Décès de Kasra Vafadari

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Décès de Kasra Vafadari

Postby babak » Wed May 25, 2005 4:17 pm

Please visit this section dedicated to Kasra Vafadari

Nous avons appris avec infini regret la mort de Kasra Vafadari, l’une des figures les plus éminentes de la communauté Zoroastrienne de Paris.

A cet effet, une commémoration sera organisée à l’Université de Nanterre. La date exacte n’étant pas encore précisée, nous fournirons les informations utiles dans une prochaine annonce.
Last edited by babak on Thu Jan 26, 2006 5:41 pm, edited 3 times in total.
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Hommage à Kasra Vafadari

Postby babak » Tue May 31, 2005 10:34 am

Hommage à Kasra Vafadari

Lundi, 6 juin 2005 à 18h 30
Université Paris X – Nanterre
Bâtiment F

Université Paris X
200 avenue de la République 92000 Nanterre
RER A – Nanterre Université


Orateurs :
Université de Nanterre :
Jean-Pierre POLY
département histoire et anthropologie juridiques
Enseignants
département d’anglais

Externe :
Mme Homa Nategh
M. Raham Asha
Ephrem Yousefi

Musiciens :
Torabi
Bakhtiari
babak
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Compte-rendu de la commémoration

Postby babak » Tue Jun 07, 2005 12:49 pm

Compte-rendu de la commémoration

Dans l’ensemble, la commémoration s’est déroulée d’une façon convenable même si un problème technique nous a empêché de projeter le film de Kasra le montrant dans la demeure qu’il avait acheté à Yazd dans l’intention de la transformer en centre culturelle Zoroastrienne.

La vidéo de cette cérémonie sera prochainement disponible sur fravahr.org.

Remercions encore une fois M. Jean-Pierre POLY d'avoir permis l'organisation de cette soirée au sein de l'Université de Nanterre.
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His name will forever be alive in the hearts of Iranians

Postby MPG » Mon Jun 13, 2005 1:24 pm

We would like to offer our deepest condolences to the family of Dr. Kasra Vafadari who was stabbed to death by the Islamic Republic. Chairman of the MPG Party, Roozbeh Farahanipour, collaborated with Dr. Vafadari on many occasions.

This is not the first time that our national heroes and opposition figures have been murdered in France by the Islamic Republic. We are now seeing a new round of chain killings by the Islamic Republic, just as we had seen before where over 200 Iranians were killed by the Islamic Republic in Europe.

The Islamic Republic should know that killing opposition members to render their respective organizations useless is no longer a viable choice. Even if various members of the Marze Por Gohar Party are killed, our organization is strong enough to continue the Iranian struggle against Islamic Republic that currently occupies Iran.

The enemies of Iran should know, so long as there is one Iranian alive with blood pumping through his or her heart, they will continue resistance until the Islamic Republic is overthrown and an secular republic is established.

Dr. Vafadari, know that your name will forever be alive in the hearts of Iranians and you will be known as a great national hero that you are.
MPG
 

Opposition accuses regime of assassination in Paris

Postby Abteen » Mon Jun 13, 2005 1:37 pm

Opposition leaders in California held a memorial service in Los Angeles today for Dr. Kasra Vafadari, who was found dead ten days ago in his apartment in Paris, stabbed in the neck. Dr. Vafadari, a Zoroastrian cultural and political figure, had taken French citizenship and lectured on pre-Islamic religions at the University of Paris. So far, the French authorities have called his murder a domestic squabble, not a political assassination. However, if top counter-terrorism judge Jean-Louis Bruguiere picks up the case and determines that Vafadari was assassinated, it will be the first time since 1997 that the regime has chosen to strike at dissidents living outside of Iran. The previous assassination campaign claimed more than 100 victims, and was led by former president Hashemi-Rafsanjani, who is jockeying to stage a comeback in the June 17 elections.
Abteen
 

Kasra Vafadari taught us about Auto Censorship

Postby Guest » Tue Jun 14, 2005 12:37 pm

[url=http://www.persianmirror.com/community/2005/opinion/opinionFDerakhshani2.cfm]Kasra Vafadari taught us about Auto Censorship BY Firoozeh Derakhshani
[/url]
Persian MIRROR


What does Censorship mean do you think?

