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Join Us At Today's Iranian Alert Thread – The Most Underreported Story Of The Year!

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What impact will the dispute between moderates and conservatives over Majlis elections/candidates have on the general public in Iran?

-- No significant impact 28.21 % (79)
-- More people will defend Khatami and the moderates 11.07 % (31)
-- More people will support Khamenei and the conservatives 1.43 % (4)
-- More people will become indifferent 16.07 % (45)
-- More people will believe in regime change 38.21 % (107)
-- Not sure 5.00 % (14)

http://www.mashregh.com/poll/iranian/

16 Jan 2004 12:10 GMT DJ UK's Straw To Meet Iranian Pres At World Economic Forum

Copyright © 2004, Dow Jones Newswires

LONDON (AP)--U.K. Foreign Secretary Jack Straw will meet Iranian President Mohammad Khatami at next week's World Economic Forum for broad-ranging talks expected to cover Tehran's nuclear program, a U.K. official said Friday.

Straw, whose visit to Tehran with his French and German counterparts in October helped broker an agreement on U.N. access to Iran's nuclear sites, will meet Khatami Wednesday at the event in Davos, Switzerland.

Iran agreed last month to accept unannounced inspections by the U.N. nuclear watchdog agency.

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

http://framehosting.dowjonesnews.com/sample/samplestory.asp?StoryID=2004011612100009&Take=1

"Khatami must quit if hardliners keep stalling him" - Ebadi

Saturday, January 17, 2004 - ©2003 IranMania.com

BOMBAY, Jan 17 (AFP) -- Iranian human rights activist Shirin Ebadi, the 2003 Nobel Peace laureate, said Saturday that President Mohammad Khatami should make good on threats to resign if hardliners continued to stall his reformist agenda.

In an interview with AFP in Bombay where she is attending the World Social Forum, Ebadi said Iran's future would be "unpredictable" without the reformist Khatami but she was optimistic his camp would triumph in the Islamic republic's power struggle.

"President Khatami said himself that if he couldn't pass measures due to the Guardians Council he would resign. So then he should resign," Ebadi said.

"It is not me who believes that Mr Khatami should resign, but he himself said he would quit if his measures couldn't be passed," she said.

The Guardians Council, Iran's conservative controlled electoral vetting body, on January 11 disqualified nearly half of the 8,157 people, mostly reformists, seeking to contest the February 20 parliamentary elections.

The move brought a threat by Khatami to lead mass resignations of ministers, MPs and provincial governors.

Asked what would happen if Khatami quit, Ebadi said: "It is unpredictable now."

But she said she doubted the reaction to a Khatami resignation would be violent.

"I think that the Iranian people are now fed up with violence. Twenty-five years ago we had a bloody revolution and then eight years of war (with Iraq)," she said.

"That's why they don't want to be involved in violence or another revolution," she said.

"I am an optimist," Ebadi said. "I have a vision that in the next year the Iranian people can get whatever they want and meet their demands. The Iranian people have been so patient throughout history to obtain democracy and human rights," she said.

Ebadi, who in 1974 became Iran's first female judge, was in Bombay to attend the annual convention of the anti-globalisation movement.

http://www.iranmania.com/News/ArticleView/Default.asp?NewsCode=21693&NewsKind=Current%20Affairs

Iran top official: Iran,US will renew ties one day

Saturday, January 17, 2004 -
©2003 IranMania.com
PARIS, Jan 16 (AFP)

One of Iran's most senior leaders, Hassan Rowhani, has said in a newspaper interview that Tehran and Washington will re-establish ties one day and the task is for Iran to choose the right moment.

"We have to be realistic. One day ties will have to be re-established," Rowhani, secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council, told French newspaper Le Figaro in an interview due to appear on Saturday.

"Our skill, I would say our artistry, will be to choose the right moment," he told Le Figaro during a visit to Paris.

