Iranian Alert -- January 26, 2004 -- IRAN LIVE THREAD --Americans for Regime Change in Iran

The Jihad on Iraq

January 26, 2004
National Review Online
Michael Ledeen

Bad analysis and bad policy.

In the months leading up to the liberation of Iraq, I wrote that our great national debate was on the wrong subject, because we were obsessively focused on Iraq alone, rather than on the group of countries that sponsored terrorism. I warned that Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Syria were plotting with Saddam Hussein to organize a combination of terrorist actions and political uprisings to drive us out of Iraq and Afghanistan. And I insisted that Iran was the keystone of the terror network — as the State Department had documented for many years — and was therefore the logical first target in our response to the Axis of Evil.

We are still engaged in that misleading debate. We are still focused on Iraq alone, although the president continues to say that the war involves a group of countries that support a network of terror organizations.

Bad analysis leads inevitably to bad policy, and our narrow focus on Iraq costs lives. Widespread terrorism and political demonstrations are not organized solely, or even primarily, by the shattered remnants of Saddam's Baathist regime, nor by the splintered pieces of al Qaeda. The war against us in Iraq and Afghanistan is an existential struggle guided, funded, and armed by tyrannical regimes in Iran, Syria, and Saudi Arabia, because they are convinced — rightly enough — that if we succeed, they are doomed to fall in a regional democratic revolution. Their plan, modeled on the strategy that drove us out of Lebanon in the 1980s, was prepared long before we attacked.

They made no secret of their intentions. Prior to the liberation, Syrian President Bashar Assad publicly called for a "Lebanon strategy," and in August, the head of Hezbollah, Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah, called for the entire Muslim world to join in a jihad against Americans in Iraq. Throughout, Iranian leaders and Saudi clerics have denounced the American actions in Iraq and joined the call for jihad.

The cooperative strategy evidently included the secret transfer of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction to neighboring countries. According to a recent statement by Nizar Nayouf, a brave Syrian journalist who was arrested and tortured for a decade after criticizing Hafez al Assad's brutalities, Iraqi WMDs were hidden in three primary locations in Syria. He has provided maps of the secret locations, which he says came from dissident elements at high levels of the Syrian military and intelligence services. (He has also claimed that billions of dollars from Saddam's personal stash were smuggled into Syrian and Lebanese banks, and these claims have been substantially verified). And last October, the CIA was indirectly approached by a man who claimed to have carried a quantity of enriched uranium from Iraq to Iran four years ago. He offered to take American inspectors to the secret underground laboratory from which the uranium was taken, but the CIA declined the offer. Someone might ask David Kay why, after initial enthusiasm, he changed his mind and decided not to look.

Shortly after the dreadful earthquake in Bam, Iran, the Syrians pretended to deliver emergency aid, but actually loaded their transport planes with Iranian money and weapons for Hezbollah, to be used against us in Iraq and against Israel from bases in Syrian-occupied south Lebanon. And earlier this month, evidence was presented in an Israeli court that showed that the Iranian regime routinely transfers large sums of money through puppet organizations into Syrian and Palestinian banks. The money is then rerouted to Islamic Jihad, Hamas, and other terror groups. Another case of Iranian money moving through Hezbollah and the Palestinian Authority to terror groups was announced on January 15 by Israeli security officials in Nablus, where three brothers involved in the scheme had recently been arrested.

Last November, Saddam's top missile expert, Modhr Sadeq-Saba, ran from Iraq to Iran, which is actively pursuing the development of nuclear weapons and intermediate-range delivery systems. And American officials on the ground in Iraq have seen abundant evidence of Iranian support for terrorist operations. The Associated Press reported on January 19 that "U.S. soldiers found a homemade bomb that they believe was left inside an unfinished house by a group of Iranians in Samarra." When Mujahid Ghul, the top al Qaeda thug in Iraq, was arrested last Friday, it was further confirmation of Iran's role. Ghul reported directly to Zarkawi, who has long operated out of Tehran (abundant evidence of which has been publicly presented in both German and Italian court proceedings against other members of Zarkawi's gang).

Meanwhile, the menace to the free world grows. Saudi Arabia is reportedly seeking nuclear weapons, and the AP tells us (January 20) that "Iran has reneged on a promise to fully suspend uranium enrichment."

