Word: heydari
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...Mohammed Reza Heydari told the Norwegian broadcaster NRK that his decision to step down was tied to the crackdown, during which security forces fired directly into crowds. At least eight people were killed, including the nephew of the opposition leader Mir-Hossein Mousavi. "It was the Iranian authorities' treatment of demonstrators over the Christmas period that made it clear to me that my conscience forbids me from continuing my job at the embassy," Heydari was quoted as saying by NRK. (See pictures of people around the world protesting Iran's election...
...according to Rahman Saki, chairman of the Norwegian-Iranian Support Committee - an aid group - Heydari is considering asking Norwegian authorities for political asylum. "There is no way he will return to Tehran. If he goes back, it will undoubtedly mean imprisonment and torture," Saki says. According to the Swedish newspaper Sydsvenskan, Heydari will take a couple of days to figure out his plans, and during that time he will not give any interviews. The Norwegian Foreign Ministry said Thursday that it had yet to be contacted in the case. (See pictures of terror in Tehran...
...Heydari applies for asylum, it will mark a significant defection for Iran - especially at a time when the Iranian people and the rest of the world are watching for cracks to appear in the government following last month's violence. Davoud Hermidas Bavand, a scholar and former diplomat in Iran, told the Los Angeles Times that such a defection would be huge: "If it is true, then it is going to be a precedent, because it has not happened since the beginning years of the [1979] revolution, when some of the appointed postrevolutionary diplomats defected and sought asylum. This case...
...Parvin Heydari, an Iranian mother of two, was flipping back and forth between the nightly news and Oprah when a bulletin on an Iranian state channel caught her attention. It urged Iranians to boycott what it called "Zionist products," including those made by Pepsi, Nestlé and Calvin Klein, and warned that profits from such products "are converted into bullets piercing the chests of Lebanese and Palestinian children." As evidence, the voice-over intoned, "Pepsi stands for 'pay each penny to save Israel.'" Heydari says she changed the channel, as she has no intention of crossing Nestlé's Nesquik...
Iranians like Heydari believe that their country, ethnically and linguistically Persian, should stay out of the Arabs' fight with Israel and focus on improving living standards at home. "I don't think it's right to support them when our own people are hungry," says Mohammad Reza Afshari, 23, a mechanic who works two jobs yet still cannot afford to move out or attend college. The shop where he works abuts a vast mural depicting a female suicide bomber with a baby in her arms, accompanied by the words I LOVE MOTHERHOOD, BUT I LOVE MARTYRDOM MORE. Frustration with such...