The United States severed ties with Iran -- accused by US President George W. Bush of belonging to an "axis of evil" -- in 1980, after Islamic revolutionaries stormed its embassy in Tehran.

But the Islamic republic's recent decision to allow international inspection of its nuclear facilities and US aid to victims of the earthquake in Iran in December, which killed more than 41,000 people, has led to speculation there might be a slight thaw in their relations.

"The end of a presidential mandate could be the best moment to take such a decision," Rowhani continued, without making clear whether he was referring to Iranian President Mohammad Khatami, whose term of office expires in 2006, or Bush, who faces an election in November 2004.

"By intervening in Afghanistan and Iraq, the Americans have become our neighbours. They realised they really needed us and that the crises in the region can't be resolved without the Iranians," he added.

Rowhani said US aid to victims of the earthquake in Bam, southeastern Iran, "isn't enough to get rid of the bottleneck preventing the renewal of ties between us (but) has produced a glimmer of hope".

On the question of Iran's nuclear power programme -- which Washington alleges is a cover for the development of nuclear weapons -- Rowhani said: "We want to prove to the world that we are not seeking to procure nuclear weapons. We want to create confidence. In return we are asking the industrialised countries to provide us with nuclear technology for civilian uses."

But he added: "If Israel's arsenal of weapons of mass destruction is not destroyed at some point, the countries of the region will be encouraged to start an arms race."

Rowhani's visit to France, essentially to discuss Tehran's nuclear programme, coincided with furious protests back at home by reformists who have been barred in large numbers from standing in key elections next month.

Rowhani, who is believed to be close to the conservatives, said he believed a solution could be found now that supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei had intervened. On Wednesday, Khamenei ordered the 12 members of the Guardians Council -- an unelected watchdog which screens all laws and candidates for public office -- to be less stringent in weeding out candidates, particularly when it came to incumbent members of parliament.

"The outgoing members of parliament (most of them reformers) should be considered at the outset as having the right qualifications to stand," he said.

http://www.iranmania.com/News/ArticleView/Default.asp?NewsCode=21692&NewsKind=Current%20Affairs

"Americans for Regime Change in Iran"

BS - Americans do not want to be the baby sitters of the world. Iranians are responsible for the mess they are in by allowing their Ayatollas, Muftis, Fartwas and other religious monsters to run their goverment!

Get lost and screwed yourselves! Enjoy it.

And get a decent religion that was not founded by a monster.

Famous US scholar-writer hopes for future liberation of Iran

SMCCDI (Information Service)
Jan 17, 2004

David Frum, an American researcher and former writer of President Bush's speeches, is hoping for the future liberation of Iran. This statement was made, on Thursday, during a meeting with Aryo Pirouznia, of SMCCDI, by adding that such hope will be realized, in a near future, as more and more Iranians are standing up against the Islamic republic regime and the World's becoming aware of their struggle.

Mr. Frum offered as well his formal support of the Iranian Student Movement by signing an examplary of his new book, co-written with Richard Perle (former assistant secretary of defense) and titled "An End to Evil", which was given to Pirouznia. Frum's written statement in this book is: "To the Iranian Student Movement: For your Freedom and ours, With every good wish, David Frum January 2004".

David Frum is also a leading member of the "American Enterprise Institute" (AEI) where the famous Michael Ledden is holding the Freedom Chair. His name became well known following the "Axis of Evil" speech of President Bush.

http://www.daneshjoo.org/generalnews/article/publish/article_4629.shtml

TREATED AS A FUTURE HEAD OF STATE, ROHANI ENDED VISIT TO PARIS

By Safa Haeri
PARIS, 16 Jan.
(IPS)

Iran’s rising political figure, Jojjatoleslam Hasan Rohani, belittling the present political crisis over the disqualification of a number of prominent reformist lawmakers, assured France on Thursday that the “problem could be resolved very easily”, after the leader of the regime, ayatollah Ali Khamenehe’i ordered the Council of the Guardians to review its decision.

