Jahanshah Javid

THREE SPONSORS FOR ONE CHILD?

I also have a child with Child Foundation. I did not know that two other sponsors were also paying for my child. No one ever told me that. So if three paid and they received $60 for that child, why did my sponsored child only got $20 a month in Iran? Also I read in comment #21 today that Child Foundation never had license to send the money to Iran. May be that is exactly why that the FBI went after them.

License for Child Foundation

Are you saying that Child Foundation never had license to transfer the cash to Iran? Is that a violation? So how did the foundation do that? I also heard kids only got $20 a month in Iran in cash and actually foundation collected $60 for the same kid from 3 different sponsors. Where did the $40 balance go?

Child Foundation continues to be active and functional

According to official website Child Foundation is under government investigation which presently seems to be their usual investigation.CF employees have not been asked to stop working, no one has been arrested, and planning to having another fundraising-event in Los Angeles on Aug 17th continues by investigators' permission.To read official press release please go to CF website.Thanks for all your Support,   Peyman RaoofiChild Foundation Los Angeles Volunteer

It helps to know the OFAC laws

I am not sure what the charges were but I hope they get cleared of any wrong doing. One important law that many people do not know about is the economic sanctions as it relates to sending money to Iran. This federal law, enforced by OFAC, prohibits any us person (individual or organization) to send money to Iran for any cause without proper license. The only exception is that individuals can send up to $100 per year. The federal government lifted this sanction for few months after the BAM earthquake but reinstated that again. I checked the OFAC site and Child Foundation does not have a license. Nor do they claim to have one. However, they openly advertise the fact that they support the kids in Iran. If you end up raising millions of dollars (based on their last IRS filing) do not have proper permits, then I guess FBI wants to check your files. I agree that the sanction is a bad law. But that is a different subject.

Samira, the child I sponsor

I am helping the Child Foundation.

Samira is the girl I chose to sponsor. Voila the information about her background:

Father: dead

Mother: sick and cannot work.

Brother and sisters at home: 6

They all live in Kermanshah, in a 20 m room (with no kitchen, no bathroom) in a Hosseinieh. The room is too dark and too small for kids to be able to study.   

Extra info: Older sister after getting her diploma with high grade had to work hard but has commited suicide because of poverty and helplessness "faghr-o-bichaaregi". Her death has caused depression among others, so other children had to give up school and work in the streets. One sister had to get married to help the situation.

In Samira's profile these boxes were checked: Orphan, Smart, Poor.

I will send her picture to JJ, so you can see how she looks. So we all can give a human face to these kids.

I help Samira and the Child Foundation, but they're not the only ones...I also help Unicef and LA Opera and KUSC and Doctors without borders and Amnesty International monthly. I wish I could do more...I guess I easily get restless by causes!

Now, I truly hope that this raid be used to bring awareness about these kids to the American public and American media. I think it could be a real chance for any of us to speak up, so others would know. So others would care and would feel restless and “bichaareh”, like Samira’s sister. Maybe this raid is going to be the best thing that happened to this charity.

Thanks,

Azarin

mahmoudg

Thanks for your comment. I fully understand what you are saying.

I hope people are careful when they are writing blogs and articles. If something like this can happen to you, it could potentially happen to anyone.

Like you correctly pointed out that there is no real privacy and security once you are on-line. And as Jahanshah alluded to, once a person goes on-line, for whatever reason, any true meaning of privacy is nothing but an 'illusion'.

With this heightened awareness after 9/11, the 'Big Brother' is very well monitoring things closely. - George Orwell, R.I.P. :) .. The spirit of '1984' is very well alive and in operation!!

To Just curious

I agree with Jahanshah, and my point was not to place the blame on iranian.com, far from it.  Just letting you know what happened.  I, by no means am trying to hide my identity, as I have written numerous artcles on this site and will continue to do so under my true identity and no amount of FBI probe or IRI probe (as I see thier traffic on my own website) can stop me from saying what I believe.  Being that I worked in the area of IP technology and still teach in it, there is no and I mean NO amount of identity concealment can hide ones identity.  World Wide Web is open and on the same token both the good guys and the enemy can use it to infiltrate sites, homes, IP's , blogs, etc. 

