Iranian Alert -- January 27, 2004 -- IRAN LIVE THREAD --Americans for Regime Change in Iran

The US media almost entirely ignores news regarding the Islamic Republic of Iran. As Tony Snow of the Fox News Network has put it, “this is probably the most under-reported news story of the year.” But most American’s are unaware that the Islamic Republic of Iran is NOT supported by the masses of Iranians today. Modern Iranians are among the most pro-American in the Middle East.

There is a popular revolt against the Iranian regime brewing in Iran today. Starting June 10th of this year, Iranians have begun taking to the streets to express their desire for a regime change. Most want to replace the regime with a secular democracy. Many even want the US to over throw their government.

The regime is working hard to keep the news about the protest movement in Iran from being reported. Unfortunately, the regime has successfully prohibited western news reporters from covering the demonstrations. The voices of discontent within Iran are sometime murdered, more often imprisoned. Still the people continue to take to the streets to demonstrate against the regime.

In support of this revolt, Iranians in America have been broadcasting news stories by satellite into Iran. This 21st century news link has greatly encouraged these protests. The regime has been attempting to jam the signals, and locate the satellite dishes. Still the people violate the law and listen to these broadcasts. Iranians also use the Internet and the regime attempts to block their access to news against the regime. In spite of this, many Iranians inside of Iran read these posts daily to keep informed of the events in their own country.

This daily thread contains nearly all of the English news reports on Iran. It is thorough. 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. The news stories and commentary will from time to time include material from the regime itself. But if you read the post you will discover for yourself, the real story of what is occurring in Iran and its effects on the war on terror.

I am not of Iranian heritage. I am an American committed to supporting the efforts of those in Iran seeking to replace their government with a secular democracy. I am in contact with leaders of the Iranian community here in the United States and in Iran itself.

If you read the daily posts you will gain a better understanding of the US war on terrorism, the Middle East and why we need to support a change of regime in Iran. Feel free to ask your questions and post news stories you discover in the weeks to come.

If all goes well Iran will be free soon and I am convinced become a major ally in the war on terrorism. The regime will fall. Iran will be free. It is just a matter of time.

Entire world are looking at Iran's election process, Karroubi

Jan 27, 2004, 03:17

Speaker Mehdi Karroubi said on Monday that the entire world are looking at the process of the seventh parliamentary election and the extent of public participation in the polls.

In a meeting with members of the headquarters in charge of celebrating the ten-day Fajr (February 1-11), Karroubi said that the late Imam Khomeini attached high importance to people's presence in the election.

In the first year after victory of the Islamic revolution, the late Imam Khomeini invited people five times to hold election, Because he believed that the people themselves should lay the foundation of the Islamic Republic.

"On the early days after victory of the Islamic revolution, the late Imam Khomeini could have selected the president or other top officials, but, he wanted the people to do the job themselves thanks to the democratic nature of the Islamic Republic.

"The Iranian people want to make sure that their personality is respected and that they will punish those who may be responsible for insulting them or their thoughts," Karroubi said.

"We should make effort to hold ten-day dawn celebrations magnificently. As long as we are getting away from the time of victory of the Islamic revolution and the imposed war era, certain issues are losing their weight, even those loyal to the values of the Islamic Revolution are currently being alienated," he said.

"Our friends and enemies will consider two matters in the next month:
1. How the system respects the people's constitutional rights by creating no illegal obstacles to their representatives and
2. Presence of people in the election," Karroubi said.

"There are two ways for a government to remain in power, it should either rely on people or rely on foreign powers. There is not a third option to remain in power," he said.

"The public support for the late Imam Khomeini played a key role in his leadership. Despite the difficulty of losing him, at least nine million people gathered at Tehran Mosalla to take part in the funeral procession from Mosalla to Behesht-e Zahra cemetery," Karroubi said.

"Unfortunately, part of people's expectations from the Islamic Republic has not been realized. Their political and economic rights have not been respected. We should stick to the slogan of independence, freedom and the Islamic Republic, otherwise, we will lead a gloomy life," he said.

