The protesters demanded the closing of the private broadcaster Nessma TV, which broadcast the film. Hundreds of attackers later attacked the house of Nabil Karoui station manager and set it on fire.

The film Persepolis from 2007 is based on a comic who lives in France. Iranian author Marjane Satrapi talks about her childhood and youth in Iran. She was nominated for an Oscar and won the Cannes Film Festival with a special price. Iranian filmmakers are becoming in internationally acclaimed works deal with the political and social reality of their country. Including Jafar Panahi.

In 2006 he received for his film Offside, the Silver Bear at the Berlin Film Festival in February that he would even sit on the jury of the Berlinale – but was allowed because he was under house arrest for not leaving Iran. Now he must go to prison for six years. As state media reported on Saturday, Panahi failed on appeal, his sentence was confirmed in this instance. The 20-year career and travel ban on Panahi has also been maintained.

If you saw the film you will understand it is a classic piece of art that needed to be shown all over schools in the Mideast ,many youth will find them connected with the tale of freedom against tyranny of radical mind ,the protester leaders may win points in the election but had lost for them self and the new tunisa points in respect ,open minded and the hope to build a model state to lead the Arabic future as they did when the lead the Arabic revolutionary movements , I believe they went out to stop the warning message of the movie against radical domination  of power in name of Islam ,and they used the God image as excuses.

Can someone please explain this logic?

Check out the debates on homophobia in the region at Ahwaa.org.

It all started when I was a kid, I don’t exactly remember the age but I remember to be kid … ; anyways I had my first malt goes by the name MOUSSY or I call it The FAT MOUSSY. It was small but fat looking bottle with text claiming to amuse my nerve while dirking.

I opened my first dead cold silver coloured bottle, I remember the fumes came out to pleasure my sense of smell, my eyes closed and I felt fresh at the moment. Brought the opened bottle close to my thirsty lips and had my first sip of pure non-alcoholic malt; mmmm … what the **** … yukh!!! That’s very bitter. I took it as the first and last attempt to have malt, but I was not able to forget the refreshing feeling I had when I opened it for the first time. After lot of waiting and grinning, Big Fat LEMON Moussy malt came to rescue. It was friendly, tasty, and yummy and the world became so better after that; Moussy ruled me for next years.

But life has never been fair. There is always someone getting himself ready to bite you; that what happened to Moussy, it got its competitor.

“Ladies and gentlemen please put your hands together for the one who has come to pleasure your sense of taste, smell and quench the thirst of dry lips, here she is, the one and only … Miss BARBICAAAANNN!!!”

She is slim, tall, tasty, yummy and not alone; she brought team of Lemon and Apple Barbican with her. She was the drink of my dreams; it is Apple flavoured malt of Barbican. She ruled for next coming years, she was with me all the time. And not only that, she kept on growing by bringing strawberry and pineapple to me. Those were good days but unfortunately the sad reality is that every rise has its fall.

News was everywhere, there is someone new coming to take over Barbican; someone more tasty, more colourful and more enchanting. Suspense grew everyday, thirst increased every moment and eyes waited every second.

The moment of suspense came to an end when Mr. BARIO came to us beating MOUSSY and BARBICAN with it mature looks, colours and taste. Mr BARIO came with his whole team of apple, lemon, pineapple, strawberry and coolest of all The Berry. Now it is BARIO who is my friend, my mate, my companion who is always there for me. Even right now I am not alone Bario with its Berry flavour is amusing me with its amazing taste and thirst quenching powers. BURRRP!!!! Excuse me …

Imagine you’re at school. There is a big guy there who is strong and is not a tolerated guy relatively to other classmates. He scares you and you don’t even dare to ridicule him. In resting times he beats and kicks other guys and threatens them.
One day a courageous classmate draws big guy on the blackboard. The big guy becomes angry and beats him madly. It makes a bad atmosphere in the class for few months. Everyone talks about that event and everyone fears with an inner hatred. But it’s just like a fire under coal. It grows day after day and reveals itself someday.

This phenomenon also happens in other communities and has happened lately. Let’s call it Muhammad’s depiction controversy!

“Everybody Draw Mohammad Day – May 20th, 2010” was not unexpected. It would be started somehow. And I believe it grows day by day because of an inner hatred that exists in non-muslim community against Islamic fundamentalism. That’s what Muslims did to themselves.
Allah in Quean mentions Muhammad as another human being like us. And I don’t think he is holier than Jesus or Moses who are depicted freely.

Say, (O Muhammed) “I am no more than a human being like you….” 18:110

For the donkey’s luck, a British troop was passing by and saw the fight. The British soldiers felt pity for the poor donkey and approached yelling at the farmer. Another fight started and the soldiers battered the farmer badly for his “inhuman” treatment of the donkey, and went on in their way. The farmer, frustrated and angry of both the donkey and the soldiers, started beating the donkey again yelling at him: “Why didn’t you tell me you have relatives in London?”

The story, just like history, does repeat itself again, but this time in a brand-new postmodern way; well-organized in a kind of “charity” with constitution, colorful papers and handouts, computerized statistics and sharp stuff !!!

