Iranian Alert -- DAY 11 -- LIVE THREAD PING LIST

LIVE THREAD PING LIST | 6.20.2003 | DoctorZin

[DoctorZIn]

We are getting so many excellent stories coming in about the protests in Iran that it is time to create a live thread.

Please post all news stories in this thread and ping your lists to this thread so we can increase the overall awareness of what exactly is going on.

BTW, if you post breaking news, please make a refernce to this Iranian Alert -- DAY 11 -- LIVE THREAD PING LIST. This way we can get new readers while still keeping a single location of all important news stories on Iran.

Thanks for all the help.

[DoctorZIn]

SMCCDI: Violent clashes rock Tehran Bazar area

SMCCDI (Infoation Service)
June 20, 2003

Violent clashes happened, in the late hours of night, as the security forces intervened to avoid a group of angry youth to go toward the Tehran bazaar.

Armed clashes happened as some of the masked youth opened fire on the regime forces by injuring several of them before escaping from the area.

The Bazzar represent a strategic value of the regime as it hosts traditional waelthy businessmen who are strong supporters of the regime due to the immense privileges they do have.

Source: SMCCDI

http://www.iran-daneshjoo.org/cgi-bin/smccdinews/viewnews.cgi?category=5&id=1056092477

"If you want on or off this Iran ping list, Freepmail me”

[Constitution Day]

BUMP.

[DoctorZIn]

SMCCDI: Italian public opinion starts its shift toward Iranians

SMCCDI (Information Service)
June 20, 2003

The Italian public opinion, one of the most politicized of all Europe, is showing a net shift toward what's going in Iran and the struggle of its people to reach Secularity and Democracy.

This country, where its youth is one of the most committed toward Hummanism and principles, is actually place to big debates on Iran which can force the Berlusconni's government to approach more the US position on the Democracy movement than country's like France who are known for selling Iranians to the Ilamic regime.

Many Italian TV channels and radios have contributed to the public awarness as well by showing footages of the what's going on in Iran and the news spread by SMCCDI.

Such programs have created an unprecedented amount of support e.mails and public feedbacks on the Support Book of the Movement's site which let hope for a friendly future between the people and despite the till now policies of all Italian Governments to be oone of the main partners of the Islamic regime.

Source: SMCCDI

http://www.iran-daneshjoo.org/cgi-bin/smccdinews/viewnews.cgi?category=5&id=1056116454

"If you want on or off this Iran ping list, Freepmail me”

[Lance Romance]

Can you take me off your ping list.

[TigerLikesRooster]

Re #2

Armed clashes happened as some of the masked youth opened fire on the regime forces by injuring several of them before escaping from the area.

Iraqi AK-47's finding their way to Iran?

[the Real fifi]

I demonstrated with others outside the DOS today in support of the women of Iran. Two DOS employees stopped to talk to us, a woman who works at the Iran Desk and a man who works in Human Rights. We yelled out about the roadside gynecological checks, the throwing of women from the dorm windows and the tossing of acid at the demonstrators.

[the Real fifi]

Suspicion Mounts Over Iran's Nuclear Defiance
Fri June 20, 2003 08:56 AM ET




By Louis Charbonneau
VIENNA (Reuters) - Iran's latest rejection of a request from the U.N. nuclear watchdog has raised diplomats' suspicions -- maybe Washington is right that Tehran is trying to acquire the capacity to make atomic bombs as soon as possible.

On Thursday the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) reprimanded Iran for repeatedly failing to report nuclear material, facilities and activities as required under its safeguards agreement with the agency.

Its governing board also "encouraged Iran, pending the resolution of related outstanding issues, not to introduce nuclear material at the pilot enrichment plant, as a confidence-building measure."

If successful, the plant at Natanz could give Tehran the knowhow to make highly enriched weapons-grade material useable in a nuclear weapon. The United States has accused Iran of secretly readying itself to make atomic weapons.

But Iran's IAEA envoy, Ali Salehi, told reporters on Thursday Tehran had no intention of either calling off or delaying plans to bring nuclear material to the Natanz plant.

[Libertarianize the GOP]

http://www.freerepublic.com/perl/bump-list

[Travis McGee]

Good for you! Give em hell at Foggy Bottom! Put some damn SPINE in em!

[the Real fifi]

I'm a loud mouth, not a miracle worker...Farsi radio sent someone there..I think they plan to beam the demo back to Iran to hearten the rebels. If Freepers are interested, they might want to set up support demos elsewhere.

[firewalk]

bttt

[DoctorZIn]

...We yelled out about the roadside gynecological checks, the throwing of women from the dorm windows and the tossing of acid at the demonstrators. ...

Please tell us more about these "checks." What are they doing? I have heard rumors but now real information about this.

[Travis McGee]

I think the DoS is a perfect ground zero for such actions! More power to you!

[Constitution Day]

Velvet Revolution or Tiananmen Square?