Our youth are already being censored sufficiently by the Zarathustrian elderly. There can hardly be much left for others to enforce censorship upon them. They are all leaving Iran. Only 26000 are left here. With the present flow of the exodus it is possible that our number would reach zero in Iran! Said Kasra on the camera for the Identity Crises series films made in regard to the UN year of the Dialogue of civilizations 20001

We were all cautious not to give a chance to those who had confiscated the hospital that Kasra's Grandfather Mr. A. Firouzgar had built in Tehran, as well as a number of other voluntary social services, and properties made by them to reinforce the Zarathustrian minority in Iran.

His mother Meherangiz Firouzgar was exceptionally brave until the end of her life at the age of 83= 20001 although she had cancer for about 20 years .and heart problems she was taken to political prison and stabbed on the streets of her neighborhood the Vanak village when she defended herself and her children's rights to their belonging that was mostly inherited from her father.

Despite of all these facts that our documentary research team presented as evidence since 1999 the average Iranian always claims that the Zarathustrian are never mistreated in Iran. (Total denial???) When the film shows (indicates by images and not words to observe the self censorship rule for the safety and protection of the subject as well as those interviewed on camera) that all their schools in the remote villages of Yazd have been confiscated, as well as their cemetery they protest and tell me( the film maker) that I am out-seizing the issue by focusing on it. They say that this minority has been treated just like other minorities in Iran be it the phenomena of the ""brain drainage", the suppression of women etc. Many condemn me for having paid attention to a minority issue while they consider me as belonging to the majority , thereby censored from the right to peruse inquiries into minority issues which raises human rights issues and unwisely has allowed the world to stigmatize Iranians as "terrorists" as a whole.

The senselessness of auto-censorship is sad to say the very least The chaos caused by the 1979 revolution has become legitimized and institutionalized breading new power elites from the younger generation born after the revolution who compose about 30 million under the age of 30.

Wisdom

Kasra was concerned about the Zarathustrian case not because he was predijuced for his own he was basically a contemporary Western civilization history teacher, as well as an ancient Persian history specialist. He focused on cultural activities but he was aware of the distribution of opportunity for the sustenance of the Zarathustrian in Iran. He wanted to create jobs for them to enable them to stay. Unfortunately those accepted by the government since 1979 have to observe the governing conditions very stringently. This is an example of the auto-censorship that was discussed

Earlier, thereby compelling people to behave inspire of themselves and appear as they are told even if that would be immediately against their very survival. Total denial is the way that total suppression create in modernizing third world countries .All that Kasra did to pinpoint some light upon the matter, or to enable us to rationalize about it cannot be forgotten. It is hard to believe that his ex French wife could have been responsible for stabbing him to death at his own apartment in Paris with an extreme degree of cruelty. He did not deserve such an atrocious end to a life full of kindness to all enthusiasm for the happiness of human beings, and giving ness. Shame on those who knew him and prefer to allow censorship to exercise total denial in respect to Kasra Vafadari.
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IRANIANS IN FRANCE MUST RISE UP AGAINST FRENCH GOVERNMENT

Postby Khorshid » Tue Jun 21, 2005 5:05 pm

ALL IRANIANS IN FRANCE MUST RISE UP AND DEMONSTRATE AGAINST FRENCH GOVERNMENT & DON'T ALLOW FRENCH GOVERNMENT TO GET AWAY WITH IT LIKE WITH DR. BAKHTIAR'S. THEY ALLOWED DR. BAKHTIAR'S KILLERS TO ESCAPE.
Can someone start a petition to French Government and copy EU countries?

These are SHO'ARHAYE TUKHALI.

Rise up against the French government? Why not suggest something more practical, and sane, like simply show your support for our compatriots wearing chains around their necks and getting beaten up by the Belgian police?

