An International Moral Court, Paris Tribunal, initiated by the Iranian Action Committee will bring together an unprecedented group of prominent legal experts, scholars, diplomats and human rights advocates in Paris this week to hear witnesses, document and investigate the clerical regime of Iran on its crimes against humanity.
Only the second of its kind in history, "the Paris Tribunal will document for the international community the Islamic Republic’s serial and systematic abuse of human rights against the Iranian people� said Dr. Manouchehr Ganji, himself a former United Nations Special Rapporteur on Human Rights.
According to Dr. Ganji, as the most active state sponsor of international terrorism, Iran’s ruling regime has, for more than two decades, suppressed, violated and terrorized citizens of Iran. To date, it has summarily killed more than 200,000; tortured, maimed, stoned to death thousands more; made to disappear and assassinated numerous others, at home and abroad; and currently incarcerates, by its own account, more than 600,000 in Iranian prisons.
“The Paris Tribunal, by hearing from the immediate families of those killed and from many tortured victims of the Iranian Regime, will attempt to arouse the global conscience and seek to shame governments and multinationals into taking actions in support, and not against, the people of Iran," said Dr. Ganji.
The impetus for the creation of the International Moral Court on Iran was born in 2002 – when the United Nations Commission on Human Rights surreptitiously dropped the post of Special Representative on Violations of Human Rights in Iran. This appeasing act was the result of actions by certain member states of the world body that chose to pursue short term commercial, oil and gas, interests with Tehran.
This is a stunning admission ― Reuters' top international editor openly acknowledges that one of the main reasons his agency refuses to call terrorists 'terrorists' has nothing to do with editorial pursuit of objectivity, but rather is a response to intimidation from thugs and their supporters.
In every other news arena, western journalists pride themselves on bravely 'telling it as is,' regardless of their subjects' (potentially hostile) reactions. So why do editors at Reuters ― and, presumably, other news outlets ― bend over backwards to appease Islamic terrorists, using 'safe' language that deliberately minimizes their inhuman acts?
Scott Anderson, editor-in-chief of CanWest Publications, said that Reuters' policy 'undermine[s] journalistic principles,' and raised the key question: 'If you're couching language to protect people, are you telling the truth?'
They are relentless and that is why we secretly admire them -- they just simply never, ever give up. Only 30% of the country calls itself "Republican," yet the Republicans own it all -- the White House, both houses of Congress, the Supreme Court and the majority of the governorships. How do you think they've been able to pull that off considering they are a minority? It's because they eat you and me and every other liberal for breakfast and then spend the rest of the day wreaking havoc on the planet.
Look at us -- what a bunch of crybabies. Bush gets a bounce after his convention and you would have thought the Germans had run through Poland again. The Bushies are coming, the Bushies are coming! Yes, they caught Kerry asleep on the Swift Boat thing. Yes, they found the frequency in Dan Rather and ran with it. Suddenly it's like, "THE END IS NEAR! THE SKY IS FALLING!"
No, it is not. If I hear one more person tell me how lousy a candidate Kerry is and how he can't win... Dammit, of COURSE he's a lousy candidate -- he's a Democrat, for heavens sake! That party is so pathetic, they even lose the elections they win! What were you expecting, Bruce Springsteen heading up the ticket? Bruce would make a helluva president, but guys like him don't run -- and neither do you or I. People like Kerry run.
When people ask me why the Iranian people so hate the regime, I begin telling them stories like these, because no list of adjectives, no amount of statistics on social misery, child prostitution, unemployment, corruption of the elite, or drug addiction can convey the horror of this murderous tyranny. If a mullah is caught committing an act that would automatically lead to the death penalty for an ordinary citizen, the problem is "fixed" by a sex-change operation on his partner. But even the son of a counselor to the president can be "vanished" without any accountability.
Can you imagine these creatures with atomic bombs? And yet the U.N. issues yet another "deadline" for the end of November, the European Union preens itself on its avoidance of conflict, even with evil, the president speaks bravely but does nothing to support freedom in Iran, and his challenger lets it be known that, if elected, he will offer the mullahs the same misguided nuclear deal that has already failed in North Korea.
Pfui.
What on earth has George Bush done that deserves such comparisons? What could he possibly do?
If you're going to call the man a Nazi, show me the children with tattoos on their arms. Show me the stockpiles of emaciated corpses. Show me files cabinets full of memos detailing how Bush and Cheney plan on disposing of millions of dead American citizens killed with poisonous gas.
If you can't show me any of these things - and you can't - then stop calling the man a Nazi. Because when you say he's no different from Hitler, you are also saying that Hitler is no different from George Bush. And that means that Hitler's crimes were no worse than George Bush's "crimes." And whatever you think of what George Bush has done or might do, if you think any of it is the moral equivalent of the Holocaust, you are in effect saying the Holocaust really wasn't that bad.