The name of Iranian ayatollah Seyyed Hossein Kazemeyni Boroujerdi is little known outside his own country, which is unfortunate. Ayatollah Boroujerdi has been held in Tehran’s notorious Evin prison since 2006.
Boroujerdi, aged 50, is an heir to a distinguished Shia clerical family. He was born in Tehran and educated in the Shia religious center of Qom. Like his father, Grand Ayatollah Seyyed Mohammad Ali Kazemeyni Boroujerdi (1924-2002), Boroujerdi preaches the pre-Khomeini interpretation of Iranian Shiism, which calls for religion to be kept apart from politics. His health has been badly affected by the conditions of his imprisonment, yet he has continued, from his cell, to denounce the regime of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Unlike the competing clerics who challenged the ruling duo in last year’s challenged balloting, Boroujerdi has become a consistent champion of secularism. He has declared, “the regime is adamant that either people adhere to political Islam or be jailed, exiled or killed. Its behavior is no different from that of Osama bin Laden or Mullah Omar.”
In November, according to the Iranian blog Voice of Freedom, which serves as a global forum for the Boroujerdi case, five of Boroujerdi’s female supporters and one male acolyte were arrested – for the fourth time. Their names also deserve to be known: Sayyedeh Tayebeh Husseini, Narges Ghaffarzadeh, Roya Araghi, Maryam Azimi, Forogh Hematyar, and Mohammad Reza Sadeghi. In the first week of December, the conditions under which the six were held were unknown to their supporters within and beyond Iran’s borders. On December 6, another Boroujerdi partisan, Mohammad Mehman-Nazad, 39-years-old, was arrested and disappeared into the void of Iran’s repressive system.
Boroujerdi and his group have lately issued a message to the world’s Jews, congratulating them on the Hanukkah holiday. Their knowledge of Jewish customs may be faulty – their statement confused Hanukkah, the Feast of Lights commemorating the liberation of the Jewish Temple from foreign dominance by the Maccabean revolt some 23 centuries ago with the Jewish New Year, or Rosh Hashanah, which fell during September of this year. But their sentiments were manifestly sincere and clearly repudiated the anti-Jewish demagogy of Ahmadinejad.
As posted here on another pro-Boroujerdi blog, the message explicitly condemns Jew-baiting by the Tehran tyrants: “We join in the celebration of all religious beliefs and traditions ... We come to this joint celebration through our common vision for freedom and peace.” The group contrasts its attitude with that of “the current anti-Semitic regime of Iran,” which it accuses of sowing animosity and hatred between the descendants of Abraham, the common ancestor of Jews and Arabs, and the progenitor of monotheism.
Boroujerdi’s own message describes the lights of Hanukkah as divine, specifying, “We celebrate the light (Hanukkah)… My belief about different religions and creeds in different countries is that any religious belief that brings us closer to the Source (God) is the truth. This force will lead humanity towards enlightenment. On this great day, (Hanukkah) we celebrate the unity among the believers of God’s light.” His disciples added, “All followers of Mr. Boroujerdi join in this celebration of light with all Jewish people around the world. With hope that the sunlight of truth will free us from the darkness of injustice and ignorance, we hope for a world full of peace and brotherhood among God’s children.”
Although his name and those of his arrested followers are typically overshadowed in foreign discussions of Iranian affairs, Boroujerdi commands considerable respect among his fellow-victims of clerical rule. When he was arrested in 2006, he maintained a network of 100 telephone lines to communicate with his audience, and led prayers for crowds so large they could only be accommodated in a sports stadium.
This year, Hanukkah season coincides with the Shia Muslim commemorations of Ashura, marking the martyrdom of Husayn, the grandson of Muhammad, in the first Islamic century. Ashura symbolizes the fight for justice, as pursued by Husayn against the Islamic tyrants of his time. The Tehran regime will, as in the past, utilize Ashura to identify itself with the ideals of Husayn. But Ayatollah Boroujerdi and his devotees, in their commitment to secularism and to mutual respect between religions, represent a far more appropriate embodiment of the tradition of Ashura than the evildoers who still impose their cruelties on Iran in the name of religion.
http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/imprisoned-iranian-ayatollah-offer...
Submitted by andie531 on Sun, 2010-12-12 08:09
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your source ''weeklystandard'' is garbage!
The Weekly StandardThe Weekly Standard is an American neoconservative[1][2][3][4] opinion magazine[5] published 48 times per year. Its founding publisher, News Corporation, debuted the title September 18, 1995. Currently edited by founder William Kristol and Fred Barnes, the Standard has been described as a "redoubt of neoconservatism" and as "the neo-con bible".[6][7]. Many of the magazine's articles are written by members of conservative think tanks located in Washington, D.C.: the American Enterprise Institute, the Ethics and Public Policy Center, the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, and the Hudson Institute. Some notable individuals that have written for the magazine include Elliott Abrams, Peter Berkowitz, John R. Bolton, Ellen Bork, Ed Gillespie, Roger Kimball, Harvey Mansfield, Joe Queenan, Wesley J. Smith, and John Yoo. The magazine's website blog, titled the "Daily Standard", is edited by John McCormack and Daniel Halper and produces daily articles and commentary.
