Iranian Alert -- April 23, 2004 [EST]-- IRAN LIVE THREAD -- "Americans for Regime Change in Iran"

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.” 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. I began these daily threads June 10th 2003. On that date Iranians once again began taking to the streets to express their desire for a regime change. Today in Iran, most want to replace the regime with a secular democracy.

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 Fails to Stem Leaks of Nuke Secrets

April 23, 2004
Middle East Newsline
MENL

NICOSIA -- For the first time, Iran has acknowledged that government experts disclosed classified information on the nation's nuclear program.

Iranian sources have reported high-level concern in Teheran over a series of defections by Iranian nuclear scientists and the transfer of information on Iran's nuclear weapons program to the United States and the International Atomic Energy Agency. So far, the sources said, authorities have arrested at least two employees of the Iranian Atomic Energy Organization.

The Iranian regime-aligned newspaper, Ya Lesarat, reported that two nuclear experts were arrested for relaying secret material to foreigners. The weekly, published on Wednesday, did not elaborate.

"The two nuclear experts, who were transferring classified information abroad, were arrested by security agents after an extensive investigation," Ya Lesarat, published by supporters of the Iranian regime, said.

http://www.menewsline.com/stories/2004/april/04_23_1.html

Nuke Iran threat to Israel: Bush

Washington, April 22 (Reuters): A nuclear-armed Iran would pose an intolerable threat to peace in West Asia and a mortal danger to Israel, President George W. Bush said yesterday, adding that any such threat would be “dealt with” by the US and its allies.

In strongly worded remarks before an audience of newspaper editors and publishers, the Republican President pressed the secretive leadership of the Islamic republic to heed US and European demands not to pursue a nuclear weapons programme.

“It would be intolerable to peace and stability in West Asia if they get a nuclear weapon, particularly since their stated objective is the destruction of Israel,” Bush said in answer to a question about international cooperation against militant attacks.

“The development of a nuclear weapon in Iran is intolerable. And a programme is intolerable. Otherwise they will be dealt with, starting through the UN.” The US accuses Iran of pursuing a nuclear weapons programme, but Tehran says its nuclear ambitions are confined to generating electricity. Washington hardliners have been pressing for UN sanctions against the Islamic state.

http://www.telegraphindia.com/1040423/asp/foreign/story_3162643.asp

US Senator accuses firms working with Iran and Syria of collecting "blood money"

AP - World News
Apr 22, 2004

WASHINGTON - Sen. Frank Lautenberg accused American companies on Thursday of collecting "blood money" by doing business with terror sponsors and said he would push for legislation to stop it. Lautenberg, D-N.J., made his comments alongside New York City comptroller William Thompson, who as manager of employee pension funds is fighting several companies' over their business dealings with Iran and Syria.

Under current law, U.S. firms are not allowed to do business with nations deemed by the United States to sponsor terrorism. But the law does not specifically bar foreign subsidiaries from such business.

Lautenberg said he would offer a measure that would bar any firm controlled over 50 percent by an American parent company from doing business with terror states.

Lautenberg and Thompson singled out three companies — Halliburton Co., ConocoPhillips, and General Electric Co. — for exploiting what they said was a loophole in the law.

ConocoPhillips, the nation's third-largest oil company, has already promised to pull out of Syria once a contract expires next year.

Representatives for the other two companies say they are carefully following the present law, and would comply with any changes made by Congress.

Thompson, a Democrat, invests $80 billion of New York pension money, including funds for firefighters and police officers. He said that if Congress does move to end companies' business with terror sponsors, other pension managers around the country are considering joining his effort.

The government has identified Iran, Syria, Libya, Cuba, Sudan and North Korea (news - web sites) as sponsors of terrorism. Libya is working to have its sanctions dropped.

Through a foreign subsidiary, GE has provided hydroelectric equipment, medical equipment, and oil and gas equipment in Iran, where a Halliburton subsidiary is involved in oil refining and transportation.

Congress ordered the Security and Exchange Commission in January to identify all U.S. public companies operating in terrorism-sponsoring states and ensure that information is disclosed to stockholders.

"We have careful compliance processes to ensure adherence to U.S. law," said GE spokesman Gary Sheffer. "If Congress decides to change these provisions we will certainly comply."

