“They help oppressed people and they have a positive stance,” he said.

I don’t want to get Mr. Farjoo in trouble, but perhaps he is unaware that both Spiderman and Superman are the creations of– um, er, how can I say this?– Jews.

In fact malign Jewish influence in popular culture appears to have been one of the topics at the 2nd international conference on Hollywoodism and Cinema in Tehran this month. This is from a Press TV interview with one of the participants, Tom Pollard:

Press TV: What are your views about the Jewish influence in Hollywood? How have they been able to use their domination in Hollywood to their advantage? And what are the pros and cons, given that only two to three percentage of the US population is Jewish?

Pollard: Well it’s and [sic] interesting point and it’s often raised, especially at this conference that we’ve attended. And it’s certainly true, that Jewish producers and directors do dominate a large segment, I mean not all of the, of course, I mean you can think of a lot of fine filmmakers that are not Jewish.

But they do have a disproportioned amount of influence.

Considering the Iranian regime’s usual sensitivity about Jewish– or, if you prefer, Zionist– influence in the media, it appears Mr. Farjoo may have made a big mistake.

I suppose comment is superfluous, although I understand George Galloway was moved to tears.

But I can’t help wondering why the two soldiers carrying the cardboard Khomeini are wearing dark glasses. Is it to keep their own lowly visages from distracting attention from the Great Man?

I think it has the paradoxical effect of making them look much cooler than the ayatollah.

Alan A adds:

Sparks released a track a few years ago, with a video that is strikingly reminiscent of this scene:

Update: Turns out the Cardboard Khomeini has been on hand at quite a few iconic events and locations.

And yet another Cardboard Khomeini turned up at a ceremony with Iran’s education minister and other officials. Have you ever tried to engage in small talk with someone who won’t open up and just sits there? Imagine how they felt.

(Hat tip: Cardboardollah)

Hat tip Potkin Azarmehr

As the rally had been called to defend Assad, as you might imagine, a large proportion of those attending were Syrian Baathists. As you can see,  they ended up fighting with supporters of the Iranian Green Movement.

Hands Off the People of Iran, which is run by the pretend Communist Party of Great Britain, has a must-read account of what happened. Here are some extracts:

In a somewhat embarrassing indictment to the approach of ‘as broad as possible’ typified by the coalition, several speakers were booed or chanted down, and fights broke out between protesters. At one point a group of Iranians from the London Green movement lined up against supporters of the Syrian Baathist regime under the sway of Bashar Al-Assad. It was not pretty.

The first indications that something was not quite right came when I was handing out Hands Off the People of Iran leaflets (‘Make your voice heard’: see here). The leaflets were readily snapped up, but it soon became apparent that several of the people I had handed leaflets too – particularly young men – were sporting baseball caps emblazoned with the Syrian flag (not that of the Syrian opposition) and a picture of Al-Assad in all his despotic glory.

At the same time, about 40 Iranian protesters were gathering behind banners reading ‘Free Iran’. From afar, this demonstration must have seemed like the prelude to some conflict, not a demonstration to oppose one.

When the rather compromised figure of Abbas Eddalat of the Campaign Against Sanctions and Military Intervention in Iran spoke, noise erupted from the ‘Free Iran’ contingent. In the din it was not all clear what he was saying – though he went out of his way to assure the protesters that the theocratic regime in Iran was not interested in building nuclear weapons. It was obvious that the Iranians wanted their voices to be heard in a different fashion, by somebody else.

This angered the Syrians, and soon both groups squared up. They were separated only by police barriers and four or five rather dumbfounded police constables. Some of the younger male Syrians initially managed to get quite close to the Iranians. Wrapped in Syrian flags and with bandanas reading “labeik Khameni – I worship Khamenei” around their heads, they meted out some quite heavy blows to some of the Iranians leading the chants. Adding to the absurdity of the situation, the handful of Iranians waving the Islamic Republic of Iran flags then joined with their Syrian comrades. One woman joined the two together and waved them proudly. The Iranian Khamenei supporters were in a distinct minority – most were young men from Syria. Yet the Iranian Islamists were not coy, with one pushing Hopi chair Yassamine Mather as she was being filmed. This sets a rather distasteful precedent.

Chants of ‘Long live Syria’ were met with ‘Down with Hezbollah’. Some of the chanting being lead from the stage was utterly drowned out. Keen to find out just who some of these people were, comrades working with Hopi managed to speak to some of them, and were informed that it was actually acceptable for women wearing bikinis to be stoned.

There was a fleeting moment of humanity, however, when the clashes temporarily were broken off to remove a small girl from the crowd, who had been hurtled to the floor.

But from this point on things were really out of control. The stewards were quite rightly at a loss, and some of the protesters were calling in the police to break up fights.