I rather believe the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad then a bunch of neocons and Rupert Murdock any day.
Also Ahmadinejad is not anti-Jewish he is anti-zionist!
I'm not endorsing this guy, and I don't know squat about the Weekly Standard being "garbage". I've also posted things from the famous Zionist NYT which are not "garbage" - so just because it comes out of a particular source does not necessarily disqualify it.
Frankly, I have never heard of Boroujerdi and thought maybe others had not. I don't know much about him - maybe he is some sort of Zionist funded controlled oppostion.
As for Ahmadinejad being anti-Jewish, I do not agree with that - I did post an article recently which stated that the Jews in Iran, according to them, were not being harassed or in any sort of danger. I GET IT.
I don't believe many of us here are experts on Iranian politics. This info on Boroujerdi does give a better picture of what is going on in Iran, and it was simply an FYI piece. I did try to find other pieces on Boroujerdi, but all I could find were these "puff pieces". Frankly, YOU could have done better by finding some better info than what you did.
Anything you read, anywhere should always be with some discernment, i.e. "caveat lector". I was hoping someone could tell us more about Boroujerdi, but I guess I was asking for too much.
Another thing - some of the best sources for new items are the extreme pro-Zionist sites, who keep track of both "anti-Semitic" news and pro-Zionist news. They usually have an RSS feed set up for that.
What I've seen here on WUFYS and other similar blogs is a tendency to gather info from only sites with a "correct" viewpoint, which leads to an intellectual rut, and as consequence, we don't get any new info. It's like the same old tired crap keeps getting re-re-circulated.
Hunt, dig, get an RSS feed. It helps. And if you can, find some good info on Boroujerdi.
I'm surprised you didn't know about The Weekly Standard, Andie. It's the leading neocon rag, along with Commentary Magazine.
(Just saying - I didn't vote on this piece.)
The NYT is the leading Zionist rag and that's where the story was about Jews in Indonesia. I don't know about the WS - I don't read Kristol or his pals.
The WS may be disreputable for a number of reasons, but the question is, did they print anything about this Boroujerdi that wasn't true? That they left out? The stuff that they are not telling is what is important. Can someone fill in?
People should at least know about Boroujerdi and if there is nothing else out there on him, the only place to get info from is the MSM, like it or not. A copy and paste job does not mean endorsement.
The funny thing is that as soon as the West and Zionist occupied European states realize they can't control Iran through sanctions or threats of war they start labeling Iran as the worlds worst human rights violators. Seyyed Hossein Kazemeyni Boroujerdi has been a sellout ever since his father died in 2002. He has tried to destroy the teachings of Khomeini, witch is the only reason Iran is no longer a Zionist state.
Seyyed Boroujerdi has repeatedly asked the Pope Benedict XVI, Kofi Annan and Javier Solana for assistance. Seyyed Boroujerdi is the only option the Zionist have to change the minds of the Iranian people. Seyyed Boroujerdi doesn't know the difference between Jew and Zionist just like he doesn't know the difference between Hanukkah Rosh Hashanah. he is just the next puppet they are trying to prune and prep to try to overthrow the Iranian Republic (Fat Chance).
Al I have to say is as soon as you read a article by the pro Zionist media calling a Ayatollah anything but a radical Islamist, you should try to read in-between the lines.
Al I have to say is as soon as you read a article by the pro Zionist media calling a Ayatollah anything but a radical Islamist, you should try to read in-between the lines.
I DO. I expect everyone else to as well. I expect people to be savvy enough to do that without my having to editorialize like I'm their information nanny or something. Maybe it's because my mom got involved in this stuff back in the 60's - (anti-Fed, anti-Zionist, pro-Palestine, ad nauseum) that I assume we're all close to being on the same page.
So where are the links to the info that you just mentioned?
There are not to many links to fully understand this Ayatollah.
but growing up in Iran you are always raised to understand religion and politics. Seyyed Hossein Kazemeyni Boroujerdi has always been a shady Ayatollah, he talks about separating religion and politics and at the same time tries to be a politician and religious scholar. here are some links.
http://www.jihadwatch.org/2008/09/iran-jailed-ayatollah-seeks-infidel-...
http://www.adnkronos.com/AKI/English/Religion/?id=1.0.2514999702
@andie531 I am not trying to be rude, I'm just trying to put my point across. Also i usually enjoy reading you posts.