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Iranian Alert -- DAY 49 -- LIVE THREAD PING LIST
The Iranian Student Movement Up To The Minute Reports ^ | 7.28.2003 | DoctorZin

Posted on 07/28/2003 12:00:28 AM PDT by DoctorZIn

The regime is working hard to keep the news about the protest movment in Iran from being reported.

From jamming satellite broadcasts, to prohibiting news reporters from covering any demonstrations to shutting down all cell phones and even hiring foreign security to control the population, the regime is doing everything in its power to keep the popular movement from expressing its demand for an end of the regime.

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

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.

Thanks for all the help.

DoctorZin


TOPICS: Extended News; Foreign Affairs; News/Current Events; War on Terror
KEYWORDS: iran; iranianalert; protests; studentmovement
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To find all the links to all 49 threads since the protests started, go to:


1 posted on 07/28/2003 12:00:31 AM PDT by DoctorZIn
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To: Ernest_at_the_Beach; Pan_Yans Wife; fat city; freedom44; Tamsey; Grampa Dave; PhiKapMom; ...
Join Us at the Iranian Alert -- DAY 49 -- LIVE THREAD PING LIST

Live Thread Ping List | 7.28.2003 | DoctorZin

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

2 posted on 07/28/2003 12:03:05 AM PDT by DoctorZIn (IranAzad... Until they are free, we shall all be Iranians!)
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To: DoctorZIn
Does a change in regime require a change in the form of government. I mean this is a more general sense, not just in relation to Iran. I think the best thing that could happen to Iran is to restore the Pahlevi's, and not to try to force "democracy" on them.
3 posted on 07/28/2003 12:15:06 AM PDT by Cacophonous
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To: Ernest_at_the_Beach; Pan_Yans Wife; fat city; freedom44; Tamsey; Grampa Dave; PhiKapMom; ...
This is a follow-up to my editorial I published last Monday about CNN and the Iranian student known only as “Hamid.”

The original editorial can be read at the link below:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/949681/posts?page=10#10

I had contacted CNN before publishing the editorial above and received no response. Then last Thursday CNN demanded the website running the story include a statement from CNN. The next day they apparently demanded that the site remove the story altogether.

Yesterday I posted a follow-up on this. See the link below:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/952918/posts?page=3#3

I promised in that post to keep you informed of any new developments. I had written the author of the article that appeared on Gooya.com, a Dr. Alireza Nourizadeh. I was finally able to reach him in the UK by phone. We spoke extensively about his report. Based on our conversation, I expect we will hear more from about this story in the coming weeks. Until then he referred me to his public statement on his website.

Statement by Dr. Alireza Nourizadeh in Response to CNN.

The following is a rough translation of his statement.

An explanation about the student called Hamid, whose stomach was ripped open.

I said, I wrote and I insist for the past 20 days that Saeed Mortazavi, is a butcher.

Whether or not CNN accepts it or denies a role in this story, it is not going to change what Saeed Mortazavi has done.

Saeed Mortazavi, after murdering Kazami, indeed he has earned the title butcher.

Hamid has told the story himself, if you are patient you will hear about and read about it.

If CNN doesn’t have a representative in Tehran then find out what is the job of. journalist Shirzad Bozorgmehr. [Doctor Zin Note: Check the CNN website for stories from Tehran and look at the Tehran source of their recent stories]

I spoke to very well know lady in that network (CNN), she was very worried for Hamid’s life.

If they continue the story I will give out more names and facts.

http://www.nourizadeh.com/archives/000021.php#more

Dr. Nourizedeh has promised to keep me informed and I will post additional information as it becomes available.

DoctorZIn

"If you want on or off this Iran ping list, Freepmail me”
4 posted on 07/28/2003 12:17:41 AM PDT by DoctorZIn (IranAzad... Until they are free, we shall all be Iranians!)
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To: Ernest_at_the_Beach; Pan_Yans Wife; fat city; freedom44; Tamsey; Grampa Dave; PhiKapMom; ...
Big sections of Esfahan Bazar destroyed by fire

SMCCDI (Information Service)
Jul 27, 2003

Big sections of the famous Bazar of Esfahan burned, today, following an incendie which took place due to what is beleived to be an arson case.

Several units of the city's fire fighters were called in orther to combat the fire while the regime's security forces closed the accesses in order to avoid a popular panic.

