[DoctorZIn]

To find all the links to all 31 threads since the protests started, go to:

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[risk]

bump! When do we get streaming video of your wife telling Iranian women about how much freedom our democracy offers women, and how they can be beautiful and feminine and assertive all at the same time?

[GulliverSwift]

Freedom bump. Here's hoping Iran can shake off the shackles of Islamic governance.

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

Check out this story:

IRAN: U.S. satellite feeds to Iran jammed

Bush Doctrine Unfolds :

To find all articles tagged or indexed using Bush Doctrine Unfold , click below:
	click here >>>	Bush Doctrine Unfold	<<< click here
(To view all FR Bump Lists, click here)

[fly_so_free]

This (regime change) is not going to be easy-Prayers for them-BUMP

[DoctorZIn]

Here is an excellent article on our friend Banafsheh as it appeared, as I understand, in the Washington Post....

Profile: One woman's work for Iran

By Eli J. Lake
UPI State Department Correspondent

WASHINGTON, July 8 (UPI) -- On the first Thanksgiving after Sept. 11, 2001, Siamak Pourzand was abducted for the fourth time in 22 years by Iran's internal security services on charges that he was having an affair with the receptionist of the cultural center he was running.

While he was in prison, the septuagenarian film critic and journalist was kept in a roughly 6-by-6-foot cell with no windows. His captors played recordings of imams reading from the Koran at all hours, he was shocked repeatedly with electrical prods, and his guards would occasionally urinate in his mouth, according to his daughter. A year later he was released, but only after appearing several pounds lighter on a national television show called "Second Identity," where he was forced to admit to he had ties with exiled monarchists.

"It is really tough to see a parent in that state," Banafsheh Zand-Bonazzi said, her voice trembling, fighting back tears. Zand-Bonazzi lives in New York and has not been in Iran for over 20 years. But the experience of fighting for her father's release from prison has reconnected her with her native land. "I realized that in order to fight for my father, I had to fight for my country."

Now she and a handful of other Iranian are working overtime to provide support for the burgeoning democracy movement there. Since the beginning of last month, Zand-Bonazzi has spent her evenings on the phone with contacts in Iran checking on the progress of the intermittent demonstrations in the country in the lead up to a general strike planned for Wednesday on the fourth anniversary of student protests. "You should see my phone bill," she says.

A curator by trade, Zand-Bonazzi is part of a network of Iranian Americans trying to raise funds for individuals that have taken their case to the Iranian diaspora. This network lobbies governments to withdraw support for the clerical regime in Tehran and Qom, often through the media.

"This is to support their demonstrations and their movement," Zand-Bonazzi said.

Zand-Bonazzi's work could prove a critical link between Washington and Tehran as the National Security Council continues to debate the prudence of the United States providing more direct support to the indigenous democrats fighting the mullahs. Since November, an ambitious policy directive on Iran has been deadlocked in debate as the State Department and members of the NSC staff have attempted to broach a dialogue with the Iranian regime.

The stakes are high. The same day that the activists in the country are planning a general strike, the International Atomic Energy Agency's Director General Mohammed ElBaradei is expected to arrive in Tehran to oversee another round of inspections of the country's nuclear-energy facilities. Last month, his agency issued a report that found numerous questions unanswered regarding whether certain facilities were cover for a weapons program.

Meanwhile, the demonstrators appear to be getting more restless. Zand-Bonazzi and others have developed a network of between 300 and 400 individuals on the ground in Iran who can distribute funds raised in the West.

"Over the last few years, a couple of hundred thousand dollars has been raised and sent to different leaders," she said. When asked for their names she said, "We'd rather have leaders who are alive and unknown, then famous and dead."

The choice for getting money to activists on the ground is often through simple wire transfers. Unlike Iraq, where the state kept close tabs on money wired from the West, it is fairly easy to get amounts under a $1,000 to individuals without the government knowing about it in Iran. "We wire it to somebody who then distributes it. We have a few people who do this," she said.

But sometimes this process is corrupted. She says there have been instances of individuals who were out for personal gain pocketing cash that was meant for students. Zand-Bonazzi also talks ominously about agents of the Islamic Republic working in other Iranian-American organizations. "We have identified people working for the mullahs. We know who they are."

But her work has not ended there. She has distributed pictures from Iran of recent demonstrations and a room at one university that has started a hunger strike. In addition, Zand-Bonazzi has worked closely with Sen. Brownback, R-Kan., and his staff for the passage of the Iran Democracy Act, a bill that would create a $50 million fund largely for broadcasts from California into Iran through satellite television and radio stations.

Within the Iranian-American community, the topic of direct U.S. funding for internal dissident groups is controversial. Assad Homayoun, a former diplomat under the shah who runs the Azadegan Foundation said in an interview, "We should get moral support and political support of the United States, but not money. Any national leader should depend on Iranian money."

Banafsheh Zand-Bonazzi is trying her best to see to it that Iran's next leaders will get plenty of it today.

[Texas_Dawg]

We have heard of a demonstration yesterday with about 100,000 Iranians in the Pars region of the city of Tehran.

Khashayar,

What are the largest demonstrations you have seen or heard of in Tehran since yesterday?

[Constantine XIII]

BUMP

[Teacher317]

Strange that there are no stories of liberals flying out to the Middle East to protect the Iranian people from the weapons and bloodlust of bloodthirsty government. Human shields for Iraq, but not for Iran? Maybe this revolt is all about oil.

[thoughtomator]

Bumping my support of FREEDOM FOR THE PEOPLE OF IRAN!

(Can I say Persia? It sounds so much better. I had a Persian friend in college, who left me with lasting respect for the strength and independence of the Persian people. From whence did the name 'Iran' come from, anyway?)