In short, while Iraq is the current battlefield, the real war extends far beyond its borders, and we will remain under attack in Iraq so long as the tyrannical regimes in Damascus, Riyadh, and Tehran are left free to kill us and the embattled Iraqis. There is more at stake than human casualties, for it is unreasonable to expect Iraqi Shiite leaders to fully cooperate with Coalition forces until and unless they see that we are fighting the jihadists and protecting Iraqis from them. If you were the Ayatollah Sistani, and saw that the Iranians had arranged for the murder of two of your most distinguished colleagues (Ayatollahs Khoi and Hakim), would you not cater to Iranian desires in the political debates in Baghdad, especially if the Iranians promised (as I have been told) millions of dollars for your religious community? If you saw thousands of Iranian-sponsored operatives all over your country, and listened to more than a dozen Iranian-operated radio and television stations in Iraq, while the Americans had yet to provide a single effective channel for the country, would you not take out insurance and call for a quick transfer of sovereignty to Iraqis? Jerry Bremer is a very convincing man, but he is leaving in a few months, and Sistani and the others will have to deal with murderous mullahs and ambitious Syrian Baathists next door.

The terror masters do not limit their jihad to Iraq. Late last month, the Iranian newspaper Jomhuri-ye Eslami published an open call to the Egyptian people to assassinate President Hosni Mubarak, whom the paper — which speaks for "Supreme Leader" Ali Khamenei — called "the butcher of Cairo." Turkish authorities captured one of the organizers of the suicide bombings in Istanbul last December as he was trying to cross the border into Iran, and it is now generally acknowledged that top al Qaeda figures, including bin Laden, Zawahiri, and the usual Zarkawi, have long stayed in and operated from Iranian territory.

In his State of the Union address, President Bush promised to relentlessly pursue the war against terror. He has proven to be a man of his word, and the Saudis, Syrians, and Iranians are no doubt praying for his defeat in November. This suspicion was reinforced over the weekend in Davos, where Senator Joe Biden was granted a conversation with the Iranian foreign minister, while Senator Elizabeth Dole had earlier been told to stay out of Iran, even though she was carrying medicine and food for earthquake victims and Biden had received tens of thousands of dollars from a pro-Iranian lobby. They are happy to talk to a Democrat, but locked out a Republican.

The mullahs know their best chance for survival is to defeat us in Iraq before we vigorously support their own people against them. Both our national interest and our national values demand that we give that support — political support, not further military action — now, before Iraq gets much worse.

http://www.nationalreview.com/ledeen/ledeen200401260854.asp

Mr. Hedayat is that man who wrote an open letter (( The following post )), I had it in my Archive and would like to repost again - Pilot
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ANIMALS HAVE MORE RIGHTS THAN IRANIANS

(An Open Letter to President Khatami, From an Iranian Journalist)

What comes here is an open letter by one of my dear compatriots, my dear friend, A. Hedayat, to the so-called president Khatami, the smiling mullah whose smile seems to have deceived some of the E.U. leaders!!!

He is a journalist who resides in Iran, in the city of Tabriz . Read his words carefully, as he is another member of the "Burnt Generation".
(The letter is translated from its original Persian and some parts are excluded for brevity.)

Attention: The President of the Islamic Republic of Iran Mr. Khatami
Your Excellency

I am Ali Hedayat, a journalist who was captured and after being beaten, got transferred to the Police Intelligence prison on 16th June by the vigilantes of Tabriz. Seventeen members of the vigilantes were involved in this process. They punched and kicked me for more than 300 times. They cursed me, my mother and my wife with very obscene words for hundreds of times which I will have to mention exactly in the following without any consideration and euphemism.

Also you will find out in this report that by "plainclothesmen of Tabriz" I do not only refer to the Basiji (voluntary) forces or the forces of the so-called Mosque Bases. 90 percent of those people were the official personnel of the police disciplinary forces (Law Enforcement Forces) of the Islamic Republic "NAJA", the intelligence office of the disciplinary forces, the anti narcotics office of the Police forces and public places supervision office. The remaining 10 percent were members of the Revolutionary Guards (Sepaah-e-Paasdaaraan) and Basiji forces of the factories and official organisations.