You can sign petitions till you're red in the face, or you can DO something.
Khorshid
 

DISCRIMINATION OF MINORITIES IN ISLAMIC IRAN DENONCED

Postby Guest » Tue Jun 21, 2005 5:20 pm

DISCRIMINATION OF RFELIGIOUS MINORITIES IN ISLAMIC IRAN DENOUNCED

By Safa Haeri, IPS Editor

Sources : click here

LONDON 12TH FEB. (IPS) A senior Iranian Sunni leader charged Friday the Islamic regime of Iran led by its leader, the ayatollah Ali Khameneh'i to carrying out a deliberate policy aimed at "smashing and slaughtering" Iranian Sunnis by pushing them into an "outright rebellion" against the present ruling Shi'a authorities.

The harsh accusation was made by Dr. Abdolrahim Mollahzadeh, a London-based Iranian Sunni dissident cleric as a Shi'a opponent warned the present ruling authorities that if the senior maraje' or sources of emulation are not ordering a jihad, or holly war against them it was just because they did not want a "blood bath" in the country.

Addressing a three days conference on "The Aftermath of 20 Years Islamic Revolution in Iran" organised by the Paris-based Association of the Iranian Researchers (AIR) Mr. Mollazadeh said basic rights of the country's major religious minorities, chief among them the Sunni Muslims are suppressed by the present Shi'as only system of Iran.

Held at the School of African and Oriental Studies (SOAS), the conference's debut was marred by the "disappearing" of one of the key speakers in Dr Kasra Vafadari, a Paris-based university professor who was to open the afternoon session lecturing on the situation of the Zoroastrians in Iran.

According to conference sources as well as his French wife, Mr. Kasra went to have coffee with two unidentified men who wanted to talk to him during the coffee break and did not show up since.

"Kasra is known for his punctuality and seriousness and as far as I know of him, he is not involved in politics nor any activity against the Iranian regime", Mr. Hossein Lajevardi, the president of the AIR told IPS.

(As this item was about to be put on the Web, it was learned that professor Kasra was found, safe and well. "He was not abducted and as far as we are concerned, the case is over", a London Police spokesman told the IPS, without any explanation concerning his whereabouts during the 8 hours of his disappearing).

Tightly controlled by the Shi'ites, Islam's minority branch to which adheres the majority of Iranians, the Sunnis numbers between 15 to 20 millions out of the 65 millions Iranian inhabitants, making them the nation's largest religious minority.

Sunnis makes the overwhelming majority of the one billion Muslims world over and the Shi'ites a small minority, with over 200 millions only, most of them in Iran.

Christians, Zoroastrians and the Jews, with respectively between 250.000 to 300.000, 200.000 to 250.000 and 25.000 to 30.000 faithful are the three other minor religious minorities officially recognised by the regime having MPs in the Majles (the Parliament), leaving the 300.000 Baha'is as the only religious group that not only is not recognised, but ruthlessly suppressed.

"It's more than five century that the Sunnis, who are Muslims and were supposed to enjoy the same rights as the Shi'ites are suppressed in Shi'a Iran", Dr Mollahzadeh told an astonished audience, explaining that as a result of a carefully planed policies upheld by the Shi'ites, the Sunnis were "systematically" expelled from cities to remote regions, mostly to Iran's frontiers with predominantly Sunni neighbours.

While he shared the views of Mr. Hammed Saab, the Chairman of the Iranian Jewish community in England that the situation of religious minorities had "greatly" improved under the former Phalli dynasty that was overthrown by the Islamic revolution of 1979, however, the Iranian Sunnis were badly discriminated by the new rulers.

"Not only the Shi'a are dumping over the Sunnis more than 1000 years of hating, but politically as well as socially and culturally, the Sunnis are suffering at the hands of the ruling Shi'a clerics", he pointed out.