Halliburton spokeswoman Wendy Hall said, "All of Halliburton's business is clearly permissible under applicable U.S. laws and regulations. ... If Congress decides to change the laws and provisions, Halliburton will, of course, comply."

Sam Falcona, a spokesman for ConocoPhillips, declined to comment.

http://www.daneshjoo.org/generalnews/article/publish/article_5856.shtml

Keep out of Najaf, Iran warns US

Dan De Luce in Tehran
Friday April 23, 2004
The Guardian

Iranian clerics have warned the US that a military assault on two holy cities in Iraq would unleash the wrath of Shia Muslims.
Their warning was echoed by President Mohammed Khatami, who said it would be "suicide" for the coalition to attack Najaf and Kerbala, still encircled by US forces.

It would "mobilise emotions among the world's Shia against the Americans", he added in a statement reported by Tehran newspapers. "I do not think they will make such a mistake, because if they did they would be caught up in a storm."

Three senior clerics used stronger language, saying they would issue fatwas (religious rulings) if the pilgrimage sites remained encircled.

"The US should know that the holy city of Najaf is the capital for all the world's Shias and that if the occupiers do not end the encirclement they will be confronted by all Shias," Ayatollah Fazel Lankarani said, according to the newspaper Hamshahri.

Najaf is the site of the tomb of Ali, the most important Shia saint. US commanders said talks aimed at resolving the standoff with Moqtada al-Sadr, the young cleric leading the insurgency in southern Iraq, had begun.

President Khatami and the clergy made no mention of Mr Sadr, in keeping with Iran's attempts to distance itself from him and his Mahdi army.

But Mr Khatami offered the most explicit endorsement yet of the more moderate and more senior cleric Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, who has called for prompt elections and an end to the US occupation: "What we are in agreement with in Iraq is the policy and methods of Ayatollah Sistani."

With the US renewing its pressure on Iran over its nuclear programme, Tehran could choose to retaliate by stirring unrest in Iraq, analysts say.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1201294,00.html

FYI

PBS [FRONTLINE] will be airing OnLine, a documentary called "SON OF Al QAEDA" tomorrow, April 24th. Here's a brief description and link to much more about it :

"Frontline: Son of al Qaeda
Terence McKenna
Producer
Friday, April 23, 2004; 11:00 a.m. ET

Growing up in the 1990s, Abdurahman Khadr's playmates were the children of his father's longtime friend, Osama bin Laden. How Khadr was raised to be an al Qaeda terrorist -- and how he ultimately decided to become a U.S. informant in the war on terror -- is the focus of the Frontline report "Son of al Qaeda." Through interviews with Khadr as well as his mother and siblings, the one-hour documentary recounts his journey from terrorist trainee to informant, offering a revealing glimpse inside the world-and mindset-of al Qaeda followers.

Producer Terence McKenna will be online Friday, April 23 at 11 a.m. ET, to discuss the documentary."

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/khadr//

U.S. Firms' Work With Iran, Syria Targeted

April 22, 2004
The Associated Press
Devlin Barrett

WASHINGTON - Sen. Frank Lautenberg accused American companies on Thursday of collecting "blood money" by doing business with terror sponsors and said he would push for legislation to stop it.

Lautenberg, D-N.J., made his comments alongside New York City comptroller William Thompson, who as manager of employee pension funds is fighting several companies' over their business dealings with Iran and Syria.

Under current law, U.S. firms are not allowed to do business with nations deemed by the United States to sponsor terrorism. But the law does not specifically bar foreign subsidiaries from such business.

Lautenberg said he would offer a measure that would bar any firm controlled over 50 percent by an American parent company from doing business with terror states.

Lautenberg and Thompson singled out three companies — Halliburton Co., ConocoPhillips, and General Electric Co. — for exploiting what they said was a loophole in the law.

ConocoPhillips, the nation's third-largest oil company, has already promised to pull out of Syria once a contract expires next year.

Representatives for the other two companies say they are carefully following the present law, and would comply with any changes made by Congress.