Your Excellency!

The blows that the trained members of the Disciplinary Forces inflicted on people were much more painful than those of the Basiji's and the members of the Revolutionary guards (they need to be trained and practice more!) since the latter left bruises and wounds and inflammations, unlike the former who were trained and knew how to do their job without leaving an evidence.

Your Excellency!

Before I get to the point let me inform you that none of the judges or the interrogators of our trials ever bothered to ask us why our eyes, foreheads, chins and whole bodies were inflamed and bruised. They didn't bother to ask us who had attacked us so savagely and ruthlessly. They didn't bother to ask whether we wanted to see a doctor or to be sent to a medical examiner. They didn't bother to ask us whether we had any complaints or not.

They did not even suspect that these ruthless vigilantes arrested people and beat them to death and after discovering that they were innocent, kept them in prison for some time until their wounds are cured, so that nobody would detect the truth.

I take witness the primary verdicts made by the judges of the (Islamic) revolutionary courts who had ordered (after the interrogations) that many of the young prisoners had to be released on the 20th and 21st of June provided their families could afford to pay a five-million toman bail. On the contrary, they were kept for more than three more weeks so that their wounds wouldn't be left as evidence against the vigilantes.
Your Excellency!

I apologise if (in some sentences) my pen is fouled with swear words and obscenity. For if you had also received knee-kicks in your testicles and could have also been able to feel the killing pain, you would definitely stop smiling and sitting calmly in rest posing as a reformist. You would have definitely started the never-put-into-practice reforms in practice. In spite of the fact that 17 people had mistaken me for a punching bag, all my emphasis on being sent by the judge to a medical examiner was in vain.
Any way….

In the morning of 16th of June I was notified that the university students were going to show their opposition to the government inside the university in support of the students of the universities of Tehran and other cities.

I, as a journalist who is also a university graduate in the same field, carrying my journalist card issued by the ministry of Islamic Culture and Guidance and another card from the local officials of "East Azarbaijan" province went inside the university with a few other journalists and stayed then until noon. But then the guarding forces identified most of the journalist and dismissed them from the university.

(Mr. Hedayat describes the circumstances before his arrest and continue)

It was still 7:30 p.m. when a group of five plainclothesmen passed us by, one of them showed me to the others pointing to me with his head and his eyebrows.

I told my friends: "let's leave here, they showed me to each other, they are gonna beat me…."

My friends laughed at me and said, "What do they have to do with us?" Accusing me of being a paranoid, they continued saying "even if they wish to beat anybody they would do it with the ones who are chanting slogans. You could only be their last choice!"

It was just after 7:30 p.m. and we were sitting on a bench and I was trying to write down the slogans, which we could hear from inside the university or the street with my "Parker" fountain pen. Suddenly we noticed that a group of 7-8 people were approaching us quickly from the pavement. Some of my colleagues went back for a few steps but I couldn't move for three reasons: first of all I thought that if move I would be considered as an agitator. Secondly I presumed that my escape would encourage them to follow me and finally since I already knew what they were after me, therefore my escape would be of no use.

I sat where I was sitting and my only choice was to shout that I was a journalist, so that they and others would notice so that in case they beat or captured me the story wouldn't remain silent.

The first person that reached the bench was a "Mr. Iman Nejad" who started beating me with his punches and kicks. He is the head of the Public Places Supervision Office of the disciplinary forces (Amaaken-e-NAJA). He had only started that 6-7 other people also arrived.

"…You are a journalist?!..."
"…Eat Shit…mother fucker…."
"I'll fuck your mouth."

They were saying these sentences and beating me at the same time and no body listened to my cries that I was a journalist….

A few of them held my hands and the rest of them were beating me with their boots and shoes and punches. They were more than 15 people by this time. They took turns in beating me, each time one of them came forward aimed one part of my body hit me with a few punches and kicks and then went back and another face would appear with new curses.

In between, a yellow-faced youth by the name of "Colonel Roostaa", deputy commander of the Intelligence of The Disciplinary Forces of Tabriz arrived at this crowd.

As he was beating me on my jaws on the left and right he said, "I'll cut your testicles…" "You inform the world? …I won't let you live in this city. You'll be dead in less than 6 months!"….