Prior to Karroubi's remarks, the head of the headquarters in charge of celebrating ten-day Fajr (Dawn) said that 400 teams will organize the celebrations of 25th anniversary of the Islamic Revolution throughout the country.

http://www.iranian.ws/iran_news/publish/article_1501.shtml

Iran and Castro: October surprises

Washington Times
Constantine C. Menges
1.27.2004

The clerical dictatorship in Iran wants the defeat of President Bush because his commitment to political democracy in Afghanistan, Iraq and his endorsement of freedom for the people of Iran threatens a regime that knows it is deeply unpopular. Mr. Castro also wants to see Bush defeated because his determination to help democratic allies could threaten the emerging pro-Castro axis in Latin America. Both dictatorships have plans that could result in visible and sharp foreign policy setbacks that might cost President Bush the 2004 election.

Although vulnerable at home the Iranian clerical regime has since 1979 been, in the words of the U.S. government, the "most active state sponsor of terrorism." Since the removal of the Taliban in November 2001, Iran has used its covert and propaganda assets to destabilize Afghanistan. Iran is also is highly active in helping pro-Iranian-Shi'ite extremist group take power in Iraq using elements of the Shi'ite clergy, an Iranian-funded political movement with an armed wing, a radical pro-Iranian cleric and a massive propaganda operation (39 radio and television stations).

This might succeed through a variety of means by October 2004. If so, it would be a major foreign policy defeat if the Bush administration's liberation of Iraq were to result in "two Irans."

In parallel with this ongoing but still mostly unrecognized Iranian covert action, there are reliable reports of numbers of Iranian-supported Hezbollah terrorists infiltrating into Iraq from their bases in Syrian-occupied Lebanon. It is quite likely they are planning massive terrorist attacks on U.S. forces for the spring, summer and fall of 2004 as well as the taking of U.S. hostages.

These hostages would likely be made available to the media with the intention of demonstrating the failure of the Bush policy and of creating public sympathy in the U.S. for an immediate withdrawal from Iraq.

In the Americas, Mr. Castro has been using a deceptive political strategy and long-established relations with radical leaders who are not formally communist to establish a new axis with governments friendly to him. These now include 231 million people ruled by Hugo Chavez in Venezuela, Lula da Silva in Brazil, Lucio Gutierrez in Ecuador and the shadow power of Evo Morales and Felipe Quispe in Bolivia, who recently removed the elected president.

The Organization of American States expelled Mr. Castro in 1962 because of his support for terrorism and armed subversion against a number of countries including Colombia, where the communist guerrillas continue their fight to take power. In June 2004, the OAS will meet in Ecuador to choose a new secretary general. Right now, it is very likely the candidate favored by Mr. Castro and his friends — Mr. Chavez, Mr. da Silva, Mr. Gutierrez— will be selected. This is partly because the combination of 44 years of Cuban covert and open political operations and millions of dollars in discount price oil sales provided by Mr. Chavez to Caribbean and other countries are likely to produce the needed votes.

It is also because the pro-Castro axis will back a "respectable" candidate who will have committed in advance or who will be seen as persuadable on the next step — the readmission of the Castro regime to the OAS. This would likely occur in October 2004 perhaps with Mr. Castro holding a press conference in Washington D.C. and then walking in triumph past the White House to the OAS to be greeted by thunderous applause.

Fortunately, there are political counter strategies, which can still prevent both these negative October surprises.

Constantine C. Menges, a senior fellow with the Hudson Institute, is a former special presidential assistant for national security affairs. His forthcoming book is "2008: The Preventable War — The Strategic Challenge of China and Russia."

http://www.washtimes.com/commentary/20040126-083602-5200r.htm

Is he related to "Islam Combatants Corps" mentioned in this article from 2000:

"The attempted assassination of Saeed Hajjarian on March 12 may eventually prove to have been one of the critical moments in Iran's reform movement. Coming after the solid victory in the parliamentary elections, it suggests that at least some conservatives, perhaps particularly in the security and intelligence organs, are prepared to shift the battle from the ballot box to the gun.

