Iranian Alert -- December 18, 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.

Iran Signs Protocol on Snap UN Nuclear Inspections

December 18, 2003
Reuters
Louis Charbonneau

VIENNA -- Iran signed an agreement on Thursday allowing the U.N. nuclear watchdog to conduct snap inspections across its territory, in a bid to persuade the world it is not secretly developing atomic weapons.

The signature to the Additional Protocol to the 1968 nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) comes nearly 18 months after an exiled Iranian opposition group sparked a crisis by saying Tehran was hiding several large nuclear facilities. The allegations proved to be true.

Iran's outgoing ambassador to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Ali Akbar Salehi, said Tehran wanted to ensure every aspect of its nuclear program was open to scrutiny.

"We will not leave any stone unturned," he told reporters.

Salehi and IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei signed the document at the agency's headquarters in Vienna.

"The protocol is a tool to build confidence and to provide assurances," ElBaradei said, adding that he hoped Iran's parliament would ratify it as soon as possible.

The United States has labeled Iran part of an "axis of evil" and says it is using its atomic energy program as a smokescreen to develop nuclear arms. Tehran denies this.

The U.S. ambassador to the IAEA called the signature a "step in the right direction" but said it would take years before the world could be sure Iran was meeting its obligations. Another Western diplomat called the move "long overdue."

The protocol sparked heated debate in Iran earlier this year, with hard-liners saying the short-notice inspections it permits were tantamount to allowing spies into the country.

But, under mounting international pressure, Iran said in October it would sign up for the tougher inspection regime, suspend uranium enrichment and provide full details of nuclear activities dating back to the 1980s.

Unlike the IAEA's U.N. Security Council mandate to conduct weapons inspections in pre-war Iraq, the protocol does not allow unannounced "anywhere and any time" inspections in Iran.

But it does empower the agency to demand much more information about sensitive nuclear activities and to inspect all declared and undeclared nuclear sites with as little as two hours' notice.

18-YEAR COVER-UP

The IAEA criticized Tehran last month for an 18-year cover-up of potentially arms-related nuclear research, warning the Iranians any further breaches could see them taken to the Security Council for possible sanctions.

"Iran's signature today of the Additional Protocol is a useful step in the right direction," U.S. ambassador Kenneth Brill said, adding that it was "only a first step" and now had to be ratified and enter into force.

"Given Iran's nearly two decades of deception, rigorous verification of the Protocol's implementation by IAEA inspectors over a period of several years will be critical if the international community is to begin to gain confidence in the consistency of Iran's actions with its international obligations," Brill said.

The protocol will give the IAEA much broader inspection powers than it has under Iran's NPT Safeguards Agreement. But one analyst said it would not stop Iran developing the capacity to manufacture nuclear arms if it wanted to.

"Even with the Additional Protocol, the IAEA is going to need member states to provide intelligence," Gary Samore of the International Institute for Strategic Studies told Reuters. "If governments have information that Iran has not really come clean, then now is the time to give it to the IAEA."

http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=worldNews&storyID=4015875

Iranian-American Group Accuses Tehran of Widespread Rights Abuse

December 18, 2003
VOA News
Leah Krakinowski

Listen to Leah Krakinowski's report (RealAudio)

http://www.voanews.com/mediastore/Krakinowski_iran_rights_17dec03.ram

New York -- An Iranian-American human rights group says the arrest and torture of pro-democracy dissidents in Iran is on the rise. The National Coalition of Pro-Democracy Advocates called upon Western governments and the United Nations to condemn the Islamic fundamentalist regime at a news conference in New York City on Wednesday.

The non-profit group accuses the Iranian government of widespread abuse of students, women and ethnic minorities. The group cites the recent death of Canadian-Iranian photojournalist Zahra Kazemi in Tehran as an example of abuses in Iran.

Haydar Akbari, the president of the National Coalition, says the group's aim is to expose the Iranian government's actions in the wake of a steady loss of national support.

