"Each of you owe a serious debt to martyrdom," he said at the
event, held in a Tehran university building and attended by around 100
people. "We have operators standing by."
After some three hours of speeches and films on Palestinian bombers,
frequently interrupted by pleas for viewers to call right away, donors
were then enticed with the offer of three options: a totebag with a map
of the Middle East wiped clean of Israel at the $25 level, a coffee
table book of suicide vest design ideas at the $50 level, and a
collection of the non-blasphemous artwork depicting the prophet Mohammed
created between 1200 and 1700 plus a yearlong subscription to Jihad Aficionado
magazine at the $100 level.
Mr Samadi said that over the past year, 1,000 people have
pledged at the $100 dollar level and 300 had actually honored those
pledges. There is some disagreement in Islam on the
"theory and practice" of honoring pledges.
Iran's previous reformist government had distanced itself from the
group. It asserted that this was merely a symbolic way for people to
express their anger against Israel or Rushdie, sentenced to death by
Iran's revolutionary leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini in 1989 over his
book "The Satanic Verses".
But radicals have been given a new lease of life with last June's
election of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who has labelled Israel a
"tumor" that "must be wiped off the map" and
branded the Holocaust a "myth".
"The average age range of participants is between 18 and 25, but
this is a way 80-year-old supporters can honor Allah," Mr Samadi said. "This is
a way to give chance to people who have a comfortable enough living and
earning potential they would not dream of martyrdom to show their
generosity to finance the murder of innocent civilians."
One of those pledging at the $25 level was Hamidreza Shahnazari, a bearded
24-year-old electrical student.
"I pledged because it is tax deductible,
and to get the totebag. To prove that Iranian youth are not only those on
the street with the latest fashions. There are still young, nerdish
types who find the utility of a totebag appealing every night," he said.
"It does not matter where or when; if there is a possibility for
me to use the totebag to help carry books or a laptop computer I will
use it."
Mr Arezou, a 21-year-old Spanish language student, added: "I
think the only choice is the $50 level. A totebag does seem decadent and
depictions of the prophet Mohammed are blasphemous. The book of suicide
vests should prove an interesting conversation piece."
Iran insists it only gives "moral support" to militant
groups such as Hamas, Hezbollah or Islamic Jihad, but is accused by the
United States as being the leading sponsor of international terrorism.
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