The gunman was, according to the Iranian authorities own announcement, mounted on a 1000cc. motorcycle. Motorcycles of such power are legally restricted to the security services and police. When it was subsequently announced that a student had been arrested and that he had confessed to the crime, it was stated that he had confirmed that the motorcycle was his own, not a government one.

The Iranian media were chafing under a government restriction that only official news be reported on the attack. The "student" involved, Said Asghar, was described as an Islamic radical who may have been involved in an earlier killing. But Hajjarian's own newspaper also said, in a veiled hint at something more, that he and his accomplices were former members of an "organization". Press reports abroad, including the Iran Press Service in London and the London-based Arabic daily al-Sharq al-Awsat were reporting that Asghar was a member of an Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (Pasdaran ) unit based in Shahr-Rey. The al-Sharq al-Awsat story claimed that a faction of the Pasdaran calling itself the "Islam Combatants Corps" was behind the shooting.

The veiled hints of an "organization" being involved, and the unusual ban on the media publishing unofficial reports, would lend credence to the idea that members of the Guards Corps may well have been involved. The Pasdaran leadership is generally supportive of the hard-liners, and last year the Guards Commander warned the media against certain types of reporting.

If the Pasdaran and/or the security services are involved, or appear to be, then the attack may be part of a continuing pattern. For one thing, Hajjarian is a former intelligence official himself, but worse, his newspaper, Sobh-e Emroz, has been leading the campaign to expose the Intelligence Ministry officials who were behind the 1998 series of killings of dissidents. In other words, to many in the intelligence services, Hajjarian may seem the worst kind of traitor: an agent turned reformer, bent on exposing his own former colleagues. Many believe that he himself was the channel for some of the revelations his newspaper?s reporter, Akbar Ganji, revealed about the Intelligence Ministry?s involvement in the 1998 killings. And the Pasdaran and Intelligence Ministry have many links with each other.

Whether or not that is really why Hajjarian was shot, it is clear enough that the issue of the Intelligence Ministry?s attitude towards those who disagree with it politically is once again a crucial issue. There are those who believe that the authorization of the 1998 killings went considerably higher than the officials blamed so far, and that press investigation might have been getting close to finding links with senior clerics.

Whether or not that is true may be less important than how many people believe it to be. Some of the more outspoken reformers are already trying to pin the attempt on Hajjarian on members of the senior clerical leadership. That could lead to an open attack on the system of velayat-e faqih, or clerical rule.

But that could lead to a breach between the reformers and President Khatami. The President has, himself, never sanctioned criticism of the Islamic system, based on the theories of the late Ruhollah Khomeini; support for that system is in fact a requirement for candidates standing for office. The reformers have gotten as far as they have, at least in part, by being moderate. Some have wondered if Khatami runs the risk of becoming a Gorbachev: in opening the windows to change, the system itself comes apart. The Iranian system is neither as monolithic nor as inflexible as the pre-Gorbachev USSR, but the parallels are not completely imaginary.

Certainly many of the young Iranians supporting the reform movement are disillusioned with clerical rule. Twenty years after the revolution, Iran's young do not remember the Shah or the rationale for the imposition of Islamic rule, and have few sympathies for the continued imposition of rigorous social restrictions. Khatami has sought to channel those frustrations in order to change the system from within. But he does not control the Army, the Pasdaran and its "mobilization" militia, the Basij, or the intelligence services. Some called for a major reform of the security elements after the 1998 killings were linked to the Intelligence Ministry; but the government successfully deflected those demands, basically dismissing the killings as a case of rogue agents who would be punished. Hajjarian's wounding brings that issue to the fore again.

Source:
http://www.theestimate.com/public/03242000.html

U.S. Media Shuts Its Eyes Again as Journalist Exposes Islamic Regime

January 26, 2004
Radio Sedaye Iran
Alireza Sabouri

Near the end of 2003, London-based Channel 4 aired the controversial documentary "Forbidden Iran" presented by the international news magazine Frontline. The film includes a harrowing report from inside Iran, where, a Canadian reporter, Jane Kokan, risks her life to secretly film shocking evidence of a government sponsored reign of terror.

