Russia’s upper parliament house freezes contacts with Turkish parliament — MP

MOSCOW, December 18. /TASS/. Russia’s Federation Council upper parliament house has frozen contacts with the Turkish parliament following the incident with Turkey’s downing a Russian warplane in Syria, Konstantin Kosachev, the chairman of the Federation Council’s international committee, said on Friday.

"Our contacts with colleagues in the Turkish parliament, which have been very active until now, has been frozen," he told journalists.

He said the upper house had taken this decision and "sees no point in unfreezing such contacts as long as the Turkish lawmakers are unthinkingly and dogmatically upholding the position taken by the Turkish president." "There is no sense in dialogue in such case," he saud.

Kosachev confirmed that Russian lawmakers had "no contacts" with their Turkish counterparts.

Moreover, Kosachev said he did not even knew his new counterpart, who had taken charge of the Turkish parliament’s international committee after the parliamentary elections in Turkey. "I knew the previous chairman, but I refused to speak with him when he made attempts to contact me," he said.

Earlier, the Russian State Duma lower parliament house said it was suspending contacts with the Turkish parliament. "In the foreseeable future, top officials of the State Duma see no possibility for contacts at the higher parliamentary level between the State Duma and Turkey’s parliament," Alexei Pushkov, the chairman of the State Duma international committee, said on December 7.

The Russian Su-24M all-weather bomber was on anti-terrorism mission in Syria on November 24, when it was shot down by a Turkish F-16 fighter jet. Ankara claimed it downed the Russian warplane after it had violated Turkey’s airspace, while the Russian defense ministry says the bomber was in the airspace over Syria at the time of the attack. Both pilots of the downed warplane ejected safely after they were hit by an air-to-air missile, but the commander was killed in a militants’ gunfire from the ground as he was parachuting.

Two Russia’s Mi-8 helicopters were engaged in the pilots’ search and rescue operation, which reportedly lasted for some 12 hours. One of the helicopters dispatched for the rescue mission came under fire and was subsequently forced to an emergency landing after sustaining damages. One Russian contract serviceman, a marine, was killed during the emergency landing. The rest of the servicemen on board of the helicopter were safely evacuated. The downed Mi-8 helicopter was later destroyed by mortar fire from the territory under control of the militants.

Iran, the Islamic State, and the Perversion of Islam

By Maryam Rajavi

Source: WorldPolicy

It seems that for all our progress in social and human development, with each new generation radical factions emerge, shaking the world with their ability to convince ordinary people to commit unspeakable atrocities.

We reflect on recent attacks in San Bernardino, carried out by invoking God and religion, with the same bewilderment that confounded us amid the many senseless cruelties of the 21st century. We struggle to understand how such wanton violence could be conceived by human minds and spread like wildfire. And, of course, we set ourselves to right it, asking how we can combat this most current version of extremism and prevent new forms from plaguing the world.

The breed of extremism that we face today is a lethal cocktail of medieval barbarism and modern-day fascism. It is a worldview that shuns political tolerance, promotes misogyny, and, of course, glorifies violence. This specific brand pursues the implementation of Sharia and its draconian punishments. It has never had any connections to Islam, and there is clearly no place in the modern world for such a worldview.

However, it is a worldview with contemporary precedent. Ever since Ruhollah Khomeini came to power in 1979, Tehran championed itself as a successful model, which fundamentalists could follow in order to gain stature, power, and sovereign legitimacy. This presents a tantalizing message to Sunni extremists like the Islamic State– why can they not create their own “Islamic” State when Shiite fundamentalists have already done so?

While the conceptual origins of this extremist ideology took shape in the early years of Islam, it only turned into a formidable global force when fundamentalism gripped Iran in the aftermath of the 1979 revolution.

The regime that replaced the Shah—who was also detestable and undemocratic—began exporting Islamic fundamentalism on an unprecedented scale almost overnight. High-profile hostage-takings, bombings, suicide attacks, and assassinations became the norm as the mullahs in Tehran began building their own version of a theocratic state.

In these early stages, Shiite terrorist factions, including militias in Iraq, Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Houthis in Yemen, and others were directly formed by the Iranian regime. Without such state sponsorship from Tehran, their clout and influence would have quickly evaporated and they would have vanished. The vicious ideology and proliferative model grew increasingly lethal as its proponents gained access to veritable troves of military, diplomatic, political, and propaganda resources within the sovereign state borders of Iran.

So began the first modern-day “caliphate”—years before al-Qaida’s first attack burned in Yemen, and a full three decades prior to the rise of the Islamic State.

Many assume that Sunni fundamentalism is a unique phenomenon, entirely separate from the dogmas espoused by the Shiite mullahs in Tehran, but the differences are ancillary. In fact, Sunni fundamentalists have found tremendous strength under the political and spiritual umbrella of the Iranian theocracy. Both share the same ideological building blocks: the establishment of a religious state, which implements Sharia by force.

There is considerable evidence that the regime in Tehran has armed and financed Sunni extremists at various times and locations. Not only is Iran a long-standing sponsor of Hamas, but also as U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said recently, “ISIS was created by Assad releasing 1,500 prisoners from jail, and Maliki releasing 1,000 people in Iraq who were put together as a force of terror.” Tehran is the known puppet-master of both.

In recent years, the massacre of hundreds of thousands of Sunnis in Iraq and Syria at the hands of the Iranian regime and its proxies has provided a wellspring of sociopolitical sustenance for the Islamic State. Iran is propping this extremist hydra up on all sides, and finding new and creative ways to reinvigorate the beast as our security and intelligence missions stride in its wake. If Iran is one of the linchpins that legitimize the global Islamic extremist threat, what is to be done?

