Iranian Alert -- December 7, 2003 -- IRAN LIVE THREAD

The US media almost entirely ignores news regarding the Islamic Republic of Iran. As Tony Snow of the Fox News Network has put it, “this is probably the most under-reported news story of the year.” But most American’s are unaware that the Islamic Republic of Iran is NOT supported by the masses of Iranians today. Modern Iranians are among the most pro-American in the Middle East.

There is a popular revolt against the Iranian regime brewing in Iran today. Starting June 10th of this year, Iranians have begun taking to the streets to express their desire for a regime change. Most want to replace the regime with a secular democracy. Many even want the US to over throw their government.

The regime is working hard to keep the news about the protest movement in Iran from being reported. Unfortunately, the regime has successfully prohibited western news reporters from covering the demonstrations. The voices of discontent within Iran are sometime murdered, more often imprisoned. Still the people continue to take to the streets to demonstrate against the regime.

In support of this revolt, Iranians in America have been broadcasting news stories by satellite into Iran. This 21st century news link has greatly encouraged these protests. The regime has been attempting to jam the signals, and locate the satellite dishes. Still the people violate the law and listen to these broadcasts. Iranians also use the Internet and the regime attempts to block their access to news against the regime. In spite of this, many Iranians inside of Iran read these posts daily to keep informed of the events in their own country.

This daily thread contains nearly all of the English news reports on Iran. It is thorough. If you follow this thread you will witness, I believe, the transformation of a nation. This daily thread provides a central place where those interested in the events in Iran can find the best news and commentary. The news stories and commentary will from time to time include material from the regime itself. But if you read the post you will discover for yourself, the real story of what is occurring in Iran and its effects on the war on terror.

I am not of Iranian heritage. I am an American committed to supporting the efforts of those in Iran seeking to replace their government with a secular democracy. I am in contact with leaders of the Iranian community here in the United States and in Iran itself.

If you read the daily posts you will gain a better understanding of the US war on terrorism, the Middle East and why we need to support a change of regime in Iran. Feel free to ask your questions and post news stories you discover in the weeks to come.

If all goes well Iran will be free soon and I am convinced become a major ally in the war on terrorism. The regime will fall. Iran will be free. It is just a matter of time.

Scholars Say Iraq Could Slide Into Dictatorship

December 07, 2003
Reuters
Haitham Haddadin

KUWAIT -- Iraq could slide into dictatorship if U.S. efforts to transfer control to local authorities failed and regional powers like Iran increased their influence in the fractured country, experts meeting in Kuwait said on Sunday.

''The regional powers, they enter (Iraq) on a private agenda and not for political reform,'' Iraqi Islamic scholar Mohammad AbdulJabar told a three-day conference on the role of Islamic groups in the political reform process in the Middle East.

''Iran has a big role in Iraq, it sends money, men and I don't know if it also sends weapons.''

Mohammad al-Jassem, editor-in-chief of the Kuwait daily al-Watan, said some Iraqi Islamic groups were effectively Iran's Trojan Horse.

They could tip Iraq and Gulf states towards Tehran-style Islamic states if Washington failed to establish an Iraqi system under its continuous control, Jassem added.

''The expected result will be the return of dictatorship,'' Jassem said. ''That's not necessarily by the return of Saddam Hussein but by any religious party or group. The Islamic groups' belief in democracy is not clear.''

But Ibrahim al-Jaafari, a member of Iraq's Governing Council and head of the Islamic Da'wa Party, dismissed the idea saying Shi'ite groups in Iraq will not seek to dominate other religious groups or minorities.

''The notion that Islamic groups introduce democracy and then turn it into a dictatorship is a really weird one,'' he said.

In a major policy shift that came amid rising U.S. casualties from guerrilla attacks, Washington has dropped its insistence that the writing of a constitution and elections should occur before it transfers power to the Iraqis.

Iraq's U.S.-appointed Governing Council and the U.S.-run Coalition Provisional Administration (CPA) signed an agreement stating a new transitional government is to take over in June.