I remember that as I was there lying at the curbs, one of those people held my head in his hands. I was surprised by this action and heard another voice shouting: "no…don't hit his head to the curbs…." So the guy turned my head from the curbs toward the grass and hit it hard there. The voice ordered, "Take him away so that they wouldn't kill him…."

Under those conditions I found a ray of hope with this sentence. They took me to the traffic department room a few meters away. As I was there, two guys entered the room and to my greatest surprise started beating me to death until they got tired. I remember that I tried to provoke their religious sense and said "Muslims! at least give me a glass of water."

All was in vain. No religious taste.

After some time one of them said: "Handcuff him and hold his hands up so that everybody would see him wouldn't kill him!" This was the first time that I felt the cold steel handcuffs on my wrists. As my nose, my mouth, my teeth were bleeding and there was a lot of blood on my clothes, we left the room and passing though these people each one of them took advantage of the time once again and kicked me. After a short while they changed their minds and decided not to walk. They stopped a car and we three people sat in the back seat.

The driver was astonished, therefore he asked: "what has this poor guy done?"

On of the vigilantes answered:" This mother fucker is a journalist for VOA and BBC and Radio Farda. He informs that bitch, Maryam Rajavi (the co-leader of the Mojahedeen Khalq Organisation). He is a spy. He is a traitor…etc."

They asked what he thought so he turned back and cursed me, but I could read it in his eyes that he was afraid and was begging me with them.

I forgave him there.

They took me to the police station and as we wanted to get off the car they covered my head so that no body would photograph me, which could "disgrace" them! One of them put my jacket on my head and covered my face with it. Also before that, the time when we were in the car they had pushed my head to the lowest position possible.

There was a guard who hit me in the eyes.

Those minutes that I spent there were like ages for me. They were beating me as a group; they were beating me in my testicles, my belly and my face with no rest. After that a revolutionary guard arrived and as if he wanted to throw an 80 kilogram punching bag into the sky he punched my in my chest and on my heart with all his power, I hadn't received such a strong blow until then, I couldn't breathe and tears filled my eyes due to the intensity of the pain.

They emptied my pockets and found my journalist cards and documents such as cash card and also my pen and my cell phone.

They took all of them from me.

After that they forced me and the others into a bus and took us to the prison of Tabriz. As we were sent there on the 19th of June I had my first meal, which was the breakfast of the prison for the first time after my capture. Even the time when the head of the police of East Azarbaijan came to visit the detainees I told him that those guys avoided giving us even the mere warm tap water, let alone food.

I told him but in return they didn't even give us a piece of bread.

After that the interrogations started again and the interrogators kept on asking me questions on what were the names of the foreign radios and televisions and newspapers and magazines that I sent news for? And how much money I had received from them, as these people believed I was very rich and their reason for that was, by their conclusion, my well-pressed clothes and suspenders!

Their other conforming discovery on considering me as a rich and callous journalist who was working for the CIA and (US President George W.) Bush was the pressing of my clothes, which was "too" tidy for them. This, also, brought me more beatings.

The other issue put forward by the interrogator was that I gave false news to the foreign media to provoke the people against the regime. But the irony was that the guy could not even count "one" case to prove himself. Later the judge also based whatever he said on these sorts of comments but with no acceptable reason.

I didn't notice my bloody diarrhoea on the first day but later it got worse with very serious bleeding, so they took me to "Kowsar" clinic, which is affiliated to the police. There the doctors refused to visit me as the agents accompanying me didn't pay the money and I didn't have any money with me as whatever I had was already confiscated. The physician of the clinic accepted to examine me for free in the end. When he saw that I, a journalist, was beaten like that, he laughed and joked: "who is safe, then?!..."

After a few days the prison guard opened the small window on the metal door of my cell and said that the judge was waiting for me. They took me to the judge blindfolded. He said that my charges were: "advertising against the government", "attacking the police with a knife" and "interviewing with foreign radios". I rejected and said that two of my charges were " press crimes" and were to be tried in the "press court". I also requested to be sent to a forensic pathologist as I could have diseases in the future due to those blows I had received on my testicles, head, teeth and eyes.

The judge said: "do you want that for future possibilities?" I answered yes; he replied:" You can see it your self that these days we are very busy. Let me see what I can do in the later."

