Iranian Alert -- August 10, 2003 -- LIVE THREAD PING LIST

The Iranian Student Movement Up To The Minute Reports ^ | 8.10.2003 | DoctorZin

[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

[F14 Pilot]

We took enemies as allies, and friends as enemies.
Watch what we do to Pakistan, Saudia, Jordan, and even S. Korea.
But what about Iran, We took them as Enemies, but in fact the Iranian people are more friendly to us than people of pakistan or Saudia.
That is a fact that we have to care about in war against bad parts of the world...

[nuconvert]

"We support the aspirations of those who desire freedom in Iran," the president said,"

As long as the President keeps saying this, and acting toward this goal, I don't care who else is meeting with whom right now.
Sounds like the CIA advise might be worth following in this case. Drop this Ghorbanifar like a hot potatoe.

[DollyCali]

The enemy of my enemy is my friend?

[F14 Pilot]

Good to know that Enemies are ALLIED now!

[Eala]

It seems that the United States has already made strategic plans to deal with regime change in Iran, the way it has done with Saddam Hussain's regime in Iraq.

I think the US would be remiss if it did not have a number of plans, different ways, to "deal with [help bring about?] regime change in Iran." (And they might even include an approach similar to the one for Iraq.) But having them drafted is different from executing them.

Although the article is probably correct in that a replay of Iraq would play out significantly differently in Iran, there seemed a bit of "Baghdad Bob" in this article.

[Eala]

Seperating religion from state is very important in order to establish a true Democracy.

True, but isn't a constitutional democratic republic better than a true democracy?

[DoctorZIn]

...It is good for us to know who enemy or friend is....

Of course.

[Those_Crazy_Liberals]

Hey Doc, could you remove me from the ping list? Thanks.

[DoctorZIn]

...isn't a constitutional democratic republic better than a true democracy? ...

Even though I had my problems with the article you referenced, I think the term "true democracy" does not necessarily mean mob rule as we might assume.

I think the term "true democracy" is used by many in the middle-east to remind the reader that Iran's democracy is not a "real" or "true" democracy. People cannot choose who their candidates are, they must be vetted by unelected mullah's.

I believe many in Iran want a constitutional democracy based on the rule of law.

[Eala]

Thanks for the clarification.

[DoctorZIn]

N. Korea, Iran Paradox to Anti-war Crowd

August 10, 2003
San Antonio Express-News
Jonathan Gurwitz

The "axis of evil" is making a comeback. At least part of it is. President Bush's use of the appellation in his first State of the Union address to describe the commonality of threats to the international community emanating from Iraq, Iran and North Korea earned him widespread scorn.

Perhaps it was the concept of an axis, dismissed because the three countries are allegedly too dissimilar, or the idea of evil, which is evidently passé in the 21st century.

In an interesting development since the war to depose the government of Saddam Hussein, Iran and North Korea have emerged as consensus "true threats" to international security.

Their programs to develop weapons of mass destruction — in contrast to those in Iraq — and cooperation to enhance each other's weapons and ballistic missile technology pose a real danger to the international community.

The idea that Iraq was and is distracting the United States from these "real" threats has become a familiar hobbyhorse of Bush administration critics, especially those who happen to be seeking the Democratic presidential nomination.

The "Iran and North Korea are for real" theory, however, presents a few paradoxes for the detractors of U.S. policy in Iraq.

The faulty, inflated intelligence the Bush administration allegedly used to hype the war in Iraq is the same intelligence that says the crazed mullahs in Iran will shortly be able to mount nuclear warheads on missiles that can threaten U.S. forces and allies throughout the Middle East.

And it's the same intelligence that asserts the North Korean kleptocracy is reprocessing spent nuclear fuel to create nuclear weapons for its own missiles that can hit not only South Korea and Japan, but also the West Coast of the United States.

Proponents of this theory also suggest that if the United States weren't saddled with the responsibility of restoring order in Iraq and rebuilding it, 150,000 U.S. troops would be available for use against — if not an axis of evil — an alliance of two viably offensive nations with nuclear-tipped, ballistic missiles.

Maybe the critics who guffawed at the concept of an axis of evil will admit Bush was, at the very least, two-thirds correct.