Jassem warned against a quick handover of power to Iraqi political parties that lack experience in state administration.

Marina Ottaway of U.S.-based Carnegie Endowment for International Peace said in addition to the political problems, there were big technical factors standing in the way of a smooth transition, including registering voters in the nation of 24 million people, putting together an election law, and setting up the polling stations.

''The problem of the transition is you can't have early elections until you have a constitution and you can't have a constitution until you have an elected body,'' she said.

''This is the vicious circle that exists'' in Iraq.

Ottaway said she thinks the agreement between the Governing Council and the CPA is on the verge of collapse.

''The issue has been re-opened on whether or not this transitional assembly should be elected or selected,'' she said.

''The second element, why it is on the verge of collapse, is the growing evidence that the United States is trying to make this interim constitution into a permanent constitution.''

''There is still a lot of resistance from the United States for a democratic process to unfold (in Iraq),'' said Ottaway, who studies post-conflict situations around the world and whose group co-sponsored the gathering.

http://famulus.msnbc.com/FamulusIntl/reuters12-07-105841.asp?reg=MIDEAST

Iran Arrests Vigilantes for Beating Up Reformist MP

Dec. 7 — TEHRAN (Reuters) - Iran has arrested five men for beating up a leading reformist MP in an attack seen as saber-rattling before parliamentary elections, Parliament Speaker Mehdi Karroubi said Sunday.
February's elections will test whether Iran's voters have lost patience with the country's embattled reformists who, despite controlling parliament, have largely failed to overcome objections from the Islamic Republic's powerful hard-line clerics.

Hard-line vigilantes attacked Mohsen Mirdamadi, head of parliament's Foreign Affairs and National Security Commission, in the central city of Yazd Friday.

Newspapers showed a bruised Mirdamadi with a bandaged face receiving a check-up from doctors. "Five people have been arrested," Karroubi told parliament in a live radio broadcast. "(The attack) is an insult to parliament."

Hard-line vigilantes, loyal to conservative camps that accuse reformists of selling out to the West, have disrupted reformist speeches in the run-up to elections before but the identity of paymasters is unclear.

Iran's reformist President Mohammad Khatami called for the attackers to be brought to justice swiftly.

"These days legal gatherings are being attacked and officials are being abused and violently confronted. This is completely intolerable," he was quoted as saying on the ISNA students' news agency.

Mirdamadi was quoted by the reformist Yas-e No daily as saying 40 people had attacked him while he was delivering a speech. He thought one of the assailants shot into the air.

He said the attack was an act of political gamesmanship in the run-up to the February 20 elections.

"The closer we get to the elections, such incidents are done to enflame the political atmosphere...those who did these things have powerful supporters," he said.

The official IRNA news agency reported the governor-general of Yazd saying 17 people had been summoned in connection with the assault.

Morteza Nabavi, editor of the hard-line Resalat newspaper, also condemned the beating and insisted the election had to be contested on peaceful terms.

"I hope no-one creates an excuse for turning the political competition into violence and tension," he was quoted as saying by his own newspaper.

http://abcnews.go.com/wire/World/reuters20031207_46.html

Iran Should Consider Serious Military Presence in Caspian Sea: Experts

TEHRAN, Dec. 7 (Mehr News Agency) — A political analyst Ali Khorram said Iran should prepare for an active military presence in order to safeguard its interests and national security.

Since Russia and the Republic of Azerbaijan along with the U.S. are pushing for the militarization of the sea the division of the sea resources and its legal regime has gained paramount importance, Khorram told the Mehr News Agency.

Khorram said if the littoral states agree to a common use of the seabed resources, any military presence could be provocative.

However, Khorram said Iran should insist on non-militarization of the sea and at the same time be ready for serious military presence in the sea.

Hassan Qashqavi, a member of the Majlis National Security and Foreign Policy Committee, also told the Mehr News Agency that if one day an exigency arises, Iran is quite prepared to defend its national interests in the sea.

Fearful of the Russian military presence in the sea, Qashqavi said, the Azeri officials have asked the U.S. to have military presence in the sea.

