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Iranian Alert -- DAY 30 -- LIVE THREAD PING LIST [Riots erupt]
Live Thread Ping List | 7.9.2003 | DoctorZin

Posted on 07/09/2003 12:05:43 AM PDT by DoctorZIn

Today is July 9th. The day Iranians have been waiting for. The next 24-72 hours may be the most important in Iran's history.

It is noon there, at the time of this post, and already we are hearing of people in the streets. The regime's security forces are out in force. This is very encouraging as most of the demonstrations thus far have been at night to take advantage of the cover of dark.

We have heard of riots in the Pars region of the city of Tehran. We have yet to hear of strikes. We are receiving phone calls from Iran but they are few. The regime is cutting off the calls to the United States as soon as they find them.

We are continuing to hear of the regime’s jamming of the broadcasts in much of Iran and Europe. But apparently the signals do get through from time to time.

The people of Iran have chosen July 4th because four years ago, the regime brutally attacked peaceful student demonstrators while in their dorms. The result was the loss of life and liberty of hundreds of students, many of which are still unaccounted for.

Iran is a country ready for a regime change. If you follow this thread you will witness, I believe, the transformation of a country. This daily thread provides a central place where those interested in the events in Iran can find the best news and commentary.

Please continue to post your news stories and comments to this thread.

Thanks for all the help.

DoctorZin


TOPICS: Breaking News; Foreign Affairs; News/Current Events; War on Terror
KEYWORDS: bushdoctrineunfold; iran; iranianalert; protests; southasia; studentmovement; warlist
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1 posted on 07/09/2003 12:05:44 AM PDT by DoctorZIn
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To: All
Any way I can talk you into making a donation?? Thanks if you will!
2 posted on 07/09/2003 12:07:45 AM PDT by Support Free Republic (Your support keeps Free Republic going strong!)
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To: JulieRNR21; Ernest_at_the_Beach; Pan_Yans Wife; RobFromGa; fat city; freedom44; Tamsey; ...
Join Us at Iranian Alert -- DAY 30 -- LIVE THREAD PING LIST

Live Thread Ping List | 7.9.2003 | DoctorZin

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

3 posted on 07/09/2003 12:13:37 AM PDT by DoctorZIn (IranAzad... The July 9th protests and strikes have begun!)
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To: DoctorZIn
"Iran is a country ready for a regime change."

To succeed, the freedom seeking forces must do MORE than demonstrate and strike. They must take up stones, sticks, molotov cocktails, stolen guns and rifles and FIGHT.

That is the price they must pay, for freedom does not come easily.

If July 9th is to be the day, it should start.
4 posted on 07/09/2003 12:15:58 AM PDT by truth_seeker
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To: truth_seeker
There is fighting in the Pars region of Tehran.
But the people want to use force only when attacked.
5 posted on 07/09/2003 12:17:39 AM PDT by DoctorZIn (IranAzad... The July 9th protests and strikes have begun!)
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To: DoctorZIn
Prayers for the Iranians and their noble fight for freedom.
6 posted on 07/09/2003 12:26:17 AM PDT by NewYorker
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To: All
Senators urge US support of Iran's democracy movement


Wednesday, July 09, 2003 - ©2003 IranMania.com

WASHINGTON, July 8 (AFP) - As Iran prepares to mark Wednesday's fourth anniversary of bloody student riots, US lawmakers said Washington should do more to support students agitating for the regime's reform or ouster.

"America must make it clear that we see the difference between the Iranian regime and the Iranian people, and we support the people," said Senator Sam Brownback, a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee who has held several hearings on the political and social situation in Iran.

"We must do everything we can to assist the pro-democracy forces in Iran as they struggle to take back their country," said Brownback, who is the main author of a bill in the US Senate, the Iran Democracy Act, which aims to promote democracy in the Islamic republic.

The legislation, which is scheduled to come up for a Senate vote this week, would increase US support for democracy activists in Iran, in large measure by increasing financial assistance Iranian-American broadcasters beaming pro-democracy radio programming into the Islamic republic.

"These stations are only able to empower and encourage Iranians for two hours a day today, because of lack of funding," Brownback said.

Another sponsor of the legislation, Senator Norm Coleman of Minnesota, said, the bill would "make it US policy to more actively support the Iranian opposition."

