Talk:Amir Taheri

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Contents 1 Focus 2 Claims 3 Removed "Islamophobia" section 3.1 Confusion 4 What "has been alleged" 5 unbearble

[edit] Focus

• What universities did he attend and what degrees did he recieve?
• Can we put all his various positions into a coherent timeline? As it is now, its just a hodgepodge of publications he has written for at various times.
• Can we find references for the majority of the claims made? Right now one is being asked to take them on faith.
• I recommend we separate out his career from his education background.
• It would be cool to mention when he was born.

I hope this helps focus the article. --Ben Houston 03:14, 20 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Claims

Up to now, his recent claim in national post on May 19 is proven to be totally false. It would be great to mention it. I hope this clarifies the issue. Pezhman (talk • contribs) 22:07, May 20, 2006 (UTC)

The veracity of his claims of May 19 has already been addressed at the main article 2006 Iranian sumptuary law, which is the best place for it. JFD 05:06, 21 May 2006 (UTC)

His false claim with removed link by National Post was added to the external links. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 69.199.69.153 (talk • contribs) 19:44, May 21, 2006 (UTC).

There were two pieces on dress code in the May 19 National Post, one by Taheri, the other by Chris Wattie:

"However, National Post retraction may itself contain an error. The retraction, written by Chris Wattie, blames Taheri for the article, but copies of the original on other sites credit the article to Chris Wattie.^[1]"

The one by Wattie was withdrawn and replaced with another article, also by Wattie, calling the original claims into question. JFD|JFD 22:17, 22 May 2006 (UTC)

The article reads like a promotional piece authored by the subject or his agent. Consider the first part of this sentence, for example: "Mr. Taheri's public speaking engagements are arranged by Benador Associates, a public relations firm with a predominantly neoconservative clientele." Also, the various accomplishments claimed are not supported by the citations. The article should be cut down to the few publicly-known facts. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 71.155.145.57 (talk • contribs) 22:10, June 2, 2006 (UTC).

Claims that he made false claims are slanderous when one of the National Post articles states:

"The Simon Wiesenthal Centre and Iranian expatriates living in Canada had confirmed that the order had been passed, although it still had to be approved by Iran’s “Supreme Guide” Ali Khamenehi before being put into effect."

If the information is wrong that is one thing but he seems to have had every reason to believe it was true when he wrote the commentary. Why is he being portrayed as a liar? Apple Rancher (talk • contribs) 14:25, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

because he didn't have "any" reason to believe it was real, he basically quoted completely unreliable sources. Anybody who carries the title “journalist” should at least put minimum effort in his/her work to see if the source of news is reliable, unless reliability is a non-issue and the goal is to create tension! Kraf001 (talk • contribs) 08:46, June 17 2007 (UTC)

The infamous article of Taheri in National Post (May 2006) that contained his untrue allegations concerning the dress code is not accessible through the hot link. This needs to be restored, as it was authored by him, published in a national newspaper and widely distributed and cited in other media. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 206.223.226.209 (talk • contribs) 17:51, 3 September 2006 (UTC).

[edit] Removed "Islamophobia" section

I just removed the following since it is totally uncited and fairly strong accusation. "Amir Taheri's writings relating to Islam and Muslims have shown a consistent Islamophobia. An example would be an article published in the British non-tabloid press in 2005 that suggested that all Muslim men in the west who chose to wear a beard and all Muslim women who donned the hijab were effectively symbols of terrorism. Whilst this view may find supporters amongst the neoconservatives and the far right it greatly reduces the credibility of both Amir Taheri and Benador. ^{[citation needed]}"

--Ben Houston 19:05, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

Taheir is still on the speaker's list of Benador Associates. [1]. --John Nagle 22:30, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Confusion

The infamous article of Taheri in National Post (May 2006) that contained his untrue allegations concerning the dress code is not accessible through the hot link. This needs to be restored, as it was authored by him, published in a national newspaper and widely distributed and cited in other media. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 206.223.226.209 (talk • contribs) 17:51, September 3, 2006 (UTC).

"This is a bit confusing and raises a very important question. Who had placed that item that Ben Houston decided to remove it? Ben's logic for doing what he has done is that "it greatly reduces the credibility of both Amir Taheri and Benador. Is Wikipedia's primary mission to give credibilty to those who have failed to earn it? Cyrus, 14:00, Sept. 3, 2006" —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 206.223.226.209 (talk • contribs) 17:51, September 3, 2006 (UTC).