Qashqavi said except Russia, which sees itself as an unrivalled power in the region, has a security and strategic view of the sea, and opposes the presence of any other superpowers in the sea, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan share similar views with Iran, which call for non-militarization of the sea.

While Iran maintains that the Caspian Sea should remain a sea of “peace and friendship” Iran is ready to defend its national interests, the member of the Majlis National Security and Foreign Policy stressed.

http://www.tehrantimes.com/Description.asp?Da=12/8/03&Cat=2&Num=025

Note: Iranian government is equipping itself, sensing that people will largely boycott upcoming parlimentary elections as sign of rejection of both reformists and hard-liners, they're pushing forward with violence and trying to arm the military.

As Iranian Elections Approach, Voters Lose Faith in the Reformers
By NAZILA FATHI

EHRAN, Dec. 6 — In 1997 Lida Salehi enthusiastically worked on the presidential campaign of Mohammad Khatami, the reformist candidate. She even talked her parents, who had not cast a ballot since the referendum in 1979 that turned Iran into an Islamic Republic, into voting for him.

"I believed that he was the man who would bring change, especially because of what he said about freedom and democracy," said Ms. Salehi, a 25-year-old painter. She has voted for reformist politicians in three more elections since then.

Now, with parliamentary elections scheduled for February, she and many others who supported the reformists are changing their minds, saying their support has merely resulted in a continuation of the current system.

The most evident sign of disillusionment with President Khatami's reform movement appeared in the local town council elections a year ago. Unlike those in national elections, the candidates in the local elections had not been vetted by the hard-line Guardian Council, which has been a powerful deterrent in keeping voters at bay.

The turnout in large cities, however, was as low as 10 to 15 percent — sharply lower than the 52 percent turnout that was recorded in 1980.

A low voter turnout on Feb. 20 is likely to help hard-line politicians galvanize their support and win control of Parliament, which is now in the hands of reformists. Tehran's municipal council was easily conquered last year by hard-liners, who have reversed liberal plans for modernizing the city.

The new mayor, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, turned several art galleries into prayer centers during the Islamic religious month of Ramadan, canceled concerts and suspended many events at the city's cultural centers. He plans to build women-only parks.

"People's behavior last year showed that people do not want just to vote for candidates," Ali Akbar Mousavi Khoini, a reformist member of Parliament, said in a recent speech at Amir Kabir University, referring to the low voter turnout.

"They want their vote to have an impact on the layers of power structure and affect their rights in society," he said.

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/12/07/international/middleeast/07TEHR.html?ex=1071464400&en=85788363b338029a&ei=5040&partner=MOREOVER

Anti-regime Demonstration in Tehran

December 07, 2003
AFP
IranMania

TEHRAN -- About 1,500 Iranian students gathered at Tehran University on Sunday, shouting slogans against the Islamic regime and its clerical leadership, and demanding the freeing of political prisoners, an AFP journalist at the scene said.

The students were massing to mark national students day, commemorating the 1953 shooting by police of three students who were protesting against the then regime of the Shah.

"Death to the dictator", "We don't want an repressive regime or its police", "Free students" and "Free political prisoners" were among the slogans heard inside the campus where the group was confined by security forces.

Slogans were directed against supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and the head of the hardline-controlled judiciary, Ayatollah Mahmoud Hashemi Shahroudi. Criticising Khamenei is a crime in Iran.

Students, who have been the most vocal critics of the nearly 25-year-old regime in recent years, were forbidden from protesting off campus by anti-riot police.

The group also directed their frustrations at embattled pro-reform President Mohammad Khatami, who has seen much of his agenda consistently blocked by his more powerful conservative superiors.

"Khatami is a puppet. After six years (as president), Khatami has failed to put reforms in action. The youth have no more confidence in him," one student activist told the gathering.

Several students also called for a boycott of the February 20, 2004 elections when Iran decides whether to renew the mandate of reformists who presently control parliament but who have seen most of their legislation blocked by unelected oversight bodies.

