Iranian Alert -- June 8, 2004 [EST]-- IRAN LIVE THREAD -- "Americans for Regime Change in Iran"

RSF Urges the European Union to Reconsider its "Constructive Dialogue" with Iran

June 08, 2004
Reporters Without Borders
rsf.org

Reporters Without Borders has called for the release of Reza Alijani, editor of the monthly Iran-e-Farda, and laureate of the Reporters Without Borders-Fondation de France 2001 press freedom award. He has been detained since 14 June 2003, together with Hoda Saber, one of the bosses of Iran-e-Farda and Taghi Rahmani, of the weekly Omid-e-Zangan. The case is murky in the extreme.

Alijani is currently the only Reporters Without Borders laureate who remains behind bars. Initially held in solitary confinement and then in the special wing of Evin Jail, he will shortly mark his first year of unfair imprisonment, along with Saber and Rahmani.

"Despite statements of good intentions by head of the judiciary, Mahmud Hashemi Shahrudi, who announced steps to improve respect for the law in Iran, the jailing of Alijani illustrates how far the Islamic Republic is from complying with minimum human rights standards," said Reporters Without Borders.

"As the European Union opens its fourth year of 'constructive dialogue' with Tehran on this question on the 14-15 June, we insist on pointing out that press freedom has only worsened. It is time for the European Union to draw the obvious conclusion and to strongly condemn this regime," Reporters Without Borders said.

Background

Alijani was sentenced at the end of a closed-doors trial on 10 May 2003, to six years in prison and ten years loss of civil rights, Rahmani to 11 years in prison and ten years of loss of civil rights and Saber to ten years in prison and ten years loss of civil rights. The three journalists were all sentenced in connection with their work. They each posted substantial bail to remain at liberty while awaiting the outcome of an appeal, as allowed under law.

On 14 June 2003, the three men were arrested without explanation on the order of the Tehran prosecutor Said Mortazavi.

Golamhossein Elham, spokesman for the judiciary, confirmed on 15 October that the three journalists were serving their prison sentences, but he gave no reasons for their imprisonment, nor the date or place of their trial.

Until 30 October they were all kept in solitary confinement. Then they shared the same cell. Their lawyers have not had access to their files and their families have been denied regular visits.

On 1st May 2004, Alijani found out that their appeal had been heard. The following day the three journalists' lawyers told a press conference, "We have received no information about the sentences. We still do not have access to our clients' files."

On 7 June, the lawyers had still not received any documents relating to the trial or any official explanation for the imprisonment of the three men.

Reza Alijani, biographical details :

Alijani joined Iran-e-Farda in 1992 and later took over as editor. Under his leadership, the monthly became a magazine of reference for reformists and was highly popular with students. Alijani was frequently summoned before revolutionary courts over his articles in support of press freedom. Having already been tortured and detained in the 1980s for his involvement with an underground publication, Alijani was already known to the Iranian authorities.

In January 1999, he received death threats from a fundamentalist organisation that had admitted responsibility for murders of intellectuals in 1998. Alijani refused to be silenced. In an interview with the daily Arya, he referred, for the first time in Iran, to the 1988 murders by the authorities of thousands of prisoners. On 24 February 2001, ten months after the banning of Iran-e-Farda, the journalist was arrested by agents of the security forces and held for 200 days in a single cell before being put in with two other journalists Hoda Saber and Taghi Rahmani. He was released on bail on 16 December 2001. His trial was held on 10 May 2003. He was initially released on bail then imprisoned again on 14 June 2003. Aged 42, Alijani is father of two children.

With 13 journalists behind bars, Iran is the Middle East's biggest prison for journalists.

http://www.rsf.org/article.php3?id_article=10563

Author Finds That With Fame Comes Image Management

June 08, 2004
The New York Times
Julie Salamon

In one whirlwind year, Azar Nafisi has found herself drawn further and further into the maddening, seductive fold of American success. She has gone from unknown academic émigré to literary celebrity with the startling commercial success of "Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books," about life and literature under the Islamic government in Iran.

Pushed by world events that have made Muslim women interesting to American book club readers, the book is now in its 21st week on the paperback best-seller list of The New York Times.

The stars seem aligned in her favor. So why has this Iranian professor and author been brooding as much as celebrating? "We all know how dangerous it is for a dream to come true," Ms. Nafisi said in an interview. "It is so amazing in America because you say, `I want this' and they say, `Come and get it.' " Now, she wonders, "How much time do you have to spend creating or not creating an image?"

Ms. Nafisi, 54, is learning the pitfalls and conundrums of playing the fame game in her adopted country as she contends with her corporate handlers, her book club fans and jealous former countrymen. "I thought I can live with the snide remarks: `Look at her wanting to become a celebrity, yada yada,' " she said. "That is not pleasant, but you can live with it. But one thing I can't live with, which I would criticize, is to be in competition with my book. A writer should allow the work to speak for itself."

Still, when Random House, her publisher, encouraged her to take part in a marketing campaign for Audi, sponsored by Condé Nast, she agreed. After all, in exchange for her participation, for which she was not paid, Audi is sponsoring literary events in five cities. "This seemed a good chance to talk about the causes I like to a wider audience," Ms. Nafisi said.