Malekeh--Zionazis AGAIN!...you know, I busted my...er....

derriere on that Holocaust thread this week, for DAYS, for DAYS, trying to get people to stop conflating Zionism with Nazism, for semantic, pragmatic and ethical reasons. You were on that thread.

And I patiently explained there that people accusing Zionists of using the Holocaust for their own political agenda were doing the EXACT SAME thing by doing it on a Holocaust thread. And using the word Nazi. And I offered a mirror. On me.

And I don't feel this way because I'm Jewish. Non-Jews like Q and Abermard support me in this every step of the way.  AND NOW HERE YOU ARE ON A THREAD ABOUT A KID'S CHARITY and you're exploiting THIS thread AND the Holocaust for your own political (racial????)  agenda.

Malekeh my MOTHER is a Zionist. My mother did not raid this charity. I will not let anyone call Zionists Nazis anywhere, ever. You know this already. If I cannot persuade you I will TALK YOU TO UTTER EXHAUSTION. Either way I will win. However, if you want to discuss it please move it to one of the five or six blogs on Palestine/Israel in the past weekor so. If you respond to me here I will ask jj to delete it. If he doesn't get to it before I do...

unless, of course, it's an apology....

Rosie

JJ if I were you I wouldn,t judge too fast

This name doesn,t ring the bell with folks whom I know in Iran..we have to wait...

شرايط وزارت کشور برای تشکيل سازمان خيريه و مردم نهاد

بنا بر گفته خواهرم در ايران عضو موسس نهادی خيريه.اگر اينها شماره ثبت با وزارت کشور ندارند کارشون بو ميده

هر موسسه خيريه بايد در وب سايتش شماره ثبت معاونت تشکلهايه غير دولتی وزارت کشور را بهمراه کد ملی تک تک کودکان تحت پوشش و مقطع تحصيلی انان و دوره تحت تکلف و ادرس معتبر در ايران تاييد شده با اداره اماکن ثبت کند.در غير اين صورت کارشون سيا بازيه و حقه بازی

اينا نه ادرس دارند و نه شماره ثبت در ايران که معمولان در ايران سه رقمی است و نه ثبت شده در معاونت اجتمايی وزارت کشور. ديگه خود دونيد

شرايط وزارت کشور..

تقاضاهاي تأسيس مؤسسات خيريه ملي و استاني نيازمند حضور حداقل دو نفر از خيرين ملي ويا استاني مي باشد كه براي احراز صلاحيت لازم است مدارك مثبته در بخش « نام كامل موسسين با ذكر آخرين مدرك و رشته تحصيلي » به هنگام تكميل فرم درخواست صدور پروانه اجمالا پس از نام افراد مورد نظر، ذكر شده و به هنگام ارائه مدارك، اصل مدارك ارائه شود.

موارد تخلف..

5- • عدم اجراي اهداف مندرج در اساسنامه
• عدم برگزاري به موقع مجامع عمومي و انجام تشريفات اداري براي اطلاع‌رساني اعضا بر اساس مفاد اساسنامه
• عدم اجراي مصوبات
• تخلف در جذب كمكهاي داخلي و خارجي و هزينه‌هاي سازمان
• تخلف از قوانين و مقررات موضوعه

Kurdish Warrior

Kurdish,

I read your comment to MALEKEH. In my opinuon, it may be you that needs to get real. You don't seem to understand the mechasims that US government uses to do the same shitty stuff that IRI does, except that they  put a nice face on it (such as when a plane crashes the US usually has a nice looking calm woman announce it rather than a "seda koloft and bad rikhte rishoo" -- just an example -- if you are smart you will get the drift!!!)

The "other" raid

I don't know if this raid is related to a previous raid in Chicago last year, but that raid was proved pretty stupid too.

