Iranian Alert -- March 16, 2004 [EST]-- IRAN LIVE THREAD -- Americans for Regime Change in Iran

Many anticipate next 12+ hours will prove highly significant in Iran (It is morning now in Iran).

March 16th is Chehar Shanbeh Suri in Iran. It is an ancient Zoroastrian holiday that is banned by the Islamic regime. Most anti regime events have taken place on major holidays such as this.

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.

Regime Change in Iran

March 16, 2004
The Boston Globe
Boston.com

Jeff Jacoby put it aptly when he wrote: "if we are going to win the war on terror, the liberation of Iran is not an option. It is a prerequisite" (op ed, March 11). As he pointed out, the olive branch policy, which the Europeans and bureaucrats at the State Department have pursued in dealing with the tyrants who have ruled Iran with an iron fist for 25 years, has utterly failed to steer that country toward a tolerant, moderate, and representative government.

Neither the arms for hostages deal in 1985, nor the blacklisting of Iran's only effective opposition movement, the Mujahedeen-e Khalq in 1997, quenched the mullahs' insatiable appetite to export fundamentalism abroad, particularly to Iraq, and pursue Iran's nuclear ambitions at home.

The vivid display of intolerance by Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and his extremist cohorts toward their allies of the past 25 years and Tehran's nearly two decades of deception and denial about its nuclear weapons program should serve as stark reminders that the West can ill afford to continue to promote conciliation with Tehran.

Ironically, Iran is the only country where, if given the opportunity, the citizens would vote the ruling fundamentalists out of office. The yearning for democracy has survived the clerical rulers' repression and brutality.

ALI M. SAFAVI

President

Near East Policy

Research Inc.

Alexandria, Va.

http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/letters/articles/2004/03/16/us_should_help_liberate_iran/

A Plea for Help, on Behalf of the Iranian People

March 16, 2004
Project: FREE IRAN!
ActivistChat.com

Dear citizen who supports the will of Iran's population:

The reaction and outpouring of support from fellow citizens of the world in response to the people's struggle for freedom in Iran has been truly remarkable. The one major principle that binds the Iranian people to the rest of us, regardless of creed, is love of freedom. Iranians wish to achieve it and to feel it, fully and for the first time in a long time.

As you may know, there have recently been uprisings in several cities in Iran; these were sparked by anger at the regime for years of repression, illegitimate rule, and countless criminal acts that have been perpetrated by the ruling clerics against Iran's citizens. One such uprising has been initiated and sustained over the past few days in the Iranian city of Fereydoon-Kenar; recent reports coming out of Iran reveal that the people's long-dormant fury has spread to other nearby cities.

There is no question that the regime in Iran has been responsible for the murder, torture, and repression of freedom-loving Iranian people. Less widely known are its roles in political assassinations worldwide and in supporting fundamentalist terrorism -- most notably Hizbollah and Al Qaeda, not to mention that the United States State Department has designated the clerical regime to be one of the most active state sponsors of terrorism for their increasing support to groups such as Hizballah, HAMAS, and the Palestine Islamic Jihad (PIJ), which seek to undermine the Middle East peace negotiations through the use of terrorism.

Even more disturbing are countless reports that reveal the movement of Al Qaeda personnel and leadership across the Afghan/Iran border, as well as reports of thousands of regime-sponsored clerics and operatives who have been entering Iraq since the fall of the Hussein regime. The creation of strong, stable and democratic governments in both Afghanistan and Iraq are a clear and present threat to the mullahs, and so it is likely they will do everything in their power to prevent such a threat from ever materializing.

In light of all the profoundly disturbing evidence that links the regime of mullahs to international terrorism, Middle Eastern instability, blatant and consistent violations of human rights, and oppression of a just and cultured people, the world's policies toward the regime -- inaction and tacit support chief among them -- are puzzling, as is the question of how the clerics maintain their grip on the nation.

As with so many other situations of international politics, what moves the world's governments to act -- or to look the other way -- is the scent of money. In Iran's case, foreign countries are beguiled by the regime's efficiency, which appears to others as shrewd business but in truth amounts to systematic exploitation of seventy million well-educated people who demand more than the current repression and exploitation they are consistently dealt. But these cold, lifeless systems are showing their age, and are threatened by the hot rage in the hearts of Iranians who hunger for new freedom. People around the world can show their support, can light the small fires of solidarity that will finally merge with the Iranians' and burn out every last vestige of the old regime.

