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NYTimes: Iran Puts Opponents on Trial, but Critics Are Vocal

Something extraordinary is still happening in Iran. Trials of opposition leaders designed to intimidate critics of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad hardline regime are not having the intended effect. Voices are raised from every corner of the system telling that the trial and all the charade that feeds it is wrong and that further repression will end up imploding Iran. 

In a previous post I talked about how the present woes have at least part of their origin in past events. Some wouldn't like to be reminded but secularism (laïcité) was destroyed the day the United States and te United Kingdom decided to oust Dr. Mossadegh's left-wing government. Also, the oil junkies that we are and the political obsession with the region probably intensified at the time (1950s). 

Nevertheless, it still amazes me how, after three decades of religious rigidity people who lived through, and were born after the 1979 Islamic revolution are ready to have the regime loosening up that rigidity - through democratic politics - without necessarily discarding devotion and/or piety, and that these are better practice by choice, not by imposition. 

We'll see what ensues. In the meantime read the article below and tell me what you think.   

From The New York Times:

Iran Puts Opponents on Trial, but Critics Are Vocal
By ROBERT F. WORTH and NAZILA FATHI


A day after the Iranian authorities began a mass trial of people they accused of trying to start a revolution, opposition figures denounced the proceeding as a show....

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/03/world/middleeast/03iran.html

Get The New York Times on your iPhone for free by visiting http://nytimes.com/iphoneinstaller


Sent from my iPhone

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