Propaganda of Iranian regime against Religious Minorities

Mehriran -- Speech delivered during the human rights session at the UN, Geneva on thursday, 22nd of September 2011 by Mohsen Namakian.

As you are aware, human rights situation in Iran have been extremely serious in recent years, so that the UN Human Rights Council is appointing a rapporteur to look into it.
However the Iranian authorities are claiming to comply with human rights codes and deny the actual realities in Iran, numerous documentations proves they are not pledged to keep their citizens privacy nor give respect to their belief and conscience and this has made a hell full of inquisition, threats, confinement and torture for Iranian democracy and justice-seeking civilians. The most prominent example of this matter is the events happened after presidential election 2009.

In various sections of Iran’s Constitution the authorities have been mandated to observe the rights of religious minorities as well as being prohibited for inquisition and ill-treating people according to their belief. Similarly, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights has obliged to respect human dignity and freedom of expression, and to let people to choose or change their faith and holding peaceful assembly.

Furthermore, the religious teachings and promises given by the founder of the Islamic Republic, indicate the necessity of granting freedom of expression and to avoid putting the above mentioned groups under pressure.(I won’t mention them in detail due to the time limitation).

Nonetheless, reviewing the news clearly show that the Islamic Republic officials despite their claims, virtually do not comply with none of the above mentioned codes. Instead, they are increasing the pressures on different categories such as Christians, Baha'is, Sunnis, Kurdish and other ethnic minorities, as well as political and ideological dissidents.

Let me define Ideological Dissidents as groups whose religion is not necessarily different from the Iran's religious leaders but they have been targeted by radical clergies due to their different viewpoints and interpretation of Islam. Most prominent examples of such groups are Dervishes, Ayatollah Kazameini Boroujerdi and his followers, Master Elia M (Peyman Fattahi) and his followers known as Elyasin Community and Mr. Mohammad Ali Taheri and his followers known as Inter-universals.

Based on this introduction, the actual questions are: What causes such attitudes and intolerance of dissidence viewpoints in Iran? And, where the apparent contradictions between the alleged utopia claimed by Iranian leaders and their performance have its roots in?
Some do believe that the actual regime of Iran fits completely with the criteria of sectarian regimes which include: 1- Relying on charismatic supremacy of an arrogant, self-appointed leader, 2- Strictly avoiding rationality and thought on the scene of political affairs, 3-Constitution of a pyramid of power in which the sanctity and sacred climate built by and around the higher authorities and specifically the leader, causes a serious reduction of accountability and responsibility as well as intensified tyranny and being self-opinionated. Stalin, Hitler, Saddam Hossein and Iranian governments may well exemplify the most striking models of contemporary sectarian regimes.
In such regimes brain washing methods play an important role for power retention which would act by intense controlling of mass media and censorship. In fact, authorities of such regimes tend to take advantage of any possible method to stain their oppositions just because the enlightenment and new ideas contradicts with their power and monopoly seeking acts.
Circulation of bulletins and security digests - full of lies- among people and authorities, publishing destructive articles in mass media and, round tables and serials in governmental TV are the most striking examples.
But holding exhibitions and fairs for character assassination of intellectuals and dissidents is a novel method used by radical clergies in Iran.
It’s been a while that Qom Seminary (Hawzeh Elmieh Qom) is claiming to unveil a number of demons and seditionists in its international exhibitions and fairs such as Quran’s international Fair, Digital Media Fair and Press Exhibition. In such events they have categorized the above mentioned as:

A) The Leaders of Sedition and Political Corruptors: such as Mohammad Khatami / Mir Hussein Musavi/ Mehdi Karrubi / Musavi Khoeiniha.
But the majority of people in Iran consider the so-called Leaders of Sedition as the dignitaries of Green movement and true advocates of justice and freedom.

B) The other corruptors, hypocrites and seditionists whom are known by Iranian people as the high-minded intellectuals, leaders and liberal men such as: Dr Abdolkarim Soroush, Akbar Ganji, Dr.Kadivar, Ayatollah Kazemeini Boroujerdi, Alireza Nourizadeh, Mohsen Sazgara and many others who are well known scholars, intellectuals or writers, mostly reformists or seculars.