To promote Audi, a picture of Ms. Nafisi, suspended in air in front of a shelf of books, appeared last month in several publications owned by Advance Magazine Group, Condé Nast's parent, including Vanity Fair, Wired, Golf Digest, The New Yorker and Vogue.

She is joined by David Bowie (Audi is sponsoring his latest tour), the actor William H. Macy and the teenage soccer star Freddy Adu, all part of Audi of America's "Never Follow" campaign to promote the brand to affluent and educated potential buyers. "We want to make Audi distinct from BMW or Mercedes by associating it with these people," explained Rod Brown, management supervisor for the Audi of America account at McKinney & Silver, the North Carolina advertising company that dreamed this up with Condé Nast for Audi. Last year's "Never Follow" honorees included John Malkovich, K. D. Lang and Daniel Libeskind.

"We wanted people who weren't just famous or rich but who are doing something really cool," Mr. Brown said. He had an immediate response when Ms. Nafisi's name was mentioned by a Condé Nast publicist who used to work at Random House. "A light bulb went off," he said. "Azar is to literature what Audi is to cars."

The analogy might be strange to Ms. Nafisi, who does not drive. And the strangeness of her new life struck her in full force at the Manhattan party introducing this year's "Never Follow" campaign. For certain New Yorkers it was a familiar scene: mountains of hors d'oeuvres, opulent flowers, open bar, the paparazzi outside, the sleek men and women admitted to indulge and to gawk. The guests included celebrities like Brad Pitt and Edie Falco. For Ms. Nafisi this was new. "What does any of this have to do with my book?" she asked more than once.

Not even a few gulps of Champagne loosened Ms. Nafisi's restraint, even as she stood less than 10 feet from Mr. Bowie as he serenaded about 500 undulating partygoers. "While I was going through the motions, I was analyzing myself, analyzing David Bowie, looking at the crowd, wondering what they were thinking," she said. But, she said: "To be a writer you want as much experience as possible. And I liked David Bowie. There is an inner elegance. Another rock star I would not have wanted to be associated with."

No one expected any of this from a book that requires readers to undertake a serious examination of the relationship between literary text and life. "I've worked on books that have taken off beyond expectation but never on this level and never this kind of book," said Libby McGuire, Random House's senior vice president for marketing. "This is not an easy book. I wasn't surprised that something like `The Secret Life of Bees' took off. You can give that book to anyone from 15 years old to 80 years old. This is so different from that."

Ms. Nafisi had been overwhelmed with pessimism about her book's prospects. "I would call my editor day and night," she recalled. "I told her: `This book will not sell a copy. It is hopeless.' "

Random House acquired the book in 1999, when it was still an idea, for a $30,000 advance. "We felt there was definitely a message about books we thought would appeal to booksellers, and if they read it you have a better chance of them recommending it to someone," Ms. McGuire said. "That was our hope, our wish." In 2002 the company announced a first printing of 25,000 copies, intending, Ms. McGuire said, to print 12,000.

But Sept. 11 had changed the subject's appeal and its potential audience. The sales force obtained orders from bookstores for more than 20,000 copies before publication. The announced first printing was increased to 50,000 copies. Meanwhile the buildup to war in Iraq increased Ms. Nafisi's public recognition. As a visiting professor at the School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University, and with her intelligence wrapped in an appealing package of warmth and forthrightness, she had become a popular commentator. Her persona, along with enthusiastic reviews, helped sell 95,000 copies of her book in hardcover.

Using standard prediction for nonfiction titles, Random House expected paperback sales to be similar to hardcover or maybe a bit more, Ms. McGuire said. Random House promoted the book in its online newsletter, which goes to 5,000 reading clubs, and offered to have Ms. Nafisi call and discuss the book while they were meeting. The book made its paperback debut on The Times's best-seller list in January, quickly moved to No. 1 and has sold 484,000 copies. The company has also sold rights in 22 countries.

Ms. Nafisi has been traveling and speaking extensively for more than a year. Last month she was onstage with Eve Ensler, who wrote "The Vagina Monologues," at a PEN event in New York. Ms. Nafisi is now touring Europe as part of the paperback promotion. She has done interviews together with Dmitri Nabokov, Vladimir's son, and bonded with make-up men from Afghanistan.

She has also confronted naysayers and ill-wishers. "People from my country have said the book was successful because of a Zionist conspiracy and U.S. imperialism, and others have criticized me for washing our dirty laundry in front of the enemy," she said.

Ms. Nafisi said she has also had to contend with her own intellectual snobbery as she has toured the United States and met her fans, most of whom live outside the academic realm she has inhabited, first in Iran and now in the West. "I had always looked at book groups a little condescendingly, like ladies clubs from the 1950's," she said. "Then I met all these people through bookstores and book groups and realized how fantastic it is that people get together to talk about books."

Now, she says, she fears the biggest obstacle to writing may be success. Before leaving Iran seven years ago, she said, "I wondered, `Will I ever be able without worry to sit down and write and teach?' I can now complain to no one because no one is preventing me from writing. But they are, in a sense, by their enthusiasm. There are too many good people to talk to."

