Archive for September, 2006

Iran & the Ayat*****

I used to be a big fan of Iran. Loved the Government and Supreme Council or whatever it is. But I am finding it hard to do that now. I took it as a country, which is being overlooked by someone who is supposed to have alot of knowledge and is NAEB-E-IMAM MEHDI (AS). I used to take everything I would watch on TV about Iranian Government’s restrictions on press and all that as propaganda. It was upto some extent but not fully. I used to believe because of someone so high watching over a country, the Government too would be acting good and they won’t even dare doing any unjustice with the people of Iran but looks like I was wrong. I really was wrong. No matter how high anyone is, they are just usual human beings who can commit mistakes, who can be as mean as any one else. They are not MAASOOMEEN after all. If something wrong is happening out there in Iran, why is the person up above so high not talking about it? Why is he not asking the Government to stop such a thing from happening? WHY? If that person is not doing it then something is wrong, seriously wrong.

Let me tell everyone that I am not the kind who disses Ayatollahs for their fatwas like Non-Syed Man can marry Syed woman. I am someone who believes in Ijtihad. I do not find my self able enough to find the Islamic rulings on my own and so I follow them accordingly. I am just a fallible human being my self. Perhaps I am labelled as “GONE ASTRAY” from the path for what I think about all this. Perhaps I am said to have been impressed by the Western Propaganda. I believe I will be, I will be asked by some to shut up and not talk about matters like these. I will be asked by some perhaps to stop spreading the “FITNA”. But why not? Truth should never remain hidden. I cannot live with something like this in my brain, I feel suffocated if I do. I will talk perhaps in detail about all this later. I was here to tell about someone…

Zahra Kazemi

Zahra “Ziba” Kazemi-Ahmadabadi was an Iranian freelance photographer, residing in Montreal (Canada), who died in the custody of Iranian officials following her arrest.

Although Iran’s regime insists that her death was accidental, Shahram Azam, a former military staff physician who left Iran and sought asylum in Canada in 2004, has stated that he examined Kazemi’s body and observed evidence of rape and torture, including a skull fracture, broken nose, crushed toe, broken fingers, and severe abdominal bruising. The Canadian government, as well as Kazemi’s supporters, consider her death to be a murder.

Freelance photographer, died in the custody of Iranian officials following her arrest? WTH! & Shahram Azam, former military staff physician saying he observed evidence of rape and torture, skull fracture, broken nose, crushed toe, broken fingers and abdominal bruising. Don’t you think that is too much for a “WOMAN”. Let’s say there was no rape. There is still enough torture left there! Happening in I R A N ??? I thought they hang in public such people who do this.

Travelling back to her birth country using her Iranian passport, Kazemi was allowed into Iran to take photographs of the possible demonstrations that were expected to take place in Tehran in July, 2003. However, on June 23, 2003, she was arrested in front of the Evin prison where photography is prohibited. The Evin prison staff, who the Kazemi family’s lawyers consider a party in the beatings that led to Kazemi’s death, say that she had been in a sensitive area, photographing parts of the prison, even though she insisted that she had not photographed any part of the prison, but only the street and the demonstrators, who were family members of activist students jailed in the prison.

It’s funny when I hear in today’s world that taking photographs of a place are forbidden. Funny because there are many more ways to SPY a place if someone wants to. You cannot hide from a Satellite at all, then what is the point of placing such prohibition? Ok. May be it does matter but why not just take the camera and take the role then have a fair trial against the person who take such photographs or just take the role and damage it? But no… She appears like a SPY? What was so special in that prison? Even if she was a SPY, they should have made her appear in court don’t you think? Or may be incharge of the said prison was a lonely guy? May be his wife was not around for quite sometime? So he decides to have fun? Or may be something else?

Nineteen days later, she died in Iranian custody in Baghiyyatollah al-Azam Military Hospital. It is widely believed she was beaten to death; after initial denials, Iranian government sources (including Mohammad Ali Abtahi, the Vice President of Legal Affairs and Masoud Pezeshkian, the Minister of Health and Medical Education) later admitted that she had died of a fractured skull as a result of being hit in the head. Abtahi claims that he was under a lot of pressure to take back the acknowlegement, but he resisted it.