More likely, if we ever reach a point where military action against Iran or North Korea becomes necessary, the wonks now talking about the "real" threat from those countries will resort to the same rhetorical strategies used to oppose the termination of Saddam's government.

Democrats who complained that the Bush administration was asleep at the wheel and ignored intelligence warnings of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks simultaneously charge that the president cooked the books on Iraq and hyped the threat from the axis of evil, except where Iran and North Korea are now concerned.

The noted liberal commentator Christopher Hitchens, no fan of Bush, commented on the tortured conspiracy theories used to discredit the liberation of Iraq in a recent column in Slate:

"To believe that the Saddam regime had nothing to hide is to believe that he threw out the U.N. inspectors in 1998 and then said to himself: 'Great. Now I can get on with my dream of unilaterally disarming Iraq!' Who can be such a fool as to believe any such thing? There are enough kind-hearted and soft-headed people around who don't recognize evil even when it is glaring them brazenly in the face."

Hitchens also quotes a recent article in the Washington Post written by Rolf Ekeus, chairman of the United Nations Special Commission on Iraq from 1991 to 1997, now chairman of the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute. On the failure thus far to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, Ekeus wrote:

"Detractors of Bush and Blair have tried to make political capital of the presumed discrepancy between the top-level assurances about Iraq's possession of chemical weapons (and other WMD) and the inability of invading forces to find such stocks. The criticism is a distortion and trivialization of a major threat to international peace and security.

"Researchers, engineers, know-how, precursors, batch production techniques and testing is what constituted Iraq's chemical threat — its chemical weapon. The rather bizarre political focus on the search for rusting drums and pieces of munitions containing low-quality chemicals has tended to distort the important question of WMD in Iraq and exposed the American and British administrations to unjustified criticism."

The philosopher Soren Kirkegaard wrote that "life must be lived forward, but it can only be understood backward." If a military option ever becomes a necessity in dealing with a nuclear-armed Iran or North Korea, then the value of our pre-emptive policy in Iraq may become fully appreciated.

If, on the other hand, the United States is ever unfortunate enough to suffer an attack by weapons of mass destruction, a 9-11 or Pearl Harbor-type assault of monstrous proportions, then history will judge that our leaders failed to act decisively enough to establish a sufficient deterrent to pre-empt such an attack.

http://news.mysanantonio.com/story.cfm?xla=saen&xlb=1235&xlc=1036653&xld=1235

[DoctorZIn]

N. Korea, Iran Paradox to Anti-war Crowd

August 10, 2003
San Antonio Express-News
Jonathan Gurwitz

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/961369/posts?page=31#31

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

[DoctorZIn]

For those on my ping lists.

If you would prefer a single daily ping, please freepmail mail me.

If you prefer to see all the daily breaking new, let me know by freepmail and I will be happy to add you to that list.

Please DO NOT post to the thread these requests.
It clutters up the thread.

Thanks,

DoctorZin

[DoctorZIn]

Court suspends provincial weekly for second time

Qazvin, Aug 9, IRNA --

A press court in this northwestern Iranian city has closed down a provincial weekly for the second time on charges of 'promoting depravity and publishing lies', the court's head said Saturday.

Fereydoun Parvinian told IRNA that the court had banned Nameh-ye Qazvin (Letter of Qazvin) from printing until further notice.

The first court hearing at the presence of press jury will be held soon to probe into the weekly's offenses, he added.

The weekly's head, Ali Shahrouzi, said that Nameh-ye Qazvin had been closed down for the second time only after publishing its second issue since the first ban.

He hoped that 'the court will take steps to lift the suspension'.

A senior official of the Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance criticized the closure, while acknowledging that the publication had breached the law in some way.

"The fact that a certain publication is closed down on the brink of 'Journalists Day' after printing only its second issue ... is not very favorable," Mohammad Hossein Pilevari said.

The official said that his office's talks with the Justice Department and the press court to retract the ruling had led to no breakthrough.

The press court lifted the temporary ban on Nameh-ye Qazvin in January after suspending it on charges of promoting 'depravity' and discrediting clerics.

The weekly had been slapped with paying three-million-rial (375 US dollars) in cash fine. It had remained closed since last August after the Justice Department of Qazvin province found it with printing 'insulting materials and inciting public opinion'.