The 12-members Council that has the right to approve or reject the eligibility of all candidates to all Iran's elections has rejected nearly half of the candidates who registered to run for the 292-seat elections, due for 20 February, among them nearly 80 sitting Members of the Majles, or the Iranian Parliament.

Intervening in the dispute, Mr. Khameneh’i, who has the last word on every major issues, urged Wednesday on the CG that is controlled by the conservatives to allow some of the best-known MMs, among them the younger brother of the President, Dr Mohammad Reza Khatami as well as senior tenors of the Second Khordad Coalition that support the powerless Mohammad Khatami to run in the upcoming race.

“France is following the election with great attention and interest", France’s Foreign Affairs Minister Dominique de Villepin said during a joint press conference in Paris with the presence of his Iranian guest, without making any direct reference to the disqualifications that has been criticised by both the European Union and the United States.

On Thursday, the Iran Committee of the German Bundestag, or Parliament as well as a number of Eurodeputies expressed sympathy with the disqualified Iranian lawmakers who continued a protest sit-in and assured that they would continue the action until the CG overturn its controversial decision.

"Obviously we accept meddling from no country in our internal affairs", Rohani observed. "With a friend like France we have a friendly discussion ... but with the United States it's another matter", he added, and pointing at American elections, he said: "The situation of past American presidential elections, which unwound in a truly catastrophic and dramatic manner, no longer allows the United States to speak about elections in other countries".

"I asked Dr. Rohani that a gesture of clemency be made", Mr. de Villepin said referring to political prisoners in the Islamic Republic. "We hope that a page will definitively be turned with the next legislative elections", he added.

Talks between the two men also covered Iran's nuclear program, the Middle East conflict and post war Iraq, where the two sides called for the transfer of sovereignty to Iraqis and a bigger role for the United Nations in both that process and the reconstruction of the war-ravaged nation.

As Mr. De Villepin and Rohani were talking to reporters, thousands of Iraqis demonstrated in the predominantly Shi’ite city of Basra on the Shat-el-Arab-Arvand Rood border river just opposite Iran, responding to a call by Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, Iraq’s most senior Shi’a leader who is of Iranian origin, urging the departure of occupying forces, the transfer of power to the Iraq’s Provisory Governing Council and elections at the earliest possible date.

As in Vienna, some members of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) were again expressing concern over Iranian “hidden” nuclear activities, most particularly enriching uranium, Mr. De Villepin said he was “satisfied” at Tehran’s respect of engagements undertaken in the framework of the Additional Protocols to the Non Proliferation Treaty.

De Villepin, who alongside his colleagues from Britain and Germany went to Tehran last October and convinced Mr Rohani, the Secretary of Supreme Council on National Security to sign the Protocols that allows international nuclear inspectors to make instant, unrestricted inspections on any suspected Iranian atomic project, said he was pleased with Iranian advances toward greater transparency in the nuclear program.

"These meetings must continue in the future", de Villepin said. "I'm convinced that in the framework of deepening this dialogue we will find a solution".

But informed sources told Iran Press Service that on behind closed-doors talks, Mr. Rohani, a cleric who is very close to the Iranian leader, urged his French hosts to “respect’ their side of the Tehran agreements, meaning the transfer to Iran of advanced nuclear technologies for civilian purposes.

For Tehran, providing some of the fuel for the nuclear-powered electrical plants Iran projects to erect in the future by the French nuclear firm Eurodif, of which Iran is still a shareholder is part of the engagements taken by the IAEA against Iran’s signing of the Protocols, sources noted.

Iran plan to built six new electrical plants powered by atomic energy besides the one that is under construction in the Persian Gulf port of Booshehr with assistance from Russia and counts on France and Germany to jump on the occasion, as Moscow has already announced its readiness to oblige.
The 1000 megawatts electrical plant the Russians are building in Booshehr was originally designed and started by the German firm of Siemens before the Islamic revolution of 1979 that stopped all major contracts that were signed by the Shah, including two similar projects undertaken by French companies in the oil-rich Province of Khoozestan.