In "Forbidden Iran" Kokan escapes the constant surveillance of the Iranian authorities to record exclusive interviews detailing the systematic torture and execution of students opposed to the Islamic Republic regime. The documentary was graphic enough to contain some horrific scenes of stoning, eye-poking and dismembering of human limbs. This is the story which a brave Zahra Kazemi, a Canadian journalist of Iranian descent, was working on when she was captured, tortured and murdered by the Islamic Republic regime.

It was a surprise that this film was being aired in Britain, a country whose government continues to help preserve, engage and conduct vast financial negotiations with the Islamic Republic regime at the expense of 70 million Iranians who desire its obliteration. Accordingly, one could only imagine the delight of Iranians around the world when it was announced that "Forbidden Iran" was to be aired in the United States in January of 2004.

There was hope that perhaps the broadcast would also illuminate the true nature of the Islamic Republic regime for many U.S. based journalists who passively continue to play a part in the regime's agenda by depicting its dynamics as a struggle for democracy by so-called "reformists" against conservatives.

The only question that remained was which of the major U.S. based networks would be the first to air the film. Would it be NBC, CBS, ABC, CNN, Fox, or CNBC ?

The answer: None of the above, but rather your local PBS station which would air an edited, although still revealing, version of the film. Need one say more?

Following the PBS broadcast of " Forbidden Iran," there was no mention of the film on any major local or national media outlet, except for the various U.S. based Farsi language television and radio shows. There was no mention of the film either by the usual self-appointed Iran experts in the media, such as Elaine Sciolino, Robin Wright, or Christianne Amanpour. Could it be that the film contradicted years worth of reporting by these individuals, who professed that they had access to the genuine truth of events in Iran? That is something to think about.

One can recall the feeding frenzy of many distinguished U.S. networks and journalists during the 1978-1979 period of turmoil in Iran prior to the establishment of the Islamic regime. How can anyone forget the images of ABC's Peter Jennings chatting with Ayatollah Khomeini during his Air France flight into Tehran? It also brings to mind the exaggerated claims by the leaders of the Islamic revolution and a disinformation campaign against the Iranian monarchy, not to mention western media reports, that the Imperial regime was guilty of "mass murders."

These allegations were finally challenged by a former researcher at the Martyrs Foundation (Bonyad Shahid). The findings by Emad al-Din Baghi caused a stir in the Islamic Republic and were banned from publication, for they boldly question the true number of casualties (3,164 for all political armed struggles in over 16 years between 1963 and 1979) suffered by the anti-Shah movement. The reason given was that to pursue the matter would run contrary to the statements made by the late Ayatollah Khomeini and his successors who claimed that "60,000 men, women and children were martyred by the Shah's regime."

Needless to say, none of the above mentioned distinguished members and networks of the press have followed up on the inaccuracies of their prior reports. More important, however, is the fact that today, they shut their eyes and ears to the images and voices of 70 million Iranians who have experienced the tragedies of the "story" they fueled and covered in the late seventies.

In the same regard, it is ironic that today, as Iranians are about to initiate a second mass boycott in less than a year of upcoming pseudo-elections staged by the Islamic theocracy, the majority of journalists of western media are reporting on yet another imaginary struggle for democracy by so-called "reformists" against conservatives.

In fact, the January 12, 2004, edition of the Los Angeles Times featured a front page picture and article of the so-called pre-election crisis in the Islamic Republic majlis between liberal-minded reformist candidates and conservatives in the Guardian Council. This is the same Los Angeles Times which did not print a single word about "Forbidden Iran" after it was aired.

It appears that western media has generally failed in anyway to question the status quo in Iran. In other words, it has failed in recognizing what so many Iranians already know: there can be no democracy within a theocracy which, by definition, requires a marriage between religion and government.

