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.

[Smile-n-Win]

Thousands Rush to Southern Tehran to Help Demonstators

[JulieRNR21]

Response from
Human Rights Watch:


I will not be working between 6-18 June. In urgent matters please contact Marie Janson, +44 (0)207 713 2772 or e-mail jansonm@hrw.org

Have a nice day!

/Anna Dahlberg

[DoctorZIn]

This just in...

Thousands rush toward southern Tehran to help demonstrators

SMCCDI (Information Service)
June 20, 2003

Thousands and thousands have rushed toward the southern and pou suburbs of Tehran in order to help or support, by their presences, those desherited who defied the regime, this afternoon, in order to make a massive protest in the localities of Nassim Shahr of Eslam Shahr.

Heavy tarffic jams are blocking mort arteries which is unprcedented for this area and shows this cement of Unity getting solidified between the different layers of the population.

Violent clashes rock the area, earlier in the afternnon, as groups of demonstrators tried to approach the warehouses of the GTC where foods and different items are stocked by the government.

The situation on the terrain is very tense and thousands of unusual and non residents are in the area waiting for the dark night in order to start the 11th consecutive night of unrests.

Unfortunatly and for a "specific" purpose the foreign reporters and news agencies located in the Iranian capital stated, today, that action decreased, yesterday evening, which is totally false or due "possibly" but astonishingly to their earlier presence than 23:00 (local time) in the areas of sothern and especially easten Tehran with the locality of Tehran pars at its epicenter.

Neverless, thousands and thousands of residents inflicted another hot night to the regime and its leaders.

The demonstrators and protesters

In the early hours of June 20 clashes between anti-government demonstrators and members of Islamic militant groups rocked eastern and western areas of the Iranian capital and other cities of the country. Protesters call for a nationwide referendum on the political future of the country. In the city of Shadegan, Khoozestan province, security forces opened fire on demonstrators. In other cities police sided with demonstrators, not letting Islamic militants attack them.

According to the Student Movement Coordinating Committee for Democracy in Iran (SMCCDI), violent clashes took place in Tehran when government forces stopped a column of demonstrators heading toward a residential neighborhood where the Iranian trade elite live.

In Tehran's suburbs, Karadj and Tehran Pars, police did not allow militants to come nearer students, chanting slogans "Referendum" and "Resign!" in support of a nationwide vote on the political future of the country and in favor of the replacement of the political leadership in Iran.

The SMCCDI reported that demonstrators have changed their tactics, simultaneously organizing small protest actions in various places and thus forcing Islamic militant groups, aligned with the regime’s leader Ali Khamenei, to disperse. People in major cities help demonstrators escape police, giving them shelter in their houses .

Several people are said to have been wounded in Tehran overnight, and several more arrested. Islamic militants smashed front windows of passing-by cars that horned in support of demonstrators or marked them red by paint spray.

In the city of Rafsandjan, dozens of demonstrators were beaten and arrested by fundamentalists. The SMCCDI reported that a local office of Bassijis, a pro-government paramilitary volunteer force, was subjected to an armed attack in Esfahan province.

It is reported that today a conservative ayatollah Mohammad Yazdi required in his Friday sermon death sentences for those arrested during clashes. In the evening there was a report of heavy clashes beginning in the poor suburbs of Eslam Shahr city.


Source: SMCCDI

http://www.iran-daneshjoo.org/cgi-bin/smccdinews/viewnews.cgi?category=5&id=1056131504

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

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

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

I don't understand that sentence!

[DoctorZIn]

And in another new developement...

Yazdi orders judiciary to show no mercy to "rioters"

Friday, June 20, 2003 - ©2003 IranMania.com

TEHRAN, June 20 (AFP) - A top Iranian cleric Friday called on the Islamic republic's hardline judiciary to treat "rioters" arrested during nearly 10 nights of anti-regime protests as "enemies of Allah" -- a charge that carries the death penalty.

"I ask the head of judiciary and public prosecutors across Iran not to treat these people with compassion as they endangered the country's security. Islamic Sharia and our laws are explicit on what we should do with them," Ayatollah Mohammad Yazdi said in a Friday prayers sermon.

"The judiciary should deal with these people as Moharebs (those who fight Allah) and not as Mokhalef (those who oppose Allah)," he added, urging the courts to handle the detainees "quickly, meticulously, seriously and ruthlessly".

The charge of being a Mohareb carries the death penalty in Iran. After student riots in 1999, one protestor was convicted of that charge and condemned to die, but that punishment was later reduced to 15 years imprisonment.

Ayatollah Yazdi is an ultra-conservative former head of Iran's judiciary -- a bastion of the religious right -- and currently is a prominent jurist sitting on both the Guardians Council and Expediency Council, Iran's two top political oversight bodies.

