In Washington and Los Angeles, Iranian exiles are stirring the pot by satellite

The Iranian Student Movement Up to the Minute Reports ^ | July 14, 2003 | Bay Fang

[Pan_Yans Wife]

In Washington and Los Angeles, Iranian exiles are stirring the pot by satellite

US News and World Report Nation & World 7/14/03 By Bay Fang Off a street of strip malls in Reseda, Calif., tucked behind an Arby's, a burly Iranian-American talk-show host named Shahram Homayoun sits at a desk, before a camera, and tries to foment revolution. But instead of guests joining him on the peach-wallpapered set that resembles a suburban living room, Homayoun has only a phone and fax machine, and he works like a switchboard operator. As the camera rolls and the phone lights up, he punches a button and answers with a brusque hello in Farsi, "Balle." There is a pause, a click, then a distant voice on the line. The caller is from Tehran Pars, a suburb of Tehran. The hard-line clerics in the government have just erected a tower in his neighborhood, he says, and it's transmitting microwaves to jam the satellite signal: "I don't know what to do." Homayoun listens, thanks the man, then takes another call. "Balle." The caller plunges ahead. "I am an electrical engineer from Tehran," he says, then refers to the first caller, proposing a solution. "Let me tell my friend what to do."

On the other side of the country--the United States, that is--Reza Pahlavi sits in a black SUV, driving in circles around official Washington. He has a speaker in the middle of the dashboard connected to his cellphone, and he, too, is fielding calls from Iran. The son of the ex-shah instructs his driver not to stop, for fear of an assassination attempt by Iran's ruling Islamic regime. So round and round he goes, as an earnest voice emanates from the speaker. "A group of plainclothes thugs on motorbikes . . . came into one dorm and locked the doors from the inside. The girls sleep in full outdoor dress, because they're afraid of being raped," says a Tehran University student. He pauses. "We need help from the world. We're fighting here, and they're beating us with sticks and knives. Sir, what else can we do?" Pahlavi wipes his forehead and says, "Your voice is heard all over the world. Make sure you act as a team, mixing men and women so the women are not alone. And don't worry, I will be with you soon."

Actually, "soon" could be quite a while. Iran, bordered by Iraq on one side and Afghanistan on the other, has been ruled since 1979 by a group of hard-line Islamic clerics. Led by Ayatollah Khomeini, they were swept to power by a popular revolution, forcing the corrupt American-backed shah to flee the country. Today, the rhetoric of revolution is a bit different: People under 30, who make up 70 percent of the population, are demonstrating for democracy and a referendum on the Islamic republic. They call themselves the Burnt Generation and say they are tired of living under repressive rule. They last took to the streets en masse in 1999. That ended abruptly on July 9 of that year, when plainclothes vigilantes broke into university dormitories, beating students with metal bars as they slept and throwing them out of windows. One student was killed. The anniversary of that crackdown arrives this week, and since June 10, students have been taking to the streets in the largest protests in four years. The nervous regime ended classes early at universities, banned public gatherings, and announced the arrests of more than 4,000 protesters. But they didn't count on the demonstrators' powerful new ally: the community of about 1.2 million Iranian exiles in the United States, most of whom fled after 1979 and who remain ardently antiregime. Satellite TV and radio stations that have sprung up recently in the Los Angeles area let the students spread messages instantly all over Iran and broadcast their voices worldwide. Pahlavi, the son of the overthrown shah, raises money and tries to build international public support from a secret base in suburban Maryland. Inside Iran, the movement has loosely organized cells but no leaders who can function freely; many of the 1999 organizers are still in jail. But with the help of their overseas allies, the student protesters hope to mark this week's anniversary with their biggest splash yet and ratchet up pressure on the hard-line regime.

[Pan_Yans Wife]

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