Iranian Alert -- DAY 33 -- LIVE THREAD PING LIST [Breaking News... Jamming Source Identified]

The world media has all but ignored this week's dramatic events in Iran. The regime has masterfully handled the world media. The regime appears to have a new ally in their efforts to silent the media, Cuba.

Several days ago we reported the jamming of LA based Iranian broadcasters, the key link of communication of the Iranian protest movement. The regime had been jamming the signals in the past within Iran using equipment purchased from France.

But days before the July 9th protests were to begin the broadcaster began reporting that their uplink signal was being jammed as well. This would require jamming equipment either in the US or nearby. We have been seeking confirmation of this story. We now have it.

Loral Skynet, hired a firm to investigate the source of the jamming. The result was that they have narrowed the probable source of the jamming to be in the vicinity of Havana Cuba.

The following is the text of a letter from Loral Skynet to Atlanta Direct-to-Home, the service providing satellite broadcast services to several Los Angeles based Iranian broadcasters. The matter is now in the hands of the FCC.

Peggy A Courter Director , Client Services Tel:(908) 470-2362 Fax:(908) 470-2459 Email: pcourter@loralskynet.com

Mr. Michael Day President Atlanta Direct-to-Home (ADTH) 5388 New Peachtree Rd. Chamblee, GA 30341

As reported in the news media, it appears that an unknown entity is blocking certain signals into Loral Skynet's Telstar 12 satellite, which signals carry Farsi language and Iranian programming. Skynet is taking all appropriate actions to resolve the interference, and regrets any inconvenience to Atlanta DTH ("ADTH") and its customers caused by the interference. This letter summaries our understanding of the source of the interference and our efforts to resolve it.

Interference into Transponder 10 on Telstar 12 was first reported to Skynet by one of ADTH's uplinkers on July 5, 2003 at approximately 5:35 p.m. EST, and ADTH spoke with Skynet operations personnel within minutes thereafter to discuss the problem. Skynet immediately instituted its standard procedures for detecting the cause of the interference, including investigating any cross-pole carrier or adjacent operator issues and any recent uplinking activity that may have adversely affected the carrier. Skynet determined that none of those factors contributed to the interference, and that the Telstar 12 satellite and Transponder 10 were, and had been, operating properly (and, in fact, continue to operate properly). As a result, Skynet concluded that the interference was caused by a third party.

Similarly, ADTH instituted several procedures to attempt to resolve the interference, including reducing its bandwidth and splitting capacity among three carriers. Despite these procedures, intermittent interference continued.

Accordingly, Skynet contacted a transmitter geo-location service, TLS, Inc., to attempt to locate the transmit source of the interference. TLS was able to provide an ellipse of the most probable location of the source of the interference, which it identified as being in the vicinity of Havana, Cuba. As the services being interfered with are licensed with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and the probable source of the interference is not within United States boundaries, on July 9 Skynet forwarded the information concerning the interference and TLS's investigation to FCC personnel. The FCC has contacted TLS for further technical discussions.

As Skynet continues its efforts to eliminate the interference into Telstar 12, I want to reassure you that Skynet understands ADTH's concerns and those of its customers regarding their broadcasting integrity, and Skynet remains full committed to resolving the issue as quickly as possible.

Please do not hesitate to contact me if you would like to discuss this matter further.

This story has national security implications. We need to write the media and ensure they cover this breaking story. We need to contact our elected officials and demand they investigate this immediately.

These efforts by the regime, while successful in the short term, do not resolve the fundamental reasons why this regime is crumbling from within.

As Michael Ledeen posted recently, "...we can already say that the regime's intimidation was not successful. And you have to admire the courage of these young Iranians..."

Iran is a country ready for a regime change. 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.

Please continue to join us here, post your news stories and comments to this thread.

You had a link to SUMKÂ.
here is something from their web site:

Fellow Iranian (Aryan) Compatriots

The SUMKÂ (NATIONAL SOCIALIST IRANIAN WORKERS PARTY) is a political and educational party dedicated to the preservation of the Iranian peoples, and our Superior Iranian cultural heritage and Civilization.

As the world enemy wages war against the Iranian peoples, and our ancient Civilization in every corner of the world, we have found that the ONLY WAY to shock our people awake is through BOLD ACTION. Too many others would rather try to TALK the problem away, while we realize that the time has come to FIGHT!

Only the DRAFSH-e KÂVIÂNI, the AGE OLD SYMBOL OF IRANIAN RESIDENCE against evil forces, has the SHOCK- POWER to shatter the Aniranians and force Iranians to THINK ABOUT WHAT IS GOING ON.