Speeches from the platform were constantly interrupted: it seemed that the Syrians wanted to talk about Syria. Indeed, this demonstration was also supposed to be about Syria too. But the organisers were keen to play down the Syrian aspect and none of the platform speakers really discussed Syria at all. This obviously upset the al-Assad fans, leading to them disrupting the demonstration and letting loose on the Iranian oppositionists. They did their best to make it known just how much they loved al-Assad, instigating attempts by rather embarrassed Iranians to stop them .

One of the main organisers of the Syrian contingent could be seen handing out copies of the CPGB-ML’s publication, ‘Proletarian’. I therefore wondered whether some of the hostility towards StWC speakers also stemmed from the latter organisation’s unceremonious ejection from the coalition for their veneration of former Libyan despot, Colonel Gaddafi.

…

The organisers did their best to calm the situation. But the arguments of the main speakers Lindsey German, John Rees and Andrew Murray were, as with their arguments against Hopi, largely mendacious.

“You are making the biggest mistake of your lives if on the basis of opposition you support the war”, Lindsey German shouted over the noise.

Read the rest.

According to one report:

Iran’s interior minister has downplayed the European Union’s new sanctions against the country, saying the new embargo will backfire on Europe’s troubled economy.

“The sanctions [imposed] by the European Union will not affect Iran and will further deteriorate the economic condition of the European countries,” Mostafa Mohammad-Najjar told the reporters on Tuesday in Moscow.

“We do not mind the implementation of sanctions by Europe because we have constantly faced such sanctions in the past 30 years,” he said on the sidelines of his meeting with Victor Ivanov, who heads the Federal Narcotics Service of Russia.

The Iranian minister explained how the West’s pressure on the Islamic Republic has inspired the Iranian nation to achieve modern technology among its other goals.

But in another report, Press TV informs us:

The Iranian foreign ministry has summoned Denmark’s Ambassador to Tehran over the new round of oil sanctions the European Union has imposed against the Islamic Republic.

Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Ali Asghar Khaji on Tuesday met with Christian Hugard, whose country holds the rotating presidency of the EU, to protest at the fresh anti-Iran move.

On Monday, the foreign ministers of the 27-member body agreed to ban oil imports from Iran, a major OPEC member, to the EU and freeze the assets of the Iranian Central Bank across the European bloc.

So based on the first report– that the EU sanctions will harm Europe rather than Iran– it appears Press TV misunderstood the reason for summoning the Danish ambassador.

Obviously what they meant to report is that the deputy foreign minister met with the ambassador to thank the EU for banning for oil imports, explaining that the action will not hurt Iran in the least and will only inspire the country to achieve more modern technology.

I assume they’ll post a correction shortly.

(Hat tip: EA WorldView)

A snow sculpture at the Faculty of Social Sciences at Tehran University honors Iran’s Green Movement.

(Hat tip: EA WorldView)

Press TV, the Iranian state broadcaster’s English-language outlet, has been forced off the air in the UK after Ofcom revoked its licence for multiple breaches of the broadcasting code.

The controversial broadcaster had been threatened with being banned from broadcasting in the UK last year, after the channel aired an interview with Maziar Bahari, an imprisoned Newsweek journalist, that had been conducted under duress.

However, after hearing final submissions the media regulatordowngraded the penalty to a fine of £100,000.

It emerged on Friday that Press TV has failed to meet the deadline for paying the fine, which was due in early January.

In addition, Ofcom has found that Press TV’s practice of running its editorial oversight from Tehran, Iran’s capital, is in breach of broadcasting licence rules in the UK.

Ofcom is understood to have written a letter to Press TV in November highlighting the issue and offering a choice of two remedies under its UK broadcasting code.

The first was to switch editorial control for Press TV’s programming to the UK, the second to transfer the broadcasting licence to Iran.

It is understood that Press TV’s failure to respond to or implement these two options has led to Ofcom revoking its UK broadcasting licence.

Good riddance.

You can read the revocation order here.

My contact in television compliance tells me that revocation of a broadcasting license isn’t a particularly unusual event: “they’re always revoking the smut channel licences”.

Gene adds: Salma Yaqoob of Respect tweets that it’s all part of the preparations for an attack on Iran.

Armed Hamas men broke into a gathering of some 30 Shi’ite worshippers in the Gaza Strip last Friday and brutally attacked them, Haaretz has learned.

The assault was part of a broader crackdown on Shi’ite organizations, including charities, that has been sparked in part by Hamas’ fear of growing Iranian influence in Gaza.

The worshippers had gathered in a house in the Sheikh Zayyad neighborhood, between Beit Lahia and Jabalya, to mark Arbaeen, the end of the 40-day mourning period for Imam Hussein, founder of Shia Islam, who was killed in 680 C.E.

Hamas militants arrested 14 of the men and beat up the rest. They continued beating the worshippers even after taking some to a hospital and others to a Hamas detention facility.