The United States, pressed by Israel, is accusing Tehran of secretly trying to develop nuclear weapons, using civilian projects, but Iran insists its nuclear program is peaceful and geared only toward producing electricity and agreed last month to accept unannounced inspections by the United Nation's nuclear watchdog agency.

During his three-day stay in Paris, Mr. Rohani, expected by many Iranian analysts to become Speaker or President, was given an almost state welcome by being received by the French President Jacques Chirac and addressing the French Senate.

ENDS FRANCE IRAN 16104.

http://www.iran-press-service.com/articles_2004/Jan_04/france_iran_16104.html

CIA: Saudi Arabia Will Go Nuclear

January 17, 2004
WorldNetDaily
WorldTribune.com

The U.S. intelligence community has concluded Saudi Arabia intends to acquire nuclear weapons, the intelligence newsletter Geostrategy-Direct reports.

The assessment is contained in a report by the National Intelligence Council, a group under CIA director George Tenet. The council has released a report, called "NIC 2020," that envisions trends in the Middle East and other global regions over the next two decades.

The intelligence community regards Saudi Arabia as being next in line to acquire nuclear weapons, the report said. The council asserted the United States would have more difficulty in handling Saudi Arabia, a leading exporter of crude oil, than it would have with Libya and Syria.

As Joseph Farah's G2 Bulletin reported in June, Saudi Arabia is among a growing list of nations that could pose a nuclear threat to the United States. Like Egypt, it has missiles and a large army and is a candidate for an Islamic revolution similar to Iran's 1979 conflict that overnight turned the country from being a stable U.S. ally to a vicious enemy.

Geostrategy reported in June that the Saudi royal family has become alarmed by the prospect of its neighbors having a nuclear bomb and has been secretly obtaining help from Pakistan for its missile and nuclear program. Riyadh helped finance Pakistan's nuclear program precisely to ensure that the royal family will have a bomb in case of an emergency, Geostrategy said.

The CIA report envisioned Saudi Arabia as reducing its dependency on the United States and using nuclear weapons to bolster the kingdom's security.

In contrast, the intelligence community sees Libya and Syria as seeking a rapprochement with Washington.

"Ironically, some of the most significant proliferation might involve moderate states such as the current Saudi regime rather than 'rogues' such as Libya or Syria," the report said. "The former will seek ways to ensure their security without overly heavy reliance on the United States. The latter will seek to escape the opprobrium of being 'rogues' and to be fully rehabilitated as members of the international community."

The report was released on Dec. 8, 11 days before the Bush administration announced a Libyan agreement to dismantle its nuclear weapons and medium-range missiles. The CIA participated in a British-U.S. team that toured Libyan nuclear and missile facilities in October and December 2003.

The United States has expressed satisfaction over Libya's cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency's inspections of Tripoli's nuclear facilities. Secretary of State Colin Powell said the administration could soon review the lifting of a range of U.S. sanctions on the North African state.

"The next step is to make sure we have a clear understanding of what Libya possesses, make sure it matches up with what we think they possess and what they tell us they possess," Powell said Tuesday. "And they are very forthcoming to this point. And then make sure that we have worked with them to verify their holdings and the destruction of those holdings in accordance with the terms of the agreement.

"When we get that under control and we have a good sense of all of that, then we'll start to examine the political and policy issues that relate to bringing Libya back into a different relationship with the United States and with the rest of the international community," he said.

Intel contradicts administration

The U.S. intelligence community assessment of Saudi Arabia contrasts with statements by administration spokesmen that the kingdom would not seek to acquire nuclear weapons. That assertion, by the White House and State Department, came in October after Saudi Arabia was reported to have signed a nuclear cooperation agreement with Pakistan.

