• 30 October 2009
  • Posted By Matt Sugrue
  • 8 Comments
  • Events in Iran, Iranian Youth

Khamenei Criticized at Public Meeting

30 October 2009 Posted By Matt Sugrue

Mowjcamp is reporting that a student from Sharif University of Technology was apparently arrested in Iran after criticizing Ayatollah Khamenei at a public event. At least some of the comments were made while television cameras were broadcasting the event live.

The event, a meeting between the Supreme Leader and various academics, took place on Wednesday. According to the article posted on Mowjcamp,

The student directly addressed the leader criticising him and the Islamic Republic for twenty minutes. His comments were followed by occasional applause and cheers from those present. Iranian state-run TV which was broadcasting live images of the meeting was forced to stop airing the programme for some time.

Based on the information included in the article, it appears that the general thrust of the student’s twenty-minute address was that freedom of speech is under attack in Iran. Although, he also articulated dissatisfaction,

[with] what he described as a campaign to idolise the leader while questioning the “cycle of power” in the Islamic Republic and the structure of the Guardians Council and the Council of the Elite.

The report states that government security forces met the student as he was leaving the event.

Posted By Matt Sugrue

    8 Responses to “Khamenei Criticized at Public Meeting”

  1. Iranian-American says:
    October 30, 2009 at 4:13 pm

    A student is arrested for criticizing the Supreme Leader. The title says it all, Supreme Leader. If it was not so sad, it would be funny that there are those that try to argue that the Iranian government is not a dictatorship in the face of such reports.

    Reply
  2. Ali says:
    October 31, 2009 at 3:30 am

    @Iranian-American

    Rumors that the student was arrested are lies. He is free, and commented on reports of his arrest as being ‘laughable’. And this post neglects to mention that he made his comments at the invitation of the Leader himself. btw, your claims about the term ‘Supreme Leader’ are false because this is not a direct translation. In farsi, the term is ‘Vali Faqi’ which means the Scholar-Ruler.

    Reply
  3. Someone says:
    November 2, 2009 at 11:57 am

    @ Ali

    Supreme Leader is a translation of Rahbar not Vali-e-Faqih. Rahbar is short for Rahbar-e-Enghelab-e-Eslami.

    Yes, Supreme Leader is not an exact word-for-word translation, but I think it gives a good impression of what it means to be the “Leader of the Islamic Revolution” in an Islamic Republic.

    Reply
  4. Linda says:
    November 2, 2009 at 3:54 pm

    Amazing. Vahidnia is a truly heroic, brave person. I hope he will be okay.

    Reply
  5. Lourdes says:
    November 3, 2009 at 11:21 am

    @Iranian-American

    I think you are either misinformed or deliberately lying.

    How exactly would someone like Khamenei try to control the damage from an incident like this? By claiming exactly what you claim.

    Still, that alone is not proof that it is not true. Do you have any evidence? Is there any way we can corroborate that what you say is true? (aside from state-run Iranian media?).

    Describing the possibility that he was locked up as “laughable” gives me a strong feeling that the source of your information is the regime itself.

    I look forward to more information from you.

    Reply
  6. Someone says:
    November 3, 2009 at 2:16 pm

    @ Lourdes

    I think your comment was intended to be directed @Ali and not @Iranian-American.

    Anyway, FYI, I think Ali is referring to this article: http://alef.ir/1388/content/view/56152/

    According to EA (http://enduringamerica.com/2009/10/31/the-latest-from-iran-31-october-parliaments-challenge-to-ahmadinejad/) it purports to be an interview “with mathematics student Mahmoud Vahidnia … [in which he] denies that he was arrested after the incident.”

    Ali apparently eats this sort of misinformation up like fessenjoun. It’s a frequent tactic of the IRI to plant phony articles like this. They did the same sort of thing with Taraneh Mousavi to cover up her death and they’ve done it on countless other occasions as well.

    It’s no wonder the people chant “marg bar een dolateh mardom-farib” = “down with this deceiving government”.

    Reply
  7. Lourdes says:
    November 3, 2009 at 3:04 pm

    Thank you, Someone, for the information. I am not in the least surprised by the phony articles. As the daughter of Cuban exiles, I am all too familiar with the tactics, lies, kangaroo trials, manipulation, spying, imprisonment and torture of citizens for speaking openly, etc. that is standard in totalitarian regimes.

    Reply
  8. rezvan says:
    December 5, 2009 at 7:47 am

    for lourdes- that is standard in all political systems including the ‘democratic’ west. the difference is they are more sophisticated the others are too crude and obvious so easy to detect.

    Reply

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