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IRANdokht

As Abarmard already mentioned, there are Iranians currently being held on no charges by the US with claims of torture by those released already. The US is actively protecting a terrorist group that has assassinated many Iranian leaders and civilians without the slightest regard for justice.

Under these circumstances, there is a lot of pressure on Iranian officials not to let someone who has violated the law be treated differently JUST because they are American, or have enough connections to bring international attention to the case.

Q

Please elaborate

Thanks

IRANdokht

"Pressure" goes both ways

Does pressure work? Or was pressure in this case merely enough to overcome the pressure that lead to her sentencing in the first place?

Ali, sure it does (:<{

//zamaaneh.com/humanrights/2009/05/post_351.h...

Ali P

The system doesn't work my friend..It was the international pressure that made it work....

Irandokht

I guess either is correct.  We say "cheshm zahr".  Our dialect is from the Fars province.  Or may be I personally pronouce it wrong....

Thanks for the good news!

I am glad the pressure paid off, it's amazing how people's lives are insignificant in the games of politics!

dear AO,

I just have to ask: is it "cheshm zahr" or zahr-e cheshm? I know technically both should be the same but as an expression, I have never heard of cheshm zahr. Is that expression specific to an area?

IRANdokht

Abarmard

There should be no automatic comparisons to the United States when there's something negative about the IRI.  If there are unjust legal cases in the U.S., then so be it.  Those should be corrected and discussed as well.

I'm not sure what you mean by spies being taken care of behind closed doors.  As far as length of trials and prepartion in espionage cases, I will give you an example of Rosenberg trial, which took place in an era of anti-communist phobia and paranoia.  Even under those circumstances, the case went to trial 8 months after Julius Rosenberg was arrested and 7 months after his wife Ethel was arrested.  The trial itself took 23 days and the appeals took another two years.  Now compare that with the Saberi case, and you'll see the difference.  Here's some info.

//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosenbergs

//www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/rosenb/ROS_TIME.HTM

Anonymous Observer

I am not certain where you live, I live in the United States and have heard about many unfair trials and unjust punishments. I am also certain that those who are considered spies are taking care of either behind the close doors or just taking care of!

For civil courts I could agree with you on some areas but for other cases I absolutely disagree with you.

Some just sugar coat it more than the others.

Actually Ali

The system does NOT work.  In a real legal system, a person would not be arrested for the phony charge of "buying alcohol", be held without bail and then be charged with "espionage" for taking pictures of government buildings in Iran.  Incidentally, if you look at the homepage of Iranian.com today, you will see the person has posted photos of the city hall in Tabriz.  That's a government building as well.  So, I guess this person is alos committing espionage. 

Second, in a real legal system, a trial for a charge as serious as espionage will take years of prepartion and the trial itself would last for days, weeks, or even months.  It wouldn't be a kangaroo court where the person is put on trial within a couple of weeks after an arrest, with a "trial" lasting about an hour, and without an opportunity for her and her lawyers to prepare a proper defense. Actually, I read somewhere that at the initial "trial", she and her lawyers didn't even know that this was actually the "trial" until they were about half way (I guess half an hour) through with the hearing!  They were under the impression that this was just a preliminary hearing.   

Third, in a real legal system, an appeal would take weeks or months to allow the parties to submit proper briefs, make complicated legal arguments and defend each other's position.  It wouldn't be a dog and pony show lasting less than a month.

Fourth, in a real legal system, the judiciary would not be influenced by other branches of the government, which seems to be the case here.

This whole incident was a political move that was intended to a) test the Obama administration, b) give Obama a "cheshm zahr" as we call it in Persian, and 3) try to secure the release of the paasdars that the U.S. is holding in Iraq.  They figured they try it with Obama.  They tried the same tactic with Bush by doing the same thing to Haleh Esfandiari, but it failed with him, so they tried it with Obama, and it appears that it didn't work here either.  Poor Roxanna Saberi was yet another victim of this thug system. 

Good News

Now let's focus on the Iranians jailed by the US, if they are still alive

See...!

The SYSTEM works! :-)