WARNING TO READERS AND EDITORS: The quotation from Ben Houston that I had included in my commentary on questioning the legitimacy of Ben's act of deleting the item on "Islamophobia" came directly from a text that he himself had signed his name next to it and had dated it 26 July 2006. Some two hours after I had added that commentary, I reconnected to this page. I was shocked to note that that portion of Ben's comments that I had electronically copied and pasted inside two quotation marks has completely vanished from the body of comments made by him on July 26, though the date of his last input still remains 19:05, 26 July 2006!!

WHAT'S GOING ON HERE? Are there any rules and disciplines for maintaining the continuity and the link between comments that various dicussants add over time? Cyrus 14:32, Sept. 3, 2006 —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 206.223.226.209 (talk • contribs) 20:36, September 3, 2006 (UTC).

[edit] What "has been alleged"

@ 68.5.250.146 (talk • contribs) and 75.31.17.56 (talk • contribs)

If something "has been alleged", please verify that it has. Check here what "verify" means. Check Wikipedia's rules on biographies on living persons, too. Note that biographical articles quite often have a section "controversies". Please do not change the headline into "controversies about [whatever]". A plain "controversies" is sufficient. Put what has been alleged there. Give sources. If something raises your suspicion - e.g. you doubt whether it is verifiable, because "details ... are not provided" -, make use of the fact tag. Do not assess it as "suspicious" (or other statements as "credible"), please. Debates are described, represented, and characterized, but not engaged in. --Ankimai 01:08, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

@Ankimai,

Statements indicating that allegations have been made about a certain topic or person are very common on Wikipedia. Moreover, it is more than within the right of Wiki-editors to characterize certain factual matters as "credible" or "suspicious." Now, if the terms "credible" and "suspicious" are too loaded for your tastes, fine, delete the words "credible" and "suspicious," but don't delete/revert the entire entry. In addition, the older versions of the topic, to which you blindly revert, are full of such conclusory, loaded, un-neutral words as well.

Besides that, I may have regarded your criticisms as more credible if you hadn't gone and reverted each and every single edit that the particular user with whom you disagreed made on wikipedia, even outside of this topic. Given your conduct in this regard, your calls for absolutely pure "neutrality" seems more like disengenuous posturing than an authentic desire to further the cause of objectivity on wikipedia.—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 75.28.110.97 (talk • contribs) 17:12, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] unbearble

I read all the publications if Amir Taheri in New York Post and never take any of it seriously. All I can say that he is full of hatred towards his country. I am even skeptical that he is Persian. Most possibile he is an Irani Jew who is supported by Israel. He is just unbearble. --armenianNY —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 69.38.230.2 (talk • contribs) 22:24, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

→ In re post above:

• Removed 19:02, February 19, 2007 (UTC) by 75.41.218.170 (talk • contribs).

• Restored 07:21, February 20, 2007 (UTC).

• Changed 00:00, March 3, 2007 (UTC) by ArmenianNY (talk • contribs).

This might be a spoof of anti-semitism, but I think it's the real thing. (BTW, I added the heading to put this in a section of its own.) CWC(talk) 07:02, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

I do not see any anti-semitism here. If the guy gives lectures in New York synagogues and knocks down his country every single minute, using every opportunity in such influential newspapers as New York Post, then one can state that his interests are not only personal. You can not find any intellectual person among neoconservatives in New York Post. Michelle Malkin, Andrea Peyser, Deborah Orin (may her rest in peace, although I know she is rotting in hell)and other essayists are the ones who make a great company for Amir Taheri. This guy has no mind at all. I agree that Iran's regime is wrong, but the regime of Shah that Amir Taheri is longing for, because he owned Keyhan during that regime was not any better and Islamic Revolution was justified. Look at how they introduce Amir Taheri in both this article and in New York Post. "Based in Europe memeber of Benador Associates". Is Europe that small? Is that a small town? Why don't they say based in the world journalist. Or may be he is having a breakfast in London with Christian Amanpour and James Rubin, eating lunch in Jerusalem, and having some lectures and dinner with anti Irani Jews in Forest Hills, New York in between emailing his full of hatred articles to New York Post. Isn't this stupid? How can you saysomebody is based in Europe or Asia or Africa? -- armenianNY (talk • contribs) 15:03, 3 March 2007 (UTC)