"We have an interest in democracy in the Middle East, it's a region that cries out for stability. But a regime that promotes terrorism is a regime that supports instability," Coleman said.

"What we have is folks in Iran who are willing to stand up, who are willing to speak out, and they need to be supported."

Protests and rallies were planned in Iranian exile communities around the world Wednesday to mark the 1999 unrest at Tehran's university, during which at least one student was killed and hundreds were injured or arrested.

Inside Iran, the government has improsed a ban on protests, although one pro-reform student group announced it would hold a a sit-in outside the United Nations offices in Tehran.

http://www.iranmania.com/News/ArticleView/Default.asp?NewsCode=16815&NewsKind=Current%20Affairs
7 posted on 07/09/2003 12:33:23 AM PDT by DoctorZIn (IranAzad... The July 9th protests and strikes have begun!)
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To: All
Latest Human Rights Alert : Mohammadis' Parents Arrested in Tehran

July 09, 2003

Iran va Jahan Network

knowledgeable sources informed Iran va Jahan that the parents of Mohammadi brothers have also been arrested by the Islamic judiciary.

Only a few days ago three prominent EU Parliamentarians had asked Iranian authorities to stop Torturing Manochehr Mohammadi.

The brothers, Akbar and Manochehr Mohammadi were among the student leaders arrested following the July 9th, 1999 student uprising. They have been in jail ever since sustaining inhumaine physical and mental torture. (see below)

Mohammadis’ father has undergone two heart attacks since the arrest of his sons and is in frail condition.

Having totally lost its legitimacy in the eyes of the Iranian nation, confronted with mounting external pressure and isolation, pursuing its deadly search to acquire military grade nuclear technology and firing ballistic missiles, wary of the upcoming forth anniversary of the student uprising on July 9th, the Islamic Republic is increasing internal repression.

The nuclearizing theocracy is buying time through a shameless diplomatic ballet. Meanwhile the Mohammadis and entire families like them are in virtual death rows.

Following is the reprint of an open letter written by Manochehr Mohammadi to the EU leaders. It is appalling that no EU leader has exerted any pressure on the government of President Khatami to put an end to the suffering of these freedom fighters.

OPEN LETTER FROM Mr. MANOOCHEHR MOHAMMADI TO THE EU LEADERS

PARIS (IPS) 10 Jun. In an open letter to the leader of the European Union, an Iranian political prisoner describes the appalling situation of Iranian prison conditions and calls on them to put pressure over the Islamic Republic for more respect of human rights.

The 8 pages letter, written in Farsi from Evin prison where Mr. Manoochehr Mohammadi, the leader of an Iranian students organisation is held with his brother Akbar, was followed by an unprecedented criticism from the German government of the Islamic Republic’s "massive human rights violations".

"While Iran has made progress, namely strengthening democracy, curtailing suppression of information and the relative improvements of women's positions in the public, Iran continues its massive human rights violations", the government of Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder said in its annual report on human rights, released tow days ago.

According to the report, "Arbitrary arrests, abuses and torture in police detention centres and prisons and violations of freedom of expression are frequent" in the Islamic Republic and accused Iran's Islam-based judiciary of "failing to comply with the rule of law" and "misusing its powers for political reasons".

For his part, German Foreign Affairs Minister Joschka Fischer also had sharply criticised the legal system of the Islamic Republic of Iran for implementing "harsh punishments" on its citizens.

"In Iran, we witness mostly harsh punishments based on the Shari’a which we are not ready to accept", said Fischer during a news conference, introducing the German government's annual human rights report.

"We concretely discussed and referred to the suppression of minorities, the Baha’is", Fischer said, referring to his latest visits to Tehran and talks with Iranian leaders.

He however supported the continuation of "constructive dialogue" with Iran, as against the though line adopted by the Bush Administration in Washington.

Here are large excerpts from the Mr. Mohammadi’s letter.

"As exactly the same period when you, your diplomats and businessmen were insisting in sealing important contracts with the government of Mr. Mohammad Khatami, closing your eyes on the situation of Human rights, my brother and I, accused of participation in the students uprising on 1999, were arrested and subject to Middle age tortures", Mr. Mohammadi starts.