Those who believe that "liberalism" can exist within the framework of this theocratic regime have forgotten that the first pillar of "liberalism" is the preservation of human rights, human life, liberty, and freedom. A form of government whose foundation and constitution does not respect human life, that stones women and men to death, that dismembers the hands and arms of its opponents, tortures and rapes children and takes away human dignity, liberty, and freedom should not be ever be labeled as such.

To tolerate such a government, be they so-called "reformist" or conservative, and accept it as the legitimate representative of Iran's people and culture, as has been done in the past 25 years by western governments and media, is to refute one's own values.

In March of 2003, municipal elections in Iran drew less than twelve percent of eligible voters and February 2004 is shaping up to be no different. Despite the growing media awareness of the orchestrated political soap-opera in Iran, the February elections in Iran have become a moot point for Iranians. It is simply a desperate attempt by a regime that knows that its citizens hold it in the lowest regard and want nothing more than to see it dissolved.

When the situation in Iran is at issue, it is important to remember that the Iranian regime is not embraced at all by the vast majority of citizens in Iran. Iranians have become disillusioned with the non-agenda of the so-called "reformist" camp.

The people of Iran want to see the world stand firm against the Islamic regime. What is important for the people of Iran after so many years of suffering is to see the international community, for a change, shift their focus on them rather than trying to cut a deal with the current regime or appease such a regime. They seek international intervention only through moral support and accurate reporting of their struggle to bring about a national referendum to select a secular democratic alternative completely separate from any Islamic theocracy.

As for the media, true journalists should take another look at the constitution of the Islamic Republic and ask themselves how much longer are they willing to help legitimize a regime and form of government that is not representative of its people and is riddled with prejudicial laws.

http://www.krsi.net/news/detail.asp?NewsID=545

Enlisting American Investors in the Fight Against WMD Proliferation

January 27, 2004
Center for Security Policy
centerforsecuritypolicy.org

Just when it appeared that neither intelligence operations nor inspections nor international arms and export control regimes can be relied upon to protect us from the nexus of terror and WMD proliferation, concerned citizens have received some important words of encouragement – from an unlikely source: CBS’ popular TV news magazine, “60 Minutes.”

On Sunday night, “60 Minutes” called the attention of its millions of American viewers to a dirty little secret: “Just about everyone with a 401(k) pension plan or mutual fund has money invested in companies that are doing business in so-called rogue states. In other words, there are U.S. companies that are helping drive the economies of countries like Iran, Syria and Libya that have sponsored terrorists.”

Citing a powerful commercial data base developed by Conflict Securities Advisory Group (CSAG), the news program established that roughly 400 publicly traded companies – some headquartered in this country, many more overseas – are effectively enabling terrorism. One of those who told “60 Minutes” he felt “anger” that investors were unwittingly helping our enemies was William Thompson, New York City’s comptroller, a job that makes him responsible for $80 billion in city workers’ pension funds.

Reporter Lesley Stahl spoke to Thompson about Iran, whose leaders he notes earn “most of their revenues through their oil industry.” She asked: “So what is the connection between that oil business and terrorism and weapons of mass destruction?” The Comptroller responded: “The Iranian Government is receiving dollars from it. And then turning around and exporting terrorism around the world. It benefits terrorism. At least that's our belief.”

With the help of CSAG’s software, Thompson was able to determine that several prominent American companies held in his pension funds’ portfolios had subsidiaries in countries like Iran. As “60 Minutes” noted, he began to investigate their activities “at the request of New York City's police and firemen, who were outraged when they learned where their retirement money was going.” Thompson said, “The members of the Fire Department and the Police Department, after September 11th, given the fact that hundreds of them died in the World Trade Center as a result of a terrorist attack, had greater sensitivity than almost anybody. And they were the ones who kind of took the lead on this.”

American investors – both individual and institutional – have a further, compelling reason for following the lead of New York’s heroic police and firefighters: CSAG’s President, Roger Robinson (a colleague and friend from the Reagan White House) warns that investors could see share value seriously depressed by the negative publicity and popular hostility that ensues as companies’ ties to terrorist regimes come to light.