Two months ago, a friend of mine (who is the chief of the local council of a neighboring village) asked me if I can meet a European delegate of “Animals Rights” charity and guide them through the village. I apologized telling him that I really don’t have time for such animals, sorry benevolent humans !!!

Later, my friend asked me to design and write a gratitude certificate (a paper that looks like a University Certificate but has both the local council’s and the Charity’s logos on it) in order for him to send it to that “humanitarian” (but animalistic) Charity !!! He explained to me how they came; a huge delegate with 4-wheels jeeps, equipments, medicine and donkeys’ luxury stuff !!! They were professionals on Donkeys and only serve the “Donkeys (Human) Rights”… they took a tour around the village to visit their “kins” of the Donkeys, they healed some sick donkeys, and had a good impression of how we (the primitives) deal with their “relatives”, the humans !!!!

I just wonder, in God’s sake, how many zionist checkpoints they passed to reach this remote village? How many walls and borders they crossed to take care of their “relatives”? Didn’t they see how the Palestinians are treated like donkeys (apology for the donkeys) under the zionist occupation, how they are captured in the zoo of Gaza? Why, the donkeys have “Human Rights” while the Palestinians still (after 100 years of both the British and the Zionist occupation) deprived from the basic “Donkeys Rights”?

I am sure that the next Palestinian elections will witness the right for the Donkeys to vote and even compete for presidency, but what I am certain of is that the next Palestinian president (according to the West electoral standards) will be a Donkey that has kinship to London !!! Praised be the Almighty Donkeys that have kinship to London !!!

Sami, the Bedouin.

-“Water, Please!!” screamed Sheick Buddha feebly.
-“Shut up, dirty pig! Not before breakfast.” roared the zionist jailor who was tapping the corridor behind the massive iron door.
It was chilling hot and I was all sweating in that oven of a cell.

The cell was rectangular, too narrow to enfold the three of us; Kifah, me and a religious colleague who had a soft lean beard but he looks like a Buddhist monk now after they had shaved his hair and beard the next day they brought him in. He became ugly and comic at the same time and I started calling him “Sheikh Buddha” which irritated him a lot but I didn’t stop.

By the door, there was what can be called a “toilet” and it was a big deal when one of us was obliged to do it. At first we started to turn our faces away until he finishes but later Kifah gave up half of his rug and we managed to put it as a curtain. I started to wonder how our primitive ancestors used to do it and wither it was shame or forbidden to do it in front of each others, or was it a matter of civilization that was solved centuries later !!!

There was no use to ask such a silly question but I was lucky to sleep beside the door catching some fresh breeze. I was the shortest, so I was chosen to sleep there wedged between the door and the so-called toilet. I was happy to be the closest to the “out-world” but I was more happy to be as far as I could from “sheikh Buddha”. Puh! What a sluggish ghost! I hated him to death specially when I am to be left alone with him as they take Kifah for interrogation.

Still there is a long time for Kifah to come; they will not bring him before dawn and it is still around midnight. Buddha is snoring heavily now after getting tired of asking for water. Silence, the killing silence save the snoring Buddha. Oh! How can I sleep? They will not bring him before dawn. It’s been over a week now since they started the new round with Kifah; a soldier or two come at evening to take him there until early morning. They bring him back at the time of dawn call-prayer or a little bet after that dragging himself to lean against the wall to tell us a few words of his night then slumbers asleep as he sat there.

I didn’t pay attention when they opened the massive door, two zionist jailors came pulling Kifah between them, one cracked the door open noisily and the other pushed him strongly inside to stumble falling on his face on the harsh floor and it was useless to stop his falling body by my hands. They closed the door and withdrew silently without uttering a word.

I drew him and leaned his sagging body against the wall; he was fading and a shade of death swept over his childish face, he couldn’t open his eyes and his head sagged over his chest like a slaughtered goat. His hair was soaking wet and he was trembling like a little bird in a stormy evening. Surely he lost conscious several times, and his comma was heavy, so they flooded him with water. They brought him early tonight, still there’s a long time before the dawn call-prayer. Unconscious he came tonight, it was useless for them to continue interrogating a dead body.

Death has the smell of burnt dust, has the taste of a throne stuck into your throat, you smell it before it comes, you feel it brooding heavily on your chest, around your neck, it suffocates you till you stop breathing, compresses more and more till you see the whole world but a hazy shadow fading slowly to pull you suddenly into bottomless well !!!

He started jerking in his faint body. I looked at him foolishly then tried to support his dangling head but he started foaming out of his suffocated throat and beating the bare floor with his hands while his legs shuddered stiffly. I tried to stop his hands but they were waving hellishly with a satanic power, cracking strongly against the floor and the wall sweeping everything before them like a crazy windmill. With open eyesockets, like a foolish dumb, I thought of him dying, tearing his soul apart with the flying foam out os his gashed mouth. I was horrored looking at him stupidly and found myself knocking the door madly crying:

-“He’s dying …bastards!!… What did you do to him!! He’s dying !!” and I don’t know if I heared a hoarse voice coming from the corridor: “Shut up you, dirty pig, or I will come and smash your head!!!”