After depicting some of the tortures the prison authorities applied on him and his brother, like preventing sleeping, long hours of interrogation exceeding 17 hours a day, threats of death executions from interrogators, frequent beatings with electric cable, hanging out upside down, beating on the soles etc, Mr. Mohammadi reminds that Mr. Khatami did not agreed that prisoners are tortured.

I want to send you the clear message that if President Khatami was true to his words and promises in establishing a civil society, and showed concern in regards to the affiliates of the Islamic regime, then at least he could have sent representatives to investigate the prison cells and torture chambers to report to him the cruel and inhuman tortures that we, students and freedom-loving activists, are facing? And what about his non-democratic speech, in which he questioned the innocence of arrested students even as they were subject to inhuman tortures.

"Unfortunately it must be stated that today not only Mr. Khatami, but also the majority of the Islamic reformists, have betrayed the Iranian people by making empty promises to them, thus putting a enormous strain on the freedom-loving movement in Iran. The promises of the 2nd Khordad (23 May, the date of Mr. Khatami’s first surprising victory in the presidential election) movement were nothing but false promises in an attempt to acquire power and political positions over the hard-line clerics. In this dirty political competition, the Third Force (innocent people not affiliated with the regime) have fell victims in a battle between hard-line and reformist affiliates of the regime", Mr. Mohammadi explained.

During this period of political competition, where freedom-loving activists and journalists and political activists and members of the Third Force were placed under extreme torture and illegal arrests, Mr. Khatami played the role of the leader of the 2nd Khordad movement, not that of the true reform movement of the non-affiliates of the regime, nor did he show the slightest support for the arrested activists,!

"Keeping all this in mind, in regards to our innocence, not only has Mr. Khatami ignored our human rights, he has also led the way for suppression of the entire student movement. Even if Mr. Khatami was not in favor of the students, at least he could have remained silent"…. Furthermore, Mr. Khatami had deliberately ignored the Islamic Code 37 that states an accused party is not guilty until proven in a public court.

Honourable Members of the European Union,

Keeping in mind the dishonesty and illegal actions of President Khatami, do you still believe in this man, who has lost the belief and support of his own people?

Dear and honourable Members of the European Union,

You must keep in mind that Iranian vote for Khatami was in fact a big No to the regime and a big yes to democracy and freedom. In other words, out of the 23 million voters who voted for Khatami, 22 million believed that he could be used as a bridge to freedom and democracy.

The reformist movement that is represented by Mr. Khatami and other non-democratic reformists is separating itself from the bulk of the Iranian people while, at the same time, the will and the desire of the people has so greatly shifted to radicalism, urging fundamental changes, that it may be concluded that the entire population, even the activists of the 1979 revolution that called for the collapse of the Shah, are willing to return to the past conditions that were present during the reign of the Shah's regime. Today, the faction that once called for the overthrow of the Shah has accepted that it was mistaken and is a scar to the nation's history.

I would like to ask, why? What could have driven a great percentage of Iranians to believe that the return of the former crown prince is the hope for all Iranians and count day-by-day the return of this individual? In my opinion, the answer is that the course of the revolution had wrongfully deviated from its original ideals and the abuse of the rulers from of the people’s confidence and the religion, an abuse that generated corruption, dictatorship and repression.

I would like to ask why is the Islamic regime not willing to organise a referendum that is urged by the people to decide its destiny? If Mr. Khatami claims that his thoughts and path are different from that of the hard-line faction and claims that he respects the will and demands of the majority of the people, then why during this sensitive period, not only he does not call on the people for help, but also he let the hard-liners to throw political dissidents in prison where they are tortured, both physically and psychologically.

Mr. Mohammadi then relates his prison conditions and says that if he is in jail, "it is because:



I reject this Islamic dictatorship;

Because I fight for freedom and democracy, because I believe in a Civil Disobedience Movement and in a government based on popular vote, in tearing down the separating walls of race, religion and gender, meaning my will and desire for equality for men and women;

- I’m in prison on charges of having organised the Students United Front, an independent and, nationalist, united pro-democratic movement not affiliated to the regime, alongside student’s Islamic associations, an organisation that in the eyes of the authorities was founded to deviate the students from religion and Islam, something that is a great sin;

- I’m in prison on charges that our pro-democratic thoughts had spread amongst the students and the Iranian people, thus bringing fear to an Islamic regime and encouraged it to do all it could to silence our movement and out call for freedom and democracy. Throughout the years of injustice and dictatorship and suppression, the Islamic authorities were only successful in temporarily silencing our call.