Robinson told “60 Minutes,”: “We're certainly alerting investors to a genuine new risk category in the markets, every bit as legitimate as environmental risk was through Three Mile Island, Exxon Valdez and superfund legislation....Investors, we think, have a right to know. Remember, this is their retirement dollars. They should have a sense [from] those who invest on their behalf: Are there genuine risks there?”

In short, Americans with funds in the stock market have an opportunity to do well while doing good. They can reduce material risk to their retirement funds while signaling to companies that seek to secure or retain their investments not to do business – either directly or through cut-outs – with terrorist-sponsoring and/or proliferating regimes.

http://www.centerforsecuritypolicy.org/index.jsp?section=today

Sex Slave Jihad

January 27, 2004
FrontPageMagazine.com
Donna M. Hughes

A measure of Islamic fundamentalists’ success in controlling society is the depth and totality with which they suppress the freedom and rights of women. In Iran for 25 years, the ruling mullahs have enforced humiliating and sadistic rules and punishments on women and girls, enslaving them in a gender apartheid system of segregation, forced veiling, second-class status, lashing, and stoning to death.

Joining a global trend, the fundamentalists have added another way to dehumanize women and girls: buying and selling them for prostitution. Exact numbers of victims are impossible to obtain, but according to an official source in Tehran, there has been a 635 percent increase in the number of teenage girls in prostitution. The magnitude of this statistic conveys how rapidly this form of abuse has grown. In Tehran, there are an estimated 84,000 women and girls in prostitution, many of them are on the streets, others are in the 250 brothels that reportedly operate in the city. The trade is also international: thousands of Iranian women and girls have been sold into sexual slavery abroad.

The head of Iran’s Interpol bureau believes that the sex slave trade is one of the most profitable activities in Iran today. This criminal trade is not conducted outside the knowledge and participation of the ruling fundamentalists. Government officials themselves are involved in buying, selling, and sexually abusing women and girls.

Many of the girls come from impoverished rural areas. Drug addiction is epidemic throughout Iran, and some addicted parents sell their children to support their habits. High unemployment 28 percent for youth 15-29 years of age and 43 percent for women 15-20 years of age is a serious factor in driving restless youth to accept risky offers for work. Slave traders take advantage of any opportunity in which women and children are vulnerable. For example, following the recent earthquake in Bam, orphaned girls have been kidnapped and taken to a known slave market in Tehran where Iranian and foreign traders meet.

Popular destinations for victims of the slave trade are the Arab countries in the Persian Gulf. According to the head of the Tehran province judiciary, traffickers target girls between 13 and 17, although there are reports of some girls as young as 8 and 10, to send to Arab countries. One ring was discovered after an 18 year-old girl escaped from a basement where a group of girls were held before being sent to Qatar, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates. The number of Iranian women and girls who are deported from Persian Gulf countries indicates the magnitude of the trade. Upon their return to Iran, the Islamic fundamentalists blame the victims, and often physically punish and imprison them. The women are examined to determine if they have engaged in “immoral activity.” Based on the findings, officials can ban them from leaving the country again.

Police have uncovered a number of prostitution and slavery rings operating from Tehran that have sold girls to France, Britain, Turkey as well. One network based in Turkey bought smuggled Iranian women and girls, gave them fake passports, and transported them to European and Persian Gulf countries. In one case, a 16-year-old girl was smuggled to Turkey, and then sold to a 58-year-old European national for $20,000.

In the northeastern Iranian province of Khorasan, local police report that girls are being sold to Pakistani men as sex-slaves. The Pakistani men marry the girls, ranging in age from 12 to 20, and then sell them to brothels called “Kharabat” in Pakistan. One network was caught contacting poor families around Mashad and offering to marry girls. The girls were then taken through Afghanistan to Pakistan where they were sold to brothels.
In the southeastern border province of Sistan Baluchestan, thousands of Iranian girls reportedly have been sold to Afghani men. Their final destinations are unknown.

