Your choice of words made it easy to do so:

“I’ve a world of disagreements with the Iranian régime, from a Muslim perspective, but would this rabble be any better if they were in power?” ” They are religious deviants and also murderers.”

The question is whether the murderousness of the Iranian regime is a consequence of its specifically shia roots or its general muslim roots.

No, it’s an example of you reading what you want into what I wrote.

In any case, the foundations of the Iranian “Islamic Republic” are based on ideas Khomeini concocted and derive from Shi’ism, and not mainstream Islam. So many of the trappings of fascism which appear in the Iranian régime, such as referring to Khomeini as “the Imam” and the general personality cult surrounding him, are Shi’a based. The propaganda they produce, for example, would not get past the injunction against picture-making in Sunni Islam; I’ve seen pictures of Khomeini with a superimposed crowd with their hands reaching up to him.

“They are religious deviants and also murderers” That’s an example of what I meant. Most of us regard religious deviation as a harmless quirk, unless it leads to murder, whereas we don’t approve of murder at all.

“As for…someone saying their nationality is their religion is currently not enough to nullify someone’s birthright if they are British citizens from birth” I agree about entitlement to those rights. Nor do I think it should be possible to deprive people of tose rights. All the same, there is a certain hypocrisy in people both claiming the rights of a British citizen and disclaiming their obligations.

Well, that’s only because they’ve yet to come to power. That’s the thing with communists - they talk about liberty and so on, but they mean by it something entirely different, rather like in Alice in Wonderland, where the guy (I forget which character) pays the words to mean what he wants them to. They talk about workers, but when in power, they deny people free trade unions. They talk about women’s rights, but they exclude religious rights, and even then, women generally end up with a double burden of housework and outside work. They talk about liberty, and set up police states. They talk about democracy, and set up the election in such a way that if you actually fill in your ballot paper, you stand to lose your job. And so on.

So it isn’t the actions of the Iranian government you disapprove of but the religious persective that inspired them?

No - I mean both. They are religious deviants and also murderers who run a régime with a police state and some of the trappings of fascism. The fact is, however, that Marxist régimes have never behaved much better.

Regarding Yvonne Ridley, well, someone saying their nationality is their religion is currently not enough to nullify someone’s birthright if they are British citizens from birth: in fact, nothing is, at the moment. If that is to change in the Blair era, as so much else seems to be changing, so be it.

An Ahwazi delegation had hoped to raise the Ahwaz issue with the panel, but it appeared the monarchists were intent on stopping them.

One delegate wrote to me saying: “We have prepared a small statement which pointed the recent execution and arrest of women, children (Sakina, Masoume) with website references. We have been told by the organizers (students??) that this meeting is open for Imperial College students only and when we asked them how you can prove this, they said we can not do that. She does not want you to be here. Some monarchies when they saw the fly shouted why you campaigning for Ahwaz you should say just Iran. Can you believe it they still sleeping or dreaming and they refuse our exist. We campaign very wisely and peacefully. We speak with them but they loudly saying that you are not Arab you are became Arab. But anyway we won the campaign (i think), We were there (only Ahwazis) when the students were curios about our matter and we did great. We told them we are not supporting war on Iran anymore, we fight for our right as human being.”

So, you see, parts of the Iranian opposition are intent on silencing others.

They haven’t actually judicially murdered anyone yet, which is a point in their favour. So it isn’t the actions of the Iranian government you disapprove of but the religious persective that inspired them?

“democracy… is for members of a group, not outsiders; in the same way as non-citizens of a country cannot vote in its elections” What of those muslims- like Yvonne Ridley- who announce that islam is their nationality? Should they be forbidden- or forbid themselves- from taking part in democratic politics in a nonmuslim country?