rock musicians have put their names to the Iranian people’s struggle since 2009, but Ali’s involvement brought to mind a clip of a roundtable with Harry Belafonte, James Baldwin, Marlon Brando, Charlton Heston and Sidney Poitier in 1963, during the American civil rights movement. Watch for the pure eloquence of their words.
Image: Action Comics
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Press TV could face fine for Bahari prison interview
Iran’s state-run English language channel Press TV could face a hefty fine from UK TV regulators after it broadcast a prison interview with jailed journalist Maziar Bahari.
Ofcom found that the station had breached Bahari’s rights by broadcasting an interview in which he was forced to make a “televised statement about the role of the western media in the post-presidential election demonstrations”. Bahari was detained the summer of 2009, in the aftermath of that year’s Green Revolution. He was released in October after a global campaign.
Where do the dogs go?
I’ve just finished reading a piece on Global Voices about the controversial issue of owning a dog in Iran. With so many more fundamental freedoms curbed, you’d be forgiven for laughing this off. Last year an Iranian cleric issued a fatwa against keeping dogs as pets, claiming that it was only a “blind imitation of the vulgar Western culture…There are lots of people in the West who love their dogs more than their wives and children.”
Last summer, there were reports of a spate of arrests in Tehran parks, particularly of young people carrying small dogs — an opportunity for restricted youth to socialise when out with their pooches. One year on, and parliament is currently considering passing a bill banning the ownership of dogs.
This would give Iran’s morality police and other authorities free reign for further crackdown. “This bill will outlaw people living in apartments from owning dogs, and prevent all people from exercising these animals outside”, a spokesman for supporters of the bill said. “These types of behaviours are unacceptable in this nation and we will not allow these decadent attitudes to overtake our great nation. We begin and end these actions today, with this bill, for now and forever.”
But where do the dogs go? In the past the pets have been kept in “temporary prisons”. Now the government has ordered several hundred special “train cars” for the transport of the confiscated dogs. With the regime’s record of treatment of its incarcerated people, one can only imagine how these animals, deemed “unclean” and props of the enemy culture, will be treated.
For the love of dog blog and many others have responded but Hamid Tehrani presents the most interesting and humourous take from bloggers within Iran.