I don’t know, I don’t know, even now I am not sure, but I was sure only of my own screams splitting out my throat. I heard nothing but my hysteric crying deafening my ears:

-“he’s dying…scoundrels,,, he’s dying!!” and scratching the massive door with my nails.

I felt the door collapse, the cell topple, the heavy stones falling, accumulating over my head, piled ponderously on my chest crushing my bones, dumbing my face…air…air… I needed nothing but fresh air to free my chest, a gap to break through, a hole to open out at… but suddenly, the narrow hole in the massive door opened to show a sullen face of a zionist jailor to spit in my face: “Shut up, son of the bitch !!” and shut it again.

I raised my hand to fumble the spit on my face, I felt frustrated, weakness and exhaustion crept into my knees up to my soul, I felt utter lost and helpless. A queer feeling swept me, to demolish the cell, to smash the whole jail with my bare hands, with my nails, but I started to cry again, a crying that is more like weeping than shouting: “he’s dying… don’t you see… he’s dying !!!”

And I looked back to Kifah, he get quiet now but still his legs were trembling feebly while his face crumbled as his eyes rolled slowly. He lifted his head heavily to look at me strangely with primitive horror, and raised his hand slowly extending it to me as if of a humble beggar asking for charity. His face contoured and his lips trembled as if he was trying to say something to me, a deep sense of horrifying query came out of his eyes that opened widely, the black shade of death covered his childish forehead , but finally, like a hissing of a snake, he mumbled a strange word. Was it the carnation of death or the terminal question of life?… I don’t know…. I don’t know, but he frowned swiftly and his hand fell down like a stone and his eyelids stuck to his sockets to loose all the meanings of life, then his head rolled over his chest like a butchered sheep. I stood looking at him foolishly horrified, not able to free my soul from his begging look until I heard Sheick Buddha murmuring while spreading his hands towards they sky: “ Oh, Almighty God!!, Destroy the zionists and all who support them !!!”

To be continued- Part Two

Sami, the Bedouin.

The usual accusations Iranian officials have made against Baha’is (supporting Zionism and insulting religious sanctities) are ridiculous in themselves. But some of the accusations leveled against Baha’is cross over into the realm of bizarreness:

• One of the accusations made against the NSA members in 1981 was “Sending or receiving reports containing code words such as ‘Amoo jan’ [Dear Uncle] etc. in various languages to the House of Justice in Haifa”
• In 1982, Tuba Za’irpur was charged with “not being married”.
• In 1996, two men from Mashhad were arrested while conducting a children’s art exhibition, and charged with…”working against the country’s security by organizing a children’s art exhibit”

Recently, it came to our attention that Iranian media has been making claims that the arrested Baha’i leaders had “sophisticated communications devices” in their possession. Given the authority’s track record, we can only imagine what the real-case scenario was:

Iran’s Deputy Prosecutor has announced that the case against the Baha’i leaders has been prepared, and will likely appear in court in the upcoming days. The likelihood of their receiving a fair trial is negligible, yet it is not too late for us to take action.

The Baha’i International Community addressed an eloquent letter to Ayatollah Qorban-Ali Dorri-Najafabadi refuting the allegations made against Baha’is and extending a hand for communication. You can read it here (PDF)

That the citizens of Iran have had their rights violated by the Iranian regime is a well-documented fact, but what distinguishes the persecution of Iranian Baha’is is that the government refuses to acknowledge their legitimacy as a community. Since the Islamic Revolution:

• Over 200 Baha’is have been killed, the majority of whom were executed after refusing to recant their faith.
• The government has made no effort to investigate attacks against members of the Baha’i community, let alone prosecute its perpetrators.
• Prominent Baha’i sites have been demolished (and in some cases replaced with Islamic centers) and shrines and cemeteries have been desecrated.
• In fact, the government has adopted a policy by which it denies Baha’is access to education, employment and any “position of influence”.

Najafabadi went on to state that the government offers Baha’is “a variety of services”. In light of the above we ask, “What services?”

Iranian authorities constantly deny that they discriminate against Baha’i students, citing a recent policy change that allowed students to enrol in universities for the first time in almost 3 decades. Although students were no longer forced to declare their religious affiliation when applying for the national university entrance examination, a memo revealed last year exposed their hypocrisy. The memo, sent from Iran’s Ministry of Science, Research and Technology, instructed all institutions to expel any student discovered to be a Baha’i.

Over the past two years a new tactic was employed: namely, denying Baha’i students admission by alleging their files are incomplete. Last year, almost 800 (of over 1,000) students had their dreams shattered this way. But this year, when trying to login to the national university examination website, Baha’i students were redirected to: http://82.99.202.139/karsarasari/87/index.php?msg=error_bah

Whether the Iranian authorities were caught in the folly of their ways, or “error_bah” was intentional is a tough call. But should the authorities want to upgrade their message for the next academic year, we have a fitting suggestion:

We have a handy response for them to use, should they run out of excuses: “How can we be accused of denying Baha’is access to education when we do not recognize their existence? The accusations are baseless!”