In parallel to the student gathering, some 1,000 members of the Basij militia -- an Islamist volunteer force attached to the Revolutionary Guards -- also staged their own rival meeting.

But there was no sign of any clashes.

Tehran last saw protest gatherings on July 9, when thousands turned out in their cars around the university to mark the anniversary of student riots in

The month of June also saw several successive nights of anti-regime protests that fizzled out in the face of a massive police operation which, according to official figures, resulted in the arrest of 3,000 people.

http://www.iranmania.com/News/ArticleView/Default.asp?NewsCode=20382&NewsKind=Current%20Affairs

Photo's of today's demonstrations in Tehran.

2003 IranMania.com & AFP Photo/Behrouz Mehri Iranian students march at Tehran university during a gathering marking Student Day, 07 December 2003. Some 1,500 students gathered at Tehran University, shouting slogans against the Islamic regime and its clerical leadership, and demanding the release of political prisoners.

2003 IranMania.com & AFP Photo/Behrouz Mehri An Iranian student hides her face during a gathering by Iranian sudents at Tehran university to mark Student Day, 07 December 2003. Some 1,500 students gathered at Tehran University, shouting slogans against the Islamic regime and its clerical leadership

2003 IranMania.com & AFP Photo/Behrouz Mehri Iranian students shoutin slogans against the Islamic regime and its clerical leadership, and demand the release of political prisoners during a gathering by Iranian sudents at Tehran university marking Student Day, 07 December 2003. Some 1,500 students gathered.

2003 IranMania.com & AFP Photo/Behrouz Mehri Iranian police officers stand guard outside Tehran university during a gathering by Iranian sudents marking Student Day, 07 December 2003. Some 1,500 students gathered at Tehran University, shouting slogans against the Islamic regime and its clerical leadership, and demanding the release of political prisoners.

Pakistan Nuke Official Held for Iran Links

December 07, 2003
The Telegraph India
telegraphindia.com

Dubai -- Pakistani authorities have picked up a director of Pakistan’s Kahuta Research Laboratories (KRL) to probe his alleged involvement in nuclear-related deals with Iran.

Unnamed family friends said the director, Farooq Mohammed, failed to return to duty after the Id holidays that ended on December 1.

The KRL, considered to be behind Pakistan’s nuclear bomb and the medium-range ballistic Ghauri missile, has not received any leave application or notice from Mohammad or his family.

This has prompted his colleagues to believe that he has been detained for interrogation, apparently sparked by Iranian revelations to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) that the country received nuclear-related information from people of Pakistani origin.

Farooq, claim his friends, might be privy to KRL’s procurements abroad. Sources in the United Arab Emirates as well as Dubai say some businessmen in the Emirates are also being tapped for information.

They say the Emirates had been one of the biggest transit stations for Pakistan’s nuclear-related consigments, bought either through cover or front companies.

Farooq is believed to know a lot about the deals with these businessmen.

Attempts by Farooq’s friends to get in touch with his family were met with silence. “No, we don’t have any information about him,” his son said.

Farooq is the third official from the Pakistani nuclear establishment being interrogated due to the ongoing war against terrorism as well as the mounting pressure on Iran.

Bashiruddin Mehmood, considered one of the founding fathers of a nuclear reactor in Punjab, was arrested and grilled for several months by Pakistani and US intelligence officials for alleged links with Osama bin Laden and his terror network.

Months of intensive questioning later, Mehmood was released and his Umma Tammeer Nau (UTN), a non-governmental organisation, banned.

The UTN ran relief and welfare projects in Taliban-ruled Afghanistan. Mehmood now leads a quiet retired life, most probably in Islamabad or Rawalpindi, the garrison town south of the capital.

A Dubai-based source said the IAEA’s efforts against nuclear proliferation haved turned the heat on Pakistan, particularly after Tehran, in an attempt to ease international pressure, revealed its secret dealings with Pakistani businessmen on nuclear knowhow to the UN inspectors.

http://www.telegraphindia.com/1031208/asp/foreign/story_2655481.asp

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