The NIC report also appeared resigned to the prospect of an Iranian nuclear bomb, a development that was said to have prompted Saudi cooperation talks with Pakistan. The Iranian drive for nuclear weapons might not be affected by a change a regime in Tehran, the report said.

The intelligence community envisions increasing unrest in Egypt and Saudi Arabia. A regime change in Saudi Arabia would prompt a major increase in oil prices, rock the Persian Gulf region and lead to increased tension with neighboring Iran, the report said.

"Replacement of the Saudi regime by a radical Islamist successor, for example, might increase Arabian-Iranian tensions, with a rivalry for Islamic leadership – one party Sunni, and the other Shia – overshadowing whatever common characteristics would set both regimes apart from the Al Saud," the report said.

"Radical regime change would unavoidably affect relations with Washington and probably the U.S. role in the region. It also would affect the Arab-Israeli equation – in a major way if the change of regime occurred in Egypt or Jordan."

http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=36646

Turkey Seeks Closer Ties With Syria, Iran , Saudi Arabia

January 17, 2004
The Associated Press
Dow Jones Newswires

ISTANBUL -- Turkey, a predominantly Muslim ally in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, is aggressively pushing for closer ties with Syria, Iran and Saudi Arabia.

Turkey's government this month held high-level talks with both Syria and Iran , countries that the U.S. has accused of terrorism. And Saturday, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan headed to Saudi Arabia for a regional economic forum, ahead of talks with President George W. Bush in Washington later this month.

The diplomatic drive comes as Turkey tries to mobilize Iraq's neighbors to oppose Iraqi Kurds' plans for a federation that would include a self-governing Kurdish zone in the north. Turkey and neighbors Syria and Iran fear Iraqi Kurds might eventually push for independence and bring instability to their borders.

"We have said that a federation based on ethnic lines wouldn't be right," Erdogan told reporters Saturday before departing for Saudi Arabia. "We share this concern with neighboring countries."

Many countries in the region have long been suspicious of Turkey, because of its close ties with the U.S. and Israel.

But some of those suspicions softened last March, when the Turkish parliament, facing widespread public opposition to a war in Iraq, refused to allow U.S. troops in the country ahead of the Iraq invasion. The decision upset relations with Washington, but was hailed by many others in the region who also strongly opposed the war.

"Regional countries perceived what Turkey did as standing up to the U.S.," said Soner Cagaptay, an analyst with the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.

But now Turkey's Islamic-rooted governing party is eager to restore relations with the U.S. as it seeks influence in Iraq.

U.S. support for Turkey's economy also is important and in 2001 was crucial in helping Turkey to secure billion in loans from international lenders amid a crippling economic crisis.

The simultaneously improving ties with Washington and states in the region are increasing the Turkish influence and could make it a conduit between Washington and nations like Syria and Iran , which are increasingly edgy about Iraq's future, analysts say.

U.S. officials, including Bush, have spoken of Turkey as a model of a secular democracy in the region.

Syrian President Bashar Assad flew to Ankara earlier this month in the first visit to Turkey by a Syrian head of state to discuss concerns about Iraq, including the Kurdish issue.

The visit raised hopes that Syria could use warming relations with Turkey to ease ties with Washington and raise contacts with Israel.

"Iraq is becoming a unifying factor in the region," said columnist Somi Kohen of the daily Milliyet. "Turkish diplomacy is trying to mobilize public opinion in the region now. This gives Turkey the opportunity to play the role of a regional power."

In an effort to improve relations with Washington, Turkey agreed after the war to open its air bases to the U.S.-led coalition for logistical support. It even offered to send peacekeepers to Iraq, an offer that was, however, shelved because of strong Iraqi opposition to the deployment.

Turkey also is allowing more than 100,000 U.S. troops to pass through a southern air base in the coming months in a major rotation of U.S. troops - a move unforeseeable last March.