"The human rights situation is getting worse and worse because the regime is losing its support by the people day by day," he said. "That's the reason we're seeing more uprisings from the students and all categories of the society."

Remy Alappo is a peace activist and friend of the late Zahra Kazemi. On June 23, 2003 the Canadian photojournalist was arrested while taking photographs of student-led protests outside of the notorious Evin prison in Tehran. She died in custody under circumstances that international journalism and human rights groups questioned. Ms. Alappo says Ms. Kazemi's tragic death should be a symbol of the Iranian government's efforts to suppress free speech.

"She was taken into custody and interrogated by police for 77 hours," she said. On July, she died in a Teheran hospital while under guard. Although the international community, particularly the Canadian government, pressed Iran for a thorough investigation, the Iranian government refused to cooperate. From July 11 to July 16, the world community witnessed a series of lies and deceptions by the highest-ranking members of the Iranian government."

In November, a key United Nations committee approved a Canadian-drafted resolution rebuking Iran for human rights abuses, including torture, suppression of free speech and discrimination against women and minorities.

http://www.voanews.com/article.cfm?objectID=B9059698-C688-4EB5-A8F1DA25A7C359C9&title=Iranian%2DAmerican%20Group%20Accuses%20Tehran%20of%20Widespread%20Rights%20Abuse&catOID=45C9C78D-88AD-11D4-A57200A0CC5EE46C&categoryname=Mideast

Iran, Saudi Worst Religious Freedom Violators in Mideast

December 18, 2003
Middle East Online
Matthew Lee

The United States on Thursday assailed the Islamic states of Iran and Saudi Arabia as the worst offenders of religious freedom rights in the Middle East.

The two countries - along with pre-war Iraq - were listed in the State Department's annual report on international religious freedom as nations in which there is "state hostility toward minority or non-approved religions."

Egypt was named a lesser offending nation where there is either state neglect religious persecution or discrimination toward certain groups.

Israel and Turkey, which had been in Egypt's class last year, graduated up a level to the group of nations in which there is "discriminatory legislation or policies disadvantaging certain religions, according to the report.

The designations do not carry sanctions, but Iran is already subject to myriad US restrictions and continues to be listed as "country of particular concern" in the area of religious freedom.

Despite calls from religious freedom and human rights watchdogs, Saudi Arabia, a key US ally in the Middle East, is not designated a "country of particular concern" although Thursday's report equates conditions there with those in Iran.

"These governments implement policies designed to intimidate certain groups, cause their adherents to convert to another faith or cause their members to flee," the report said.

In Iran, "members of the country's religious minorities ... suffered varying degrees of officially sanctioned discrimination, including intimidation, harassment and imprisonment," the report said, referring to Baha'is, Jews, Christians, Sunni and Sufi Muslims.

That discrimination - most pointedly directed at Baha'is and Jews - comes mainly in the areas of employment, education, and housing, it said.

As it has in its previous four editions, the 2003 report bluntly identifies Saudi Arabia as a country totally void of religious freedom.

"Freedom of religion does not exist in Saudi Arabia," it said, noting Riyadh's refusal to recognize any religion other than the Sunni branch of Islam and its bar on any public demonstration of a non-Muslim religion.

"Muslims not adhering to the officially sanctioned version faced harassment at the hands of the religious police," the report said, adding that Shi'as continued to be detained and face economic and political discrimination.

The report did note that Saudi Arabia had taken steps to rein in rising levels of intolerance toward other religions including the replacement of more than 2,000 government-paid imams accused of fomenting violence and terrorism.

"Senior (Saudi) officials have made some efforts to improve the climate of tolerance toward other religions and within Islam," it said, adding that there had been moves to delete disparaging references to non-Muslims in schoolbooks.

"However, there continued to be religious discrimination and sectarian tension in society ... including ongoing denunciations of non-Muslim religions from government sanctioned pulpits," it said.

Egypt was accused in the report of not acting consistently against religious freedom violations and, in some cases, being responsible for transgressions, particularly against of Baha'is and Christians.