Shahrouzi had also been accused of 'encouraging the youth to Western depravity in its articles which contradict moral decency' as well as 'spreading lies and distorting historical facts, spoiling reputation of the country's political and religious figures and undermining state organizations'.

In January, the press court closed down another weekly Taban-e Qazvin on libel charges and lifted the ban shortly afterwards.

BH/AH/210
End

http://www.irna.ir/en/tnews/030810173458.etn08.shtml

[DoctorZIn]

EU must press Iran on nukes

Chicago Tribune
Published August 10, 2003

The evidence that Iran is pursuing a nuclear weapons program grows clearer by the day. Experts disagree on details, but the consensus is that it's only a matter of a few years at most before Iran should have that capability, if nothing is done to stop it.

The full and frightening scope of the Iranian effort was detailed in the Los Angeles Times last week. The newspaper found that Iran has a secret, widespread, sophisticated program to buy or develop the technology to build a nuclear weapon.

Allowing Iran to build a bomb cannot be tolerated, as President Bush has said. A country that supports terrorism on a wide scale and brutally represses its people at home cannot be allowed to acquire or build the ultimate weapon. At the same time, however, diplomatic options to persuade Iran to halt its program are not plentiful.

Several weeks ago Mohamed ElBaradei, the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, went to Tehran to push the Iranian government to sign an expanded protocol to the nuclear nonproliferation treaty. That would have allowed much tighter supervision of the Iranian nuclear program, including short-notice inspections at undeclared sites. There have been mixed signals from Iran about its willingness to sign, but so far the mullahs haven't budged.

The IAEA and the Bush administration must keep the pressure on Iran. But it is also time for Europe to move more aggressively to convince Iran to stop its nuclear program.

The EU, as a major trading partner of Iran, has far better relations with Iran and thus more leverage than the U.S. in some ways.

In the 1990s, European countries favored a softer approach towards Tehran, which was intended to foster reform-minded Iranian politicians like President Mohammad Khatami. But there's evidence that Europe is slowly concluding that the strategy isn't working to arrest Iran's nuclear ambitions. Khatami has defended Iran's right to build nuclear reactors, and insists that his country's efforts are focused on civilian application only.

Those assertions are not convincing, because Iranian leaders have hidden their nuclear weapons efforts for more than a decade and have failed to answer a basic question. Why, in a country rich with oil and natural gas, does Iran need nuclear power?

Partly in response to Iran's stonewalling on its nuclear arms programs, the European Union recently suspended negotiations on a new trade agreement with Iran. The EU is now telling Iran that more favorable trade terms with its biggest trading partner depend on Iran's unconditional signing of the IAEA's additional protocol. Furthermore, the EU agreed in June on a new foreign policy strategy on weapons of mass destruction that didn't rule out "coercive measures," including military action, to prevent states from developing them.

The EU's change of strategy is wise and welcome. But it must now back its words with action.

Several weeks ago, the IAEA scolded Iran for hiding its efforts to build nuclear facilities and import nuclear materials that could be used to construct an atomic weapon. Next month, the IAEA is expected to issue a second report on Iran's nuclear program. It could then refer the issue to the UN Security Council, which could impose trade sanctions or other punishments. It is crucial that the EU, along with the U.S. and the UN, present a united front against Iran's nuclear weapons programs. Such a front has the best chance of swaying the mullahs, especially if it is led by some of their most important trading partners--France, Germany and Italy.

The EU also should help the United States convince Russia to slow down, if not stop, its help in building a nuclear reactor at Bushehr--due to be operational by next year--unless the Iranians agree to stringent new controls.

The world must show Iran how much it risks--in economic sanctions and possible military action--if it continues in its headlong quest for nuclear weapons.

Copyright © 2003, Chicago Tribune

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/chi-0308100317aug10,1,5674932.story?coll=chi-newsopinion-hed

[F14 Pilot]

Iran welcomes Ivanov's proposal

Tehran, Aug 10 - Iran supports Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov's proposal to hold a working meeting on the Caspian problem between the foreign ministers of the five coastal states, Iran's special representative for Caspian Sea affairs Mehdi Safari said on Saturday.

He said that this meeting will help step up the solution of the existing problems.

