Day: June 27, 2009

DC: Theater Packed for Premiere of Film “The Stoning of Soraya M.”

On Friday night June 26, in Washington DC, the E Street Cinema theater had a packed showing for the film “The Stoning of Soraya M.” The audience reacted with concern and anguish over the suffering of women portrayed in the movie, based on the story of an actual stoning in Iran in 1986, as described in Freidoune Sahebjam’s book “The Stoning of Soraya M.”

To find out more about the film online, visit their website at:
http://www.thestoning.com/

We urge you to encourage others to go out and see the film which is playing in locations around the United States.

During the film, the characters are shown as using Islamic law as their defense and their basis for their false accusations against Soraya M. and for having the village stone her to death.

Thousands of women are murdered in so-called “honor killings” and stonings every year, around the world and in the United States.  Such terrorism against women must end. At the end of the film, Responsible for Equality And Liberty’s (R.E.A.L.) Jeffrey Imm invited the public to find out more about the honor killings and stonings of women that continue to go on around the world, and passed out cards with R.E.A.L.’s web site.   R.E.A.L. has several articles on Soraya’s story and activists who have tried to make more people aware of her story.  We welcome any interested new members to find out more about what we are doing and our events to be Responsible for Equality And Liberty for women and all other people.

Author Freidoune Sahebjam has been a portrait in courage in getting the story of Soraya M. to the public.  “Condemned to death by the Khomeini regime following an article he published in the Western press in 1979, Iranian journalist Freidoune Sahebjam returned undercover to his native land in 1987.  There he met Soraya’s Aunt Zahra, who told him the full story and introduced him to Soraya’ s father and the mayor of the village, among others.”

Germany: Turk stabs teen daughter in ‘honour killing’ – because daughter “did not want to follow the Muslim way”

Turk stabs teen daughter in ‘honour killing’
— “A 45-year-old Turkish man has admitted stabbing his 15-year-old daughter to death because she did not follow Islamic customs, German police said on Thursday.”
— “The man, a kebab shop owner in Schweinfurt, southern Germany, stabbed the teen several times with a kitchen knife as she lay sleeping on her grandmother’s couch in what police said was a premeditated act.”
— “‘As a motive for the terrible crime, the 45-year-old admitted that he had problems with the fact that his daughter did not want to follow the Muslim way,’ police said in a statement.”
— “‘He seemed visibly unaffected by the crime,’ the statement added.”
— “Germany has been shocked by around 50 ‘honour killings’ since 1996, mainly in the country’s large Turkish community.”

— Germany: “Western” lifestyle cited as motive for girl’s killing

— Also BILD report (in German)

NYC: Planned Iranian Democracy Protests in NYC on Saturday June 27

– reports of protests at UN or Union Square Park 3 PM, Statue of Liberty 3:30 PM
— reports of planned protest at United Nations (Dag Hammarskjold Plaza,47th street and 1st avenue, NYC )
— reports of planned protest at the Statue of Liberty, Saturday, June 27th, 3:30-4 pm, Battery Park
— report on Statue of Liberty protest  from Banafsheh Zand-Bonazzi
— background on Banafsheh Zand-Bonazzi

Iran Reports – June 27, 2009

(Iran) U.S. Officials: Iran Opposition Leader’s Web Site Shut Down, Supporters ‘Tortured’ Into Confessions
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,529267,00.html?test=latestnews

Iran’s security council tells Moussavi to back off
http://www.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/meast/06/26/iran.election.moussavi/index.html

CNN: Iran Election Fallout
http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/2009/iran.elections/

Iran bans Mousavi ally from leaving the country
— “Abolfazl Fateh, head of Mousavi’s media office”
http://www.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUSLR12028420090627

Amnesty: Iran journalists should be freed
http://www.upi.com/Top_News/2009/06/27/Amnesty-Iran-journalists-should-be-freed/UPI-97011246107981/

(Iran) What will become of Iran’s “stiletto revolution” now?
— “In a country where the repression of women’s rights is the norm, and where Muslim extremists brutally
enforce the state’s requirement that women dress modestly at all times, the contribution of Iran’s women
to the anti-government protests has been pivotal to maintaining the reform movement’s momentum in the
face of the Islamic regime’s increasingly viscous response”
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/iran/5651664/What-will-become-of-Irans-stiletto-revolution-now.html

Iran’s Mahmoud Ahmadinejad attacks President Barack Obama for “interfering” in election
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/iran/5663401/Irans-Mahmoud-Ahmadinejad-attacks-President-Barack-Obama-for-interfering-in-election.html

CNN: “‘Punished mercilessly’ — Is this Islam?”
http://ac360.blogs.cnn.com/2009/06/27/punished-mercilessly-is-this-islam/

Arizona: 2 White supremacists arrested in 2004 letter bombing

(U.S.) Arizona: 2 White supremacists arrested in ’04 letter bombing
— The Arizona Republic reports that “Dennis Mahon, a longtime leader in the national White supremacy movement, and his brother have been arrested by federal agents in connection with the 2004 letter bombing of Don Logan, who is Black and at the time headed Scottsdale’s diversity office.”
— “A federal grand jury indicted Mahon and his twin, Daniel Mahon, June 16 on charges of conspiracy to damage buildings and property by means of explosive. Dennis Mahon was also charged with malicious damage of a building by means of explosives and distribution of information related to explosives.”

— also report: “Supremacist twins out to do harm, police say”
—- “Federal authorities said Friday that White supremacists Dennis Mahon, 58, and his twin brother, Daniel, were determined to commit violent acts on behalf of the White Aryan Resistance, as they did in the 2004 bombing of Scottsdale’s diversity office.”
—- “Under the slogan ‘Tolerance is suicide. Diversity is death,’ Dennis Mahon, a longtime leader in the national White-supremacy movement, and his brother conspired to, among other acts, deliver the bomb to the Scottsdale Office of Diversity and Dialogue.”

Kansas City: Former area Ku Klux Klan (KKK) leader, brother indicted in 2004 mail bombing

(U.S.) Kansas City: Former area KKK leader, brother indicted in 2004 mail bombing
— The Kansas City Star reports on “former Kansas City area Ku Klux Klan leader Dennis Mahon”
— “federal prosecutors in Arizona announced that Mahon, 58, and his twin brother, Daniel, had been indicted in the 2004 mail bombing of a Scottsdale city office that promoted racial and cultural diversity”
— “‘There are few criminal acts as cowardly as a parcel bomb,’ said Christopher White of the U.S. Postal Inspection Service in Phoenix.”
— “The Mahons’ arrests Thursday in Illinois coincided with unrelated charges being announced against Robert Joos, a Powell, Mo., man whom Dennis Mahon allegedly called the morning the bomb arrived in Scottsdale.”
— “Authorities charged Joos, 56, with being a felon in possession of firearms. ”
— “According to court records, Mahon allegedly sent an undercover federal informant to Joos, who taught him how to make napalm.”
— “Also Thursday, agents from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives searched the Warsaw, Ind., home of Tom Metzger, director of the White Aryan Resistance and an associate of the Mahons.”

— see also: Arizona: 2 White supremacists arrested in 2004 letter bombing