"The government continued to prosecute persons, including Muslims, for unorthodox religious beliefs and practices under the charge of 'insulting heavenly religions'," it said.

The report was less severe on Israel and Turkey which were listed as countries in which laws or policies had put certain religions at a disadvantage.

In Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories, the report said some non-Jewish citizens "continued to experience discrimination in the areas of education, housing, employment, and social services," it said.

Government funding to the religious and education sectors tends to favor Jewish citizens and control of marriage, divorce and burial regulations lies only with Orthodox Jewish authorities, it noted.

In Turkey, the report said Ankara continued to restrict some faiths, Muslim and non-Muslim, amid ongoing debate of the country's secular status.

"Restrictions continued on non-Muslim religious groups and on Muslim religious expression in government offices and state-run institutions, including universities, usually for the stated reason of preserving the secular state," it said.

http://www.middle-east-online.com/english/?id=8229

Seize the Moment

December 18, 2003
National Review Online
John F. Cullinan

After pinpointing and plucking Saddam Hussein from a hole in the ground in a state the size of California, how does the U.S. translate this stunning demonstration of military power and professionalism into effective political leverage that safeguards vital U.S. national interests during Iraq's stalled political transition?

In just over six months, an Iraqi transitional legislative assembly — however chosen — will assume full sovereign authority. That date is set in stone, thanks to the American electoral calendar and to aroused Iraqi expectations. Yet between now and then, nearly every other issue remains to be settled between the U.S.-led Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) and the U.S.-appointed Iraqi Governing Council (IGC).

With so much up in the air — and so much at stake — how does the U.S. secure an acceptable political outcome that begins to justify its ongoing outlay of blood, treasure, and prestige? What's a workable strategy for bringing about the possibility of a more democratic and decent Iraq that's at peace with itself and its neighbors?

The immediate challenge is to put back on track the November 15 "Agreement on Political Process" that was single-handedly derailed by Iraq's most senior Shiite cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali Hussein al-Sistani. Under this agreement, a transitional assembly selected through regional caucuses would form a fully sovereign Iraqi government on July 1, 2004, based on a "Fundamental Law" — or interim constitution — now being worked out within agreed parameters by the CPA and IGC.

Ayatollah Sistani has insisted on direct elections for the transitional assembly, as well as assurances that the interim constitution will defer to Islam, most likely in the form of a blanket prohibition against any legislation deemed contrary to Islam by unelected clerical overseers. His first demand, which concerns electoral mechanics, is eminently negotiable; but his second, which wholly subordinates politics to religious ideology (Islamism), unduly risks creating a failed state.

The imperfect November 15 agreement is by now the only game in town. It's the only available framework for resolving how to choose Iraq's transitional government and settle its basic rules of the road in the form of an interim constitutional. These are nominally separate issues but underlying opposition to U.S. policy in both cases is the impetus to eliminate all U.S. influence over Iraq's future — both on the part of various Iraqi factions and of the so-called international community. That's worth bearing in mind is considering how best to deal with the IGC and with Ayatollah Sistani.

As for elections, there's almost universal agreement among Iraqis that conducting a nationwide vote before July is a practical impossibility, given the absence of an agreed-on census, an electoral law, or adequate electoral machinery — as well as the mounting Baathist/jihadist insurgency. Insistence on elections in these circumstances is akin to demanding repeal of the laws of gravity.

At the same time, there's nothing sacred about the particular mechanics spelled out in the November 15 agreement. There's ample room for compromise on these essentially procedural issues, despite legitimate U.S. concerns that snap elections in decidedly unpromising circumstances might empower extremists of various stripes. A senior administration official quoted in the November 27 New York Times put it this way: "The nub of this is, how do we get to enough elections in enough places to satisfy the ayatollah's insistence on elections. We should be able to do that."