"The situation of the Iranian Sunnis followed a "reverse parallel" to that of the Jews or the Christians", Mr. Mollahzadeh observed, referring to earlier declarations by Mr. Sabi that while at the beginning of the Islamic revolution "thousands of frightened Jews did left Iran in a hurry", the situation improved gradually for those who had remained in Iran".

"As the Shi'a clerics led by the ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeiny consolidated their hold of the regime, needing no more the collaboration of the Sunnis, discrimination and religious cleansing against them in all public administration became wide-spread. For example, there is not a single Sunni governor even in predominantly Sunni towns and regions" he observed.

"Since 1994, the policy of assassination of Sunni leaders, including Sunni Friday preachers is on the increase", Mr. Mollazadeh disclosed, adding that Sunni mosques all over the country, namely in Mash-had, Zahedan, Shiraz, Ahwaz, Kermanshah are "systematically" closed, destroyed or turned into movie houses or public parks, the leaders of the community are executed under fallacious pretexts such as drug smuggling, publication of books by Sunni religious scholars are prohibited.

"In the eight years of presidency of Mr. Hashemi Rafsanjani, not one single Sunni book was cleared for publication while at the same time many Sunni writers and translators were arrested or executed", he said.

Noting that Tehran was "the only capital of an important Muslim nation that has not one single Sunni Mosque even though that the Islamic Republic boast itself as the "Mother of all the Muslims", the speaker said "our most ardent wish is to be treated like the Jews, the Christians or the Zoroastrians".

As for the Iranian Jews, a community with a historic bound to Iran which goes back to "at least 3000 years ago", their situation has "gradually improved" since 1998 to the point that for the first time, the ruling Shi'a leaders have publicly stated their "determination" to take upon them the responsibility for the protection of the Iranian Jews and their "ancestral cultural rights and heritage", said Mr. Hamid Sabi.

However, the community is being discriminated. "The Jews are considered a lower class compared to the Shi'as. They experience limitations in all political, economic, social and cultural aspects. They do not enjoy same rights as the Shi'as in judicial matters, where the parole and testimony of a Jew is worth half of that of a Shi'a Muslim and contrary to the Constitution, major posts in public administration is reserved to those among the Shi'as who believe in the 12 Imams", pointed out Mr. Sabi, himself a lawyer.

The last word on the situation of religion in today's Islamic Iran came from a dissident Shi'a cleric who ruled the velayate faqih, the concept that makes the backbone of the present Iranian clerical system as being "un-Islamic", if not heresy.

"The present system, with the Information (Intelligence and Security) Ministry, the Feda'iyan Eslam, the Hezbollah and the rest are enemies of Islam. They are the main source of unprecedented corruption we have now in Iran. All the present and past rulers of this regime are members of this sprawling, dangerous machine that has instructed, ordered and carried out all the assassination of dissidents", he added, referring to the recent murder of political and intellectual opponents of the Islamic Republic, said the hojatoleslam Mahmoud Tabataba'i Qomi who lives in exile in London.

"They should know that the grand ayatollahs, almost all of them silenced and under house arrest, can call for jihad, but if they refrain is because they don't want civil war or blood bath", the hojatoleslam warned.
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a scholar and a gentleman

Postby simorg » Thu Jun 23, 2005 8:20 pm

I just heard, belatedly and by chance, of Dr. Vafadari's tragic death.

I would like to extend my most profound condolences to his family, students, and community.

My wife and I had the pleasure of meeting Dr. Vafadari in Tehran last year and visited him on several occassions at his beautiful home. I was struck by his graciousness, wit, keen intelligence and charm. He went out of his way to help us with advice and contacts in Iran for our research on Zoroastrianism. I will always be indebted to him.