Essentially, the NGO itself was a victim of fraud . They helped a little boy named Benyamin who had cancer go to St. Jude's for treatment. Once he got better, his family demanded the remaining money. When Child Foundation refused, they told the FBI/police that they were a terrorist organization. Keep in mind, Child Foundation helped Benyamin because he was a religious minority from Iran! Anyway they raided a fundraising event at a hotel in Chicago. Don't know what came of that other than nothing!

I hope this isn't another case of fraud. How difficult it must be for these charities even without having to deal with these petty issues.

Thanks Jahanshah

The main reason that I brought it up was so that people wouldn't go into some type of a 'false' sense of security thinking that all is well by just using a 'cute' username rather than their real name.

A couple of weeks ago, on C-Span2's BookTv, I saw an author talking about his new book on how 'extensively' Pentagon was using Private Contractors to decipher all sorts of data.

I guess better to be safe than sorry - :) Really!!

zero privacy

Just Curiious,

You asked about privacy and security issues on iranian.com? What are these "issues" exactly? Well let me assure you that any issues here are no different than those on all other sites. There is no privacy whatsoever. If you want complete privacy, don't go on the internet, don't use your phone, don't use your credit card...

Jahanshah

I posted a comment for approval a couple of hours ago after reading mahmoudg's reply to my comment regarding the incident that happened to him.

In my comment to you I enquired about the privacy and security issues on your site. I don't see my comment to you posted. Was there anything wrong about the issues that I had raised regarding security and privacy on your site?

It is NOT a surprise to me

JJ jaan;

This is not a surprise to me. I met the people who run the Irvine office several years ago. I was NOT imperssed.

People send me information; here is an e-mail:

--- On Wed, 1/2/08, ... wrote:

From:
Subject: Re: Child foundation
To: YYYYY
Date: Wednesday, January 2, 2008, 2:43 AM

Dear YYYYY,

Thank you for mentioning this. The name of the lady in Irvine is ... I have only been a short term contributor to the child foundation. As I mentioned to you at the beginning and still in present believe that it is a very good idea. But given the multi-billion dollar nature of the charity and room for abuse there are and should be always processes in place to scrutinize.

When I mentioned Ms ... about my experience in Iran with one of the so called volunteer "madadkars" (I think the volunteer name was Mrs ... and she was the principle of the school for a child I was supporting), Ms ... first said she would address my concern and even mentioned that most volunteers of the CF organization in Iran are relatives of ... ( I think that is the head of CF in US which was in Oregon). Then she tried to avoid me any time she met me and my wife. But I heard she had mentioned my name to others. All I did I told her about my experience the way I did to you.

I hope you have a very fruitful trip and hear from you soon.

Nikki since I read this news from you first...

I contacted friends in Portland to contact their "authorities" (i.e. representatives) up there and there has been no chance in finding out any details on this raid so far.  I will follow this on Monday and will let everyone know here if I find out anything.

Jahanshah

After I read mahmoudg's situation, and his follow-up answers to my inquiry, I would appreciate if you could elaborate in your own words the degree of privacy and security that we have on this site.

Apparently, FBI seems to be monitoring this site for their own subversive issues. I always knew that IRI monitors this site since it is banned in Iran.

There are regularly a number of articles and blogs critical of US Foreign Policy in general, and Bush's Administration in particular.

How much protection do the people who write these articles and blogs have? What I am trying to say is that is their IP addresses easily tracable, as it was with mahomudg's website, or the people who write these blogs and articles have some degree of protection?

Please feel free to elaborate on this subject as much as possible. Tks :)

K Nassery

please stay!

terrible and terrifying

Thanks for letting us know about this, it is really scary. I wonder if the FBI got them on some kind of sanctions for violations for sending money to Iran (yet another reason why sanctions are evil and harm all the wrong people). Anyway, i hope that like you said, iranian-american orgs, leaders, etc, will look into this and try to help these folks.