I’m in prison on charges that I resist to chants and slogans such as "death to ..." to any nation or individual or group since I belief "death to ..." slogans cannot be tolerated.

- I’m in prison on charges that I reject the invasion of privacy and fear of prosecution based on personal beliefs;

- I’m in prison on charges that I believe in the freedom of speech and press;

- I’m in prison on charges that I believe in the peaceful practice of humanism among activists from all walks of life;

- I’m in prison on charges that since the 3 years that I’m in Evin prison, I’ve refused to give fabricated confessions. For this reason, more than any captive individual, I have faced greater torture and ill treatment and banishment of visiting rights. In this 3-year period, consideration was given to reduce my prison term from 13 years to 6 years if I had agreed to give false confessions. In principle, I refused to lie and give false confessions, and for this reason my prison term has cruelly been set to 13 years.


Mr. Mohammadi then says that he has lost all hopes to get help from the authorities, as all letters wrote to the Islamic Courts, Iranian Parliament’s Committee 90, Islamic Human Rights Groups and to President Mohammad Khatami have remained unanswered and goes on to say: "

"However I have hope that the European Union would understand the unjust conditions of torture and guns and chains that my brother and I and pro-democratic students alike alongside journalists and freedom-lovers are mournfully facing and would bring pressures on the Islamic Republic to have more respect for human rights while doing business with the regime;

Honourable Members of the European Union,

Without a doubt, this letter I write to you would be arouse the sensivity of the conservative camp of the regime, and in case you do nothing to help me, not only the authorities would refuse to consider my plight, but also because of Mr. Khatami’s silence, I am placed in great danger and possible prosecution. From any perspective you may wish to observe, whether it being by silence or by objection, my fate comes near possible death from the hands of the regime. My concerns and worries are heard through my writings: "Is there any justice that may rescue me?"

Respectfully

Manoochehr Mohammadi, Evin Prison, Section 269, Cell # 3

2 June 2002

Letter translated by: Alliance of Iranian Students

http://iranvajahan.net/cgi-bin/news_en.pl?l=en&y=2003&m=07&d=09&a=1
8 posted on 07/09/2003 12:45:59 AM PDT by DoctorZIn (IranAzad... The July 9th protests and strikes have begun!)
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To: All
This just in...

It is frustrating because the few calls coming in from Iran are being cut before we can put them on the air.

9 posted on 07/09/2003 12:56:01 AM PDT by DoctorZIn (IranAzad... The July 9th protests and strikes have begun!)
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To: DoctorZIn
Nothing on Fox so far, they spend time on Peterson.
10 posted on 07/09/2003 12:56:30 AM PDT by AdmSmith
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To: AdmSmith
The news will get out...
The US media appears to be waiting for confirmed reports.
11 posted on 07/09/2003 12:58:32 AM PDT by DoctorZIn (IranAzad... The July 9th protests and strikes have begun!)
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To: All
Farsi broadcasters at Israel Radio expect popular uprising in Iran

By THE JERUSALEM POST INTERNET STAFF

Jul. 9, 2003

Israel Radio's Farsi (Iranian language) radio broadcasters report receiving numerous calls from within Iran predicting a popular uprising against the government there.

The state-funded radio station today broadcast recordings of Iranians speaking angrily about the regime.

"It is incumbent upon us to rise up," one caller said.

One Israel-based Farsi broadcaster predicted that an Iranian national uprising is a matter of time. He cited Iranians' anger at poverty, drug addiction and support for international terror.

Protests involving thousands have been regular occurrences in Iran recently.

The Jerusalem-based station broadcasts Iranian-language talk shows on short-wave frequencies that can be heard in Iran. Iranians from all sectors of that country's society call in regularly, the station says.

Israel Radio estimates tens of millions of Iranians listen to its Farsi broadcasts, particularly during times of unrest.

http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=JPost/A/JPArticle/ShowFull&cid=1057723798346
12 posted on 07/09/2003 1:02:44 AM PDT by DoctorZIn (IranAzad... The July 9th protests and strikes have begun!)
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To: JulieRNR21; Ernest_at_the_Beach; Pan_Yans Wife; RobFromGa; fat city; freedom44; Tamsey; ...
Iranian Students Vow to Defy Protest Ban

July 08, 2003
Reuters
Paul Hughes

TEHRAN -- Iranian students on Tuesday vowed to commemorate a violent 1999 attack on a university dormitory on Wednesday in defiance of an official ban.