"Turkey's geography gives it an opportunity to serve as a bridge," Kohen said.

Turkey also has been careful to emphasize that its new relations with other nations in the region don't mark a shift away from the U.S.

During Assad's visit to Ankara, for example, Erdogan helped support U.S. diplomatic efforts in the region by relaying a message from U.S.-ally Israel that it was willing to sit at the table and negotiate with Syria. Syria and Israel are technically at war.

Kohen said Assad also told him in an interview that he planned to give Erdogan a message to give to Bush in Washington.

Diplomats say the U.S. doesn't appear alarmed by Turkey's new diplomatic status. But they add it is too early to say whether Turkey will have any success in pushing countries like Syria or Iran to reform.

Turkey's new diplomacy "is an attempt by the current government to enhance its current relations with the United States by acting as a conduit to Syria and Iran ," said Bulent Aliriza, an analyst at the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies. "But the success of this depends more on the United States."

http://iranvajahan.net/cgi-bin/news.pl?l=en&y=2004&m=01&d=17&a=5

Damien Hirst Leads Britart's Diplomatic Mission to Iran

January 18, 2004
Independent
Mark Irving in Tehran and Raymond Whitaker

... but Antony Gormley and Mona Hatoum are withdrawn to appease Islamic hard-liners.

Damien Hirst, the enfant terrible of Britart, is spearheading a British cultural and diplomatic charm offensive in Iran - but other artists seen as more mainstream, such as Antony Gormley, have been deemed too controversial.

Contentious works, including a Hirst sculpture incorporating a human skeleton never exhibited before, will go on show in Tehran next month, just after elections that have already caused bitter tensions between Islamic hard-liners and liberals. Other works were held back by the British Council, however, including body casts by Gormley and a wheelchair with knives by Mona Hatoum.

The Hirst work, called Resurrection, consists of a human skeleton glued vertically to two interlocking panels of glass. Owned by the artist's agent, Jay Jopling, it is the centrepiece of the first exhibition being staged in Iran by the British Council since the Islamic revolution of 1979.

"The British Council is trying to establish the kind of contact that exists on a non-political level," said Michael Willson, the organisation's director in Iran. But the timing of the show will be seen as an indication of warmer relations between Britain and Iran, following the theocratic regime's agreement late last year to open its nuclear facilities to inspection.

Britain and Iran restored full diplomatic relations in 1999 after a decade-long rift caused by the late Ayatollah Khomeini's fatwa against Salman Rushdie, author of The Satanic Verses. But Western culture remains a delicate issue in Iran, where political moderates are engaged in a bitter confrontation with conservatives in the run-up to the 20 February election.

The British exhibition opens four days later at Tehran's Museum of Contemporary Art, a meeting-place for young Iranians who chafe at the restrictions imposed by hard-line clerics.

The museum's director, Dr Ali-Reza Sami-Azar, who is well-practised at knowing how far to push the boundaries, plans to display Resurrection next to a large window at the entrance. While admitting it willbe "provocative", he said it would not "cross the red line", adding: "Artists should be allowed to express their own opinions. As long as it doesn't offend against religious sensibilities or display explicit eroticism, then it can be shown."

In this respect, Breath, a new work by Shirazeh Houshiary, a London-based Iranian female artist, is particularly daring. It consists of four video screens showing breath misting on glass as texts sacred to the four great world religions - Islam, Judaism, Christianity and Buddhism - are recited.

The British Council excluded other works from the show as "too risky", including Hatoum's wheelchair with knife blades for handles. Given Hatoum's Palestinian origins, said Dr Sami-Azar, the British felt "it might create a controversy due to feelings about suicide bombers". Those feelings have been illustrated by a row last week in Sweden, where Israel's ambassador smashed a work showing a suicide bomber's portrait floating in a pool of red liquid.

