lechu1
22.12.05, 22:42
Ciekawy artykol o Iranie spragnionym alkoholu , zabawy , muzyki
zachodniej i wolnosci.
Przeklete islamskie mully zadusily ten kraj , zabronily nie tylko zach
melodi , piosenek ale takze zabroniono uzywac anten satelitarnych !!!.
Alkohol , rozrywka zabroniona przez tych parszywych fanatykow
islamskich dazacych do bomby atomowej.
Czytaj artykol o Iranie spragnionym wolnosci i w tym wolnosci
osobistej takiej najprostrzej jak wypicia kielicha za zdrowie
najblizzszych .
Dec. 21, 2005 3:22 | Updated Dec. 21, 2005 5:12
Iranians want booze, say Iraqi bootleggers
By MATTHEW GUTMAN
PENJUEN, Iraq
Atta Muhammad, his mouth muffled by a keffiyeh, offers what in Iraq is an
unusual parting gift: "Beer, whiskey?"
Muhammad, 36, is a key liquor smuggler in this bootleggers' heaven high up in
the Zagros Mountains, a short mule's ride from the Iranian border. And while
electricity, culture and women are scarce around here, he has hundreds of
cases of liquor in stock.
In Iraq, the stuff is frowned upon but is legal, cheap and untaxed. Just a few
kilometers down the road in Iran, alcohol is banned and increasingly expensive
as Teheran clamps down on anything that it claims detracts from the Iranian
Islamic Revolution of 1979.
Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has recently banned Western music, but
Muhammad and his team of pack mules intend to brave the driving rain,
landmines and Iranian border guards to smuggle liquor to Iran, as they do
nearly every night.
Amstel, Heineken and cheap whiskey are popular in Iran, according to Muhammad,
who has been smuggling for the better part of 20 years. Demand has never
shrunk. "Even the clerics drink," he said.
Alcohol is also the most profitable bootleg item, explained Muhammad and
several other booze-brokers interviewed in this half-deserted border town of
bootleggers and security agents.
A sniper's rifle, an AK-47 and magazine clips droop from the walls of the
hut-like artwork. Muhammad, an ethnic Kurd and a Peshmerga, or a Kurdish
militiaman, said the weapons are for fighting Ansar al-Islam, an
antigovernment Kurdish Islamic terrorist group. A bribe of a few dollars -
which he called "tips" - and a clever mule are the best defenses against
Iranian border guards, he explained.
Some 25 million Kurds, the largest stateless people in the world, are
scattered over Syria, Turkey, Iran and Iraq, and their common language often
facilitates trade.
Alcohol is one in a constellation of products traded daily across the border
here at Penjeun. Everyday dozens of porters trudge in thick rubber boots over
muddy hills to reach Iran. A few logs thrown across a stream lead men carrying
anything from people to tea to washing machines illegally over the border.
On their way back, they may bring expensive Iranian candies, kerosene,
benzene, or more people, said Bakhtyar Dewdil, 24, a college-educated Kurd
born in Iran. He earned a degree in chemistry there but couldn't afford to
make ends meet. "My wife left me because I could not pay the rent," he said.
"The money as a porter is not good, but I am getting out of debt," he
explained, guiding a journalist to the Iranian side of the border.
Most often the border guards who stop the smugglers are bribed. For a dollar,
people and products are most often overlooked.
When alcohol is involved, they may shoot the mules and sometimes their riders,
as punishment.
During the day, liquor smuggler Muhammad sleeps, or sips tea while watching
the satellite TV rigged up to the thatched roof of his hut. At night this
clump of huts clinging to a mountain becomes a staging ground for Muhammad's
men and mules, "sometimes with 10 cases of wine, sometimes with 500," he said.
He sells whatever he sends for at least 5 times the cost.
"Wine," the local word for both beer and spirits, softens the term. Hard
liquor, specifically "Black Jack" whiskey, is the drink of choice for most in
Iran, or even those Iranians who cross into Iraq on a day's jaunt through the
bootleggers camps, as though on a tour of a wineries in Napa Valley.
The thriving black market trade is also an indicator of some Iranian's
dissatisfaction with their regime.
Continued
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