Nervous that the July 9 anniversary may reignite protests against clerical rule which rocked Tehran and other cities for 10 nights in June, officials have banned off-campus rallies, closed some university dormitories and postponed summer exams.

Hundreds of people, including scores of students, are still under arrest after authorities rounded up more than 4,000 people during and after the biggest and most violent pro-democracy protests seen in Iran for four years.

"We haven't obtained any permission for gatherings but there will be some sit-in protests at the universities and some people are going to gather outside the U.N. building," in Tehran, one student leader told Reuters on condition of anonymity.

Many ordinary Iranians have also pledged to mark the events of July 9, 1999 when hardline Islamic vigilantes fiercely loyal to Iran's conservative clerics attacked students in a Tehran University dormitory, killing one person and sparking five days of mass protests.

"I'm closing my business and I will go out to show my support for the students," said a hairdresser in Tehran who asked not to be identified.

But with little organization or leadership for the planned protests and security expected to be tight, most analysts expect any gatherings to be small-scale and quickly dispersed.

"There may be a couple of sporadic protests in the country tomorrow but I don't think it will become a major thing," said one reformist parliamentarian, who also declined to be named.

"Some ordinary people may come out onto the streets but it will not be tolerated," he said.


SATELLITE CHANNELS JAMMED

Tehran residents have complained that U.S.-based Iranian satellite channels, which played a key role in encouraging people to join last month's protests, are no longer available, their signals apparently jammed.

Students have criticized moderate President Mohammad Khatami, once the darling of Iran's student movement, for failing to stand up to hardline opponents who have blocked his attempts to reform Iran's Islamic state.

"On July 9, 1999 Khatami was the most popular figure among students but four years later...everyone wants him to be tougher and if he can't do that to resign and stop wasting people's time," said one student, who declined to be identified.

While championing the democratic right to protest, Khatami has been largely mute on last month's demonstrations and has praised the actions of security officials to contain them.

The hardline Jomhuri-ye Eslami newspaper on Tuesday said the fact that last month's "riots" died out without seriously testing Iran's security forces "proves that the domestic enemies of the system are unpopular and their foreign asters suffer from wishful thinking."

http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=topNews&storyID=3054937

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

13 posted on 07/09/2003 2:24:37 AM PDT by DoctorZIn (IranAzad... The July 9th protests and strikes have begun!)
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To: DoctorZIn
July 9 BUMP for the Iranian Freedom Fighters. God be with them and their families.
14 posted on 07/09/2003 3:07:53 AM PDT by putupon (Down with Theocracy! Up on telephone poles with the Mullahs!)
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To: All
Struggling Workers Find Solidarity With Protesting Students

July 08, 2003
The Washington Post
Afshin Molavi

TEHRAN -- Thin streaks of sweat dripped down Ali's gaunt, sun-baked face as he sat behind the wheel of his car amid Tehran's chaotic afternoon traffic. The 53-year-old army technician tapped his horn repeatedly as he dodged oncoming cars, motorbikes and pedestrians.

"Traffic is awful," he said, downshifting past a pedestrian as a motorbike sped by within inches of his battered, wheezing yellow car. "By the time I get home, my nerves are frayed. It's really terrible."

Still, Ali will spend the next six hours on the road at his second job: taxi driver. With rampant inflation, stagnant wages and an anemic economy, many Iranians hold second and even third jobs simply to survive. One taxi agency boasts three university professors on its part-time staff.

"Our economy is a mess," said Ali, who declined to be identified by his full name. "The prices of meat, housing, cars, everything, is overwhelming. I have given 27 years of my life to serving the army, and I am reduced to misery. I barely eat meat once a week, but our government officials are eating the finest kebabs day and night. This is outrageous."