History tells us that nothing is more dangerous for fundamentalism and extremism than democratic and moderate ideals. This has been made clear in Iran, where the regime’s suppressive tactics find their chief targets are the moderate Muslim factions, including the Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK).

To meet with true success, the current military campaigns and intelligence operations in the region must be complemented by the promotion of an interpretation of genuine Islam that is both democratic and tolerant. Only through a nuanced but unambiguously affirmative strategy that provides lasting moral and physical support to the people of Iran and the region in their quest for freedom and moderate leadership will we escape the echoes of history’s darkest narratives.

*****

Maryam Rajavi is the president-elect of the National Council of Resistance of Iran, which seeks the establishment of a democratic, secular, and non-nuclear Iran.

ISIS News

Let's not forget the beheading of children and crucifying youths in their genocidal war against Christians, Yazidis, and whomever else is standing in the way .

Saudi Arabia forms anti-terrorism coalition but excludes Iran

Suspected Pedophile Behind Bars after Thief steals his phone

SANTIAGO – A man identified only as T.P. has been ordered held without bail after a thief who stole his cellphone and found child pornography on the device reported the discovery, Chilean authorities said Thursday.

Prosecutors charged T.P. with sexual abuse of minors and possession of child pornography.

The theft occurred last week in Santiago’s Renca district.

The thief, a 30-year-old man, discovered the porn, including images of child rape, and decided to deliver the phone’s memory card to an organization that works with at-risk children.

“I know that you work with children and I want to give you this card. I stole it, but when I reviewed it I saw that it contained child pornography,” the thief told the organization, according to a report in Las Ultimas Noticias newspaper.

The organization reported the case to police, which led to the detention of T.P. once investigators verified that he was the individual appearing in the videos.

The suspect had 410 photographs and videos with sexual content, some of them including his partner’s 8-year-old daughter.

Mexico -Australian Surfers found dead in van .

CULIACAN, Mexico – The burned bodies found inside a van in Navolato, a city in the northwestern Mexican state of Sinaloa, three weeks ago are those of Australians Dean Lucas and Adam Russell Coleman, officials said Tuesday.

DNA tests done by Australian authorities confirmed the victims’ identities, Sinaloa Attorney General Marco Antonio Higuera told reporters.

“The only thing I can tell you is that, yes, it is those persons. What we’re waiting for are the official results,” Higuera said.

The bodies will be released once the official results are received by state authorities, a process that could be concluded next week, the AG said.

Lucas and Coleman, both 33, disappeared on Nov. 20 while driving to Guadalajara, the capital of the western state of Jalisco, where Andrea Gomez, the girlfriend of one of the victims, lives.

The surfers were traveling in a 1992 van and used a ferry to cross the Sea of Cortes from La Paz, a city in Baja California Sur state, to Topolobampo, a city in Sinaloa.

The Australians drove all afternoon after making the crossing and were last seen at a convenience store, where an employee told them the best route to Mazatlan, a resort city in Sinaloa.

The route taken by the Australians goes through the city of Navolato, where the burned bodies of two unidentified people were found inside a charred vehicle on Nov. 21.

The Sinaloa AG’s office said on Dec. 4 that three suspects had been arrested in connection with the murders and two others were being sought.

The suspects under arrest, identified as Julio Cesar Gonzalez Muñiz, Martin Rogelio Muñiz Ponce and Sergio Simon Benitez Gonzalez, have prior criminal records on drug and vehicle theft charges.

The men were arrested in the same area where the killings were committed, prosecutors said, adding that the Australians were murdered during a robbery attempt.

Investigators are still looking for the other two suspects in the case, Higuera said.

Iran-Foad Khanjani Released From Prison

Posted on: 15th December, 2015

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• Editor: Human
• Translator:
• Source: Sen's daily

HRANA News Agency – Foad Khanjani, a former student of industrial management at Isfahan University who was expelled because of his Bahai beliefs, has been released at the end of his four-year sentence.

According to the report of Human Rights Activists News Agency in Iran (HRANA), he was arrested in Tehran on March 2, 2010, and taken to the offices of the Ministry of Intelligence, released and rearrested, and arrested for the third time on April 27, 2010, when he was sent to Evin Prison.

His arrests followed the widespread unrest in Iran following the announcement of national election results. Authorities initially tried to claim that Bahais had a hand in stirring up the protests. His sister Leva Khanjani, another student excluded from education for being a Bahai, was also arrested after the election unrest, along with her husband Babak Mobasher. She was arrested on January 3, 2010, and sentenced to two years in prison. She was released on June 24, 2014.

Mr. Khanjani was released on bail on May 8, pending his trial which was conducted on December 11, 2010. He was sentenced to 4 years in prison, by Judge Maqiseh, and this sentence was confirmed in the review court by Judge Mouhed.

His lawyer attempted to appeal this sentence to the Supreme Court, but the lawyer was confronted with threats from the Ministry of Intelligence. Mr. Khanjani began his sentence in Evin Prison on January 17, 2012, but on August 5 of that year he was transferred to Raja’i Shahr prison. From late September that year he was in need of urgent hospital treatment for a cyst in the abdomen, which was denied until early November. On March 2, 2013, he was denied family visits for refusing to wear prison uniform.

Foad Khanjani’s father, Ala’eddin Khanjani, known as Niki, was also arrested following the election protests, and again in August 2014, apparently because he was running an optician’s shop, and such businesses had been added — unannounced — to the list of sectors in which Bahais are forbidden to work. He was summoned to appear at Bench 5 of the court at Evin Prison in Tehran on August 10, 2015. Bench 5 has specialised in the persecution of Bahais. So far as I know, his sentence has not yet been announced.

Niki Khanjani’s father Jamalledin Khanjani is one of the seven ‘Yaran’ (Bahai national facilitators) who are now in the eighth year of 10-year sentences for their services to the Bahai community.