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/06/08/books/08AZAR.html

The Woman Question

June 08, 2004
Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars
Haleh Esfandiari

October 10, 2003, was a significant day for women throughout the Middle East. Shirin Ebadi, an Iranian activist, was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in recognition of her work in Iran for human rights, women's rights, and children's rights. Through her, the prize acknowledged the wider struggle Iranian women in particular, and Middle Eastern women generally, have waged to gain their rightful place in their not-so-hospitable societies.

The Nobel committee put Middle Eastern governments on notice that the international community is following with keen interest the efforts of women in the region to achieve equality under the law.

For Iranian women, Ebadi's Nobel Prize had a special poignancy. It rewarded their quarter-century fight against a political regime determined to turn back the clock on women's rights. Ebadi, a practicing lawyer who was born (in 1947) and educated in Iran, was among the first female judges to be appointed to the bench under the shah's regime, in 1975. Although she was an activist in the revolution against that regime, Ebadi was purged by the Islamists after they came to power in 1979, when women were barred from all judgeships. Following her dismissal, Ebadi established a private legal practice, taught law at Tehran University, wrote on legal matters, and worked passionately for women's and children's rights. Like other activists in the Islamic Republic, she was thrown in jail for specious reasons, and she was barred from practicing law for five years. But she was not deterred.

Ebadi's prize created great excitement in Tehran, and great consternation in the Iranian government. President Mohammad Khatami, who owed his presidency in large part to the votes of women and the young, shocked those who regarded him as an enlightened cleric by remarking that the important Nobel Prizes were awarded in the sciences. In a mass rebuke to the government, tens of thousands of Iranians-men and women alike-turned out at the Tehran airport to greet Ebadi on her return from Paris, where she had been when the call came from the Nobel committee.

In fighting for their own rights, women in the Middle East are broadening the democratic space in society as a whole. Ebadi herself dramatically emphasized this point simply by appearing without a scarf at a Paris press conference. By defying a sacred rule of the Islamic Republic, she drew attention to an issue that is of great concern to women throughout the Middle East and is also a key symbol in the larger struggle for democratic rights. What could be a simpler and more fundamental individual right than to dress as one pleases?

PhotoHomeward-bound after receiving news of her Nobel Peace Prize in Paris, Iranian activist Shirin Ebadi, shown with her daughter, dramatized a key practical and symbolic issue by refusing to wear a head covering.

Courageous women such as Shirin Ebadi have made women prime movers in the struggle for a more liberal democratic order, and the status of women is now a key barometer of progress. In Jordan, women launched a campaign against so-called "honor killings," in which men kill female relatives who bring "dishonor" on the family. In Kuwait, women who participated in the resistance to the Iraqi occupation of 1990-91 started a campaign for women's suffrage after the Iraqis were driven out. In Iran, women successfully campaigned against the stoning and flogging of their sisters. In Saudi Arabia, a brave group publicly challenged the authorities in 1990 by the simple but bold step of driving their own cars. And Iraqi women have successfully pressured the Governing Council to rescind regulations that required family law to be based on religious law. In each of these instances, women have helped expand political space and the concept of democratic rights by example and, often, achievement.

All of these conflicts concern at a fundamental level the role and interpretation of Islam. The Middle East's national constitutions are based on Islamic law and recognize Islam as the official religion, and Islam, through the Koran and the traditions of the Prophet, also sets down rules for everyday human behavior. Yet there's considerable diversity in the Islamic world. The Islam practiced in Indonesia is not the Islam practiced in Saudi Arabia or Bosnia or Nigeria. Women's roles and rights in each country are the product of its particular history, culture, and political character. Growing up in the tolerant environment of pre-revolutionary Iran, for example, I always found the highly conservative, orthodox form of Islam practiced in some Arab countries puzzling. But after the Islamists came to power in Iran in 1979 and began to regulate women's lives-public and private-I learned to understand the difficulties women in those countries face.

Today, in some less conservative states, such as Jordan, Syria, and Egypt, women's rights are open to liberal interpretation. But in Saudi Arabia, where a fundamentalist form of Islam reigns, the status of women is based on a strict interpretation of the Koran and the sharia (Islamic law), and is not negotiable. Women are required to wear an abaya, which covers them from head to toe. Wearing the abaya is also expected, though not mandatory, in the Persian Gulf States. (Saudi women are free to set the abaya aside when they are outside the country.) But in Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Tunisia, and a few other countries, the state no longer regulates what women may wear. In Iran, until recently women were flogged for not observing the Islamic dress code, which requires either a black veil covering the whole body and leaving only the face and the hands (but not the wrists) exposed, or a long, loose robe, also in black, with a hood-style head cover. Yet on the streets of Tehran and other cities over the years, the length of the robe has grown shorter, the hood has been replaced by a scarf, and pastel colors have supplanted black. Increasingly, Iranian women now dare to sport short, tight-fitting robes and skimpy head covers.

Even as a degree of liberalization has occurred in some countries, there's been movement in the opposite direction in others. A recent trend in Egypt, Iraq, and even relatively cosmopolitan Lebanon, especially among Shiites, is for women to cover their hair, even when not required. It's unclear what's behind this change. Some observers see the trend as a political statement against the regime in power; others say it reflects a revival of religious feeling; still others believe women wear the scarf as protection from harassment by fundamentalists. It's not uncommon for many women to cover their hair on their way to work but remove their head cover once inside their office.

