From: Fatemeh Keshavarz
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]edu>
Sent: Aug 2, 2006 6:42 PM
To:
undisclosed-recipients@null, [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Window on
Iran
Dear Friends,
In the past few months, the U.S. media coverage
of Iran has gone from
bad to unbelievable. It used to emphasize the negative
and leave out the
positive. It now appears to be inventing information that
those of us in
close contact with Iran are unable to trace. For example, in
May 2006
there was a report in the papers here that the Iranian Jews will be
forced to wear a uniform. Last weekend, another breaking news was:
Ahmadinejad is imposing a ban on the use of foreign words. There is no
truth to either of these (I won't list more).
Some of us in the
Iranian American community feel that, due to the
explosive conditions in the
Middle East, we must provide our American
friends and family members with
possibility of access to reliable
inform! ation, small as its impact might
be. This is why I have put this
e-mail update together to keep you informed
of events in contemporary
Iran. Its frequency would be once a week -- unless
there is significant
breaking news. I have made contact with friends who
will monitor the
news in Iran, and I will try to follow reliable
publications here.
Needless to say, I will not be able to be
comprehensive.
If you feel you don't need these updates, please let me
know to take you
off the list. If you wish to check how informed you might
be about Iran,
take a look at the following questions:
On the issue
of the Iranian nuclear program, did you know that:
*
The Iranian supreme religious leader issued a legal decree
(fatwa)
on November 6, 2004 in which all
development, production, and use
of nuclear
weapons is considered against the Islamic pr!
inciples
and should not be undertake n under
any circumstances.
* Iranian nuclear facilities have been
inspected over 2000 time
during the past three
years (some surprise inspections) by the
IAEA
and nothing illegal has been found. The IAEA's report
has
specified "to date, there is no evidence
that undeclared material
are related to any
weapon's programs."
* Iran is home to tens of thousands of
people affected by Saddam
Husain's chemical
weapons, and people have a strong feeling
against the use of such weapons (I know some of these
people
personally).
*
Iran has described the package of incentives from the west
as
potentially acceptable and announced a
while ago that there will
be
an official and detailed reply by August 22nd, 2006.
On the issues
related to the local politics, did you know that:
*
the Taliban are an enemy of Iran and have engaged in
regular
assassinations of Iranian
diplomats.
* The Iranian regime considers al-Qa'ideh a
terrorist organization.
* Iranians held night long vigils
to commemorate the victims of 9/11.
* Iran does not
support the Shiite extremist Moqtada al-Sadr,
and
prefers peace, stability, and
democratic elections in Iraq because
it does
not wish its own Kurdish population to aspire
to
separatist ideas and because a democratic
election in Iraq will
give a prominent role to
the Iraqi Shiites.
* According to all major
historians of the region, in reality, Iran
exercises
little influence on the Hezbollah.
On the social and cultural front, did
you know:
* the latest best-selling titles in Iran are
the DaVinci Code and
Hillary Clinton's My life
in (Persian translation)
* according to the latest
statistics, close to 70% of the Iranian
university students are women
* IVF, and gamete donation,
as well as transsexual operations are
legal in
Iran.
* Iranian cinema produces critically acclaimed films
(often openly
critical of the
regime).
* Iranian women golfers, race car drivers, and
polo players compete
internationally.
I
hope my next messages will be much shorter. Please let me know if you
wish
your name to be ! taken off this list, or if you wish to add
someone's name
to it. I will send out my first update message soon.
Best,
Fatemeh
Keshavarz
========================
Fatemeh Keshavarz,
Professor and Chair
Dept. of Asian and Near Eastern Languages and
Literatuares
Washington University in St. Louis
Tel: (314)
935-5156
Fax: (314) 935-4399