The today's incendie took place in the tense conditions existing in this rebellious city and following the arrest of Ayatollah Taheri's Office manager and the increasing miscontentment among the local military forces and the residents.

The city has been scene of consecutive deadly clashes which have taken place for the last two years and many residents are showing their open hate of the regime and especially of the Bazaris accused to support the regime for the continuation of their economic advantages.

http://www.daneshjoo.org/generalnews/article/publish/article_1435.shtml

"If you want on or off this Iran ping list, Freepmail me”
5 posted on 07/28/2003 12:22:09 AM PDT by DoctorZIn (IranAzad... Until they are free, we shall all be Iranians!)
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To: All
"VICTORY OF LIGHT OVER DARKNESS IS NEAR IN IRAN", SHAHBANOO FARAH

CAIRO, 27 July. (IPS)

In a message on the occasion of the death of her husband, the late Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi, former Empress Farah Diba-Pahlavi said with the courage and steadfastness of the young Iranian generation as well as all those who relentlessly fight for the freedom of Iran both inside and outside the nation, "the day Iran would recover freedom and democracy is not very far".

Not willing to shed blood, Mohammad Reza Shah left Iran on 16 January 1979, leaving the place to the Islamist revolutionaris led to triumph by Grand Ayatollah Roohollah Khomeini, and died of cancer a year later, on 26 July in Cairo, where the late Egyptian President Mohammad Anwar el Sadat had received him and offered sanctuary and medical care.

"In the last years of his reign, Mohammad Reza Shah had forecast a black future for both his beloved Iran and the whole of the region, saying if security leaves Iran, its aftermath and consequences would endanger the whole of the region and the world", the former Empress, better known by Iranians as the Shahbanoo (the wife of the Shah) said at the Cairo’s al Rifa’i Mosque on Sunday.

"And on his last days, he saw dark years looming over Iran, when a great fear would descend over the nation, replacing promised justice by injustice and the worse kind of dictatorship replacing freedom", she added.

As every year since 1980, she flew to the Egyptian Capital with several members of the family and close friends and was accompanied by Mrs. Jihan Sadat, the widow of the late Egyptian president, assassinated by an Islamist fundamentalist after he established official relations with Israel.

"My husband was however certain that the years of misery, sadness, terrible fear and awkwardness would not last long and now, here, I can assure him that thanks to the courageous Iranians, both inside and outside our nation, the path to freedom, justice and democracy is being paved. That day is now at hand", she said with determination.

After laying flowers on the tombs of both her husband and the late Egyptian President, Mrs. Farah thanked Mrs. Sadat and expressed gratitude to President Hosni Mobarak, and particularly the people of Egypt "who have always shown affection" towards the Iranian Royal family.

Princess Farahnaz, the late Shah’s eldest daughter, accompanied her mother during the private prayers.

As usual, many Iranians exiles traveled from afar to attend the ceremonies while others sent bouquets of flowers.

Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi was born in 1919 and reined over Iran from 1941 to 1979, during which Iran became one of the strongest and most prosperous nations in the Middle East.

"As the days of national salvation nears, it is my duty to thank in my own name as well as on the name of all my children all the brave, fearless and gallant Iranian people who, in these exceptional days, mourns the memory of my husband in different countries all over the world and wishes them swift and quick victory, for the triumph of Iranian nation in this struggle is also that of the mankind for fulfilling its aspiration to peace, prosperity, civilization and light", the Shahbanoo noted. ENDS 27 703

http://www.iran-press-service.com/
6 posted on 07/28/2003 12:26:12 AM PDT by DoctorZIn (IranAzad... Until they are free, we shall all be Iranians!)
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To: Cacophonous
...Does a change in regime require a change in the form of government. I mean this is a more general sense, not just in relation to Iran. I think the best thing that could happen to Iran is to restore the Pahlevi's, and not to try to force "democracy" on them. ...

In my opinion, a regime change does not always require a change in the form of government. In the case of Iran, it does. Iran is not a true democracy. But I don't think the US administration is trying to force democracy on the Iranian people.

Rather, the people of Iran are trying to force it on their so-called "leaders." If the people of Iran choose some kind on monarchy, that is a decision for the Iranian people to decide.
7 posted on 07/28/2003 12:36:03 AM PDT by DoctorZIn (IranAzad... Until they are free, we shall all be Iranians!)
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To: DoctorZIn; Cacophonous; nuconvert; Valin; piasa; yonif; rontorr
Iran's IAEA rep. advises Tehran to sign up to inspections protocol

TEHRAN (AFP) - Iran's representative at the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) advised his government to agree to no-notice inspections of its nuclear facilities and said he hoped the additional protocol permitting them will be signed by September.