The key differences in the status of women in the region's countries can't be traced to differences between the Sunni and Shiite forms of Islam. Societal conditions - level of education, size of the middle class, degree of urbanization, national history - seem to matter more. Women are enfranchised in Sunni-dominated countries such as Egypt and Jordan and in Shiite Iran (one of two Shiite-majority countries, along with Iraq), but not in other Arab countries. Women may drive cars in Iran and Egypt, among other places, but not in Saudi Arabia.The main obstacle to the emancipation of women is family law, which is based on the Islamic sharia and regulates marriage, divorce, child custody, and a woman's right to work, to choose her place of domicile, and to leave her house, town, or country. In Saudi Arabia, a woman didn't even have the right to her own identity card until two years ago; she had to be registered on the card of her husband or father. In Iran, a married woman still needs notarized permission from her husband to travel. I know of women who were prevented from leaving the country even though they were members of government delegations going abroad on official business.

The Middle East's rulers have rarely taken the initiative in advancing women's rights. The shah of Iran enfranchised women in 1963 in the face of clerical opposition. Last year, King Mohammad VI of Morocco persuaded parliament to make major changes in Morocco's family law. The new law restricts a man's right to divorce on demand, and to more than one wife; it raises the legal age of marriage for girls to 18 and recognizes the equality of the spouses in a family. The king also suggested a quota of seats for women in parliament and local councils. In Iraq, the Governing Council has partially yielded to women's demands by calling for electoral laws that will give women 25 percent of seats in a future parliament. But in 1999, the parliament of Kuwait rejected a proposal by the emir, Sheik Jaber Al-Ahmed Al-Sabah, to grant women the right to vote and to sit as members of that legislative body.

Women themselves have been the main force for change, and the change they seek is fundamental, not merely incremental. The number of educated women is growing with extraordinary speed, and so is the demand for fuller participation in government and public affairs. When no women were included in the committee responsible for drafting the interim laws that will serve as a basis for the new Iraqi constitution, Iraqi women publicly protested. And Afghan women presented President Hamid Karzai with a women's bill of rights for inclusion in the constitution. In Iran, protests against overt discrimination in the workplace and in universities have forced the government to alter its policies.

The spread of the Internet and satellite dishes will promote further change, though not with lightning speed. Globalization undermines isolation, giving women an awareness of the progress their counterparts are making elsewhere in the world and linking them in a common effort. In most Middle Eastern countries, women's organizations that have links to the Internet have established their own websites. While the percentage of Arab women with access to the Internet is in the low single digits, female-led nongovernmental organizations are working to change that. A worldwide network of supporters awaits women when they do get access. Today, when a woman is sentenced to death by stoning for adultery, whether in Iran or northern Nigeria, groups around the world mobilize to alert international and local organizations and to protest to heads of state. On a number of occasions, national governments have been forced to overturn the sentences.

The wider world has provided another important goad to action, in the unexpected form of two sobering reports sponsored by respected international organizations. The United Nations-funded Arab Human Development Report, written mostly by Arab experts and thinkers and published in July 2002, came as a rude surprise to the people of the Middle East. It exposed the degree to which the region trails the rest of the world, even in comparison with other developing countries, when judged by basic economic, social, and political indicators. Despite its substantial oil revenues and other natural resources, the Middle East lags far behind in making progress on gender issues, human rights, and good governance. And for the first time a group of prominent Arab intellectuals and experts blamed the Arabs themselves, rather than colonialism and other external factors, for the failures of the Arab world.

The report examines the state of economic, social, civil, cultural, and political development in 22 countries with a combined population of some 300 million. (Nearly 40 percent of that population is under the age of 14, creating a demographic time bomb.) The authors identify three major areas of deficit in the Arab world: freedom, women's empowerment, and knowledge. The section on women begins with this sentence: "Arab women have made considerable progress over the decades." But the authors go on to say: "Sadly, the Arab World is largely depriving itself of the creativity and productivity of half its citizens." On paper, boys and girls in all countries of the region have equal access to education, but the percentage of girls in school varies from country to country. In most countries, primary and secondary education is segregated, while classes in colleges and universities are mixed (except in Saudi Arabia). In Iran, Lebanon, Oman, and Qatar, the number of women entering the universities is actually greater than the number of men. In some countries, the number of women's universities, with their more comfortable all-female surroundings, has been on the rise.

PhotoIn a Riyadh supermarket, a Saudi woman peers from her abaya, required dress in the kingdom.

The second report, Gender and Development in the Middle East and North Africa: Women in the Public Sphere, was released last fall by the World Bank. While noting progress, the report points out many shortcomings. Thus, "women's average literacy rate rose from 16.6 percent in 1970 to 52.5 percent in 2000," but that still leaves nearly half of all Arab women without the ability to read and write. Despite a 50 percent increase in women's employment in the region since 1960, the report notes, the rate of female integration into the labor market "remains among the lowest in the world," in part because of restrictive family law and a culture that sees men as families' sole breadwinner.

