In Washington Iran Rally, Dissident Cleric Calls July 9 a “National Uprising”

RF ^ | 7/10/04 | RF

[freedom44]

Speaking at a rally held on the steps of US Congress by Iranians living in the Washington, D.C. tri-state area dissident cleric called the July 9, 1999 student-led pro-democracy demonstrations “a national uprising against the Islamic regime, which has neither religious legitimacy nor legal legitimacy.”

RadioFarda Newsroom - July 8, 2004 - Several US Senators and Congressmen are scheduled to speak at a rally being held on the steps of the US Congress by Washington area Iranian activists, correspondent Parichehr Farzam says in a live report from the event. “The July 9 event is a national uprising and it is a duty for all Iranians to honor this day, says dissident cleric Ayatollah Mehdi Haeri, who took part in the July 9, 1999 uprising in Tehran.

“Since I am fighting against this regime and consider the Islamic regime corrupt, I am appearing here in my clerical robe in order to show the people that all Iranian Shiite clerics do not support this regime,” Haeri tells Radio Farda.

“This is the only regime in the world that has a special court for the clergy, which arrests and jails anti-regime clerics. So far, this court has executed 1,600 clerics and has 3,000 clerics in custody. Clerics are also victims of this regime,” he says.

“This regime has no legitimacy, legal or religious, and is a corrupt regime based on deception, lies, tricks and innuendo,” Haeri adds. “This regime has ruined our culture, our national identity, and only Palestinian extremists and the Lebanese benefit from this regime, not Iranians.”

[freedom44]

On or off Iran ping.

[nuconvert]

Haeri on Bush, from a Timmerman article this past march :

"According to dissident Ayatollah Mehdi Haeri, who fled Iran for Germany after being held for four years in a regime prison, Iran's hard-line clerics "fear President Bush." In an interview with Insight, Haeri says that President Bush's messages of support to pro-democracy forces inside Iran and his insistence that the Iranian regime abandon its nuclear-weapons program "have given these people the shivers. They think that if Bush is re-elected, they'll be gone. That's why they want to see Kerry elected."

http://66.102.7.104/search?q=cache:UHYzO-78BZAJ:www.kentimmerman.com/2004_03_01kerry-terror.htm+Ayatollah+Mehdi+Haeri&hl=en

[freedom44]

Awesome thanks!

[Valin]

"According to dissident Ayatollah Mehdi Haeri, who fled Iran for Germany after being held for four years in a regime prison, Iran's hard-line clerics "fear President Bush."

And I'm gonna call that a good thing.

[RaceBannon]

Banafsheh Bump!

[sionnsar]

Tried to get down there but was too late. Have a cell-phone picture of me holding a Sun&Lion in front of the Capitol, all alone, though. (I think the woman who took it for me thought I was crazy... :-)