Iranian Alert -- February 20, 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.

This is a report about Media Control:

Blogging boom in Iran defies control
New medium is a way to escape stifling theocratic control

TEHRAN, Iran (AP) - Take one exasperated Iranian woman. Add a computer. Hook it up to the Internet.
"And you have a voice in a country where it's very hard to be heard," said Lady Sun, the online identity of one of the first Iranian women to start a blog - a free-form mix of news items, commentaries and whatever else comes to mind.

Initially created to defy the country's tight control on media, these web journals have turned into a cyber-sanctuary - part salon, part therapist's couch - for the vast pool of educated, young and computer-savvy Iranians.

As Friday's parliamentary elections approach, however, there's a distinct tone of worry that conservatives expected to regain control of Parliament would step up pressure to censor the Internet.

"It will be the end of the blog era in Iran," said a Tehran-based blogger who operates pinkfloydish.com, the name indicative of her love of western music.

But thus far, the Internet has managed to avoid the hardliners' choke hold on media, which has silenced dozens of pro-reform newspapers and publications since the late 1990s.

Thousands of Iranian blogs have cropped up since late 2001 when an Iranian emigre in Canada devised an easy way to use the free blogging service Blogger.com in Farsi. Although several English blogs outside Iran are read by Iranians, the most popular ones are in Farsi and operated inside the country.

Blogs offer a panorama of what's whispered in public and parleyed in private. People vent, flirt and tell jokes. They skewer the ruling clerics with satire and doctored photos - such as Supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei donning a western business suit instead of his usual turban and robes.

The anonymity of e-mail addresses and use of pseudonyms strip away any timidity.

"We always wear masks in our society," said Lady Sun, who started her blog in November 2001 and later married one of its readers. "This is a place to take them off."

The masks, however, stay on offline, and like many other bloggers interviewed, Lady Sun spoke on condition of anonymity.

Bloggers can get quite feisty, as one commented in Farsi on the ruling clerics: "It's very pleasant to have to talk with 18th-century people in 2004."

Even the Iranian vice-president, Mohammad Ali Abtahi, has a blog, although hardly anti-establishment; it's mostly to gauge the sentiments of Iranians.

"Ordinary people read his thoughts and give him feedback - directly through e-mail," said Hossein Derakhshan, the Toronto-based blogger who devised the seminal guidelines for Farsi characters. "This is very rare for an Iranian politician."

Iranians are not alone in embracing blogs. A blogger in Iraq gained a worldwide following last year with his reports on life on the eve of war. In the United States, information and political junkies exchange items not easily found in mainstream media.

"You're basically avoiding the filter, whether it's a nefarious government or an ignorant editor," said Sree Sreenivasan, a professor of new media at Columbia University in New York.

Bloggers in Iran have sidestepped censorship efforts, in part, by running sites through multiple servers and using foreign-based blogs as portals to Iranian ones whose locations may keep changing.

But more importantly, officials have not countered with their ultimate weapon: bringing all servers under government control.

Plans to outlaw privately run Internet service providers were announced last year, but there was no follow-through. Some suspect officials feared too much public outrage. But a new Parliament could change the dynamics.

"We have suffered under unjust press laws," said Issa Sahakhiz, member of the Iranian branch of the Committee to Protect Journalists. "We are afraid (of) more to come with this new Parliament."

In a country full of paradox, the Internet has been one of the biggest.

Authorities allowed it to expand in the 1990s without any serious controls - even as they hunted for illegal satellite television dishes and western movie videos. The huge online appetite has been fed by thousands of Internet cafes, low-cost computers from East Asia and a rush of entrepreneurs offering Internet accounts.

Other tightly run countries, such as Saudi Arabia and China, keep reins on the Internet. In Iran, almost anything is a click away. Beside blogging, Iranians spend time in chat rooms, download music, read poetry, visit any of the countless Farsi news sites or even surf the erotic offerings.

At its present course, Internet usage in Iran is expected to grow sevenfold to 15 million users by 2006, according to studies cited by the Middle East Economic Digest. More than half of Iran's 65 million citizens are under 25 years old and hungry for the web.

Pedram Moallemian, an Iranian who runs the English-language eyeranian.net from San Diego, reaches many of those Iranians with observations on everything from the Iranian elections to U.S. news programs.

"The blog in Iran is truly an amazing phenomenon," Moallemian said. "It shows that Iranians are saying, `Look, we're part of the world as well.'"

http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_Type1&c=Article&cid=1077188743508&call_pageid=968332188854

Movement extends its congratulations to the People of Iran

SMCCDI (Information Service)
Feb 20, 2004

Aryo Pirouznia, the SMCCDI's Coordinator, extended the Movement's congratulation to the "Intelligent and awakened" People of Iran for the massive boycott of the sham elections held by the Islamic republic regime.

The call was made, today, during two interviews with the NITV and Pars TV satellite networks and as various reports coming even from European sources, near to the so-called "reformist " faction of the regime, had to acknowledge the debacle taking place in Iran.

"Praise be the valiant and lucid People of Iran who sized another historic occasion in order to show the massive rejection of the theocratic regime in its totality." said Pirouznia by addressing the viewers.

"... Today the hardliners faced another undeniable fiasco as they witnessed it in the 1997 Popular Reform Movement. Unfortunately this movement was high jacked by the so-called reformists who seems to be better opportunist surfers than true servitors of the Iranian People...... The same so-called reformists witnessed also several fiascos in the last months when the Intelligent People of Iran boycotted last March's sham City and Rural Council's election and later by depriving them of the realization of their desperate dream to obtain popular support when they did their so-called sit in strike. Indeed those who had forgotten the People of Iran were dreaming of what Boris Yeltsin obtained when thousands of Russians rushed to their Parliament in order to support him..." he added.

On the prospect of future, the SMCCDI Coordinator who has traveled to LA, stated: "....From now on, the road to freedom has become a clear way and, We, the People, will deal with the regime as a mono bloc and no more we will listen to one accomplice faction accusing the other when seeing its interests being jeopardized....

... Europeans will have, from now on, much harder time to justify beside their powerful American ally that "reforms" are taking place in Iran...We do believe that due to the Bush Administration pressures on European and Japanese governments, the regime will have to make some opening in the society but in this policy of escape toward front, the end looser will be the regime ...Reforms and popular aspirations can't be limited and for so, soon, the people will enter in the final collision course with the regime ....

....On that day, the World will have to push for the S. African transition model in our country..." he said.

"... One of the main forces of Iran are the Women who are subject to descrimination and the shameful mandatory veil. They shall start from now to work on the preparation of March 8 rallies for the celebration of the "Int.' Women Day" without the traditional interference of traditional feminist circles of Iran which are more of a pro-regime tool, by their anti US rethoric, than entities looking for the true freedom of Iranian women. This will be the first close occasion, with international ramifications, in order to push the regime to the limit of one of its basic backwarded ideologies..." Pirouznia emphasized.

http://www.daneshjoo.org/generalnews/article/publish/article_5004.shtml

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