If you were thinking this was all propaganda and lies. You should change your mind now. You have Iranian Officials confirming her death was nothing natural. Abtahi claiming that he was under a lot of pressure to take back the acknowlegement? This case should have come in front of the Supreme Council filled with all supremes? THEN WHY DID THEY NOT DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT?

One of the two Iranian intelligence agents charged with her death was acquitted in September, 2003. The other agent, Mohammed Reza Aghdam-Ahmadi was charged with “semi-intentional murder” and his trial opened in Tehran in October, 2003. In the same month, the Iranian parliament condemned Saeed Mortazavi, a Tehran prosecutor, for announcing that Kazemi had died of a stroke. On July 25, 2004, Aghdam-Ahmadi was acquitted.

ACQUITTED? Why? Or am I not aware of a SPECIAL and TOP SECRET “fatwa” which perhaps states raping a woman, breaking her skull, her fingers, her nose, her toes, her ribs, tearing her apart is fully allowed if she photographs a prison? or a “sensitive” area?

Shirin Ebadi, an Iranian lawyer and former judge who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2003, was the main representative of Kazemi’s family at the trial, and has represented them at the second and third sessions of Aghdam-Ahmadi’s trial, which took place on July 17 and July 18, 2004. In the court, Kazemi’s mother mentioned that she wanted the real murderer to be prosecuted. She also mentioned that she saw Kazemi’s body before the burial, upon which there were signs of torture.

Hats down for the woman who has the courage to stand up against all this. Shirin Ebadi in her book mentioned a secret list, the list contained names of people, who were killed by the Iranian Intelligence. Why? They were causing “TROUBLE” for the current regime. She says next name on the list was hers. But she had already won the case in court about it, by which Iranian Government accepted existence of a SECRET LIST.

Ebadi and the other lawyers of the family insisted in the court that they know that Kazemi was not killed by Aghdam-Ahmadi, and they need witnesses to be brought to the court in order to find the real murderer, who they guessed may be Mohammad Bakhshi, a high officer of the Evin prison. The list of witnesses they requested included Saeed Mortazavi, the general prosecutor of Tehran Mohsen Armin, reformist member of the previous parliament Hossein Ansari-Rad, Jamileh Kadivar, and Mohsen Mirdamadi, Minister of Intelligence Ali Younesi, the Vice President of Legal Affairs Mohammad Ali Abtahi, Minister of Culture and Islamic Guidance Ahmad Masjedjamei, the five judges who were present during Kazemi’s interrogation, a few employees of the Evin prison, the president of the Baghiyyatollah hospital, and all of the medical staff who had signed her file. Judge Farahani denied all of the requests. The lawyers also quoted the official report of death that various of parts of Kazemi’s body had been damaged and her clothes were torn and bloody, which proves that she had been tortured.

Judge Farahani denied all of the requests for the witnesses they wanted to come and testify in court? WHY? Why is the Supreme Council not taking notice of this? Or is it the Supreme Council asking FARAHANI to deny the requests? Mohammad Bakhshi, see… I told you. Someone’s wife was not around for a long time!!!

On July 24, Judge Farahani issued his judgement, clearing Aghdam-Ahmadi of the charges. He also mentioned that since the murderer has not been found, according to the Islamic sources the blood money should be paid by the government to the family. The lawyers of Kazemi’s family announced that they will definitely appeal the case, asking for a criminal court to be established to reconsider the whole case, or completing the numerous incompletenesses of the file. The end of July saw Iran’s judiciary adding “accidental fall” and “hunger strike” to the list of alleged causes for Kazemi’s death. They claimed that Kazemi had gone on a hunger strike voluntarily, developed low blood pressure that made her dizzy, fallen, and hit her head. Detractors point out that this story does not explain her broken bones, genital injuries or skin lacerations.