From working-class neighborhoods to affluent suburbs, millions of disenchanted Iranians like Ali are becoming increasing vocal about their frustration with the price of meat, the lack of jobs and widely perceived government corruption. In expressing hopes for a better economic future, and anger at what they view as government mismanagement and corruption, they have found themselves in league with younger student activists calling for greater freedoms and secular democracy. Last month, roughly 10,000 protesters, a mixture of university students and local residents, took to the streets of Tehran and other Iranian cities.

Ali says he played a small role in the protests, joining a group of drivers who purposely clogged streets around Tehran University and honked their horns for hours in solidarity with the younger demonstrators. He is prepared to do so again, he says, if students defy an official protest ban on Wednesday, the anniversary of nationwide student protests that rocked the country in 1999, leaving at least five students dead and hundreds in jail.

"Our government needs to know how upset we are," he said. "They cannot simply live like kings while we live in poverty. Before the revolution, I ate meat every day. Today, I eat it only once a week."

Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, who lived a modest life in a humble home, once said that Iran's 1979 Islamic revolution "was not about the price of watermelons."

But today watermelons cost roughly seven times more in real terms than they did before Iranians toppled the U.S.-backed monarchy of Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi and put Khomeini at the head of a theocratic state. Iranians' consumption of bread, meat, rice and tea is down as much as 30 percent compared with before the revolution, according to the country's central bank, and in real terms, Iranians earn one-fourth of what they did then.

Official statistics put 15 percent of the population below the poverty line, though some economists put the actual figure closer to 40 percent. Over the last three years, inflation has averaged 15 percent. Unemployment is officially 13 percent, but independent economists say the rate is more like 25 percent.

According to the International Monetary Fund, Iran has the highest rate of brain drain in the world -- 160,000 of the country's best and brightest emigrated last year -- and with two-thirds of the country's 66 million people under age 30, the government estimates that nearly 1 million jobs must be created each year to stanch the flow of emigration.

Such statistics would likely stir passions in any country. But frustration is particularly acute in Iran, where economic expectations rose along with oil prices in 1973 and Khomeini's populist speeches included promises that government officials would personally distribute oil income checks to the masses and elevate the downtrodden. Despite possessing the world's second-largest gas reserves and third-largest oil reserves, the government has been unable to fashion a sustainable, job-creating, globalized, efficient economy, Iranian economists lament.

Officials have shown signs that they comprehend the level of popular discontent. Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Khomeini's successor as Iran's supreme leader, recently made a rare call for increased foreign investment and said: "Dispensing economic justice has been one of the regime's most cherished yet unrealized goals since its establishment nearly a quarter-century ago."

New foreign investment laws, the introduction of private banking to compete with plodding state-owned banks, and measures to boost private enterprise have all been offered recently by the government as remedies for Iran's economic ills.

Still, many economists dismiss the initiatives as insufficient. "The entire structure of the economy needs to be overhauled," says Ali Rashidi, a Tehran-based economist and newly elected member of Iran's national Chamber of Commerce. "These small measures are like putting a Band-Aid on a cancer patient."

Rashidi said he believes control of the economy must be taken from the government's hands. About 70 percent of the nation's gross domestic product is controlled by inefficient government entities, Rashidi estimated, citing bonyads -- tax-exempt charitable foundations and business conglomerates -- as a key impediment to sustainable private-sector growth.

President Mohammad Khatami, whose once-popular reform agenda has been thwarted by conservatives in Iran's government, repeatedly has called for more accountability from the bonyads. Reformist lawmakers, economists and journalists publicly criticize government-affiliated "economic mafias" that distort the economy for private gain, using access to import licenses and cheap credit to create monopolies in such items as sugar, tea and cars.

Rumors of senior officials with Swiss bank accounts, villas in Europe and Canada and shady financial dealings appear to be a mixture of exaggeration and truth. But taxi drivers often point out the palatial homes of senior officials, some of whom are Muslim clerics who once lambasted the shah's wealthy elite for its profligacy. After passing one such clerical palace, a driver deadpanned: "I guess those modest government salaries have been raised recently."

As economic discontent grows -- manifested in occasional bouts of labor unrest, including strikes -- analysts say it poses no threat to the government. Still, officials take the stirrings seriously, canceling all official activities on May Day -- Labor Day in much of the world -- for fear of strikes.

Ali Jafarzadeh, a reformist member of parliament from the northeastern city of Mashad and an advocate of economic liberalization, said in an interview: "Unless we improve the economy, we are headed toward a social crisis."