The working group, including representatives of all Caspian states, is doing its best to solve the Caspian problem, he added.

Safari stressed that the sides continue their efforts to determine the Caspian Sea legal status.

"Work is going because the document should take into account the interests of all sides," the Iranian diplomat said.

He pointed out that the working group succeeded in preparing a document on the environmental protection of the sea.

The document is expected to be signed in Tehran at the end of October, Safari said.

http://www.iribnews.com/Full_en.asp?news_id=185503&n=33

[F14 Pilot]

Iran Radio Says 110 Have Died Crossing Into Iraq

Sun August 10, 2003 08:54 AM ET

TEHRAN (Reuters) - More than 100 people have been killed as they tried to cross Iran's heavily mined border to visit holy sites in Iraq over the last seven weeks, Iranian state radio reported Sunday.
Government officials have repeatedly urged Iranians in recent weeks not to travel to visit Shi'ite Muslim shrines in Iraq, citing security concerns.

"In the past 45 days about 110 bodies of people who illegally crossed the border to visit Iraqi holy sites have been handed back to Iran," state radio quoted Javad Salari, head of the coroner's office in the western city of Ilam, as saying.

He did not say whether all the dead were killed by mines.

Last week a senior police official was quoted as saying 42,000 people had been turned back from the Iran-Iraq border in the past three months while trying to cross.

He said Iranian pilgrims were at risk from land mines, heat exhaustion and general lack of security in Iraq.

Government officials could not immediately be reached to confirm the high death toll given in the radio report.

Thousands of Iraqi refugees, many of whom fled to Iran during former President Saddam Hussein's brutal repression of the uprising by Iraqi Shi'ites in the wake of the 1991 Gulf War, have also been trying to return home in recent weeks.

The Iran-Iraq border area remains heavily mined due to the 1980-1988 war between the two countries.

http://reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=worldNews&storyID=3251609

[Those_Crazy_Liberals]

Thanks Doc!

[DoctorZIn]

Iran Minister Takes on Conservatives

ALI AKBAR DAREINI
Associated Press
Posted on Sun, Aug. 10, 2003

TEHRAN, Iran - Iran's reformist interior minister ordered the closure of offices set up by hard-liners to screen candidates for next year's legislative elections.

Members of the hard-line Guardian Council have vowed to reject reformist candidates who seek major changes, and having the offices would allow the council to learn the views of would-be candidates.

Abdolvahed Mousavi Lari told provincial governors to shut down the supervisory offices of the Guardian Council throughout the country, the government-run daily Iran reported Sunday. The council has quietly been establishing the candidate review offices in recent months.

"Activities of the supervising offices of the Guardian Council are a violation of the law because they have not been approved by the Supreme Administrative Council nor the Parliament," Lari told the paper a day earlier. "There is no legal basis for such offices."

Interior Ministry spokesman Jahanbakhsh Khanjani, contacted by The Associated Press on Sunday, confirmed the report. The elections are scheduled for February.

The hard-line Guardian Council and the Interior Ministry in the elected administration of the reformist President Mohammad Khatami, responsible for holding the elections, have previously had a tug-of-war over the list of candidates for elections.

Iran has for years been embroiled in a power struggle between elected reformers who support Khatami's program of peaceful democratic reforms and hard-liners who resist them through the powerful but unelected bodies they control, including the Guardian Council.

Since Khatami took office in 1997, hard-liners have used their control of unelected bodies such as the Guardian Council and the judiciary to block all reform legislation, shut down more than 90 liberal publications and detain dozens of pro-reform activists and writers.

http://www.belleville.com/mld/newsdemocrat/6503316.htm

[DoctorZIn]

Iran’s Trump Card

By Azizuddin El-Kaissouni
Staff writer – IslamOnline
10/08/2003

Iran’s recent admission that it is holding members of al-Qaeda seems to have sparked a flurry of diplomatic activity.

The statement, made by the Islamic Republic’s Intelligence Minister Ali Yunesi on July 23 2003, announced that Iran was holding a “fair” number of al-Qaeda operatives that had entered Iran shortly after the fall of the Taliban regime in neighboring Afghanistan.

Mr. Yunesi added that a number of the detainees had since been expelled, while others were extradited to their countries of origin.