In fact, there's now a belated scramble for a face-saving solution, as IGC members begin to acknowledge reality and Ayatollah Sistani begins issuing hints of flexibility. But the existing dynamic needs to be reversed. For it's the CPA that's doing all the heavy lifting, according to Tuesday's Washington Post, "scrambling to negotiate a compromise with Iraq's two main religious strains." "The Americans are very nervous," They know they have to make changes but they don't know what those changes should be."

That's getting things exactly backwards. Clients exist to serve their patron's interests, not vice versa. It's up to America's handpicked political leaders — plucked from obscurity in most cases last July — to devise a deal that will stick and sell it to their constituencies. President Bush made that point rather more politely during a brief encounter with four IGC members after Thanksgiving dinner at Baghdad International Airport. "I will support any decision you make," recounted Shiite IGC member Mowaffak al-Rubaie. "I won't make decisions for you. I will help you in implementing your decision." That's exactly right — Iraqi electoral mechanics are well below the pay grade of the president of the United States.

IGC members must be made to understand that their political futures are at stake. After all, the sole issue to which IGC members have devoted sustained attention is the preservation of their own political prerogatives and prospects. Nearly all are exiles or political neophytes without any following in Iraq; and all stand to lose when the IGC goes out of business next July. They need a forceful reminder — in the universal language of interest — that appropriate roles might be found in the new Iraq for individual IGC members, but only insofar as they prove themselves helpful in the present crisis. After months of fecklessness and intransigence, the IGC's free ride is over. It's showtime.

Ayatollah Sistani, however, is not an American client whose political influence is largely a product of American patronage. But his studied coyness and polite but firm refusal to deal directly with U.S. officials are largely responsible for serious misunderstandings of his true concerns. In the absence of direct contacts, the U.S. has been forced to rely on intermediaries with their own agenda putting their own spin on the reclusive cleric's pronouncements. These include various IGC members, notably representatives of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI), an Iranian-based exile group with strong ties to Iran's theocratic regime.

It may well be in Sistani's interests to keep the U.S. guessing and to preserve his own options. But his aloofness seems responsible for his own misunderstandings of U.S. aims. Barely ten weeks after the fall of Saddam's regime, Sistani expressed deep suspicions about U.S. intentions: "We feel great unease over their [U.S.] goals, and we see that it is necessary that they should make room for Iraqis to rule themselves without foreign interference." Sistani characteristically declined to spell out the grounds for his unease apart from the perceived risk of the "the obliteration of [Iraqi] culture" — which he views as synonymous with Islam.

Sistani does not refuse in principle to meet with foreign officials. He met with the late Sergio de Mello, the U.N.'s top man in Iraq, in a transparent piece of political triangulation with America's determined institutional adversary. But until recent days, Sistani declined every request for direct communication with Ambassador Paul Bremer. Whether his first response to Bremer — described in Tuesday's Washington Post as "conciliatory" but firm on the subject of elections — will establish a badly needed direct channel remains to be seen.

Also remaining to be seen is whether a clearing of the air will result in a meeting of the minds — especially in regard to Iraq's interim constitution and political architecture. The U.S. needs to make clear to all hands that its commitment to Iraq's political development is not unconditional or unlimited. Congress in particular will almost certainly balk at subsidizing the indirect theocracy that SCIRI and Dawa (another Islamist party) seem determined to impose. That's a much tougher issue than Iraqi electoral mechanics, which is capable of resolution within days. The skeletal outline of Iraq's interim constitution wisely defers the whole religion-and-state issue. By February 28 — the deadline for finalizing that instrument — the U.S. will discover if its search for a Karzai has produced a Khomeini.

— John F. Cullinan, an expert in human-rights and international law, formerly served as a senior foreign-policy adviser to the U.S. Catholic bishops.

http://www.nationalreview.com/comment/cullinan200312180910.asp

Iran and Human Rights: Talk Is Cheap

December 18, 2003
Los Angeles Times
Elahé Sharifpour-Hicks

Three years ago, when President Mohammad Khatami addressed the United Nations, many believed that this forward-looking reformist leader would restore Iran's fractured relationships with the rest of the world and usher in a new era of understanding between the Muslim world and the West. Instead, he spoke in platitudes, calling Islam a religion of peace, reminding listeners of Iran's great humanistic civilization and avoiding any acknowledgment that Iran had fallen far short of these high ideals in its recent history.