Jerusalem Post ^ | Jun. 20, 2003 | David Harsanyi

President Bush, please help us. Ali M., Iran (E-mail sent to the BBC News website by an Iranian protester)

During a six-week period between November 17 and December 29, 1989, nonviolent protests swept through Czechoslovakia, bringing about the peaceful overthrow of the communist regime. The Velvet Revolution is the idyllic uprising: bloodless, courageous and popular.

Unfortunately, it was also the exception. That same year, pro-democratic Chinese students took a similar peaceful approach in Tiananmen Square. The bloody suppression that followed shattered the freedom movement and drove dissent underground for those lucky enough to elude incarceration or execution.

As pro-democracy protests in Iran begin to swell, sooner or later Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Sayed Ali Khamenei, will have to make a choice: Will it be Prague or Tiananmen Square?

At present it would be dubious to assume that the radical Islamist mullahs, the Council of Guardians, will allow a bloodless transformation of power. In fact the violence, though moderate, has already begun.

There were nightly clashes in Teheran last week, when hundreds of militants attempted to quiet protesters against the hard-line regime by attacking crowds of onlookers with knives and assorted weapons. Pro-clergy thugs, the baseejis or Ansar Hezbollah, have smashed university dormitories and beaten up students in a wave of violence aimed at intimidation.

But brutality probably won't be enough this time. First the 1979 Islamic revolution and its Shi'ite theocracy and now an impotent reformist have been unequivocally rejected by a younger generation that is not easily intimidated. (Experts say people 30 years or younger constitute 70 percent of Iran's 65 million population.)

On Sunday, recalling the spirit of Vaclav Havel's "Chapter 77" human rights initiative, a group of Iranian dissidents issued an extraordinary declaration defending the right to criticize their leaders. The 248 authentic reformists said the people of Iran had "the right to fully supervise the action of their rulers."

In 1968, with insurgency percolating, Alexander Dubcek took over as head of state of communist Czechoslovakia and introduced the "Prague Spring" reform program, which proposed to bring a "human face" to communism, to "reform communism from within." But after a brief respite hard-line communism was back in Czechoslovakia.

Like Dubcek, Iran's President Muhammad Khatami is a reformist in name only, as the Council of Guardians has veto power over any law he proposes. The president gave Iranians brief hope that policy reforms would be enacted. But other than some hollow words Khatami has refused to confront the council and a once-optimistic population has turned its back on him.

During the height of the Velvet Revolution a relatively unknown Communist Party leader, Karel Urbanek, was elected to lead Czechoslovakia and enact new "reforms." The public immediately rejected these superficial changes, having been through it all before in 1968. Czechoslovakians could look to Germany or Poland and see Europe transforming.

Likewise, Iranians will not be deceived when the next Khatami or so-called reforms are presented to them.

On Sunday President George Bush gave his personal endorsement to the pro-democracy demonstrations, called them "the beginnings of people expressing themselves toward a free Iran." Persian-language satellite television broadcasts operated by Iranian exiles in the United States have also spurred on the protesters.

But is it irresponsible to encourage reformists to attempt to overthrow Iranian theocracy with the threat of violence hanging over their heads, without assurances of US assistance? And if everything the administration says about Iran is true, wouldn't that make sense?

US officials have long argued that Iran could acquire a nuclear weapon by 2006 possibly before. Muhammad El-Baradei, director-general of the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), toured Iran's nuclear facilities in February. Diplomats said he was taken aback by the advanced stage of a project using hundreds of centrifuges to enrich uranium.

Last week, a Japanese newspaper reported that Iranian nuclear experts made three secret visits to North Korea earlier this year, possibly to consult on ways to fool international inspectors.

A theocratic Iran in possession of nuclear weapons should be unacceptable to the US and is almost a casus belli for Israel. Wouldn't a popular revolution aided by the United States now be more desirable than Gulf War III in 2005?

By the time Czechoslovakia shook communism, a Soviet Eastern Europe was on its deathbed, with no future in sight. A free Iran is far more significant than the final outpost of a dying ideology.

But this revolution will only have a future if Khamenei and his mullahs realize they don't. For that they will need the free world's help.

The writer is an author and editor based in New York.

[DoctorZIn]

Thanks for the post.

[the Real fifi]

My friend whose husband is getting calls and e-mails round the clock from Iran (her husband is one of your stated heroes) says if the Khameni thugs find a woman in a car with an unrelated male, they pull the car over and make the woman submit roadside to a gynecological exam.

[Constitution Day]

I'm glad to help.

[DoctorZIn]

Eslamshahr and Akbar Abad in riot

SMCCDI (information Service)
June 20, 2003

Heavy clashes are rocking at this time, (18:15 9local time), the poor suburbs of Nassim Shahr of Eslam Shahr and Ahmad Abad where more of the governments food stocks are being kept.

Thousands of people are in the streets and the regime forces are trying to stop their progression.

These are those desherited that were a day the backbone of the regime.

Source: SMCCDI

http://www.iran-daneshjoo.org/cgi-bin/smccdinews/viewnews.cgi?category=5&id=1056118131

"If you want on or off this Iran ping list, Freepmail me”

[Semper Paratus]

Bread riots started the Russian Revolution, and middle class woman banging their pots in the streets of Santiago led to the downfall of Allende.