My heart goes out to all those who knew him. He will be greatly missed.
simorg
 

Postby Ariaban » Thu Jul 07, 2005 1:09 pm

Dorood bar shoma.
Yadash Shad Ravan Pak
Zénde Yad Nazanin Kasra.
Dooste hamishegi man.
Ariaban
 

Open letter to Akbar Ganji

Postby Titof » Fri Aug 05, 2005 8:32 pm

From : http://www.iranian.ws/iran_news/publish ... 8668.shtml


The following is the English translation of MPG's open letter to Akbar Ganji. Akbar Ganji is a former unrepentant Islamic Republic Intelligence Ministry official who used to serve as an interrogator. During the first decade of the Islamic Revolution his name was also well known as the leader of assault teams against women who used press thumbtacks into the foreheads of women for showing too much hair. Later Ganji was promoted to a high-ranking position within the murderous Intelligence Ministry. In the past few years, with very suspicious motivations, Akbar Ganji, claiming to be a dissident reformist, has tried to place himself at the forefront of the Iranian democratic movement.

"Let this body not live if there is no Iran"?- Ferdowsi

During the last months I had kept silent regarding your recent situation hoping that the latest actions would be sincerely aimed at attaining your own freedom and seeking forgiveness from the Iranian people for your past crimes; however, your recent letter addressed to Mullah Hossein-ali Montazari has forced me to break my silence and remind you of several historical facts for the record.

Let me clarify that due to my strong belief in Iran and my respect for the will of the nation, I would not permit myself to speak on behalf of the people unlike you, your cohorts and the monopolists of the Islamic Republic. The following therefore shall be the opinion of myself, activists and members of the Marze Por Gohar Party, and those who share common beliefs with us.

We cannot remain indifferent in the face of your project of purifying the image of the murderous Ayatollah Khomenei on which you and your colleagues have been working on for several years. You cannot deny the fact that it was Khomenei himself who laid the foundations for the very same injustices that you are currently referring to, as the father of the Islamic Republic. The "mullah"? Montazari to whom you are addressing your grievances and who according to your own admission was the architect of the doctrine of the "Guardianship of Islamic rule", is himself much more dangerous and ruthless then the current "Supreme Leader" Ali Khamenei. Montazari promoted this doctrine while he was selected to replace Khomenei as the Supreme Leader and criticized the doctrine only when he was passed over by Khamenei.

Montazari was originally in charge of exporting the Islamic Revolution today referred to as International Terrorism to places as far as Lebanon, Eastern and North Africa, Philippines and etc. and according to his own memoirs he had been instrumental in the ruthless repression of opponents of the regime. Young people were even executed for jokingly referring to Montazari as a popular cartoon character. I sincerely hope that the democratic movement of the Iranian people will soon come to fruition so that the nation will prosecute your "hero" mullah in a court of law for crimes against humanity and the national interest of Iran.

Mr. Ganji, you must remember that even though you and some of your colleagues who have committed terrible crimes in the past and are today confessing to some of those crimes as mistakes, you all must know that when it comes to crimes against the national interest, a whole generation and inflicting irreparable damage to a culture and country, there will be no differentiation between crimes and "mistake".

You may believe that today's problems are due to a "new monarchy"? in our country, but I must emphasize that from our point of view, the problem is the whole clerical establishment which you have been part of and the reform-proof constitution which cannot be amended or secularized unless it is totally and completely replaced. Incidentally, this abomination of a constitution was written by Montazari and a few other fundamentalist mullahs like him.

Following your ongoing campaign of restoring Khomenei's image, you are claiming that it was Khomenei who caused the overthrow of the Shah; whereas be believe it was the Iranian nation who brought about the downfall of the last Iranian king and Khomenei merely catered to the slogans of the popular movement in order to hijack a democratic revolution and establish a religious dictatorship.

You have also claimed to have initiated the call for ouster of Khamenei, the "Supreme Leader". ? I wish you were present during the five day uprising in 1999, when we and the people were shouting "Khoemenei shame on you, abandon your crown." I wish you would remember that it was your collogues who were trying to silence our slogan by warning the people on your loud speakers not to follow the demonstrators lead by MPG, calling them counter-revolutionaries. It was during the same period that mullah Abdullah Nouri, another one of your collogues, abandoned the demonstrations to protest the insults against the Khamenei and I myself who was arrested following that event was charged with interrupting Nouri's speech and insulting the "Supreme Leader." Your slogan of "Khamenei must go" is not by any means anything new, but the problem of our nation today is not just the ouster of Khamenei, Khatami, Hashemi, Kharoubi and Montazari. Mr. Ganji, you all must go.