[DoctorZIn]

Ayatollah Lugar

NY Sun Editorial
7.10.2003

Yesterday in the streets of Iran, protesters against the tyrannical, terrorist theocracy braved attacks from water cannon and machetes. They were speaking up for freedom and democracy at extraordinary personal risk.

Naturally, some Americans wanted to express support for the protesters, hoping to nurse freedom in Iran. This is consistent with American values, and it also would help our national security by removing a terrorist-sponsoring regime with nuclear ambitions.

Among those Americans on the side of freedom is Senator Brownback, who, with the bipartisan support of Senators Kyl, Schumer,Inouye and others,introduced the Iran Democracy Act. That bill stated clearly,“There is currently not a democratic government in Iran. Instead, Iran is an ideological dictatorship presided over by an unelected Supreme Leader with limitless veto power, an unelected Expediency Council, and Council of Guardians capable of eviscerating any reforms,and a President elected only after the Council disqualified 234 other candidates for being too liberal, reformist, or secular.” That is a crucial point, because the American deputy secretary of State, Richard Armitage, has been going around saying publicly and incorrectly that “Iran is a democracy.”

The Iran Democracy Act went on to assert it is the policy of America to “support an internationally-monitored referendum in Iran by which the Iranian people can peacefully change the system of government in Iran.” And it included millions of dollars in funding to help spread the message of freedom in Iran.

Unfortunately, the Iran Democracy Act ran into opposition from the Republican chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Richard Lugar, and the top Democrat on the committee, Joseph Biden. Mr. Brownback, desperate to show some signal of support to the brave Iranian forces of freedom, compromised, proposing a trimmed-down amendment to the State Department authorization bill. That proposed amendment said “It is the policy of the United States that currently there is not a democratic government in Iran, the United States supports transparent, full democracy in Iran, and the United States supports the holding of an internationally monitored referendum in Iran by which the Iranian people can peacefully change the system of government in Iran.”

Yet even that proposal was too much for Ayatollahs Lugar and Biden. In the end, what was added to the Senate bill neither clearly stated that Iran is undemocratic nor called for an internationally monitored referendum. It merely stated that the United States supports transparent, full democracy in Iran and the rights of the Iranian people to choose their own system of government, and that the United States condemns the human rights abuses of Iranians expressing political dissent inside Iran.

That’s better than nothing. And perhaps there’s some poetic justice that, as America seeks to spread freedom and democracy to Iran, it is hampered by the natural give-and-take inherent in our own democratic legislative process. We certainly don’t mean to question the patriotism of Messrs. Biden or Lugar or to suggest that either one is rooting for the Axis of Evil nation. Still, Mr. Biden and Mr. Lugar might ponder what message they are sending to those protesters risking their lives for freedom in the streets of Iran. If all those protesters can expect from America is a watered down and desultory message of support, with no money behind it, it just increases the likelihood that the theocracy’s reign will be prolonged, and that one day soon, Americans, our allies, and Iran’s citizens will be facing off against a terrorist-led Iranian regime that no longer is seeking atomic weapons, but that has them.

http://daily.nysun.com/Daily/skins/NYSun/navigator.asp?BP=OK&GZ=T&AW=1057851719671

[the Real fifi]

EDMONTON - It's a scene straight out of a spy novel, complete with the passing of secret plans, covert photographs, high-tech imaging and a mysterious country in the Middle East.

Except the secrets were not used to bring down a government but instead to build an industrial plant half a world away, according to a $210-million lawsuit filed by Celanese Canada.

Celanese alleges that six companies conspired to "misappropriate" proprietary technology from its Edmonton vinyl acetate plant to build a similar facility in Iran. It all started when Murray Demolition, hired last August for the decommissioning of Celanese's vinyl acetate plant, allowed other companies access to proprietary technology, despite confidentiality agreements, Celanese alleges in a statement of claim filed in Court of Queen's Bench in Calgary.(more) http://www.canada.com/edmonton/story.asp?id=21AA3EDA-C6A9-4CA3-AE89-C975E6E0B84F

Don't miss the shewering the BBC's coverage of Iran gets today at www.andrewsullivan.com

[truth_seeker]

Question: How many Iranians have died, in this quest for freedom? Answer: Not enough, because they are not yet free.

I am cynical about Iran.

In 1979, after years of so called "friendship" with an Iranian work colleague here in California, he revealed that he supported the hostage holding.

Needless to say, we were angry. He just resigned and went his merry way, with a masters degree at California taxpayer expense.

Since then, I have met Iranians that were Jewish, Christian and Bahai. I knew they were at risk in Iran for not being muslims.

I know that islam is at the root of most terror in the world, and that Iran in 1979 gave those forces a big boost.

Now I am supposed to get very enthusiastic for the country, and her people. Part of me wants to be supportive.

Another part says: "Screw you. Buy your own freedom with your own blood."

The good side of me wins over, and I AM supportive. I truly wish for the mullah-terrorist thug dictatorship to be ended.

However I am not optimistic. I believe the cultures and the religion both, do nothing to support the necessary basics for free people.

I doubt enough will be willing to die. I doubt they will become organized, to be effective beyond street demonstrations.

Is there a leader? A "brave" leader who speaks for the aspirations of these people?

Does the movement have a name, or simply too many names? Is this movement in touch, through back channels, with powerful world forces?

As I say, I support freedom for Iran's people. In fighting for there freedom, they can prove that islam is capable of esteemable behavior.

July 9th has come and gone. What does it represent?

[MHGinTN]

A free Iran is vital to stopping international terrorism and stopping the proliferation of nuclear weapons in the Middle East.

[RaceBannon]

Rally for a Free Iran, July 9, 2003 New York City in front of the UN building

http://community.webshots.com/album/80515932kQqsdb