Hamas has historically been funded and supplied by the Islamic Republic of Iran. However, because it is a Sunni chauvinist organisation, it is deeply religiously hostile to Shias. Indeed, Yusuf Al Qaradawi – the ‘Sheikh’ who Hamas regards as a key religious authority – has periodically spouted some pretty hateful invective against Shias.

In the past, Hamas’ relationship with the Islamic Republic of Iran kept this sort of incitement at a minimum. However, with Iran facing the strongest sanctions yet and its currency in free fall, and with the Muslim Brotherhood poised to come to power in surrounding Sunni states, Hamas just doesn’t care what Iran thinks.

It is going to be pretty grim for Shias in Gaza, now.

Indeed, I wonder how long it will be before Medhi Hasan writes his inevitable “Hamas is bad” piece.

Last year was a turbulent and violent year for Iran’s persecuted and impoverished Ahwazi Arab and Mandean communities who populate the oil-rich southwestern province of Khuzestan. The latest Ahwaz Human Rights Report, published this week, detailedan increase in violent repression by the Iranian regime against these ethnic groups amid the wave of unrest that gripped the Middle East.

The notion that Ahwazi Arabs represent a fifth column in Iranian society is fundamental to their persecution under both the Pahlavi and Islamic regimes. However, socio-economic and political conditions are driving Ahwazi Arab opposition to the regime. The Ahwaz Human Rights Report gives the example of Khalafabad, a city of 62,000, around 70% of which are Arabs. Oil facilities in the city’s jurisdiction, including the Ramin oilfield, produce 70,000b/d of oil, worth at least US$2.6bn per annum to the Iranian government and as much as the oil output of Uzbekistan. Despite the considerable oil wealth, most of the population is living in poverty, unemployment is high, there is widespread malnutrition and access to healthcare is poor. Ahwazi Arabs, like many ethnic groups in other parts of the world, suffer from the resource curse with their persecution sustained by the natural wealth of their homeland.

Whilst Khuzestan’s oil forms the backbone of the Iranian economy, its people have been viewed, at best, as an inconvenience, or, at worst, a threat, by the Iranian government. In order to eradicate their threat to the Iranian establishment, Ahwazi Arabs are subjected to a mixture of Persianisation, forced migration, violent political repression and economic exclusion.

The Ahwazi Arabs have, for decades, campaigned for their national and cultural rights. Their struggle, however, has been part of the wider struggle of the Iranian people and all other ethnic and national minorities. But unfortunately their role has not been fully recognised. They actively participated in the 1979 revolution, hoping that the new regime would recognise and guarantee their legitimate rights and fulfil their aspirations. Yet, the new Islamic regime not only denied the Ahwazi Arabs and other ethnic groups their legitimate rights, but also started a campaign of killings, torture and violence against them.

The Ahwazi Arabs are determined to continue their peaceful and just struggle, alongside all Iranian peoples, until the realization of their national rights and the establishment of a democratic system in Iran based on freedom, justice and human rights.

Here in the US, the phrase “safe and sane” traditionally has been used to promote caution for celebrants of Independence Day on the Fourth of July. After a spate of gruesome injuries caused by fireworks, many localities adopted “safe and sane” laws banning their private purchase or use. (This film exposes the dangers of failing to observe a a safe and sane holiday.) However I had never before seen the term applied to a human being before, and I’m not quite sure how to interpret it.

Meanwhile, back in Iran, all may not be as safe or sane as Ahmadinejad might like. For one thing, nuclear science appears to be a notably unsafe profession. For another, the recent collapse of the Iranian currency has Iranians so desperate that they are rushing to exchange their rials not only for dollars but for Euros.

The Bazaar Arz, the narrow 19th-century arcade that’s the center of Iran’s foreign exchange market, is crammed with people trying to sell their currency as sanctions tighten and tensions with the U.S. escalate. In nearby shops, imported laptops and smart-phones change price hourly. The rial weakened 20 percent in the past month at the official rate offered to Iranians traveling abroad, and by even more in the bazaar, where demand for dollars and euros is surging.

It’s increasingly tough for Iranians to satisfy that demand. Websites posting currency rates were blocked last week, many official change bureaus were closed, and the government has halved the amount of dollars that Iranians planning trips abroad can buy. Central Bank Governor Mahmoud Bahmani denied the sanctions are causing problems, then linked the rial’s plunge to the political standoff. “The enemy is depending on creating psychological tensions,” he said. “If we are intimidated, we will be playing into the enemy’s hands.”

The rush for hard currency shows those tensions spreading among Iranians, even before the latest sanctions are fully implemented. The U.S. and European Union are moving toward an embargo on oil purchases from the world’s third-biggest exporter and restricting dealings with its central bank.

And The Washington Post’s Tehran correspondent Thomas Erdbrink tweeted that text messages including the Farsi word for “dollar” were blocked.

Update: Commenters suggest that the phrase “safe and sane” is a mistranslation. Damn.