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

The US media still largley 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.

War of words mounts between Iran and Iraq

AFP - World News (via Iranmania)
Aug 8, 2004

TEHRAN - A war of words between Iran and Iraq intensified on Sunday, with the foreign ministry in Tehran now saying it was not prepared to discuss serious issues with Baghdad's interim authorities.

In the latest blow to relations, Iran's foreign ministry said Sunday it was summoning Iraq's top diplomat here over claims that four Iranian spies have been arrested in Baghdad.

"Today we are going to summon the Iraqi charge d'affaires to the Iranian foreign ministry, and we are going to ask him to give us proof," spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi told reporters.

"He should tell us whom they have arrested and if they have proof to give us," he added, saying Iraqi officials should also "stop creating a bad atmosphere" between Iran and Iraq.

On Saturday a spokesman for the Iraqi interior ministry said four Iranian intelligence officers had been arrested by Iraqi authorities on suspicion of spying and carrying out acts of sabotage in the country.

Asefi also snubbed a call from Iraq's interim Defence Minister Hazem al-Shaalan, who has been widely lambasted in the Iranian press, that Tehran immediately return Iraqi planes sent to Iran before or during the 1991 Gulf War.

"We will discuss these (issues) with the coming elected government officials, and not with the interim government," Asefi said in what amounted to a major snub.

Iran has yet to formally recognise the Iraqi interim government, which has been described by Iranian supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei as "lackeys" of the Americans.

Shaalan said in an interview with the Kuwaiti daily newspaper Al-Anbaa that Iran should send back 130 planes "now".Tehran has insisted that it was holding only 22 Iraqi planes which Saddam Hussein's regime sent to Iran to avoid attacks by US-led forces liberating Kuwait and that it was ready to return them if asked by the United Nations.

Tensions between Iraq and Iran have mounted in recent weeks, after Shaalan told The Washington Post he had seen "clear interference in Iraqi issues by Iran" and accused Tehran of taking over some Iraqi border posts and sending spies and saboteurs into Iraq.

He also alleged that Tehran was working "to kill democracy" in his country.But Asefi said Iran wanted to hear from Iraqi interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi "that what the Iraqi defence minister said has been manipulated and it was not like that."

"We are hopeful that in the future we will not witness such irresponsible comments. The Iraqis should be vigilant. Iraq should not be the place for crisis building," Asefi said.

"We have announced one too many times that we are not interfering in Iraq. We are looking forward to the security and stability of Iraq," he added.

Ties have also been strained over Saddam's trial, with Iran complaining that his use of chemical weapons against the Islamic republic during their 1980-88 war was left off the charge sheet.

In addition, Iran wants the issue of war reparations to be addressed.And Tehran has also voiced alarm over the reported presence of Israeli agents in the Kurdish areas of northern Iraq.

Iraqi President Ghazi al-Yawar has also advised Iran not to interfere in Iraq's affairs, but without accusing it of doing so.
He said that Iraq maintained "friendly relations" with Iran and stressed it was "in the interest of Iraq and Iran that bilateral relations be balanced, healthy and positive".

Iraq's prime minister has previously announced his intention to visit Iran, but has yet to receive an official invitation. Asefi only said a visit "was on the agenda".

"But we are not going to send a delegation there" to invite him, the spokesman added.

http://www.daneshjoo.org/generalnews/article/publish/article_7512.shtml

Rice Says World Is Determined to Prevent a Nuclear-Armed Iran

The New York Times
August 8, 2004
Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) -- With Iran stepping up its nuclear program, a top White House aide said Sunday the world finally is ``worried and suspicious'' over the Iranians' intentions and is determined not to let Tehran produce a nuclear weapon.

National security adviser Condoleezza Rice also said the Bush administration sees a new international willingness to act against Iran's nuclear program. She credited the changed attitude to the Americans' insistence that Iran's effort put the world in peril.

She would not say whether the United States would act alone to end the program if the administration could not win international support.

Iran's foreign minister, Kamal Kharrazi, announced a week ago that his country had resumed building nuclear centrifuges. He said Iran was retaliating for the West's failure to force the U.N. nuclear watchdog agency to close its file on possible Iranian violations of nuclear nonproliferation rules.

Kharrazi said Iran was not resuming enrichment of uranium, which requires a centrifuge. But, he said, Iran had restarted manufacturing the device because Britain, Germany and France had not stopped the investigation by the International Atomic Energy Agency.

``The United States was the first to say that Iran was a threat in this way, to try and convince the international community that Iran was trying, under the cover of a civilian nuclear program, to actually bring about a nuclear weapons program,'' Rice said on CNN's ``Late Edition.''

``I think we've finally now got the world community to a place, and the International Atomic Energy Agency to a place, that it is worried and suspicious of the Iranian activities,'' she said. ``Iran is facing for the first time real resistance to trying to take these steps.''

Bush, in his 2003 State of the Union address, included Iran with North Korea and Iraq in an ``axis of evil'' dedicated to developing nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction.

Since then, North Korea has publicly resumed its nuclear development program. In Iraq, invading U.S.-led forces have found no such programs after President Saddam Hussein was deposed.

Iran announced in June that it would resume its centrifuge program. Afterward, the U.S. official whose job is to slow the global atomic arms race, Undersecretary of State John R. Bolton, told Congress that Iran was jabbing ``a thumb in the eye of the international community.''

On NBC's ``Meet the Press,'' Rice reasserted that the world has fallen in line on Iran and said she expects next month to get a very strong statement from the IAEA ``that Iran will either be isolated, or it will submit to the will of the international community.''

She also said, ``We cannot allow the Iranians to develop a nuclear weapon. The international community has got to find a way to come together and to make certain that that does not happen.''

http://www.freerepublic.com/^http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-US-Iran.html?hp

Iran re-starts cracking down on Music

AFP - World News (via Iranmania)
Aug 8, 2004

TEHRAN - The judiciary in the western Iranian province of Hamedan has ordered that anyone caught playing thumping tunes in their cars should be subject to jail terms or lashes, the official news agency IRNA said Sunday.

"Playing any type of music loud in the vehicles is regarded as a crime and violators will be dealt by legal measures," the agency quoted Hamedan province's judiciary as saying in a statement.

"The creation of any noise or racket, or unusual behaviour that disturbs public order and calm are considered crimes which deserve imprisonment from three months to one year with 74 lashes," the statement said.

The playing of loud music, particularly of the pop type, is frowned upon across the Islamic republic and often strictly controlled. But punishments usually amount to no more than a temporary confiscation of a car or a fine.

Western music has also been censored here since the 1979 Islamic revolution.The judiciary in Hamedan is considered particularly hardline. In 2002, a court there sentenced prominent dissident Hashem Aghajari to death for blasphemy after he said Muslims were not "monkeys" and should not "blindly follow" religious leaders.

That death sentence has since been quashed by the Supreme Court in Tehran.

http://www.daneshjoo.org/generalnews/article/publish/article_7525.shtml

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