Iranian judges denounce reform candidate's rape 'lies'

[maddezmom]

Source: AP

TEHRAN, Iran - A high-level Iranian judicial panel rejected claims made by a pro-reform presidential candidate that detained protesters were raped and demanded that those making the allegations be prosecuted, the state news agency said yesterday.
The ruling ratchets up the pressure on Mahdi Karroubi, one of the most prominent reformist leaders challenging the legitimacy of the president's reelection and the entire governing system. The decision could well be a prelude to his own arrest, following earlier calls by conservative religious and security officials for his prosecution.

"The panel reached the conclusion that there is no evidence proving the rape of individuals who Karroubi claimed had been raped. These allegations are unsubstantiated . . . and documents submitted are totally fabricated and aimed at misleading public opinion," the report said.

The three-member panel, which included the top prosecutor and the deputy head of the judiciary, demanded prosecution of those "spreading lies, libel . . . and discrediting the ruling system" by making such allegations - an indirect reference to Karroubi himself.



Read more: http://www.philly.com/inquirer/world_us/20090913_Iranian_judges_denounce_reform_candidate_s_rape__lies_.html

[Speciesamused]

1. It is always a lie if it goes against the regime.

Even if it is truth. This is global really.

Help Stop the Slaughter of Iranian Freedom Seekers
sign the petition
http://www.petitiononline.com/mod_perl/signed.cgi?ai2d2009
One love.

<img src=>

[Odin2005]

2. Sick, evil, bastards!

:grr:

[Peace Patriot]

3. How can we know if the alleged rapes were lies or not, any more than we can know

where Donald Rumsfeld really was, and what he was doing, on the morning of 9/11. He said he was "in a meeting" when the Pentagon was hit, and didn't know what was happening. This was well into 9/11. Both WTC towers had already been hit. Rumsfeld had drawn all power over NORAD decisions into his own hands three months before in June 2001. So, how can he have been "in a meeting" with an attack on the east coast well under way--without losing his job, having his whereabouts on 9/11 thoroughly investigated and doing jail time for criminal malfeasance and dereliction of duty?

Well, we will never know where he really was, or what he was really doing. Such is our system. The very powerful and the very rich, if they serve the war profiteers and global corporate predators who rule over us, never do jail time, no matter how evil they are or what they've done, even slaughtering a hundred thousand innocent people, in one week of bombing alone, to steal their oil, or ordering the torture of thousands of helpless prisoners--many guilty of nothing whatsoever--in violation of the Constitution, the UN Charter, the Geneva Conventions and the Uniform Code of Military Justice, or turning around the fortunes of your own company with no-bid military contracts after starting a heinously unjust and genocidal war.

We will never know the extent of Bush Junta crimes, and we will never see justice done. Our justice system is opaque on the worst crimes committed by the powerful.

Iran's system seems to be similarly opaque for those who serve the system--or at least that's the information we get about Iran's system here via corpo/fascist 'news' monopolies who routinely lie and propagandize our own people in the service of war and war profiteers. Frankly, I am inclined to reserve judgement on Iran's leaders, so thoroughly have we been lied to, on so many important issues, by those conveying this 'news' to us. We simply can't know. And I think it is especially important to be skeptical when a further oil war target is demonized, because the conclusion of such demonization in the case of Iraq was demonstrably unfair and evil--the slaughter of so many innocent people who were not Saddam Hussein.