The British Council, said Dr Sami-Azar, had been "quite conservative, more so than us. We didn't reject any artist they proposed".

Five other Hirst works are in the exhibition, along with sculptures by Barbara Hepworth, Henry Moore, Anthony Caro and Eduardo Paolozzi. The recent Turner Prize nominee, Anya Gallaccio, will fill a gallery with 10,000 red roses.

Speaking of the tensions in Iran, Dr Sami-Azar said he "could be sacked at any moment", adding: "Everyone looks for some excuse to take advantage of a situation and to make political capital out of it. There are those who don't like the relatively open atmosphere we have managed to build up here."

http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/this_britain/story.jsp?story=482326

Arising in Iran

January 17, 2004
The Boston Globe
Globe Editorial

It is becoming harder than ever to ignore the contradictions at the core of Iran's Islamic Republic. The sham quality of the system's democratic facade was on display Wednesday when Iran's unelected supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, told the 12 clerics he had appointed to a watchdog committee they should reconsider their disqualification of 3,600 reform candidates for Parliament. Khamenei's action in response to reformist protests might appear more democratic, but it leaves intact the Guardian Council's power to ban candidates.

The primary lesson Bush administration policy makers should draw from Iran's political crisis is to be patient. The spectacle of Iran's hard-liners thrashing about to beat back all challenges to their power while timid reformists are losing the support of a youthful population should bring home to President Bush and his advisers the value of that virtue.

The theocratic rule of the mullahs in Iran is doomed. Two-thirds of Iran's population today is under 30 years old. By overwhelming majorities they have now voted several times for regime change. They want a truly free press, freedom of speech and association, women's rights, and jobs for a rapidly expanding work force -- jobs that will come only in an economy that has been liberated from the mobster-like hold of corrupt clerics running unregulated conglomerates called religious foundations.

Since the clerics' vessel is sinking of its own accord, Bush should avoid any interventionist measures that the hard-liners might be able to use to legitimate their rule, rallying Iranians to them under the banner of nationalism. The longer the misrule of the mullahs goes on, the more Iran's youth are alienated from both the hard-line clerics and those figures such as the ineffectual President Mohammad Khatami who want to preserve the current system by making it only marginally less repressive.

Young Iranians are being inoculated against the lures of autocracy and extremism. The lesson has been painful, but they are learning to demand true democratic self-government. They have become partisans of civil and human rights and of Iran's opening up to a diverse world.

The clerical hard-liners on the Guardian Council revealed their fear not only of reformists but also of the popular will when they disqualified about half of the 8,200 candidates in the parliamentary election scheduled for Feb. 20. More than 80 of the 3,000 reformist candidates purged from the ballot are current members of Parliament, and many of them have been conducting a sit-in to protest the hard-liners' contempt for basic democratic fairness.

This is a drama about the decomposition of the system built by Khomeini. It should not be interrupted by outsiders.

http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/editorials/articles/2004/01/17/arising_in_iran/

This just in from inside of Iran...

We are getting reports of a citywide strike in Esfehan (one of the largest and most respected cities in Iran) of all teachers (their equivalent of K-12).

They are on strike for the low income and hard political situation they face at schools.

This is a reminder!

Plan for the peaceful removal of the Islamic Regime:

This Sunday, January 18, 2004
http://bestofiran.com/frontend/index.asp

A Plan for the peaceful removal of the Islamic Regime of Iran will be announced during a live program broadcast on many Iranian satellite TV and Radio stations. The program starts at 10 AM PST from NITV studios in Los Angeles and will last for 6 hours, including a fundraising segment to support the plan. Other media who have confirmed the live broadcast of this program include Pars TV, Radio Sedaye Iran, Radio Yaran, Radio Sedaye Emrooz, Rangarang TV, Apadana TV, and Lahzeh TV.

This program can also be seen live via the Internet at www.IranRadioTV.com who will provide a FREE link on that day.

http://www.activistchat.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=992

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