His comments follow more than a week of anti-regime protests in the capital and other Iranian cities, which have been marked by fierce clashes between demonstrators and hardline vigilantes loyal to the nearly 25-year-old clerical regime.

http://www.iranmania.com/News/ArticleView/Default.asp?
NewsCode=16378&NewsKind=Current%20Affairs

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

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

Keep the body and mind rested a bit!

I'll do the massive ping later in the day!

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

Thanks for posting the complete article!

[dixiechick2000]

"A top Iranian cleric Friday called on the Islamic republic's hardline judiciary to treat "rioters" arrested during nearly 10 nights of anti-regime protests as "enemies of Allah" -- a charge that carries the death penalty."

Oh, no!!! Would they really do that?

I'm stepping up my prayers for the protesters!

Bump for a free Iran!

[dixiechick2000]

I've been meaning to ask you a question.
Do you see any signs of a leader emerging?

There needs to be a leader.

[DoctorZIn]

Iran has a number of potential leaders.
Reza Pahlavi, the former shah's son it perhaps their most visible. Unfotunately, most of the other real leaders are either underground or in prison.

The "reformist" leaders are for the most part so tainted by their failure to make any real change that few will probably be relected to their parliment. Although if there are mass resignations from the parliment, then perhaps those still alive after the fall may be a candidate.

But to answer your question directly, Reza is the only potential leader, at this time. I don't have a position on him other than I think he is sincere, intellegent, and definitley pro American. He has published a book, Winds of Change:

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/089526191X/qid=1056142709/sr=8-2/ref=sr_8_2/104-5083791-4106315?v=glance&s=books&n=507846

They claim he is planning on returning, but the date of his return is either uncertain or a secret.

[dixiechick2000]

Thanks! Reza is definately the most visible, and I agree with your assessment of him. I didn't realize most of the leaders were either underground or in prison, but it does make sense.

So, I guess Reza will have to lead from here, one of the leaders in the underground will have to emerge, or the people will have to do it on their own. Personally, I don't trust the "reformers"...they have let the people down.

[DoctorZIn]

...Many people read his blog and he is giving the protests a great deal of coverage.

You might consider posting a link for the Iranian Alert there....

I did, thanks for the suggestion.

[DoctorZIn]

Mullahs' Foolishness

June 20, 2003
The Oklahoman
NewsOK

A BY-PRODUCT of the U.S.- led campaign to remove Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq is that the world -- especially the bad guys -- is learning that President Bush appears to be a determined leader who doesn't fool around with false rhetoric.

Memo to the clerics running things in Iran: Find a graceful way to abandon that secret nuclear weapons program you've been building, because we think Bush means it when he says the world "will not tolerate" its continuation.

That's not to say Bush is about to send the American troops next door in Iraq to Tehran, nor would we urge such action. But the president should be believed when he says a nuclear weapons program in Iran is unacceptable.

According to news accounts, the Iranians have been developing nuclear weapons for some time. A recent report by the International Atomic Energy Agency cites Iran for failing to meet its obligations to the agency to report the importing of nearly two tons of uranium or the construction of facilities to process and store nuclear materials.

Iran's president, Mohammad Khatami, accuses Washington of meddling in his country's internal affairs. Iran maintains its nuclear program is for civilian purposes only.

Sorry, but that line's been used already, by communist North Korea. The rest of world can't sit back and let the globe's rogue nations develop dangerous weapons under the guise of a civilian nuclear energy program. Not in North Korea, not in Iran.

"The international community must come together to make it very clear to Iran that we will not tolerate the construction of nuclear weapons in Iran," Bush said.

Unsettling as it might be to the international diplomatic fraternity, such bluntness has its effect when supported by determination to take action when negotiation falls short.

Bush demonstrated such resolve in Iraq, which should pay dividends in new rounds of diplomacy with Iran -- the opening stages of which are now unfolding.

[McGavin999]

The SMCCDI reported that demonstrators have changed their tactics, simultaneously organizing small protest actions in various places and thus forcing Islamic militant groups, aligned with the regime’s leader Ali Khamenei, to disperse. People in major cities help demonstrators escape police, giving them shelter in their houses .

Hey DoctorZIn, they used the tactic I suggested the other night!

[DoctorZIn]

...Is the SMCCDI the same as the National Association of Students of Iran? ...

No, they are different groups.

[DoctorZIn]

...Hey DoctorZIn, they used the tactic I suggested the other night! ...

Your posts may have more influence than you think....

[DoctorZIn]

Is that Ted Koppel closing his eyes and ears?