To get a better understanding of the regime's brutality, the destructive and evil nature of the mullahs, and their most recent human rights abuses, one only has to take a glimpse at the US State Department's 2003 Human Rights Report on Iran.

We are the real noisemakers. We can spread the word. We must make the ears of our politicians ring sympathetically, and we must hear in return their firm support for our message. We can alert the media, silent for so long; we can amplify our voices through them until the world has heard of the regime's atrocities: murder, rape, beatings, oppression, evil.

To effect the change we desire, we must send emails and faxes and, more importantly, our voices (through the telephone network) to our representatives. International support for the regime must stop. It must be replaced by support for the wishes of the people, namely: freedom for the good people of Iran.

Please spread this message as far as you can.

We the people of the world demand that:

1) The Government of (your nation) and all political representatives call for the regime in Iran to release all political prisoners who are caged like animals across Iran;

2) The Government of (your nation) and all political representatives immediately cease the legitimization of the Islamic Regime in Iran;

3) The Government of (your nation) and all political representatives work with the United Nations to orchestrate a team of observers to be sent to Iran;

4) The Government of (your nation) and all political representatives issue an ultimatum to the regime in Iran, insisting that it step down peacefully;

5) The Government of (your nation) and all political representatives work with the United Nations to launch an investigation and, if deemed necessary, to prosecute in international courts every high-level regime official for crimes against humanity;

6) The Government of (your nation) and all political representatives understand and acknowledge the fact that the Iranian people have declared the clerical regime to be illegitimate, a criminal operation not supported by its subjects.

By boycotting the illegal "election" of February 20, 2004, the Iranian people sent a clear message to the regime and to the world. Their wishes must be honored.

In the words of the famous Persian poet Saadi Shirazi,

"Human beings are all members of one body.
They are created from the same essence.
When one member is in pain,
The others cannot rest.
If you do not care about the pain of others,
You do not deserve to be called a human being."

http://activistchat.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=1663

http://www.emedia.com.my/Current_News/NST/Tuesday/World/20040316074738/Article/indexb_html

WASHINGTON: Memoirs of ex-Iranian Empress, a best seller

Farah Pahlavi’s story is as turbulent as the recent history of her native Iran.

She gained a throne and lost it, watched her husband die of cancer after being shunned by former allies and lived the past quarter century as a political refugee.

Her memoir, An Enduring Love: My Life With the Shah, became a bestseller upon its publication in France last month. The release of a US edition last week coincides with a renewed international focus on Iran.

Pahlavi, 65, was a young architectural student in Paris when she caught the Shah's eye and married him in 1959. She played an active role in the Shah's reign until the royal family fled Iran on Jan 16, 1979.

The Shah died in exile in Egypt in July 1980.

For the former Empress, the book is both a catharsis and an effort to share her side of Iran's recent history for the generation of Iranians born since the Islamic revolution.

"I consider it a duty to my husband, and all my children and grandchildren and all the Iranians that have been born since the revolution," Pahlavi said.

"It's not a question of remembering us. It's a question of those Iranians wanting freedom and finding a respectable place in the family of nations." Historians have said the Shah's downfall was sparked by his authoritarian rule, close relations with the United States and modernisation programmes which squandered the nation's vast oil wealth and angered conservative elements in Iranian society.

But in the book, Pahlavi defends her husband's attempts to modernise Iran, and says opponents exaggerated the extent of repression and corruption in his regime. — AFP

Sporadic and minor clashes start with night fall and streets enflame

SMCCDI (Information Service)
Mar 16, 2004

Sporadic and minor clashes have started in several areas of the Iranian Capital, Tehran and its suburbs, especially in the southern, eastern and western areas as the night has fall and streets are enflame with thousands of fire set for celebrating the traditional but banned "Tchahar Shanbe Soori".

This time is no more the security forces that are taking initiative of attack but young exasperated Iranians who are throwing hand made grenades and powerful fire crackers against them and forcing them take distance. Several security patrols cars and bikes caught in the middle of the crowd have been damaged by fire or abandoned as its occupants preferred to escape from crowd which is making use of the sirens and speakers of governmental confiscated repressive tools for broadcasting songs under the desperate eyes of the regime forces.

