Basij launches website to cover occupy wall street protests

A number of Iran's Basij (volunteer forces) members launched a website to cover news and developments about the Occupy Wall Street movement in order to "fill in the gap by the western media".The Wall Street Fall website - with content in both Persian and English - was launched over the weekend in the presence of Commander of Basij Brigadier General Mohammad Reza Naghdi. "This news website can notably be influential in informing the people living under the sun specially those truth enthusiasts living in the West who are captives of universal Zionist media propaganda," Naghdi said on October 30. Earlier this month, Basij members from Iranian universities staged a rally to denounce the policies employed by the United States and some other Western countries to prevent the people's awakening. The rally was staged in front of the Swiss Embassy in Tehran, which has represented US interests there since the US and Iran broke diplomatic ties following the 1979 revolution. Iranian officials have rallied behind the Occupy Wall Street protesters and condemned the "inhumane crackdown" against them. Supreme Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyed Ali Khamenei has said that the movement will ultimately bring down capitalism in the United States. "One problem is that the corruption of capitalism has become clear to the people. Of course this movement might be suppressed, but they cannot destroy the roots of the movement," the Leader said in an October 12 speech. Many in the world, including Iranian people and officials have likened the Occupy Wall Street movement to the Arab uprisings that have ousted dictatorships in the region. A member of the Iranian parliament's Committee on National Security and Foreign Policy, Mohammad Karim Abedi, said last week that nations should condemn the crackdown on protesters of the Occupy Wall Street movement. Abedi also called on human rights bodies to end their "political silence" and condemn the blatant human rights abuses in the US.