Ali Akbar Salehi is the first Iranian official to openly endorse the idea of Iran signing the additional protocol to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), although the decision is not in his hands.

The treaty was "not conceived just for Iran or Third World countries and sooner or later all IAEA member states will have to sign up," Salehi told the government daily Iran on Sunday.

"I hope that we can overcome the problem by the next IAEA board of governors meeting in September through the measures that top officials are going to take in the coming month," Salehi said, adding that he felt "confident".

Salehi rejected concerns among hardliners in Iran that the additional protocol would allow IAEA inspectors to meddle in Iranian internal affairs and said it would ease international pressure on the Islamic regime.

"We are currently in a situation in which the protocol can help us settle some problems and close the political file opened on our nuclear activities," he said in reference to US-led criticism.

Earlier this month, European Union (news - web sites) foreign ministers expressed "increasing concern" over Iran's nuclear programme and demanded Iran's unconditional acceptance of the additional NPT protocol.

Salehi warned there was a real danger the IAEA might refer Iran's case to the UN Security Council, as threatened by the regime's arch-enemy, the United States.

"I hope that our leaders can sort things out before the next board of governors' meeting so that we don't see the same international consensus against Iran that there was at the last one" in June, he said.

"The pressures on Iran's mission are growing by the day because the West has formed a practically united front among the 35 members of the board."

Salehi's remarks were challenged Sunday by Mohammad Reza Bahonar, a senior conservative figure and member of the Expediency Council arbitration body, who said that countries which had signed the additional protocol "regretted it, because of the danger it poses to national security".

"We will never sign anything that goes against our independence," Bahonar wrote in the Ressalat daily. He did not rule out Iran quitting the NPT altogether if pressures continued.

An IAEA team is expected in Tehran in the coming days to brief officials on the NTP's additional protocol, a visit which Foreign Minister Kamal Kharazi said signaled that Iran was studying the issue of signing it.

Kharazi added there were "ambiguities" in the protocol that needed clarification.

On the prospect that Washington would seek to bring concerns about Iran's nuclear program to the Security Council, which could then decide on whether to impose sanctions, President Mohammed Khatami said Wednesday that the decisive factor would be "national interests, whatever the risk".

The EU, which is negotiating a key trade pact with Iran, said it would review its cooperation with Tehran in September, when the IAEA will deliver its latest report on Iran at the next IAEA board of governors meeting.

http://www.hipakistan.com/en/detail.php?newsId=en34008&F_catID=&f_type=source
8 posted on 07/28/2003 12:51:41 AM PDT by F14 Pilot (If God brings you to it, He will bring you through it.)
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Comment #9 Removed by Moderator

To: seamole; DoctorZIn; nuconvert; dixiechick2000
Jul. 27, 2003. 01:00 AM

Kazemi a martyr to democracy


REZA BARAHENI
SPECIAL TO THE STAR

The great Arab historian Ibn-Khaldun, in his classical book, The Introduction, addressing the psychology of tyrants, discloses their burning preoccupation: "How am I going to die?"

The question is asked of a tyrant's victim when the man is about to be beheaded. Whatever the victim says at the moment his head is being severed will be the fate of the tyrant.

We don't know what Zahra Kazemi, the Iranian-born Canadian photojournalist, told her killer before she lay comatose at his feet and finally died, but we know for sure how this tyrant and all other tyrants will die: The soft edge of democracy will show them to their graves.

Ahmad Miralaie, Ghaffar Hosseini, Mohammad Mokhtari and Mohammad Ja'far Pouyandeh were all murdered by the serial killers of the right-wing faction of the Islamic Republic of Iran. They were all my friends.

PEN and other human-rights organizations know of them.

Their killers were pardoned by Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran's Supreme Spiritual Leader. Hardly anyone in the media knows anything about the life and death of these outstanding writers and translators.

Most prominent Iranian journalists have been in and out of prison during the last 10 years.

The main question has been: "Who ordered the killing of Iranian intellectuals?"

The person who took his orders from the right-wing clergy and instructed the serial killers to murder these writers reportedly "committed suicide" by swallowing poisonous traditional hair remover. He was not a mullah.