Speculation is rife in the media as to the identities of the militants in question, with some suggesting that no less a personage than Dr. Ayman al-Zawahiri, Bin Laden’s chief lieutenant, is in Iranian custody. Other possible names include Sulaiman Abu Ghaith, the organization’s spokesman, Saad Bin Laden, one of Osama’s sons, and Saif al-Adel, the Egyptian born military commander of al-Qaeda, presumed to have taken command of operations following the death of Egyptian Mohammed Atef in a US airstrike during the Afghan leg of the war on terror.

Some have noted, however, that the presence of a large number of high-level al-Qaeda members in Iran is unlikely, particularly in the case of Dr. al-Zawahiri. Interviewed by phone, Mr. Yasser al-Sirri, head of the London-based Islamic Observation Center, maintains that it is illogical to expect al-Zawhiri to turn up in Iran, given that he had previously been denied entry in 1996, following his departure from Sudan.

Additionally, ideological clashes are almost inevitable, owing to the enmity often exhibited between Iran’s dominant Shi’ism and the Salafi creed adhered to by al-Qaeda. Al-Sirri confirms that this has, in the past, been a source of tension between the regime and a few Egyptian militants whose presence had been somewhat tolerated.

Other members of al-Qaeda had indeed sought to settle in Iran with their families on a personal basis, following the defeat of the Taliban in Afghanistan, with some packing up and leaving soon thereafter, after having had it made clear to them that their presence was unwelcome in Iran, according to al-Sirri.

Iran, meanwhile, has maintained a studious silence as to the names and nationalities of its prisoners, choosing merely to state that it has in its custody “important and less important” members of the al-Qaeda organization, and that, for “security reasons,” it could not yet announce their identities, and would wait until files have been completed on the prisoners to decide their fates.

The Iranian admission signaled a reversal of a policy of ambiguity on the presence of al-Qaeda in Iran, and surprised many analysts for breaking so definitively with the Islamic Republic’s earlier statements.

Some observers attributed the reversal to Iran’s internal upheavals, coupled with increasing pressures being piled on by the United States.

“Iran is undergoing a crisis,” said Monstasser al-Zayat, an Egyptian lawyer and activist and erstwhile acquaintance of Dr. al-Zawahiri, in a phone interview. “It is undergoing a violent internal struggle between the conservatives and the reformists.” As such, Iran did not hasten to reveal the diplomatically embarrassing presence of the al-Qaeda militants on its soil, which might have focused attention on Iran’s relative inaction in dealing with them, or at the very least, the inordinate delay in confirming their presence to the international community and taking steps to apprehend them.

Al-Zayat holds that the revelation was forced upon Iran by governments seeking to pressure and embarrass the regime politically – an apparent reference to the US, which has long maintained that Iran was harboring terrorists. Al-Zayat adds that the de facto situation imposed on Iran forced it to pause and calculate potential benefits to the scenario.

While the New York Times reported on August 2nd that Iran was allegedly seeking to exchange al-Qaeda militants for members of Mujahedi Khalq, or the People’s Mujahedeen, the outlawed militant Iranian organization that is waging a low intensity guerrilla war against the regime, Iran denied seeking such a trade – a claim that makes sense, according al-Zayat. “Mujahedi Khalq were broken in Iraq with the downfall of the Iraqi Baa’th regime.” This coupled with the recent crackdown on the organization in France means that it has ceased to be a significant threat to Iran.

While Iran has ruled out prospects of a trade-off with the US, some observers suspect that al-Qaeda members might be handed over to the US through a third country, a view held by al-Sirri.

The al-Qaeda detainees face expulsion, extradition to country of origin, or prosecution in Iran, depending on a variety of factors, including but not limited to the circumstances surrounding their presence in the Islamic Republic, and whether or not extradition treaties exist between Iran and their countries of origin.

Iran has in the past extradited detainees to Saudi Arabia and Yemen.

Iran’s sudden desire to cooperate with the Arab states is also understood to be an effort to seek an improvement in its relations with the neighboring Arab bloc – crucial in the current situation Iran finds itself in, under mounting pressure from the US and under the international spotlight for its alleged nuclear weapons program. Improved relations with the Arab regimes would give Iran a badly needed new strategic depth, thereby complicating US policy geared towards containing the Islamic Republic.