I am not interested in a feud of the week

K Nassery, I could argue with you for a century back and forth regarding yet another baseless accusation by you (now, it's that I am anti-American) when all I am asking is for everyone to abide by the very American principle of "innocent til proven guilty."  But I have always chosen to ignore people who make dramatic retirement announcements on this site (there are so many...sigh).  And I am definitely not interested in being involved in another feud of the week (another popular, futile pastime here, unfortunately).  So for me, this matter is closed.

Curious Why the Raid?

I checked them out before sponsoring my first child with them. Their record keeping and follow ups seemed legit to me. This is crazy! Maybe someone working there was in contact with someone who has an FBI file,... I hear having an FBI file doesn't take much these days, even one's name would do!  (doesn't that sound familiar)

Malekeh_

First of all I don't believe in Neo Zionist conspiracies that you mention. Your theories are baseless. There Plenty of Iranian charities in USA that is still in motion. I don't accuse this charity at all but what I'm saying is that if they have no connection to funding terrorism then they won't be shut down. Here in USA we have law and order unlike our country where fascist government torture individual, shuts down organizations when ever they feel for it. Try to be realistic my friend.

To just curious

This is FBI we are talking about, they found the link to my website which is posted as part of my profile and thorough my static IP address my true identity.  Which in fact is not hidden.  I write articles under my true name and my bio on iranian.com basically says who I am and where I could be located.  Hope this answers your question.

"Then they came for me......"

Mr. Javid and all others who are standing up and speaking against the civil rights abuses in this country, I applaud you all for your courage and dedication. NO, WE CAN NOT WAIT URGENT AND IMMEDIATE ACTION TO QUESTION THE VALIDITY OF THESE CHARGES IS NEEDED AND A MUST. Mr. J, please keep us infomed about this case as much as you humanly can.  Thanks!    

Re: Legit charity (To: Kurish Warrior)

Kurdish,

You sound very simple minded. Aren't you following the news that people, organizations, etc. are being raided and after 2, 3, 5, 7 years theier case are thrown out? Don't you understand that this the US government's trick to get legitimate organizations out of business only becasue they may have some "islamic" connection? It is the zio-nasis pulling the strings hon. Us is going down the drain!

Niki.

Thank you for accepting my sincere apology. 

I guess I did think they might have done something wrong because you don't get you computers taken by the FBI every day.  Your comparison to unfair raids shows you don't trust the government of the USA and forgive me...that's kinda what I did to the Iranian charity.... as I jumped to the conclusion that they might have done something wrong to get raided.  I see the your jump and mine as equivalent. It's popular here to attack the Americans.... so it's acceptable...  You will get the pass that I didn't get.

 Anyway... I am quitting Iranian.com because of my error and the distress that it caused JJ and you and ....any other patrons of this site.

Take care.  I wish everyone the best.

Legit charity

I agree with samsam1111...I did quick research myself and I couldn't locate any of their offices in Iran..If they are legit then they have nothing to worry about and the case obviously will be dismissed.

K Nassery

The commentator who called them crooks and likened all Iranians to crooks had his comment subsequently deleted (I don't know by whom). I put an update to that effect in my previous comment.

It was good that you acknowledged your mistake however later you said something to the effect that they can still hide their true recipients:

Quote: They put it on their tax forms, but maybe they sent some to other places. 

You also accused them of being untruthful because according to you the FBI must've read the warrant to them. Couple of things wrong with that.  I know first hand of many instances when law enforcement trampled on the constitutional procedures such as reading a warrant or even having a warrant to enter premises and haul away documents, property or even people.  Second, the officials may be scared, confused or advised by their attorney to say nothing pending the complete investigation.  So again, an unfair accusation.

This is how rumours get started.  Many people accept what they read and do not bother to check back the thread later on.  My own initial reaction  was that of disgust before I cooled off and did my own research, and realized there is not a shred of evidence linking them to Hamas or any other political or financial agenda. As I said, it is better to consider them innocent til proven guilty.

I do think you are sincere in your statements now and I have no ill will towards you.  Bottom line, we all hope some light to be shed asap.

So Sad !!

Now what happens to their charity work ,the kids &...?.