Saeed Mortazavi, the public prosecutor in Tehran, is not a mullah, either. He took his orders from above and delivered them to the serial killers who murdered Zahra Kazemi.

Mortazavi, who had wanted to come to Canada to study law, may be on death row himself without knowing it. The destiny of another Saeed — Saeed Emami, the man who led my friends to their deaths but fell to those who later made him a scapegoat — should be before his eyes.

No one in Iran thinks of Mortazavi as a walking man.

To be Iranian and to get killed in Iran is not enough to wake up the world. The case of the serial killings of writers and intellectuals was simply swept under the carpet.

But the case of Zahra Kazemi will not die. Her name will go down in Iranian history as Iran's bridge to democracy. Her death has symbolic value.

She went to the horrendous Evin prison — the place that echoes with the death-rattle of thousands of Iranian youth from 1981-82 and 1988 — and saw the faces of those waiting to meet their loved ones behind the walls, and she took photos.

Those photos were destroyed, and yet her own smiling, painful face is everywhere in the world now, because her heroic death has made her the most eloquent symbol of the tyranny Iranians have been suffering for so many years.

To kill a Canadian photojournalist, to kill a Canadian woman in the most horrendous prison in all Iran, to announce that she was killed and not to deliver the body to the Canadian authorities, betrays the innocence with which people bragged about Canada-Iran relations.

Foreign Affairs Minister Bill Graham has taken the right action, and similar actions should follow.

As a photojournalist, Kazemi was a provider of testimony in her life. She is a democratic catalyst in her death.

Let us try to understand the version of democracy Iranians want.

Is it a Western democracy? If so, what phase of Western democracy? Which country's? Is it possible to have any of these democracies in Iran?

The Shah of Iran had wanted to take Iranians to the "gates of the great civilization." A few years before he was ousted in the 1979 revolution, he stood in Persepolis in a mock-heroic, clownish drama, addressing himself to the dead image of Cyrus, ancient king of Persia. "You sleep in peace, Cyrus," he said, proclaiming that he was leading the nation of Iran to the threshold of the great civilization.

Installed on his throne by the Allies in 1941, ousted by Iranians in 1953, re-installed on the throne by a CIA coup a few days later and armed to the teeth by Americans in the aftermath of the coup — all the way up to his scandalous fall a quarter of a century later, he ruled the country with an iron fist.

He built many prisons, the most horrendous of them being Evin, where Zahra Kazemi, blindfolded for sure, met her killers. The Shah led his people to the threshold of those prisons, and the larger prison of the Islamic Republic of Iran. He was called the Shadow of God.

Although the Iranian Ayatollah Ruhollah (Spirit of God) Khomeini came to power in 1979 on the shoulders of Iranian youth led by Iranian intellectuals for the cause of democracy, he actually wanted to take Iran back to the early days of Islam by declaring himself successor to the ulul amr, those who wielded power by the authority of God.

In a few months, he said: "Beshkanid in ghalamha ra!" (Break up these pens!")

But neither the backward movement toward Islamic roots nor the crackdown on the intellectuals, with millions forced into exile over the last 24 years, has been able to put into effect Khomeini's words.

Although his charisma holds sway in the Islamic world, and even in certain minor sections of the Iranian society, his attempts to Islamicize Iran failed miserably.

By Islamic standards, Iran is perhaps the most corrupted society in the world: Prostitution is in the open, addiction to drugs is a normal matter, financial corruption of those on the higher echelons of the state is 10 times worse than in the Shah's time and state terrorism is unprecedented in the history of the country.

Khomeini's successor, who was among the enlightened clergy before the revolution, has turned out to be more dictatorial than any ruler in Iran's recent history.

What Khamenei wants is more authority. He is leading Iran toward a bloody revolution.

What the people want is democracy. And a particular type of democracy.

The closure of the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war when Khomeini was still alive, his death in the aftermath of the war and the fall of the Soviet Union, Iran's powerful and influential neighbour to the north, led to a new appraisal of the situation — first by the Writers Association of Iran and later by journalists on the other side of the table: young, semi-secular and semi-religious intellectuals who went on to become followers of President Mohammed Khatami before being disillusioned by the lethargy dominating his character and cabinet.

In the aftermath of the serial killings, some committed during the presidency of Hashemi Rafsanjani but most during Khatami's presidency — and with the suppression of newspapers in the business of exposing the mechanism that had led to the serial killings — university students joined the ranks of those struggling for democracy.