The two reports show that the number of educated women is growing but that women do not play a commensurately greater role in society. Governments have been relatively bold in expanding educational opportunities for women but timid in addressing obstacles embedded in family law.

In the political sphere, women have made significant progress in the last two decades but still remain at a great disadvantage. The national constitutions of the Middle East generally guarantee equality under the law for both men and women, but rarely is this promise realized. Turkey granted women the right to vote in 1934; Iran, Tunisia, Egypt, Lebanon, Jordan, and a few other countries did so gradually over the ensuing decades, including Bahrain in 2001. Women still do not have the right to vote in four countries: Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (where neither sex is enfranchised), Qatar, and Kuwait.

The right to vote is no guarantee of representation - or of anything else, since elections in most countries can hardly be described as free and fair and many legislative bodies have little power. According to the Arab Human Development Report, women claim only 3.5 percent of the seats in Arab parliaments. Lebanese women, for example, were enfranchised in 1952, but the first woman was elected to parliament only in 1992. In Iran, just before the 1979 revolution, 20 women sat in parliament; in the first round of elections this past February, only eight women won seats. Jordanian women were enfranchised in 1974, but no parliamentary elections were held until 1984, and it wasn't until 1993 that a woman gained a seat. Six women sit in the new parliament elected last year.

More women are serving in cabinet positions, but the numbers remain so low that women in some countries are lobbying for a quota system that will give them a proportional share of parliamentary seats and cabinet positions. Women now hold cabinet positions in Syria, Egypt, Bahrain, Jordan, Oman, and Qatar. But a handful of token appointments will no longer suffice. And women no longer think their cause is significantly advanced when they are appointed to cabinet posts that have acquired a gender-specific identity, such as health and education. Women leaders argue that cabinet positions, indeed, all leadership and managerial positions, must be filled on the basis of merit rather than gender. The region, they say, needs a large number of female ambassadors, undersecretaries, directors-general, governors, mayors, city and local councilors, judges, lawyers, and diplomats. But if it takes quotas to achieve this goal, activists increasingly argue, then let quotas be put in place. In Iraq, for example, women pressed for a constitutional guarantee reserving them 40 percent of all political appointments and seats in parliament. They had to settle for a goal of 25 percent of parliamentary seats.

No matter what is accomplished at the level of higher politics, equal legal status for women is virtually unachievable so long as family law remains based on the sharia, and rules derived from a particular interpretation of Islam prevail in the social sphere. Under this system, women need the permission of a male member of the family to seek education and employment. They have no right to a divorce, and they lose custody of their children when their husbands divorce them. Girls as young as nine can be married at the whim of their fathers and divorced at the whim of their husbands. In many places, women can still be killed for bringing "shame" on the family, stoned for adultery, and flogged for showing a bit of hair. If women are to be empowered, family law must be modified. Yet only a few women sit on high courts in the Middle East-though in some countries, such as Syria, their numbers are increasing in lower courts-and few countries have family courts to adjudicate family disputes.

The specious guarantees of equality before the law for all citizens that mark so many constitutions can no longer be accepted as polite fictions. Middle Eastern governments must be persuaded to adhere to the letter of their constitutions. The full integration of women into society will be impossible so long as women are seen as second-class citizens, under the tutelage of the male members of the family. A growing community of educated women will demand access to employment; and economic independence, be it in cities, towns, or villages, will inevitably create demands for a voice in writing the laws that influence women's lives. To change the laws women must be present in political offices and law-making bodies, and this must be achieved through wider political participation and, if necessary, quota systems.

In a number of countries, men are learning to respect and work with women. Only through such partnership will women's empowerment be accelerated. Female Middle Easterners are increasingly active, and increasingly supported by an international network of members of their own sex that can monitor the progress women are making and the stumbling blocks governments place in their path. It's frustrating for many women that their cause may take one or two steps forward only to take one step back. But the struggle for women's rights can no longer be stopped. Women in the region know this-and so do their governments.

[Sidebar]EVEN AS A DEGREE OF LIBERALIZATION HAS OCCURRED IN SOME COUNTRIES, THERE'S BEEN MOVEMENT IN THE OPPOSITE DIRECTION IN OTHERS.

[Sidebar]THE MIDDLE EAST'S RULERS HAVE RARELY TAKEN THE INITIATIVE IN ADVANCING WOMEN'S RIGHTS.

[Sidebar]THE SPREAD OF THE INTERNET AND SATELLITE DISHES WILL PROMOTE FURTHER CHANGE, THOUGH NOT WITH LIGHTNING SPEED.

[Sidebar]WOMEN STILL DO NOT HAVE THE RIGHT TO VOTE IN FOUR COUNTRIES . . . BUT THE RIGHT TO VOTE IS NO GUARANTEE OF REPRESENTATION.

[Author Affiliation]HALEH ESKANDIARI is the director of the Wilson Canters Middle East Program. Before leaving Iran in 1978, she was a journalist and deputy secretary-general of the Women's Organization of Iran. She is the author of Reconstructed Lives: Women and Iran's Islamic Revolution (1997).

Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars

Spring 2004. Vol. 28, Iss. 2; pg. 56, 8 pgs

http://wwics.si.edu/index.cfm?fuseaction=WQ.toc&wq_volume_id=68459

About 40 Armed Iranians Stopped At Iraqi Border

June 07, 2004
AFP
IranMania

KIEV -- Ukrainian troops based in eastern Iraq picked up about 40 Iranians trying to enter the country illegally at the weekend with assault rifles, Kalashnikovs, hunting guns and ammunition, the defense ministry here said Monday.

The Iranians, travelling in a convoy of three cars and three minibuses, were stopped Saturday at the border with the Shiite Iraqi province of Wasset, the ministry said in a communique, adding that they were planning to join the ranks of guerrillas fighting the US-led occupation.

The seized weapons were taken to a Ukrainian base, while the Iranians were handed over to Iraqi border police, the statement said.

Ukraine has more than 1,650 troops deployed in Iraq.

http://www.iranmania.com/news/080604a.asp

About 40 Armed Iranians Stopped At Iraqi Border

June 07, 2004
AFP
IranMania

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/1149524/posts?page=24#24

IAEA Draft Resolution Slams Iran For Lack Of Cooperation

June 08, 2004
AP

VIENNA -- Key European powers Tuesday presented a draft resolution that takes Iran to task for lagging cooperation with a U.N. atomic agency probe into its suspect nuclear activities.

A diplomat quoting parts of the text to The Associated Press said the document "deplores" the fact that Iran's "cooperation hasn't been complete, timely and proactive."

At the same time, the diplomat said, the draft "acknowledges Iranian cooperation" in granting agency inspectors access to sites and locations in their investigation.

The draft was circulated informally among delegations representing the 35- nation board of governors of the International Atomic Energy Agency ahead of a board meeting that starts Monday

Another diplomat also familiar with the text said that its language could change before it is formally presented at the board meeting.

But he said expectations were that any resolution would express international impatience with Iran because of outstanding questions about its uranium enrichment programs and other suspect activities that the U.S. says points to weapons ambitions.

"We all agree that the Iranians cannot be trusted 100%," said the diplomat, from a board-member nation.

The June 14 meeting of the 35-nation IAEA board of governors will review of report on Iran by agency Director General Mohamed ElBaradei, as part of more than a yearlong agency probe of nearly two decades of covert nuclear activities.

The IAEA report alleges Iran had tried to buy critical parts for advanced P-2 centrifuges that can be used for energy purposes or to enrich uranium to weapons grade.

It also notes that the origin of highly enriched uranium traces normally used to make nuclear weapons is still unclear - although Iran insists they weren't produced domestically but imported on equipment it purchased through black market middlemen.

Iran suspended uranium enrichment last year, and in April it said it had stopped building centrifuges. The moves followed mounting international pressure after IAEA inspectors found the traces of highly enriched uranium at two Iranian sites last year and evidence that Iran was trying to build centrifuges capable of producing weapons-grade uranium.

Iran long has rejected U.S. allegations its nuclear program is for military purposes. ElBaradei said last month his agency hadn't found proof to date of a concrete link between Iran's nuclear activities and its military program, but " it was premature to make a judgment."

http://iranvajahan.net/cgi-bin/news.pl?l=en&y=2004&m=06&d=08&a=7

Iran Caught out in a Vanishing Trick Too Many

June 08, 2004
DEBKA-Net-Weekly
DEBKAfile

Until recently, Washington was resigned to putting on hold any showdown with Iran over its clandestine nuclear weapons program. The Bush administration lacked support in the International Atomic Energy Agency for referring the issue to the UN Security Council and possible international sanctions and decided to postpone go-it-alone steps until after the November 4 presidential election.

That situation has changed dramatically. Tuesday, June 8, France, Britain and Germany overcame their reluctance to get tough with Iran and took the bull by the horns. Without waiting for the UN nuclear watchdog to submit its report at the June 14 Vienna board meeting, the three European governments circulated a draft UN nuclear resolution that would sharply rebuke Iran for not cooperating fully with the lAEA. The draft reportedly “acknowledges Iranian cooperation in responding to agency requests for access to locations”, but deplored this cooperation for not being “complete, timely and proactive.”

The draft would urge Iran to reverse its decisions to begin operating a uranium conversion facility and constructing a heavy water research reactor that could produce bomb-grade plutonium.

Last Friday, June 4, DEBKA-Net-Weekly revealed:

The most secret section of the latest report the International Atomic Energy Agency’s director Mohammed ElBaradai has drafted on Iran’s nuclear program is also the most embarrassing for the international nuclear watchdog. Our intelligence sources reveal exclusively that when inspectors arrived in Iran in mid-May and asked to revisit installations they saw in February or April, they were astonished to find empty spaces. When they questioned their Iranian escorts, they were greeted with blank stares. “What installations?” the officials asked.

The inspectors pulled out photos from previous visits and showed the Iranian officials what had been there before. The Iranians dismissed them as having been shot in other places that looked the same - or grafted there by “hostile intelligence bodies.”

When the inspectors persevered and reported the existence of aerial photos showing the exact location of the missing facilities, the Iranians shrugged.