One factor contributing to the increase in prostitution and the sex slave trade is the number of teen girls who are running away from home. The girls are rebelling against fundamentalist imposed restrictions on their freedom, domestic abuse, and parental drug addictions. Unfortunately, in their flight to freedom, the girls find more abuse and exploitation. Ninety percent of girls who run away from home will end up in prostitution. As a result of runaways, in Tehran alone there are an estimated 25,000 street children, most of them girls. Pimps prey upon street children, runaways, and vulnerable high school girls in city parks. In one case, a woman was discovered selling Iranian girls to men in Persian Gulf countries; for four years, she had hunted down runaway girls and sold them. She even sold her own daughter for US$11,000.

Given the totalitarian rule in Iran, most organized activities are known to the authorities. The exposure of sex slave networks in Iran has shown that many mullahs and officials are involved in the sexual exploitation and trade of women and girls. Women report that in order to have a judge approve a divorce they have to have sex with him. Women who are arrested for prostitution say they must have sex with the arresting officer. There are reports of police locating young women for sex for the wealthy and powerful mullahs.

In cities, shelters have been set-up to provide assistance for runaways. Officials who run these shelters are often corrupt; they run prostitution rings using the girls from the shelter. For example in Karaj, the former head of a Revolutionary Tribunal and seven other senior officials were arrested in connection with a prostitution ring that used 12 to 18 year old girls from a shelter called the Center of Islamic Orientation.

Other instances of corruption abound. There was a judge in Karaj who was involved in a network that identified young girls to be sold abroad. And in Qom, the center for religious training in Iran, when a prostitution ring was broken up, some of the people arrested were from government agencies, including the Department of Justice.

The ruling fundamentalists have differing opinions on their official position on the sex trade: deny and hide it or recognize and accommodate it. In 2002, a BBC journalist was deported for taking photographs of prostitutes. Officials told her: “We are deporting you … because you have taken pictures of prostitutes. This is not a true reflection of life in our Islamic Republic. We don’t have prostitutes.” Yet, earlier the same year, officials of the Social Department of the Interior Ministry suggested legalizing prostitution as a way to manage it and control the spread of HIV. They proposed setting-up brothels, called “morality houses,” and using the traditional religious custom of temporary marriage, in which a couple can marry for a short period of time, even an hour, to facilitate prostitution. Islamic fundamentalists’ ideology and practices are adaptable when it comes to controlling and using women.

Some may think a thriving sex trade in a theocracy with clerics acting as pimps is a contradiction in a country founded and ruled by Islamic fundamentalists. In fact, this is not a contradiction. First, exploitation and repression of women are closely associated. Both exist where women, individually or collectively, are denied freedom and rights. Second, the Islamic fundamentalists in Iran are not simply conservative Muslims. Islamic fundamentalism is a political movement with a political ideology that considers women inherently inferior in intellectual and moral capacity. Fundamentalists hate women’s minds and bodies. Selling women and girls for prostitution is just the dehumanizing complement to forcing women and girls to cover their bodies and hair with the veil.

In a religious dictatorship like Iran, one cannot appeal to the rule of law for justice for women and girls. Women and girls have no guarantees of freedom and rights, and no expectation of respect or dignity from the Islamic fundamentalists. Only the end of the Iranian regime will free women and girls from all the forms of slavery they suffer.

Dr. Donna M. Hughes is a Professor and holds the Carlson Endowed Chair in Women’s Studies at the University of Rhode Island.

The author wishes to acknowledge the Iranian human rights and pro-democracy activists who contributed information for this article. If any readers have information on prostitution and the sex slave trade in Iran, please contact her at dhughes@uri.edu

http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=11791

Kerry’s Fund-Raiser Worries Advocates Of Iran Democracy

New York Sun - By Eli Lake
Jan 27, 2004

He's faulted for Soft Line

WASHINGTON — Iranian American supporters of the effort to bring democracy to Iran are raising concerns about the resurgence of Senator Kerry’s campaign for the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination, questioning the role of a Kerry fund-raiser who wants to normalize ties with Tehran.

