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[solly]

* 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 principles
      and should not be undertaken under any circumstances.
    * Iranian nuclear facilities have been inspected over 2000 times
      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 Hussein'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 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.

========================
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

[helpful]

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)
   

Well, not going to be true for much longer.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/5216490.stm

And, for a list of other banned books, see:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,,1950047,00.html

Perhaps these decisions can be defended?

[prytania3]

Mod:

What is the political responsibility of writers?

None.

Unless, of course, we live in a country that now mistakes propaganda for good writing.

[solly]

prytania3.

I take it you did read the piece from the BBC:
"Best-selling novel The Da Vinci Code has been banned in Iran as a result of protests from Christian clergy."

[helpful]

prytania3.

I take it you did read the piece from the BBC:
"Best-selling novel The Da Vinci Code has been banned in Iran as a result of protests from Christian clergy."

Did you even read your own posting. The posting said it was banned by the government, the government you are defending!

[solly]

My apologies prytania3. Wrongful attribution of my reply which was to helpful's post.

helpful.

Whilst I do not condone the censorship of ideas in any form, the point about Da Vinci is simply this.

Ahmadinejad has (to me at least) exhibited a delicious sense of irony and seems to delight in highlighting Western hypocrisy.
His response to the Mohammed Cartoon controversy - a Holocaust Cartoon Competition.
He believes that the Israeli regime are in denial of the Palestinian Holocaust so he sponsors a Holocaust Conference.

Many Christian Clergy called for the banning of the Da Vinci book here in the West - so Ahmadinejad bans it.

I think there is high comedy here. The idea that a so-called "Islamofascist" would ban a book that is offensive to Christians while the New Testament remains freely available under his rule makes me suspect that it is another manifestation of his biting humour.

Incidentally, these two speeches give a perspective on the conference that is not often heard:

http://www.nkusa.org/activities/Speeches/2006Iran-Feldman.cfm
http://www.nkusa.org/activities/Speeches/2006Iran-ACohen.cfm

Happy Christmas.