The Iranians had amazingly dismantled and spirited away all the structures containing incriminating evidence of continuing uranium enrichment for weapons production so completely that there was no sign a building had ever stood there. The fresh flowerbeds were still in the same places as before but the lawns had been extended to cover the former sites, most probably with thick layers of earth. All the inspectors could do was to remove soil samples and take them away.

According to our sources, US officials involved in the Iranian nuclear issue have no doubt that the installations were not destroyed but removed to secret subterranean sites probably built under military bases scattered around the country and that the Iranians are industriously advancing their forbidden programs.

However, so as not to give the game away, they discontinued work on uranium enrichment.

The ElBaradei report does not specify the locations over which the broad lawns have been planted. Our sources report at least five, including Nantaz, Arak and Tehran.

After diplomatic consultations at the end of May, the US and the German, British and French governments reached the same conclusion: Tehran’s costly and elaborate exercise in deception attests to its bad faith on nuclear weapons development and provides grounds enough to put Iran in the dock. For the time being, the Bush administration appeared willing to hold off direct action on the issue until after the presidential election on November 4.

DEBKAfile Update

Sunday, June 6, top officials in Teheran declared that Iran had “answered all nuclear ambiguities and there is nothing left on the table.” They were optimistic enough to assert that the June 14 IAEA meeting would give Iran a clean bill of health. The Iranian nuclear case must be removed from the nuclear watchdog’s agenda, they insisted. The foreign ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi said emphatically: “If the case remains open, it is because of the agency’s laziness,,, and its unfounded fussiness.”

However, when President George W. Bush arrived in France to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the allied landing in Normandy, he came armed with fresh intelligence data. After the success of their vanishing trick, the Iranians felt they could safely resume the full-scale production of enriched uranium. They were confident enough to announce publicly the activation of their new heavy water plant at Arak.

Tehran’s cockiness may have been its undoing.

DEBKAfile’s sources reveal that before he left Europe, Bush conducted a hasty consultation with Germany Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, French president Jacques Chirac and British premier Tony Blair. They decided to wait no longer and the next day, the E-3 circulated its draft ready for submission.

DEBKAfile’s Tehran sources predict that the Islamic republic will not take this reversal lying down. It is likely to lash out at the nearest objects of its ire, American interests in Iraq and the Israeli-Lebanese border. Iran has been holding a large force of guerilla and suicide fighters in Iraq ready to punish the Americans in case they let the world body loose on its nuclear program – which explains why the three European powers are sponsoring the draft rather than the United States.

The Iranians have also been keeping the Hizballah on the ready to stir up big trouble against Israel on a scale much broader than the exchange of fire Tuesday.

The industrial powers represented Tuesday at the G-8 summit on Sea Island, Georgia, are also determine to stop up nuclear leaks for the future. They are reported close to consensus on several proposals, one to suspend for one year all new transfers of equipment for uranium enrichment and reprocessing. This would include endorsement of a UN resolution to criminalize proliferation activity and press for reforms of the UN nuclear watchdog to strengthen its role. Concern over the inadequacy of current measures to prevent the spread of nuclear technology were raised when it emerged that A.Q. Khan, the father of Pakistan’s nuclear bomb, had helped North Korea, Libya and Iran to develop their arms programs.

http://www.debka.com/article.php?aid=860

Iran Caught out in a Vanishing Trick Too Many

June 08, 2004
DEBKA-Net-Weekly
DEBKAfile

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/1149524/posts?page=28#28

EU 'Big 3' Rebuke Iran in Draft Nuclear Resolution

Reuters - World News
Jun 8, 2004

VIENNA - France, Britain and Germany circulated a draft U.N. nuclear resolution Tuesday that sharply rebukes Iran for sluggish cooperation with the U.N.'s nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency.

The draft, seen by Reuters, says the IAEA governing board "acknowledges Iranian cooperation in responding to agency requests for access to locations" but "deplores ... the fact that this cooperation has not been complete, timely and proactive."

The draft also urges Iran to reverse its decisions to begin operation of a uranium conversion facility and construction of a heavy water research reactor that could produce bomb-grade plutonium.

The text also says the IAEA board, which meets next week to discuss Iran's nuclear program, "deeply regrets" that Iran has not fully suspended all aspects of its uranium enrichment program, as it promised to do under a deal Tehran struck last year with the three European states.

The text will undergo revisions before going to the board of the U.N.'s nuclear watchdog.

"We have seen the draft. We think the board is going to take appropriately firm action when it meets next week," said a U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Several diplomats said Washington was disappointed that the resolution was not even more critical of Iran, which the United States believes is using its nuclear energy program as a front to build atomic weapons. However, they said U.S. negotiators would push for harsher language in future revisions.

Iran insists its nuclear ambitions are purely peaceful. Iranian officials were not immediately available for comment.

http://www.daneshjoo.org/generalnews/article/publish/article_6528.shtml

A FREE IRAQ SENDS IRAN A SIGNAL

The following is a editorial reflecting the views of the United States Government:

6/7/04 -

Iraq has a new interim government that will take over authority from the U.S.-led coalition on June 30th. The selection of the new government, headed by Prime Minister Iyad Allawi and President Ghazi Mashal Ajil al-Yawar, is a significant move toward a free and fully independent Iraq. The interim government's greatest task will be to guide Iraq to national elections by next January.
President George W. Bush says that “a fully sovereign nation with a representative government” will realize the dream of the Iraqi people. But it will also do more:

“A free Iraq in the heart of the Middle East is going to be a game-changer, an agent of change. It's going to send a clear signal that the terrorists can't win and that a free society is a better way to lift the hopes and aspirations of the average person.”