Thompson, a Democrat, invests $80 billion of New York pension money, including funds for firefighters and police officers. He said that if Congress does move to end companies' business with terror sponsors, other pension managers around the country are considering joining his effort.

The government has identified Iran, Syria, Libya, Cuba, Sudan and North Korea as sponsors of terrorism. Libya is working to have its sanctions dropped.

Through a foreign subsidiary, GE has provided hydroelectric equipment, medical equipment, and oil and gas equipment in Iran, where a Halliburton subsidiary is involved in oil refining and transportation.

Congress ordered the Security and Exchange Commission in January to identify all U.S. public companies operating in terrorism-sponsoring states and ensure that information is disclosed to stockholders.

"We have careful compliance processes to ensure adherence to U.S. law," said GE spokesman Gary Sheffer. "If Congress decides to change these provisions we will certainly comply."

Halliburton spokeswoman Wendy Hall said, "All of Halliburton's business is clearly permissible under applicable U.S. laws and regulations. ... If Congress decides to change the laws and provisions, Halliburton will, of course, comply."

Sam Falcona, a spokesman for ConocoPhillips, declined to comment.

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=519&ncid=718&e=10&u=/ap/20040422/ap_on_re_us/terror_investing

Hunger-strike Asylum Seekers to Be Evicted

April 23, 2004
The Herald
Alison Chiesa

Three Kurdish Iranian asylum seekers who stitched up their mouths and went on a month-long hunger strike are to be evicted from their homes.

Campaigners are appealing to Glasgow City Council to halt the evictions over concerns that Fariborz Gravindi, 30, Faroq Haidari, 32, and Mokhtar Haydary, 31, will be forced to sleep on the streets.

The local authority is required to follow orders from the Home Office, which has ruled the men must leave their council-funded accommodation after their final applications for asylum were rejected.

Rosie Kane, the Scottish Socialist MSP, called on the council to defy such rulings.

She added: "I do not think Glasgow City Council is comfortable or happy about this and what we need to see them do is coming out and saying it. I would urge them and support them to do that."

Mr Gravindi, who has been told he must leave his bedsit in the south side of Glasgow tomorrow, said: "I feel extremely terrible. I have no idea how I'll manage with no roof over my head or permission to work. I will be living on the streets."

Mr Haydary, who has been sleeping on the floor of Mr Gravindi's bedsit, since being evicted from his own accommodation two years ago, said he only saw a future of terror and hopelessness.

He added: "It is almost impossible to put into words how I feel. Not only do we have the prospect of being sent back to a life of torture and death, but we will also have a life of destitution while we wait. Doesn't the government realise that we would go back to Iran if we could?"

Margaret Woods, of the Glasgow Campaign to Welcome Refugees, said it was "obscene" that a Labour council would implement such an order.

The three men stitched their lips together on February 19, saying they would rather die in Scotland than travel back to Iran, but gave up their hunger strike after seeing the "overwhelming" support they had gained for their cause. The men were sent hundreds of letters and cards from supporters.

A spokeswoman for Glasgow City Council said yesterday that its position on the Home Office ruling remained unchanged.

http://www.theherald.co.uk/news/14603-print.shtml

Iran's Press Tells The Great Satan to Go to Hell

April 23, 2004
The Guardian
Dan De Luce

Photos of the carnage and debris from this week's violence in neighbouring Iraq dominated Iranian newspapers, which issued dire warnings of the consequences for the US if it attacked insurgents in the Shia holy cities of Najaf and Kerbala.

The ultra-conservative paper Jomhuri Islami said US actions in Iraq had surpassed Saddam Hussein's. Why, it asked, had "our" religious leaders not issued a fatwa calling for a holy war to oust the American forces. "Why are they silent? What are they waiting for?"

There was extensive coverage of the remarks of President Mohammad Khatami, who warned it would be "suicide" for the US-led coalition to launch an assault on Najaf and Kerbala. "I do not think they will make such a mistake, because if they did they would be caught up in a storm," he was quoted as saying in Hamshahri.

The US was also condemned for its failure to reprimand Israel over its assassination of the Hamas leader, Abdel-Aziz al-Rantissi. Entekhab ran a front-page photo of a Palestinian girl crying at the funeral procession and other newspapers reported that the government planned a ceremony in Tehran in his honour.