One evening they took me to see my mother and my wife. As we were passing through the yard, I could recognise a lot of my attackers and I got frightened to find out that most of my "plainclothesmen" attackers were the "official" personnel of that office.

I told my mother that I had been beaten as I had been transferred to that place but since entering I had not been beaten and also told her that at that time I was only afraid of the future as one of the attackers (whose was colonel Roosta’i) had made a vow to kill me. As I said this the agent who was there stopped the conversation and I was taken away.

I had demand my mother to announce on the radios that I was worried about my life. That doubled the problem. A soldier told me afterwards that they were not going to kill me and also advised me that in case I was taken to the basement "close your eyes and stiffen your muscles. The rest is not important!"

I tried to concentrate and make myself ready for the new beating session.

I would like to admit that I am not a hero and I, also, get afraid. At times before they were taking me for interrogations and torture I wetted myself for which I hated myself. But I couldn't help it. I was handcuffed and they were absolutely free to do whatever they wanted with me. In this country a normal citizen has no rights. He is not even considered as a human being let alone having any rights.

The only document that is used here most of the times is the confession of the poor detainee and for that purpose one thing is sufficient: "force".

As I was in the prison I heard of a lot of terrifying stories of the youth who were arrested and tortured to confess. I learned of different methods such as: "grilling", "jack in crutch", "24 hour-on-foot", "hanging weights to the testicles" and… flogging and bastinado were among the simple methods.

They interrogated me for several times and made me sign some sheets and also wanted me to make a commitment not to interview with foreign radios but I refused as I believed that it was not the word of law. On the other hand I told them that the judge could easily nullify my social right in journalism so that I wouldn't be active in this field anymore. This was my answer. One of the interrogators told me that it was the order of the Security Council (Supreme Council for National Security) that no one was allowed to interview with the foreign radios, I said that in case such a law existed really, I would be obliged to observe it.

Anyway after all these days, finally the so-called judge ruled that I could be released provided that my family would leave a 3.000,000,000 Rial (37.500 US Dollars) bail.

After all this I was released.

I went back to receive my cell phone (they are very expensive in Iran the regime charges nearly 625 dollars for each sim card and in the free market it is more than 1000 dollars which is too much for the average Iranian people whose income is less than 200 dollars per month) they said it wouldn't be returned. They didn't give back my journalist card my cash card either. As I went to a police station to which I was guided for the purpose, I notice that those official members of the police who were in uniforms treated me with respect, which was exactly opposite the way that the plainclothes had been treating me until that time. But I could feel that they kept their distance from me, this was quite obvious. It was as if they were afraid of something. They did their best to help me as much as they could, but the problem was somewhere else.

This report was only a short summary I hope that I will be able to write a book of my observations in the near future.

I hereby, would like to say that our lives are in danger as people like a so-called colonel Roosta’i and henchmen like him have threatened us. They are after us. Therefore if any of us gets killed or kidnapped, or any member of my family, have an accident in a street or anywhere else, if we get shot or stabbed or fall from a mount, -- things which have already happened for dissidents in Iran under the mullahs -- I announce in advance that those people and their henchmen and accomplices are responsible.

Are there any people, politicians, men and women in this country who will defend our human rights or do we have to wish that we were citizens of other countries like Canada?
Regards
Ali Hedayat
Independent and free journalist from Tabriz

And this is how it goes and goes in this plagued country. We have lost a lot of people like Mr. Hedayat in the past. They didn't even have the chance to "write" their observations for the others.

The girl students were raped at the nights of their executions in the next morning by the fatwas of the clerics for the charge of having a dissident magazine with themselves.

Their families even had to pay for the bullets by which their loved ones were executed. They didn't even have the right to be buried in a grave in the cemetery of the city.

Those boy and girl students, my peers, who were captured recently didn't have this right. They didn't want others to decide on how they think and what religion or ideology they preferred.

They hated to be called a Muslim only because they were forced to.

Human rights are what we are fighting for. That is why we get captured and tortured.
Koorosh Afshar ENDS JOURNALIST TORTURED 6803

Editor’s note: Koorosh Afshar is a pseudonym for a student in Tehran. His name has been changed for his protection.