Meanwhile, as Ali picks up passengers late into the night, he queries a Tehran University student. "When are you protesting again?" he asks. "I'm ready to honk my horn."

http://iranvajahan.net/cgi-bin/news_en.pl?l=en&y=2003&m=07&d=09&a=3
15 posted on 07/09/2003 3:13:29 AM PDT by DoctorZIn (IranAzad... The July 9th protests and strikes have begun!)
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To: JulieRNR21; Ernest_at_the_Beach; Pan_Yans Wife; RobFromGa; fat city; freedom44; Tamsey; ...
Thousands protest in main US and European cities

By SMCCDI (Information Service)
Jul 8, 2003, 8:07pm

Thousands of members of the Iranian Diaspora gathered this evening in main US and European cities in order to commemorate the Legacy of the Epic of July 9th, 1999, Student Uprising and to denounce the rule of the Islamic regime in Iran.

Demonstrations were held in cities, such as, Rome (Italy), and Los Angeles and Dallas (USA).

The most symbolic protest took place in the Italian Capital as members of the Italian TransNational Radical Party and SMCCDI delegate, along with Italian Freedom Fighters, gathered in front of the regime's Embassy by calling for the end of the Theocratic rule, an end to the persistent repression and the Support of the Student Movement in Iran. It's to note that July 9th, tomorrow, has been declared as the "Libero Iran"(Free Iran) by the Italians and many of them are expected to atach white colored flags to their windows asking for the Freedom of Iran. It's to note that Italy is the current head of the European Union which has close relationship with the regime leaders.

In Los Angeles, several thousands of protesters gathered in front of the Federal Building and then marched in the Westwood area by blocking the traffic. "Regime Change in Iran"shouted the crowd.

http://www.daneshjoo.org/generalnews/article/publish/article_1008.shtml

"If you want on or off this Iran ping list, Freepmail me”
16 posted on 07/09/2003 3:16:28 AM PDT by DoctorZIn (IranAzad... The July 9th protests and strikes have begun!)
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To: DoctorZIn
But the people want to use force only when attacked.

They are being attacked by the regime day by day. Time for them to fight back.

17 posted on 07/09/2003 3:16:42 AM PDT by Smile-n-Win (Make money, not trouble!)
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To: All
Sporadic clashes rock Ahwaz and Esfahan

By SMCCDI (Information Service)
Jul 9, 2003, 12:09am

First sporadic clashes are rocking the provincial cities of Ahwaz and Esfahan as groups of young freedom fighters have come into streets and are trying to join others in order to move toward the main sqaures of these 2 cities.

As like as in the Capital, several have been injured and arrested so far.

Thousands are expected to come into the streets from 19:00 (Loacl time)

http://www.daneshjoo.org/generalnews/article/publish/article_1013.shtml
18 posted on 07/09/2003 3:17:30 AM PDT by DoctorZIn (IranAzad... The July 9th protests and strikes have begun!)
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To: JulieRNR21; Ernest_at_the_Beach; Pan_Yans Wife; RobFromGa; fat city; freedom44; Tamsey; ...
Sporadic clashes rock several area of the Capital

By SMCCDI (Information Service)
Jul 9, 2003, 12:09am

First sporadic clashes are rocking main Iranian cities as groups of Freedom Fighters are defying the Islamic regime by getting out of their homes and forming groups in order to move toward main gathering points.

Clashes have happened in the Guisha, Tehran Pars (2nd Square), Rey and Tajrish in the Capital where security forces have used of their guns in order to shoot plastic bullets.

Several have been injured and arrested so far.

Thousands are expected to come into the streets from 19:00 (Loacl time)

http://www.daneshjoo.org/generalnews/article/publish/article_1012.shtml

"If you want on or off this Iran ping list, Freepmail me”
19 posted on 07/09/2003 3:20:35 AM PDT by DoctorZIn (IranAzad... The July 9th protests and strikes have begun!)
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To: All
This just in...

Demonstrations are starting around 7pm their time, 7am PST.
Some are starting right now. But it sounds like this is good time to crash. See you in the morning. I will have more to report then.

DoctorZin
20 posted on 07/09/2003 3:58:55 AM PDT by DoctorZIn (IranAzad... The July 9th protests and strikes have begun!)
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