One country that will note the change, says Mr. Bush, is Iran:

“It's important for. . .those who love freedom in Iran to see. I mean, listen, a free Iraq on the border of Iran is going to send a very clear signal to those who want to be free -- that a free society is very possible.”

President Bush says it is necessary to work toward democracy throughout the Middle East:

“Because a society that is not free and not democratic is a society that's likely to breed resentment and anger. And therefore, a society that makes the recruitment of young terrorists more likely.”

In the past, says Mr. Bush, the U.S. and other countries pursued a flawed policy in the region:

“For decades, free nations tolerated oppression in the Middle East for the sake of stability. In practice this approach brought little stability, and much oppression. So I have changed this policy. In the short term, we will work with every government in the Middle East dedicated to destroying the terrorist networks. In the longer term, we will expect a higher standard of reform and democracy.”

“Free societies are peaceful societies,” says Mr. Bush. “We will stand with the people of that region as they seek their future in freedom."

http://www.voanews.com/Editorials/article.cfm?objectID=91E7EC83-6603-45AC-9A27DF4E8B6EE993

Clarke: More Reasons to Invade Iran Than Iraq

Tuesday, June 08, 2004 12:36 p.m. ET

VIENNA (Reuters) - It would have made more sense to invade Iran than Iraq, says a former U.S. counterterrorism adviser who has already accused the Bush administration of being soft on terrorism and wasting resources by attacking Iraq.

Richard Clarke, a former adviser to three U.S. presidents and four administrations, said mere possession of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) did not justify invading a country. This was the U.S. government's stated grounds for the Iraq war.

"If you take the case of Iran, its nuclear program is far more advanced than Iraq's was," Clarke told the Austrian daily Der Standard in an interview translated into German. "There would have been far more grounds to invade there (Iran)."

The United States believes Iran's nuclear program is a front for developing atomic weapons. Tehran denies this, saying its atomic ambitions are limited to generating electricity.

The U.S. military has found none of the caches of Iraqi WMD that Washington said Saddam Hussein had possessed in abundance.

In his recently published memoirs "Against All Enemies," Clarke charged that the administration of President Bush did not take the al Qaeda threat seriously enough before the September 11, 2001 attacks and needlessly attacked Iraq.

Clarke's accusations have damaged Bush's reputation for being tough on terrorism -- a key theme in the president's re-election campaign. The Los Angeles Times reported in April that 52 percent of Americans agreed that Bush had been lax on terrorism before September 11 while 40 percent disagreed.

Bush has repeatedly denied Clarke's charges.

In a chapter entitled "That Almost War, 1996," Clarke says former U.S. President Bill Clinton almost launched a war against Iran for what Washington says its support for terrorism against the United States.

However, Clarke says Clinton chose not to attack Iran but ordered an "intelligence operation" that seemed to have worked.

"Following the intelligence operation, and perhaps because of it and the serious U.S. threats, among other reasons, Iran ceased terrorism against the U.S.," Clarke wrote. "War with Iran was averted."

http://wireservice.wired.com/wired/story.asp?section=Breaking&storyId=875706&tw=wn_wire_story

"War with Iran was averted."

Who's he kidding?
Clinton would never have gone to war, anyway.

"when inspectors arrived in Iran in mid-May and asked to revisit installations they saw in February or April, they were astonished to find empty spaces. When they questioned their Iranian escorts, they were greeted with blank stares. “What installations?” the officials asked.

The inspectors pulled out photos from previous visits and showed the Iranian officials what had been there before. The Iranians dismissed them as having been shot in other places that looked the same - or grafted there by “hostile intelligence bodies.”

When the inspectors persevered and reported the existence of aerial photos showing the exact location of the missing facilities, the Iranians shrugged.

The Iranians had amazingly dismantled and spirited away all the structures containing incriminating evidence of continuing uranium enrichment for weapons production so completely that there was no sign a building had ever stood there. The fresh flowerbeds were still in the same places as before but the lawns had been extended to cover the former sites, most probably with thick layers of earth. All the inspectors could do was to remove soil samples and take them away."

The old bury-the-evidence-trick. Seems to be popular in the Mideast.

Re:#28
On second thought, maybe it's more a case of, "Now you see it, Now you don't"

Although it doesn't look it, it really is.

All my friends have enjoyed it when they have come to my house.

Did Clarke just say that we didn't need to go to war with Iraq because we needed to go to war with Iran, even though we no longer needed to go to war with Iran?

Anybody got a waffle translator handy? I am confused.

Good for the Ukranians! Great job, I wonder if the Iraqis will jail them or just deport them back to Iran?

I don't know.............

If it's a frittata, which is eggs, how come it looks like a brownie with green stuff on top?

It is essentially an Iranian souffle...