Minority groups, such as the Nationalist Frontists, the Freedom Movement, followers of philosopher Abdolkarim Soroush (a party to Khomeini's purge of university professors and students in the '80s who later turned against the divine authority of the clergy) and others are now trying their hands at opposing the rule of the clergy with some lukewarm advocacy of democracy.

But the major fighters against the system are the youth, the journalists, the writers, the women and the oppressed nationalities who insist that the destiny of Iranian democracy will be decided inside Iran.

They face an opposition led by Khamenei, who has at his disposal the plainclothes thugs, revolutionary guards, parts of the intelligence service, all the judiciary and all the un-elected, parasitical bodies of the regime.

The opposing sides agree on only one thing: Hands off Iran!

What I hear from the people inside Iran is this: It's our experience and we have to solve it ourselves. Any foreign intervention or aggression from any direction, whether from the mightiest military power in the world, the United States, or by neighbours who are even more fragile than the present Iran, will result in chaos, bloodshed and total anarchy.

This specific experience of democracy, a much-needed element in the historical development of Iran, is the burden, anguish and hope of Iranians in liberating themselves from the nightmares of their past and present.

Do whatever you can to secure the release of political prisoners. Try to get Zahra Kazemi exhumed and brought back to Canada.

Do whatever is in your power to expose violations of the rights of Iranian women, oppressed nationalities, intellectuals and journalists.

But beware. Iranians never forgave America for the 1953 coup. And today, both sides will fight side by side against any foreign aggressor.

*Writer Reza Baraheni is a former president of PEN Canada.

http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_Type1&c=Article&cid=1059257408082&call_pageid=968332188854&col=968350060724
10 posted on 07/28/2003 1:08:29 AM PDT by F14 Pilot (If God brings you to it, He will bring you through it.)
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To: DoctorZIn
Your right. Who would ever question your posts?
11 posted on 07/28/2003 1:43:09 AM PDT by Burkeman1 (If you see ten troubles comin down the road, Nine will run into the ditch before they reach you.)
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To: nuconvert; Texas_Dawg; McGavin999; Eala; freedom44; happygrl; risk; ewing; norton; piasa; Valin; ...
Is Iran a major threat?

Gulf News Research Centre | By Dr Marwan Asmar | 28-07-2003


Many people in the Middle East wonder about the fuss over Iran's nuclear programme, which is for peaceful purposes, when it is known Israel is a major nuclear power. As party to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, NPT, Iran signed in 1968 when the NPT came into existence, Iran has repeatedly stated said it is compelled to develop a nuclear programme for peaceful purposes only.

It is Israel that introduced nuclear weapons into the Middle East. As early as 1948, it began scientific research with the help of France to acquire a nuclear capability. With a suggested capability of between 200 and 400 thermonuclear and nuclear weapons, Israel today stands as one of the leading nuclear powers in terms of an offensive military arsenal.

Israel has always been highly secretive about its nuclear weapons. In fact, the first to blow the whistle on Israel's nuclear industry was Mordechi Vannu who was subsequently abducted from Rome by Mossad agents, illegally brought back to Israel and jailed in 1987 for 17 years for revealing pictures of the Dimona reactor in Israel, and remains there today.

However, Israel's nuclear weapons have always been an open secret. This ambiguity stands as the essence of Israel's nuclear policy. Israeli officials are bound not to reveal or acknowledge anything about its nuclear activity, even if they and the world know otherwise.

Indeed, a report by the eminent Federation of American Scientists suggested in 2001 that Israel had enough plutonium for 200 nuclear weapons. The report stated the number was based on new satellite photographs.

Israel's nuclear programme started in 1965 when the Dimona reactor became fully operational. While figures vary from one study to another, a detailed report by Warner D. Farr of the U.S. army, documents the history of Israel's nuclear bomb-making. He reports that by 1967, Israel had at least two bombs and certainly could have had more.

Avner Cohen, an Israeli writer and expert on the Israeli nuclear bomb who has written a book on the subject and now lives in the U.S., also suggests Israel had a "deliverable nuclear capability in the 1967 war". In an appendix at the end of his report, Farr provides a chronology of dates suggesting the upward swing of Israel's nuclear arsenal.

Based on documentary evidence, he says in 1976, Israel had between 10 and 20 nuclear weapons, increasing to 200 bombs in 1980. A lesser figure of 100 was suggested in 1985 and a number of 200 was put out in 1992. However, in 1997, it was suggested Israel had 400 deliverable thermonuclear and nuclear weapons.