Under the headline "War between right and wrong", Jomhuri Islami said world public opinion favoured the Palestinians and that the US and Israel were looking increasingly isolated. "Muslims should now take advantage of the unity they can achieve and fight against the Zionist regime and its supporter," the paper said.

It also remembered that the late founder of Iran's Islamic Republic, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, described the US as the Great Satan. "Now one can easily understand what he meant," said the paper.

Khomeini has also been in the news because Tehran's new international airport has been named after him. Unfortunately, reported Resalaat, plans to open the airport to commercial flights have had to be postponed yet again. Still, the latest delay could hardly have come as surprise - the plans to build the airport date back as far as 1960.

A new film that depicts a thief who poses successfully as a cleric has taken Tehran by storm. Lizard opened in cinemas in the capital on Wednesday, with tickets selling out ten days in advance, reported the reformist daily Vaqaye Etefaqieh.

The paper ran a still from the film on page one, showing the actor Parviz Parastui holding forth in clerical robes. The paper quoted the film's producer refuting persistent rumours that the film had been banned.

The ministry of culture and Islamic guidance initially passed the film for screening, but officials then appointed a team, including judges, to review it. The producer said only a few lines from the original screenplay had to be cut, the paper reported.

The film's story may not be so far from reality, according to another reformist paper, Aftab. In the town of Mashad, prospective investors in a fake company were promised a 40% rate of return by a group of con men, including one who posed as a cleric. Authorities said that if the man had passed himself off as a cleric, he would be tried in a special court.

Aftab also reported plans for a women's demonstration in front of the state television building next week over the portrayal of women in entertainment programming.

Noushin Ahmadi, of the women's cultural centre, criticised the state broadcaster for showing "anti-women" programmes that promote polygamy and temporary marriages, or sigeh. She cited the recent production Another Lady, in which a husband seeks a second wife because his first wife cannot bear children, which was "insulting and humiliating for educated women".

Vaqaye Etefaqieh also carried a column by Marzieh Mortazi Langarudi accusing the state broadcaster of representing women as inferior and portraying female artists or writers as abnormal and mentally ill. The broadcaster seemed to have two or three stock characters, said Langarudi, who were either traditional and subservient or modern and unstable. And when women got the chance to present factual programmes they were focused on cooking, handicrafts or sewing.

"Is this the reality of Iranian families?" she asked. "If so, is it the same reality in which women are earning 65% of university places or has the television picked a minority to represent the majority?"

http://www.guardian.co.uk/editor/story/0,12900,1201248,00.html

EU Lets Iran Off The Hook In Geneva

David Johnson,
04/23/04
American Daily

Once again, the United Nations Commission on Human Rights has let Iran off the hook. As the UN body is holding its annual session in Geneva, the EU-led Western block chose not to table a resolution censuring flagrant human rights violations by Iran’s ruling theocracy.

True, the 53-member Commission is made of up countries with deplorable human rights records. But that does not make Europe’s ambivalence towards Iran’s appalling rights record any less reprehensible. The decision has come despite the fact that last fall the UN General Assembly condemned Iran in 50th censure document adopted by the world body in the past two decades.

After visiting Iran late last year, UN Special Rapporteur on freedom of opinion and expression Ambeyi Ligabo painted an alarming picture of the rights situation in Iran. “[There was a] "climate of fear induced by the systematic repression of people expressing critical views against the authorized political and religious doctrine and the functioning of institutions," wrote the human rights investigator in a report to the Human Rights Commission.

The State Department Country Reports on Human Rights Practices for year 2003 was even more damning. “The [Iran] Government's poor human rights record worsened, and it continued to commit numerous, serious abuses… Continuing serious abuses included: summary executions; disappearances; torture and other degrading treatment, reportedly including severe punishments such as beheading and flogging; poor prison conditions; arbitrary arrest and detention....” it warned.

Iran's Nobel peace laureate Shirin Ebadi denounced the EU’s “silence and complicity” describing it as "an insult for democrats and human rights defenders in Iran who struggle for basic rights in spite of risks to their freedom."