WOW! I did not know these guys can be bad scientists and Doctors. She hit her head and fractured her skull. Perhaps in the mean time she also squeezed her self somehow and broke her nose, toes, ribs, also made bruises on her body and also made on her self some “brutal” genital injuries.

Source of the quoted parts is Zahra Kazemi’s page on Wikipedia. I know I sound bitter up above, just something I could not help. Sorry! Think for your self and comment.

Happy 15 Shaaban

I know I am late, few reasons for that. In village right now, last now and even till now you can hear the fireworks, crackers etc. I did not hear any AK-47’s firing in air and that too heard this morning just an hour ago. I do not understand the reason for them doing this. Ofcourse I know the explanation which they provide for it, perhaps it is true too. For me it’s not. Not because first we should make ourselves better in all regards and once we are, we will not be doing fireworks on this day but praying to Allah, doing aa’maal, not hurting people. The fireworks continued till late night, and happened whole night actually after sometime. It was not good of them to do that in the middle of the night like say at 2:00 am. People get disturbed because of it…

So, they will be gone by now in groups for sending letters to our Imam (as). I got the thought of writing one too but then I did not, I could not. I am not saying any thing against sending words to our Imam (as). All I want to say is we are living among hypocrites and I don’t want to join those. There’s a scholar, who feels shame in walking from his home to the Imam Bargah. How else do you explain it with? His home is only 5-10 mins walk to the Imam Bargah but he will not come if you don’t send a vehicle to him. I understand if it’s late night but why can’t you do that in the day light?

I can claim that we are living among people, the kind of people who won’t be able to see you even eat anything. If they get a chance, they will snatch every single bit of what you are eating.
They are jealous of what you are. They cannot see of what you are. They always look forward for a chance where they can take everything away from you. They forget it’s Allah All Mighty who blesses a person with everything, then why do they hold bad about a person blessed by Allah with everything. It’s no baseless allegation, it has happed enough with our family. Will Imam (as) listen to such people, whose hearts are black and full with filth.

Pakistan…Our country, I don’t know what will become of it, if it continous to go like this. I had to go through such a pain when all I wanted to send was send a few Dollars to a friend in the US. There was no one who said they will do it for me except this one company. I will not name them,
all I will say is there office is in front of Rescue 15 office in my city. Please don’t go to them ever.
First the Manager says the amount you are sending will disappear in the way. He joked about how much it was. I said it’s enough. He after sometimes says he can’t do it because it’s not much. He asked me to go and do it in another city where they have got their main branch. I said give me number of that main branch, I want to ask them if I can send it from your office or not. He says, “What do you mean? I told you I will not send, so I will not send. Now even if someone from America calls me, I will not send the money.” I was really pis*** off to hear this. In other words, he could have easily sent the money for me. But he did not want to go through all the hastle & you know what. I caught him lying to his friend, his friend because he was being nice nice with him while talking, he would have not listened to him in the first place if he was not his friend. So this young guy comes and asks him to send a fax to Dubai for him. The Manager says he can’t do it because the main branch have locked his fax and he cannot send the fax to anywhere outside Pakistan. The young guy was not much literate I think. He insisted the Manager, Manager says ok, give me the number. You know what he did. He pressed all the numbers and clicked SP (Speaker Phone) button so the number dials. We all sitting there heard a noise, well, if you have used Dial-Up, you will hear a screeching noise when you are connected and you pick up the telephone. It was that noise! The Manager did this once more and said to the guy. See, I told you, it’s locked and I cannot send the fax. If you want to send the fax anywhere in Pakistan, let me know. He lied to his friend so greatly. The young fella ofcourse did not know what happened. He did not know what the noise was about. I understand, perhaps the Manager was not allowed by his office to use the fax for personal things BUT he could have just told that to his friend instead of making such a plot and fooling him.