Israeli policy-makers say the nuclear bomb was a matter of survival for Israel, being encircled by what it perceives as hostile Arab states. Such a view was held even in the era of the peace process in the 1990s and more so today.

However, many Arab states reject this and have repeatedly called for a check on the arms race in the Middle East as a way to prevent proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.

Israel appears to see any move on the nuclear front, even if it's for peaceful means such as generating electricity, as a threat to its security and had previously gone to great lengths to maintain itself as the sole power in the region with a nuclear capability. Its bombing of the Osiraq reactor in Iraq in 1981 suggested that it is ready to maintain a nuclear monopoly through the use of force.

And what is being played out today in international circles by Israeli politicians shows their offensive posture could be happen again against Iran if Tehran does not accept more on-the-spot inspections by the International Atomic Energy Agency.

This is a view demanded by the U.S., Europe and Israel which openly says Iran is using the NPT to develop its own nuclear weapons.

This is because, under NPT rules, nuclear material can be imported into the country for peaceful purposes like electricity generation. However, the U.S. is pressing Iran to sign an additional protocol or addendum to the NPT which will allow the IAEA to make unnannouced, on-the-spot inspections, which are deemed to be more searching than the regular inspections.

So far, Iran has refused, deeming the present agreement adequate, thus causing them additional pressure from the West and Israel.

http://www.gulf-news.com/Articles/Opinion.asp?ArticleID=93711
12 posted on 07/28/2003 3:55:22 AM PDT by F14 Pilot (If God brings you to it, He will bring you through it.)
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To: Burkeman1; Texas_Dawg; McGavin999; Eala; freedom44; happygrl; risk; ewing; norton; piasa; ...
Iran urges close cooperation with Syrian to face US unilateralism

Tehran, July 27, IRNA -- Head of National Security and Foreign Policy
Commission at Majlis Mohsen Mirdamadi here on Sunday called for closer
cooperation and consultation between Tehran and Damascus in the light
of US unilateralism and domination of the extremists in the country's
ruling elite.
Mirdamadi told Syrian Ambassador to Tehran Hamed Hassan that
sincere ties between Iranian and Syrian nations are sign of goodwill
and mutual trust, giving a strong impetus to further promotion of ties
between the two states.
He said insecurity and plight in Iraq stem from denial of Iraqis'
rights and continued occupation of the country by the occupiers.
He hoped for an election and installation of a democratic
government in Iraq, giving way to restoration of peace and stability
in Iraq.
He said his commission is ready for cooperation with its match at
Syrian parliament.
Hassan for his part said 'irrational' policies of certain big
powers in occupying and threatening other countries are not logically,
legally and politically justified under present sensitive and highly
complicated conditions in the region and the world.
He called for stronger cooperation among states of the region,
specially between Iran and Syria.

http://www.irna.ir/en/tnews/030728192915.etn07.shtml

* Oh God Almighty, Another Terrorist Attack!????
13 posted on 07/28/2003 4:03:30 AM PDT by F14 Pilot (If God brings you to it, He will bring you through it.)
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To: DoctorZIn; F14 Pilot
Thanks for the pings
14 posted on 07/28/2003 4:17:54 AM PDT by firewalk
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To: BeforeISleep; DoctorZIn; nuconvert; dixiechick2000; seamole; freedom44; Valin; RaceBannon; ...
Christian Science Monitor Tue Jul 22 2003

The nonviolent script for Iran

By Peter Ackerman and Jack DuVall


WASHINGTON - Renewed student-led protests in Tehran should expedite the debate in Washington about Iran. Two questions are being asked: Can protests produce regime change, and what kind of external support would help?

The history of civilian-based movements, like the one now gestating in Iran, shows that agitation in the streets is not enough to topple a government. If US assistance merely adds fuel to the existing fire, and internal opposition is not based on weakening the real sources of the regime's power, neither will work.

The Filipinos' power revolution, the coalition that ousted Pinochet in Chile, South Africa's anti-apartheid movement, and civilian movements that felled communist regimes in Poland and Eastern Europe all had common strategic features. They were deliberately nonviolent, proudly indigenous, unified on the basis of practical goals, and dispersed across the map and class lines of the country - and they co-opted the military.