Here at SUMKÂ, we are gathering the best and most ACTIVE of our fighters for the Iranian Peoples (Aryans), men and women who realize that this is not a game or a club, rather a DEADLY FIGHT for the struggle of our way of life, the SCHOOL IRANIANISM.

Persons who would like to join us in this all-out fight for the survival of our Race and Nation may email us to request an OFFICIAL SUPPORTER OR MEMBERSHIP form.

To qualify you must be a member of Iranian Family, believe in the School of Iranianism, and willing to obey the principals of the SUMKÂ party. After completing training courses, and success in a written examination, the desirous will be able to join as a member, and their duties and stations will be decided by Executive Committee.

The SUMKÂ party wish to attract only those Iranians who are willing to fight and sacrifice their lives for something greater and more meaningful than themselves...our BELOVED IRAN and IRANIAN PEOPLES.

A Statue of an Iranian Princess of Parthian Dynasty, in Iranian Hail Posture. (3rd Century BCE, from the occupied province of Khvarvaran "Today known as Iraq")."

This is not something we want. I suppose we all want a market oriented society based on the middle class. Anybody have info on the strength of these crackpots and other revolutionary nuts?

FORMER IRANIAN EMPRESS LAUDS IRANIAN STUDENTS AND PEOPLE

PARIS 11 July (IPS) Former Iranian Empress Farah Diba-Pahlavi praised the "courageous and brave" Iranian students and people "struggle for democracy and freedom in Iran and expressed her "full support" for their "admirable" action.

Talking briefly to some Iranian journalists covering her visit on Friday to an exhibition of photographs from old and contemporary Iranian painters, she assured "all her compatriots, all the fathers and mothers, sisters and brothers, old and younger ones, but mostly the students and all those who, in these days, fight for the restoration of freedom and democracy in Iran that they have the full support of all Iranians anywhere in the world".

Mr. Abdolhamid Eshraq, a Paris-based architect and political activist organized the Exhibition, a collection of some hundred of photographs of paintings covering the past century up to modern times, including some portraits of herself, her late husband at the age of 12, former kings and princes, political personalities and musicians, as well as portraits of female dancers, some of them with nude breasts, village and towns sceneries, religious festivities or scenes of beheading culprits or martyrs, representation of epic stories etc.

"On these days, when brave Iranian students and people, writers and intellectuals, artists and journalists who are in prison, I want to tell them that they are always in our thoughts, hearts and minds, that we fully support their struggle, each of us according to his possibilities and his position, and I’m sure and certain that the day freedom would return to our nation is not that far", she said, referring to the past weeks anti-regime and anti-clerical rulers protests, led by hundreds of students joined by thousands ordinary people.

As the former empress, better known by Iranians as "Shahbanoo" (the wife of the Shah) was describing the courage and tolerance of the Iranian youths as "a lesson of morality and struggle, "at least for myself", in Tehran, former president Ayatollah Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani tagged the protesters as "pawns and mercenaries" for American "plotters", saying that the protest movement was "so insignificant" that the authorities saw it enough to let unarmed Law Enforcement Forces deal with the demonstrators.

"It is unfortunate that some of our compatriots fall in traps laid by the Americans and the Britons, using some local tribunes, taking unwise moves in line with enemy wishes", the cleric said, acknowledging however that "mistakes on the part of the people or provocations by improper domestic elements for certain political and factional ends had given rise to the unrest".

"He also ridiculed certain publicity by Americans, Britons, and domestic media that people have given up support for the establishment", the official news agency IRNA quoted the Chairman of the influential Expediency Council, without explaining that why the authorities had arrested 8.000 demonstrators all over the country or shouts of "death to Khameneh'i, death to Hashemi" or "Khatami, resign, resign".

Meanwhile, Dr Abdolkarim Soroosh, a prominent Islamist thinker and philosopher in a letter to his old friend Mohammad Khatami, accused him to be "the main responsible" for the fiascos suffered by the reformists in the past years.

In his letter, entitled as "Soroosh’s Pains" the dissident intellectual says Iranian people’s peaceful revolt against religious dictatorship was a "sweet experience" that Mr. Khatami "did not honoured, respected nor understood it".

The open letter is a follow up to the past missives written by Iranian personalities, organisations or groups to Iranian clerical rulers or international community, the last one being the letter sent to the United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan by 30 leaders of students associations covering all Iranian universities, in which they inform him that the Islamic Republic violates "systematically" the Universal Declaration for Human Rights.

"Here we are, prisons in full development and expansions and universities ruined; an ill society in the grips of the cancerous rogue elements of Ansar Hezbollah that suffocates breathing", Mr. Soroosh tells a lamed and powerless President

http://www.iran-press-service.com/articles_2003/Jul-2003/students_unrests_shahbanoo_11703.htm

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