Both al-Zayat and al-Sirri also suggest a more obscure ideological motivation for Iran’s cooperation, in the sense that conservative religious elements within the Iranian regime are pushing for better access to Egypt in particular, in efforts to gain a better foothold for the Jaa’fari School of jurisprudence, for which Egypt is historically significant.

Egypt has been specifically identified by diplomatic sources as one state actively engaged in negotiations with Iran for the extradition of its nationals, along with Kuwait and Saudi Arabia.

Egypt had earlier responded to allegations that it was conducting talks with Iran for the possible extradition of Egyptian detainees with – predictably - strenuous denial. Reuters had in early July quoted an official Egyptian source as categorically denying that any form of discussions pertaining to the extradition of Egyptian nationals in Iran were taking place.

However, London-based Egyptian lawyer and activist Dr. Hani al-Sebai reported to AFP Tuesday August 5 that a delegation from Egypt’s Interior Ministry had been dispatched to Iran to identify the prisoners, as a necessary step preceding negotiations for their return.

Such cooperation is to Iran’s benefit, in that al-Qaeda members are notoriously difficult to identify, owing, among other factors, to their being trained in counter-interrogation techniques. As such, al-Zayat says, Iran needs some sort of access to Arab security apparatuses to allow it to identify the detainees - and consequently assess their relative worth as bargaining chips, no doubt.

In addition, such a step would not be unprecedented in Egyptian-Iranian relations, as “Iran has already extradited eight Egyptians back to Egypt in 2002,” according to al-Sirri.

Egypt’s history in this respect is a mixed bag. While it generally seeks the extradition of its nationals complicit in terror, it was generally unsuccessful in the past – until 1998. The US embassy bombings in Tanzania and Kenya spurred the US into backing Egypt’s extradition requests, according to al-Sirri. Subsequent to those bombings, Egypt was able to secure the extradition of its nationals from a number of countries, perhaps most notably Albania and Azerbaijan. Al-Sirri stresses that the extraditions were not so much diplomatic successes for Egypt as they were a reflection of a new, more aggressive US policy in combating terrorism, as US intelligence services realized they stood to benefit from the interrogations of militants conducted by the Egyptian government.

Indeed, the extradition of the Iranian detainees to their countries of origin may prove to be the most practical solution as far as the US is concerned; a December 26 2002 report published in the Washington Post detailed a US policy of legally questionable “extraordinary renditions,” through which al-Qaeda suspects are handed over to states with a record of brutality to facilitate the interrogation process, free from judicial or other constraints that might hamper questioning in the US. Egypt is one particularly favored state in this regard, having even interrogated Saudi suspects when the US feared the Saudi government might not be forthcoming with potentially embarrassing confessions.

In contrast, Egypt has not sought the extradition of Dr. Omar Abdul Rahman, the spiritual mentor of Egypt’s outlawed Al Jama’a Al Islamiyah, from the US, where he is currently serving a life sentence in Rochester, Colorado’s infamous Supermax facility after being convicted under Civil War-era sedition laws in relation to the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center. This is because the Egyptian government realizes that were Dr. Omar to be returned to Egypt he would most likely face a mere seven-year sentence, subject to appeal. Additionally, it was feared that an attempt to extradite the Sheikh would spur his followers into launching a fresh wave of violence against the state, says al-Sirri.

Any extradition to Egypt will doubtless raise a host of ethical and legal issues, given Egypt’s less-than-spotless human rights record in dealing with suspected militant Islamists – a record already in the spotlight due to the ongoing trial of several British and Egyptian suspected members of the banned Hizbut-Tahrir in Cairo, who have allegedly been severely tortured during interrogation, and who are the subject of several human rights organization reports.

At the time of writing, the Iranian Consulate in Cairo had failed to respond to requests for an interview or a statement.

Azizuddin El-Kaissouni is staff writer for IslamOnline. A graduate of the American University in Cairo, he holds a BA in Political Science with a specialization in International Law. He frequently writes about Muslim affairs around the world. You can reach him at azizuddin@islam-online.net.

http://www.islam-online.net/English/Views/2003/08/article02.shtml