C) The 3rd Category includes the so-called Demons whom are called Spiritual Leaders or Great Masters by the majority of people in Iran. They are very popular with youth and elites. This category includes:

1- Dalai Lama, Li Hongzhi (the founder of Falun Dafa), Dr Noor Ali Tabandeh (the Qutb of Gonabadi Dervishes), Paul Twitchell (the reviver of ancient Eckankar) and his successor Harold Clamp, and Sri Sathya Sai Baba (the great Indian Avatar and recognized world class teacher and others) , and even Paolo Coelho (one the most popular spiritual writers) have been introduced as demons and accused as promoter of heresy and faithlessness, agents of CIA and Mossad, being basically a Zionist, demons etc. by religious- security system of Iran.

2-But according to the talebanic clergies of Iran, there is a Great Satan! (or the Great Master of Thought and a world teacher named by his followers) named Elia M who has been placed in the center of picture of demons by the Talibanic Clergies of Iran.

Peyman Fattahi (well-known as Master Elia M) is the originator of Modern Elahism and has started his esoteric-oriented teachings since 20 years ago. Within the past four years, he has spent 12 months in solitary confinement and been through the most unbearable tortures to deny his fruits and to repent. Among several accusations made by the security system of Iran, the following can be highlighted:

- Attempting to unite Islam, Christianity and other religions

- Heresy / Promoting spiritual liberalism / Establishing new cult /Blasphemy/ Propaganda against the Islamic government/ Spreading perverted thoughts and fooling the public

However, there are more than 70 books on esoteric knowledge, fundamental theories, science related to mind, spirit and metaphysics by him most of which are banned by the Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance.
Official organs of Islamic Republic such as Jomhurie Islami, Kayhan, Resalat and Jam-e Jam dailies as well as Governmental TV, have spitefully named him God, the Spirit of God and the Avatar. Furthermore, they have more frequently emphasized that he is the ‘Grand Satan’.
Along with this Grand Satan (they meant Elia not the U.S, Israel or ‘the Imperialism’ which they used to call them by this term), there are some other spiritual masters whom were mentioned about earlier (named as less dangerous demons). The trend has been widely practiced by many religious-security institutions over the past three years.
In recent months there have also been TV programmes using the same strategy. The most recent is a TV series entitled Armageddon (the final battle between good and evil) which consists of 104 episodes. Some of the episodes have been replayed several times in which all of the above mentioned have been undermined and attacked and it’s been said that the American president and European leaders, most of the Western countries’ authorities and even Pope are all Satanist!
But the list is not limited to the above mentioned. Bahá'u'lláh (the founder of Baha’i Faith), and some of the most renowned world figures have been named demons and caricaturized by the governmental clergies as well. Such as:

- President Obama

- George W Bush

- Gene Sharp (the most famous international character on nonviolent struggle theories)

- And George Soros (the founder of Soros Foundations Network and the hidden man of velvet revolutions)

The last remarkable point to consider in those exhibitions were the only two pictures which were distorted by image editing techniques: Elia the founder of Elahism and President Obama.
Regarding to the topic of this panel, one of the most effective methods to encounter such demolition jobs would be improving the public awareness by spreading the information effectively, since a sectarian regime wouldn’t survive unless its people have given up thinking and left their minds to the brain washing apparatus of the system.
This could be achieved primarily by directing the public awareness toward comprehensive viewpoints about religions as well as creating the capacity to tolerate various opinions and criticism. This may help diminishing the discriminative and schismatic standpoints as well as shifting the public opinion to react instead of being just a passive observer (since the current behavior of Islamic republic with religious minorities and dissidents has its root partly on public apathy).

Based on what was said, Elyasin Human Rights has proposed an anti cruelty coalition on 2009 by which a day entitled “Universal Coalition against Religious Cruelty” could be designated by United Nations. This would be an inception to assign a workgroup for preparing a comprehensive convention revolving rejection of violence in countries with a large number of victims, and to be joined by different governments for taking proper strategies against such violent actions. For this purpose, we suggest 15th of June- the anniversary of 2009 blood-shed post election protest in Iran.