Since then, relations have only gotten worse. The expected "dialogue of civilizations" collapsed in the rubble of the World Trade Center, and not long afterward President Bush declared Iran part of the "axis of evil."

Alarmed by the polarization between the West and the Muslim world, the judges of the Nobel Peace Prize chose Shirin Ebadi, an Iranian human rights lawyer, as this year's Nobel peace laureate because she represents what it called a "reformed Islam" that sees Islam and human rights in harmony.

The symbolic power of this choice cannot be denied. The struggles for human rights of courageous men and women in Muslim societies throughout the Middle East and Asia are worthy of recognition, and the fact that Ebadi is from Iran, where the radical force of modern political Islam first came to international attention during the 1979 revolution, only adds to its impact.

As a woman, Ebadi embodies a further important message: She is a symbol of liberation and hope to the oppressed, faceless half of so many Muslim societies in which the rights of women are systematically circumscribed.

Weighted with all this expectation, it is perhaps not surprising that Ebadi's Nobel lecture was an anticlimax, but it was also another missed opportunity for those who long for the shadow of repression to be lifted from Iran. The lecture read as if it could have been delivered by an Iranian government official. While paying lip service to the values of human rights, she cited as examples of violations the detainees held by the United States in Guantanamo Bay and the plight of the Palestinians.

Listeners had no way of knowing that Ebadi was speaking as a representative of a human rights movement in a nation where tens of thousands were executed after grossly unfair political trials two decades ago, where arbitrary detention is commonplace and religious persecution is institutionalized.

Where were the references to the student demonstrators who disappeared in July 1999 and this summer? Why was there no reference to the imprisoned 70-year-old husband of her lifelong colleague, Mehrangiz Kar? Why no reference to Iranian Jews jailed for their religious beliefs or to the case of two Bahais sentenced in 1989, initially to death, and imprisoned since for practicing their faith?

Instead of a critique or an explanation of Iran's human rights calamities, the lecture was a recitation of Iranian and Muslim human rights achievements, with some politically correct America- and Israel-bashing presumably thrown in for the benefit of the European audience. Without denying the value of Iran's cultural heritage, one would have hoped for some frank acknowledgment that something has gone very wrong in Iran, and in many other parts of the Muslim world, in recent decades.

It misses the point to proclaim, as Ebadi and the Nobel judges did, that Islam is compatible with human rights. Of course it is, if Muslims choose to make it so. The problem is that the government of Iran cynically exploits Islam to legitimize its authoritarian rule and to discredit those who dare to challenge it.

By emphasizing text-based arguments for Islam's compatibility with human rights, human rights advocates play into the hands of the conservative clerical leadership in Iran.

It is beyond question that certain legally sanctioned practices of the Iranian government, which it justifies by reference to Islamic law, are violations of international human rights law. Take, for example, the denial of the right to child custody for divorced Iranian women. Or the arbitrary detention of a prominent dissident, journalist Akbar Ganji, who is accused of "insulting Islam" for exposing the involvement of government leaders in political assassination plots.

If human rights and democracy are to flourish in Iran and the Muslim world, as Ebadi expressed the hope that they would, then Iranian reform leaders, be they presidents or human rights lawyers, must show greater candor when they are on the global stage and, indeed, wherever they go.

Merely repeating that Islam and human rights are not contradictory does not bring about progress. At worst, it provides another opportunity for Iran's leaders to evade accountability for their violations of human rights by agreeing in theory while continuing to violate rights in practice.

Elahé Sharifpour-Hicks worked as the Iran researcher for Human Rights Watch from January 1994 to June 2003. The views here are her own.

http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/opinion/la-oe-hicks18dec18,1,84229.story

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.