The above letter was published by the Paris-based "Iran va Jahan" (Iran and the World) website on 5 August.

Highlights, some editorial works and explanations (inside brackets) are by IPS

http://www.iran-press-service.com

The Jihad on Iraq

January 26, 2004
National Review Online
Michael Ledeen

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/1065287/posts?page=21#21

Thanks for the ping!

Khatami probes into unrest 'striking workers'

Monday, January 26, 2004 - ©2003 IranMania.com

TEHRAN, Jan 26 (AFP) -- Iranian President Mohammad Khatami has ordered an official probe into a clash between security forces and striking workers at a copper factory in southeastern Iran which killed four and left 40 injured, the official news agency IRNA said Monday.

"Delegations from the president's office, Interior Ministry and Kerman Governor General's office are examining the unrest in Shahr-e Babak," said provincial governor Seifollah Shahdad-Nejad.

IRNA said the casualties from Saturday's rioting came after riot police fought a pitched battle to stop protestors from rampaging through state buildings. But the report blamed the rioting on "a gang of 300 motorbikers."

Shahdad-Nejad told the agency that calm had been restored to the area and the situation was under control.

Workers had downed tools a few days earlier to support their demands for permanent contracts, a reformist deputy said on Sunday. Mansur Soleymanni Meymandi told parliament that authorities had inflamed the crisis by pouring in riot police.

http://www.iranmania.com/News/ArticleView/Default.asp?NewsCode=21997&NewsKind=Current%20Affairs

Ah, the annual Terrorfest.....a target-rich environment.

Shamkhani warned last month it would consider using the Shahab-3 missiles if Israel struck its nuclear facilities.

These people don't need an excuse to attack Israel--at least they haven't since 1948.

They have the PR savvy of the Clark-Moore team.

The old view is expressed in a celebrated dictum of Khomeini that is painted on the walls of the conference center where the militants will meet: "America Cannot Do A Damn Thing!"

Yet America can do a JDAM thing--on you!

Iraq, Syria, Iran: baddabing, baddabang, baddaboom.

Government Says It May Refuse To Organize Elections

January 26, 2004
Radio Free Europe
RFE/RL

Prague -- Iran's reformist government says it may refuse to organize next month's parliamentary elections after hard-liners have disqualified thousands of candidates from standing.

A spokesman said the government cannot sponsor an unfair election. The Guardians Council has banned almost half of 8,200 would-be candidates in the 20 February elections.

Reports also say that many members of parliament are preparing their resignations to protest the ban. Earlier, the Guardians Council rejected parliamentary legislation aimed at limiting the grounds for disallowing candidates in the elections.

Meanwhile in Brussels, European Union foreign ministers today kept plans for a new economic cooperation pact with Iran on hold. Irish Foreign Minister Brian Cowen, speaking for the Irish EU presidency, said the union is now hoping for "free and fair elections."

An EU decision on reviving stalled talks on the pact will probably be taken after the elections.

http://www.rferl.org/features/features_article.aspx?id=0e5e2f55-d89f-4ac7-a4d8-9fc0b8e5ca2b&y=2004&m=01

Analysis: Iran Vote Crisis Escalating

January 26, 2004
United Press International
Modher Amin

TEHRAN -- A political crisis over Iran's upcoming parliamentary elections intensified Monday as the country's hard-line Guardian Council vetoed an emergency electoral bill aimed at restricting the power of the watchdog body in screening aspiring candidates.

The bill, comprising two clauses to amend the existing election law, was passed by the reformist-dominated Parliament on Sunday under the category of "triple urgent" -- the highest designation of importance for legislation used when Parliament feels the country is in serious political or military danger. Such a designation has not been employed since an Islamic regime was established in Iran in 1979.

One clause required the council to allow all candidates or sitting members of Parliament approved in past elections to seek office unless there were solid legal evidence against them.

The other clause, openly aimed at eliminating politically motivated disqualifications, envisaged that anyone, whose record is in question, could run in the contest if their qualifications were endorsed by at least 10 local confidants.

Earlier this month, the vetting council barred almost half of the 8,157 hopefuls, including 83 sitting lawmakers, from running in the Feb. 20 elections, setting off, what analysts have called, Iran's worst political crisis in years.