Hassan Nemazee, an Iranian American financier based in New York, was on the board of the American Iranian Council when that organization arranged for President Clinton’s secretary of state, Madeleine Albright, to apologize for America’s role in the 1953 coup that brought the Shah to power in Iran.

In that speech, Ms. Albright announced the lifting of sanctions on Iranian carpets, caviar and dried fruits and nuts — a symbolic gesture that signified America’s willingness to restore diplomatic ties with the Islamic Republic. Today Mr. Nemazee is one of the chief fund-raisers for Mr. Kerry.

While two months ago Mr. Kerry’s campaign seemed in disarray after he fired his campaign chief, with last week’s first-place finish in the Iowa caucus, Mr. Kerry has emerged as the front runner in his party’s race to field a challenge to President Bush this November.

In a December 3 address to the Council on Foreign Relations, Mr. Kerry said that if he was president, he “will be prepared early on to explore areas of mutual interest with Iran.”In that same speech he chastised the Bush administration for failing to hand over Iraqi-based insurgents to Tehran in exchange for members of Al Qaeda. “It is incomprehensible and unacceptable that this administration refuses to broker an arrangement with Iran for a mutual crackdown on both terrorist groups,” he told the council.

Mr. Kerry and his fund-raiser have drawn the criticism of many Iranians pushing for America to support Iranian democrats.

“Unfortunately Mr. Nemazee is still advising Mr. Kerry,” a spokesman for the Student Movement Coordination Committee for Democracy in Iran,Aryo Pirooznia, told The New York Sun yesterday. “Everyone remembers in the last of year of the Clinton administration when Mr. Nemazee gave a speech at the AIC calling for the removal of all sanctions against the Islamic Republic. We will be asking any Iranian-American of principle to vote for President Bush knowing that Mr. Kerry has recently said that Iran is moving toward democracy.”

Mr. Pirooznia has in the past organized protests against the American Iranian Council, whose board Mr. Nemazee used to sit on.

Iran’s hard-line council of guardians yesterday vetoed a proposal from the Parliament that would curb the council’s power to screen candidates for the legislature. Earlier this month, the council barred thousands of “reformer” candidates from running in next month’s elections for that body.

Mr. Nemazee, who did not return three phone calls yesterday from the Sun, helped form the Iranian American Political Action Committee in 2002. That organization says it does not take a position on Iran’s relations with America. Its Web site says, “We have seen time and again that as soon as foreign policy issues are raised, great divisions appear within the community.”

The PAC focuses primarily on civil liberties issues affecting Iranian-Americans and on loosening barriers for Iranian citizens who want to get visas to visit America.

In 1999, President Clinton nominated Mr. Nemazee to be his ambassador to Argentina.The Senate Foreign Relations Committee blocked his confirmation after Forbes magazine ran a story critical of many of his business relationships.

Inside the Iranian-American community, Mr. Nemazee has a reputation for supporting the opening of trade relations with Iran.

“This is not personal, just a political difference of opinion, but Mr. Nemazee is in favor of dialogue with moderates, as far as I have observed,” a friend of the Nemazee family and an Iranian democracy activist, Shahla Samii, told the Sun. “I have been in contact with many in the younger generation. Many of the people I have contacted and most of them within Iran and outside the country do not want America to normalize ties with the Islamic Republic.”

Another activist in New York, Banafsheh Zand-Bonazzi,told the Sun Mr.Nemazee “is promoting a certain kind of relationship between the American government and the Islamic Republic that is completely inappropriate. He seems to put his money in places where he supports candidates who basically are not interested in confronting a government that is becoming armed to the teeth with nuclear weapons and that has admitted to holding major members of Al Qaeda.”

Mr. Kerry voted in July of 2001 in favor of renewing the Iran-Libya Sanctions Act, which authorizes American sanctions on foreign companies investing in Iran’s oil and gas sectors.

http://www.daneshjoo.org/generalnews/article/publish/article_4768.shtml

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