Same trend is getting followed in several provincial cities, such as Esfahan, Shiraz, Hamedan and Kermanshah.

Never, never, Iran had witnessed such celebration as the issue has become of a matter of National and Freedom emblem for millions of Iranians.

The night is just at its start and major actions of defiance are expected till the early hours of Wednesday.

http://www.daneshjoo.org/generalnews/article/publish/article_5369.shtml

Haji Firouz is similar to Santa Claus - he brings gifts for Persian New Year. Here's his history.

In harmony with the rebirth of nature, the Iranian New Year Celebration, or NOROOZ, always begins on the first day of spring. Nowruz ceremonies are symbolic representations of two ancient concepts - the End and the Rebirth; or Good and Evil. A few weeks before the New Year, Iranians clean and rearrange their homes. They make new clothes, bake pastries and germinate seeds as sign of renewal. The ceremonial cloth is set up in each household. Troubadours, referred to as Haji Firuz, disguise themselves with makeup and wear brightly colored outfits of satin. These Haji Firuz, singing and dancing, parade as a carnival through the streets with tambourines, kettle drums, and trumpets to spread good cheer and the news of the coming new year.

Haji Firooz is the black faced character who is the traditional herald of the Nowrooz season and begins to wander the streets and alleyways in his red costume weeks before the end of the year. The sound of his songs and the sight of his dance is often analogous to hearing Christmas music in a shopping mall, telling all that Nowrooz is in the air. Although the blackness of his skin has been the source of some racial controversy in Iranian intellectual circles, Haji's intentions and spirit have always been well received and loved by the people.

Haji FiRuz History: Hadji Firouz was a man in red clothes who went from street to street singing and be ating a tambourine on New Year's eve (which is also the eve of spring). He was usually accompanied by one or two other persons. It is said that he and his companions were sym bols of an old custom in Azarbaijan, called "Chisdon Chikhdim," according to which Haji Firouz sang from the streets to inform people that spring had come and that winter has gone. In return, people gave him gifts or money for the good news that he brought.

Time to Get Serious About Iran's Nukes

March 08, 2004
New York Daily News
Richard Z. Chesnoff

If you have any doubts that Iran's fundamentalist leaders are developing nuclear weapons, just ask Farah Diba Pahlavi, the former queen of that long-suffering nation. "These people support terrorism and are capable of anything. We know they are developing these weapons," she says.

Indeed, despite the Iranian mullahs' much flaunted promise to cooperate with international restrictions on nuclear proliferation, UN inspectors in Iran recently discovered undeclared designs for uranium centrifuge machines, key pieces of equipment in the production of bomb-grade material. What's more, Israel has reportedly broken the Iranian communications code used in buying nuclear know-how from Pakistan and elsewhere and passed the information on to Washington.

"The world once closed its eyes to the dangers [the mullahs] represent," says the widow of Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi, with whom she fled from the 1979 revolution that brought Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini and his clique to power.

With today's Iran a support center for international terrorism, she told me last week, "The world simply can't afford to do that again."

That thought and many more are contained in "An Enduring Love," Farah Diba's deeply moving and often amazingly candid memoir just published by Miramax Books.

Like most memoirs, Farah Diba's book glosses over - though it doesn't ignore
- shortcomings, especially those of the final years of her husband's rule: the widespread corruption and the often brutal policies of Savak, Iran's secret police.

But she offers an energetic defense of the shah's accomplishments in propelling Iran from medieval poverty to modern industrial wealth, from ignorance to education and unprecedented rights for women.

What's more, as she pointed out in our conversation, it was the shah himself who decided to flee in 1979 rather than unleash his army on those rioting against him: "He did not want to keep his throne at the expense of the blood of his people."

Her deep knowledge of Iran and the mullahs who now run it give added urgency to the warning she raises about the country's drive to acquire the ultimate weapons of mass destruction - nuclear bombs.

It might be easy for U.S. leaders to dismiss her as a inconsequential figure from the past, especially given our heavy commitments in Iraq and Afghanistan as well as other challenges on the international front. Easy - and wrong. She has rung an alarm bell that we ignore at our peril.

http://www.defenddemocracy.org/research_topics/research_topics_show.htm?doc_id=215355

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