I was already in a bad mood when we happened to visit this Bank and meet a friend there. He mentioned a guy whose name starts with, “Mohammad”. His money has been jammed. I think the money was transferred from some foreign country. The money was jammed because of his name. He said it will be first investigated and then the money issued. I was so so so much disappointed and got in a very very bad mood for the rest of the day. You can see the reason your self. I don’t know where else is this happening. But it is happening in PAKISTAN, a country meant to be for muslims! ALAS… A muslim country and it’s so called politicians and Generals are not even able to defend the name of their Prophet Mohammad (SAWW). I can call this blasphemy against our Prophet (SAWW). They took the world on their heads when a few cartoons of our Prophet (SAWW) were printed. Is this matter any different? They are making you suspect people who happen to have same name as the Prophet (SAWW). They are making you say guys with names of your Prophet (SAWW) can be terrorists…or in other words. NAUZUBILLAH…………………..

Windows Live Messenger 8.1 Beta kicks off

Received the following in e-mail today:

Messenger Beta Tester,

We are pleased to inform you that the Windows Live Messenger 8.1 has started. We are delighted to have you on board once again and look forward to getting your feedback about the latest version of Windows Live Messenger.

Go to http://connect.microsoft.com and you will see all of the information you need to get started. Be sure to read all of the instructions and other information. It is important that you understand this information in order for you to successfully beta test this product. Additionally, there is important information about contests we will be running during the beta giving you a chance to win cool prizes!

If you have any questions or issues, you can contact the Windows Live Messenger Beta Team and xxxxxxx@microsoft.com.

Happy Testing!

The Windows Live Messenger Beta Team

Will download it later today and see wat’s new with it. It’s initial stage now so I don’t think there will be much changes from the current Live Messenger.

USB Cooker!

Just saw this. Amazing! LOL!!!

http://www.isnichwahr.de/redirect15109.html

Frustrated

Frustrated because I needed something for computer and I am not able to find it in whole Pakistan. Frustrated because there is no website on the Internet with computer hardware which will ship to Pakistan or even accept Pakistani credit card. Frustrated because the “BASIC” hardware like Motherboard and RAM which I want to get is not available in Pakistan!

Frustrated because “Western Union” has listed a Bank in our city saying it will also SEND MONEY but when I visited the said Bank. They said we don’t have this facility and that Western Union guys are mistaken. Frustrated, frustrated, frustrated because of other things too which I am not making public so shoo away :p, LOL, ok wait wait, first comment then do as you wish.

This money related transactions are really very serious issue with me. If not any thing else, why not accept Pakistani credit cards online? My brother was in UK and he was able to use the Pakistani credit card for shopping there freely even on Internet there! But look at these huge Companies like Paypal and Western Union. Paypal does not offer their services for Pakistan and Western Union according to them DOES but I doubt how many AGENT locations they have mentioned on their website for Pakistan will be actually receiving and sending money through them.

I do not understand this behaviour from such companies. This is no more year 1999 where credit card fraud can be done easily. This is 2006 damn it! We have to call every time we make an online transaction by credit card for our own safety. This option can be removed forever but brother will not remove it and he is right by doing so. Whenever we want to make an online transaction we can just call them, they take our details and activate it. Even if a hacker has all information, it will be useless for him because the credit card without online activation will not be accepted anywhere, not even for verification purposes!

As far as terrorism is concerned, this has nothing to do with terrorism. Am I paying a terrorist in USA if I want to buy some computer products? Those who have made mind of sending money for illegal purposes will do it anyways. No one will be able to stop them, then why make US suffer? I am even told by someone that even if you make a bank draft for within Pakistan the bank guys ask alot of questions regarding whom are you sending this money to and why. He told me a funny incident where he wanted to send a bank draft for a magazine subscription to Karachi. They were three hundred rupees only, around five US dollars and he was questioned such stupidly by the guys there plus they did not even know a jack about a popular magazine in Pakistan. If they decide to ask questions then they should also have a list on hand atleast of such things like a magazine for example but oh well…

BTW, the 150 year old Western Union does not even have an online helpdesk or online e-mail address for cases like mine or for complaints. Just look at this page of theirs.

https://wumt.westernunion.com/asp/helpContactUs.asp?country=PK

They only have e-mail addresses for “Media Relations” and “Investor Relations”. Where is the customer support or may be it has got something to do with the “PK” ahead of COUNTRY.