When Saeed Hajarian, the high ranking intelligence official, and your good friend, had not yet been fired from the intelligence Ministry over misuse of US Dollars counterfeited by the Intelligence Ministry and narcotics in their possession, he was busy working on improving the fearsome intelligence apparatus of the regime. If during the late nineteen nineties he and his team were still working in the Intelligence Ministry would he have portrayed himself as a dissident as a he did and would he still have started his deceitful populist campaign, or would he have rather continued in his job including the international terror network of the Islamic Republic and serving the regime?

You must know that during my interrogations in 1999 the officer of the Intelligence ministry conducting the interrogation clearly told me that nobody is allowed to cross beyond the approved red lines represented by you Mr. Ganji and the mullah Abdullah Nouri and your respective positions.

I know that you are well aware and I must remind you again that huge numbers of political prisoners have been executed for daring to speak their minds while not even being allowed to write a simple will, let alone a letter, pamphlet or a book. You know also how many young innocent girls were executed in the streets for possessing instruments perceived to have a use as a weapon. I have also personally known several prisoners who were executed for going on hunger strikes inside the prison while none of you uttered a single word in their defense.

These days when we see your letters, articles, pamphlets, photos and messages being supposedly sent from your jail cell we only conclude that even in jail you have privileged position. Writing a two page, single spaced letter to mullah Montazari while you are on a forty-two day hunger strike and at the same time undergoing selective surgery on your knee in one of the most modern hospitals in the country approaches outrageous dark comedy. All you and a few other privileged prisoners have accomplished is to have whitewashed the human rights violations of the Islamic Republic in the eyes of the United Nations and western countries, succeeding in omission of the Islamic Republic from the UN blacklist of worst human rights violators in 2003.

The "republican manifesto"? which you have supposedly composed inside a solitary cell, was also not a new phenomenon. Maybe you never heard of or read about the publicized ideas of the late Dr. Shapour Bakhtiar or Dariush Forouhar who were brutally stabbed and killed by Islamic Republic assassins for the very same ideas you are now supposedly espousing. You know very well that your friends inside the intelligence Ministry assassinated hundreds of opponents of the regime inside and outside of the country for voicing the same ideas long before you came up with your manifesto.

Your recent publicity campaign has certainly succeeded in diverting attention of international human rights organizations away from the brutal assassination of my comrade in arms, Dr. Kasra Vafadari, in Parsi May 2005 and the unbelievably brutal assassination of the young Iranian Kurdish prisoner, Shovaneh, who was dragged through the streets with a rope around his neck tied to a vehicle last week, and the execution of two young teenagers in Mashad for homosexual acts that took place a few days ago.
I would like remind you that forgiving somebody such as Khamenei, Khatami, Kharoubi, Montazari and high ranking officials of a criminal regime for having committed serious crimes including murder, torture rape, and massacres is not only up to a future democratic government with proper judicial organs and procedures but also up to the families of the victims.

Following the defeat of Hitler's army in Stalingrad several of his criminal Nazi generals decided to save the Nazi regime and became die-hard opponents of Adolf Hitler, but it was too late. It is better that the founders and commanders of the Islamic Revolutionary Corp, the officials of the Intelligence Ministry and other organs of repression within the regime pay attention to these issues. If there is somebody who claims that he is not a party to the crimes of this regime anymore he must first publicly confess to his crimes and then enter the ranks of democratic opposition as a simple activist rather then a champion and leader and hope that the nation will forgive him. Some day the huge monument around Khomenei's grave that has been built by means of wealth and upon the blood of the Iranian people, will be a museum of the crimes of the Islamic Republic against humanity. I hope this day comes soon.


Down with the Islamic Republic

Long Live Iran

Roozbeh Farahanipour
Chairman
Marze Por Gohar Party
Iranians for a secular republic
Titof
 


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