savethesheikh.com

”It makes me sick to the stomach.” The quote is from me (Father Dave), as reported in Rick Fenley’s June 22nd article in the Sydney Morning Herald, “Time running out for sheikh told to leave“.

The quote is with reference to the way the Australian government persuaded the United Nations to withdraw their request for a stay on the deportation of Sheikh Mansour Leghaei, on the basis that they are not actually breaking up his family.

The government claimed that because they had given visas to Mansour’s wife and youngest son that they were therefore not damaging the family unit. Hoever, in reality, the Sheikh and his wife and daughter will be forced to head back to Iran with Mansour, thus leaving three sons in Australia and breaking the family in half.

As the article also makes clear though, the United Nations is still pursuing the Australian government over concerns that Australia has violated fundamental human rights treaties to which it is signatory in the way it has treated Sheikh Mansour (eg. the right of every person to a fair trial). The government has been given until October 21st to respond to the United Nations’ concerns.  Read the full article here.

Another major media outlet to cover the Sheikh’s story is Al-Jazeera. As well as the clip displayed below, Al-Jazeera is considering a full-length documentary concerning the Sheikh’s treatment.

A brilliant article by Rick Feneley was published in the Sydney Morning Herald on May 1st in which the case against Sheikh Mansour Leghaei was exposed as baseless.

The article, Accusations Lost in Translation, chronicles a rather worrying list of accusations that have been made against the Sheikh – accusations that incriminate not only Mansour but his entire family.

Sheikh Mansour’s sister, for instance, is depicted as an agent of the Iranian government who walks the streets of Tehran with a walkie-talkie hidden under her veil, informing on women who dress immodestly. The detailed nature of the accusation would suggest that it must have some basis in reality, except that Mansour doesn’t have a sister!

Of course this is only one of a series of accusations about our Iranian Sheikh, but Feneley’s article brought to mind for me Anthonly Flew’s old dictum – that 100 leaking buckets hold no more water than one leaking bucket. Read it here.

The other news is that on Monday May 3rd Mansour was given yet another two week extension on his visa, to give more time to the Minister to make up his mind about his future. How long, O Lord, must we wait for justice?

ABC Lateline, 7 April 2010. Sheikh Mansour Leghaei’s opponents finally come out into the open and face the cameras. A group calling themsleves the Iranian Action Coalition claimed to have new evidence linking Sheikh Mansour to human rights abuses in Iran. When pushed though they were unwiling (or unable) to produce anything.

Other major articles published recently include:

• Sally Neighbour’s less than helpful article about the Repression of Iranian students in Australia.
• Afshin Nikouseresht – the person interviewed for the above article – writes about inaccuries in Sally Neighbour’s report.
• Mike Carlton uses Sheikh Mansour as an example of the Bumbling Activities of ASIO.
• Joel Gibson also writes in the Sydney Morning Herald about the Dark Side of ASIO.
• A great article appears in The National coming from an Interview with Sheikh and Father Dave by the BBC.