The EU’s approach is particularly disturbing since it always took the initiative in drafting resolutions on rights abuses in Iran. This time, however, in the context of the futile policy of “constructive engagement”, it chose to remain silent despite the clerics’ continuing brutality at home. The so-called human rights dialogue with the Tehran has turned out to be nothing more than a monologue. The EU recently acknowledged that it had seen little progress in Iran's human rights dossier and that its policy of constructive engagement was flagging.

Senator Sam Brownback (R-KS) has also deplored the decision by the Western block of nations led by the European Union not to table a resolution censuring flagrant human rights violations by Iran’s ruling theocracy. He strongly criticized the Human Rights Commission for failing to censure Iran.

“I am extremely disappointed in the lack of action by the United Nations,” Brownback said. “Despite clear evidence of serious violations, the U.N. failed to pass resolutions” that would have called Iran to account for its egregious behavior on human rights issues, he added.

The twin pillars of Iran’s theocracy - repression at home and export of revolution - have kept this regime in power for twenty five years. The mullahs shield their tyrannical house of cards behind tall, thick and ubiquitous walls of suppression. It seems they have the silent approval of the EU to do so.

As Senator Brownback correctly said in his statement, “safeguarding the human rights of Iranians is a critical element of any policy to support Iran’s democracy movement. We must not let the tyrannical mullahs of Iran get off the hook so easily.”

http://www.americandaily.com/item/5467

Iran rejects Bush's allegations over nuclear weapons

www.chinaview.cn 2004-04-23 20:14:58

TEHRAN, April 23 (Xinhuanet) -- Iranian Foreign Minister Kamal Kharazi on Thursday rejected US President George W. Bush's accusation that Iran is developing nuclear weapons, terming such charges as "baseless".
"The Americans level a charge and make conclusions based on the same groundless charge," the official IRNA news agency quoted Kharazi as saying.

"Iran definitely has no plan for producing nuclear weapons and any such plan is not a part of our security strategies," Kharazi, who is currently visiting London, said in an interview.

Bush on Wednesday repeated previous US claims that Iran is trying to develop nuclear weapons, saying that the White House views any possible plan by Iran to that effect as intolerable because of Iran's stated objective to destroy Israel.

Kharazi cited earlier announcements by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) that it had found no evidence to testify US claims on Iran's nuclear energy program.

He reiterated previous pledges that Iran's nuclear activities are peaceful, stressing that the Islamic Republic has a legitimate right to promote peaceful nuclear activities under IAEA commitments. Enditem

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2004-04/23/content_1437489.htm

IRAN AMOK WITH TERROR ON 2 FRONTS

By URI DAN

April 23, 2004 -- JERUSALEM - There are two theaters of terrorism in the Mideast these days - one featuring Hamas in the Gaza Strip, the other, Muqtada al-Sadr in Iraq. And, according to Israeli intelligence, they have a common link: the mullahs of Tehran.
Iran is encouraging Muslim militancy in both theaters in order to ensure that Tehran - and not Osama bin Laden or anyone else - will control the future of the Islamic revolution.

Hamas needs Iran's help, particularly in the aftermath of Israel's back-to-back assassinations of its two leaders, Sheik Ahmed Yassin and Abdel Aziz Rantisi, in the past month.

It was Rantisi, slain last Saturday, who opened the gates of Gaza to Iran.

He welcomed the flow of arms and money from Iran to Palestinian terrorists that was sorely needed after the fall of Saddam Hussein, who had routinely provided $25,000 to the families of homicide bombers.

The Iranian connection to terrorists also runs through the Shiite Hezbollah guerrillas in Lebanon.

An internal report by the Israeli Foreign Ministry, dated Monday, says Iran is playing a double game.

On the one hand, it claims to be a force for stability. In reality, Iran wants the situation in Iraq to deteriorate to "blacken the face of Washington in the Arab and Muslim world."

The Israeli newspaper Yediot Achronoth reported how Italian intelligence found that Iran is investing $70 million a month in the Iraqi insurgency. Iraqi Shiite rebel Sadr and Hamas' Rantisi recently gave "identical speeches in which they vowed not to let the Arab-hater George Bush be re-elected."

In the Mideast, that's no coincidence.

http://www.nypost.com/commentary/19410.htm

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