Most of those banned have been accused of being disloyal to Islamic values and the establishment, including "practical" commitment to a key article of the Constitution and guiding principle of Iran's Islamic theocracy, the Velayat-e-Faqih or Islamic jurisprudence.

The act, seen as an attempt to assure a new hard-line control of the 290-seat parliament, provoked strong anger among reformists.

Dozens of deputies have continued their sit-in protest in the Parliament building for a third consecutive week, while many senior officials, including President Mohammad Khatami, have threatened to resign.

On Saturday, the Iranian press published a list, naming 76 deputy ministers who had tendered their resignations to Khatami.

The move by protesting legislators has also been supported widely by university lecturers, while students, who so far having kept silent over the crisis, are planning to organize mass protests to denounce hard-liners, according to a student leader who declined to be identified.

Being under immense pressure to take decisive measures, Khatami has heavily criticized the disqualifications, calling for "healthy, free and competitive elections," but, at the same time, appealing for calm.

In his latest reaction to the council's "slow" reviewing of the blacklist, Khatami issued Saturday a joint statement with parliamentary speaker Mehdi Karroubi, demanding a "full review" of the disqualified candidates.

Last week, in a bid to defuse the row, Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei asked the council to reconsider the disqualifications.

However, the powerful body, whose members of six clerics and an equal number of Islamic lawyers are directly or indirectly appointed by Khamenei, has, so far, reinstated only some 350 candidates, none of whom are sitting MPs.

Having pledged to be "lenient," the council promised a thorough revision of disqualifications by the end of the month.

"We will yield to what the leader has told us to do, that is to be lenient with the candidates, but within the framework of the law," the council's secretary, Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati, said at the weekly prayers in Tehran on Friday. He was apparently referring to reformers' charges that the council had been defying Khamenei's orders.

Reacting to the veto, reformist Deputy Mohsen Armin was quoted Monday as having said the Guardian Council had shown it had no will to resolve the crisis logically.

"It only makes MPs adopt a stronger position and seriously consider mass resignations and boycotting the elections," he said, echoing previous warnings by the reform-controlled Interior Ministry that it would not be ready to hold elections if the situation persisted.

Armin, known for his sharp tongue, had earlier predicted Khatami would not be able to finish his term in office (ending June 2005) if the crisis were not resolved in the favor of reformists.

"Khatami cannot back down and show the lack of resolve we have seen from him in the past," he said, according to media reports last week. "Vacillation and incertitude on this instance will translate into the closing of Khatami's chapter and his reform agenda."

With neither side appearing to relinquish its position and considering previous threats also by some leading reformist parties of a boycott of the polls, analysts say the recent veto could even lead to greater political chaos in coming days.

Despite public silence so far toward the mounting political standoff, some observers predict that if the situation is not resolved in the next one or two weeks' time, the country could see the public react by demonstrating in the streets of Tehran either in support or opposition to the protesting lawmakers.

But political events in Iran, as the pro-reform English-language newspaper Iran News put it Sunday, are "unpredictable," so that the situation could "turn on a dime."

http://www.upi.com/view.cfm?StoryID=20040126-052435-9672r

Maverick Militia Commander and Several Officers Executed in Iran

SMCCDI (Information Service)
Jan 26, 2004

The Islamic republic regime has executed the famous and maverick Brigadier-General Mohamad-Mehdi Dozdoozani following a speedy trial.

Dozdoozani, a hero of war and one of the high commander of the Pasdaran Corp. (the Guardians of Islamic Revolution created to protect the Islamic republic), was executed along with several other officers in the Heshmatie Military facilities.

This is the first time that such high rank dissident Pasdaran Corp. officer is executed by the Islamic regime which was preferring till now to arrange accidents for the dissidents of its armed forces.

Dozdoozani became an open critic of the regime following the endorsement of a famous public letter entitled "We're Combatants". In this letter signed by tens of officers of the Pasdaran Corp., the regime's leaders were attacked for corruption and injustices.

Arrested, last summer, for disobedience and promotion of rebellion, Dozdoozani and several of his officers were finally executed on the request of the Supreme Leader in order to create fear among thousands of other members of the Pasdaran Corp. dischanted by the regime.

http://www.daneshjoo.org/generalnews/article/publish/article_4760.shtml

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