Successful civilian-based struggle makes a country ungovernable through strikes, boycotts, civil disobedience, and other nonviolent tactics - in addition to mass protests - crumbling a government's pillars of support. This is possible in Iran. Three times in the past four years, the regime's outrageous actions have provoked unrest. A majority of the parliament has threatened to walk out. A former Iranian chief justice says that many Revolutionary Guards favor change, and some have even protected students against attacks by pro-regime vigilantes.

Events in Iran are reminiscent of Serbia just before a student-sparked movement removed Slobodan Milosevic. His regime had alienated not only students but most of the middle class, which the dismal economy had shattered. The political class was also split, with many tired of the dictator. Seeing their opportunity, the opposition moved to divide the regime from its sources of power.

First, they subordinated lesser objectives to the paramount goal of ousting Mr. Milosevic. In Iran, the anti-regime movement should demand specific reforms, such as ending the clerics' veto on parliamentary laws and appointments, which would neutralize the mullahs' power.

Second, the Serbs ignored the temptation of going for broke with premature demonstrations in the capital and instead organized in neighborhoods and towns around the country, giving ordinary people low-risk ways to join in. Iranians should do the same.

Third, the Serbian police and military were persuaded that they weren't seen as the enemy - that their support was welcome. To do that, the opposition had to maintain strict nonviolent discipline.

Nothing jeopardizes a movement more than mixing violent with nonviolent tactics. Street-fighting will not help Iranian protesters enlarge their ranks. Attacking the military will not persuade them to defect - they will shoot back, shifting the contest to terms favoring the regime.

When a million Serbs marched on Belgrade in October 2000, Milosevic ordered crowds dispersed, with bullets if necessary. But no shots were fired because soldiers saw that he could no longer control the people. In days he was out.

President Bush has rightly endorsed the desire for real democracy espoused by most Iranians. Other world leaders should follow his example. But the Bush administration should resist proposals to foment a general upheaval that could turn violent, because that would only justify more repression.

While outside factors have never been decisive in making a regime implode, well-focused aid for a nonviolent campaign reinforces a sound, homegrown strategy.

Serbian dissidents were given working capital - money for supplies, communications, and, most important, training in strategic nonviolent struggle. Iranians have the resources but not the know-how - which should not come from the CIA or Defense Department, but rather from pro-democracy programs throughout the West.

Cheerleading from Washington is not a policy. It makes Iranian protesters appear to be doing America's bidding, and covert support for violent action would undercut their legitimacy. What's needed is a more strategic resistance by the Iranian opposition, unified behind clear political goals, backed by broader civilian participation, using tactics that divide the clerics and their military defenders. The Iranian people have the drive, the intelligence, and the capability to make such a strategy work - and that is what the world's democracies should assist.


• Peter Ackerman is executive producer of the Peabody award-winning documentary, 'Bringing Down a Dictator' and chairman of the board of overseers of the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy. Jack DuVall is coauthor of 'A Force More Powerful: A Century of Nonviolent Conflict' and director of the International Center on Nonviolent Conflict.

http://www.rezapahlavi.org/index.htm
15 posted on 07/28/2003 4:51:18 AM PDT by F14 Pilot (If God brings you to it, He will bring you through it.)
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To: F14 Pilot
Is this question ever answered in this aritcle?

"What the people want is democracy. And a particular type of democracy."

"Kazemi a martyr to democracy"
And is this a joke?
16 posted on 07/28/2003 5:23:11 AM PDT by nuconvert
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To: DoctorZIn
"...following the arrest of Ayatollah Taheri's Office manager and the increasing miscontentment among the local military forces and the residents"

Was there a post on this arrest?
17 posted on 07/28/2003 6:11:32 AM PDT by nuconvert
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To: nuconvert; DoctorZIn; dixiechick2000
RE#10:
I have to say, I wanted to express all views about Iran.
The writer is an Iranian exiled writer and they are more leftist.
18 posted on 07/28/2003 6:25:30 AM PDT by F14 Pilot (If God brings you to it, He will bring you through it.)
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To: DoctorZIn
Thanks for the update, Dr.Z.

I hope Dr. Nourizadeh will start naming names soon.
19 posted on 07/28/2003 7:40:48 AM PDT by dixiechick2000 ("The Prez is as focused as a doberman on a hambone!"---Dennis Miller)
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To: DoctorZIn
RIP Mohammad Reza Shah

20 posted on 07/28/2003 7:44:02 AM PDT by dixiechick2000 ("The Prez is as focused as a doberman on a hambone!"---Dennis Miller)
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