Iranian Alert -- March 17, 2004 [EST]-- IRAN LIVE THREAD -- Americans for Regime Change in Iran

The Last 24 hours were intense. As the student movement reported, "What's going on this evening has never been seen and the night is just at its start and will be very long for the regime."

Although it is now midnight on the east coast of the US, it is now morning in Iran. I expect to post numerous reports on the celebrations/demonstrations later in the day and expecting more photos.

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.

Anti-Regime Violence Erupting in Iran As Crowds Burn Pictures of Khamenei

New York Sun - By Eli Lake
Mar 17, 2004

WASHINGTON—Iranians reportedly took to the streets in protest of their government last night as a Persian fire ritual in Tehran turned into a pretext for anti-regime violence.

The Iranian Student News Agency, a wire service affiliated with the government there, reported yesterday that explosions could be heard throughout the city after celebrations of a pre-Islamic feast in Iran known as Chaharshambeh Soori turned violent.

According to KRSI, an exile radio station based in California, a crowd of people in Iran’s capital began kindling fires for the holiday with pictures of Iran’s supreme ruler, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, in front of the headquarters of the Sepah Pasdaran, the state’s security service. In some clashes in Tehran neighborhoods, KRSI reported from eyewitnesses calling the station on cell phones, crowds of demonstrators threw homemade explosives at the feet of anti-riot police and set patrol cars ablaze.

The Iranian Student News Agency said 44 police garrisons and 60 ambulances had been readied in response to the angry crowds.

Last month, Iran’s unelected Guardian Council disqualified more than 2,000 reformist candidates from running for election to the country’s legislative body, known as the Majlis. The decision led many legislators willing to work within the system to begin to question the utility of pushing for liberal reform, which has been stymied by the country’s clerical elites.

Since the Islamic revolution in 1979, the celebration of Persian holidays such as Chaharshambeh Soori and the New Year festival of Nowruz has been discouraged and at times banned by the Iranian authorities.

Tehran’s police angered the country’s hard-liners by cordoning off 40 areas of the city this year to observe the holiday, where people traditionally jump over bonfires and set small bushes on fire to mark the last Wednesday of the Persian year. But the decision was not without controversy, as the holiday this year fell in the same Islamic month that Imam Hussein was martyred, a period Iran’s ruling clerics said should be marked without gaiety.

“In all Iranian cities without exception, Iranians celebrated this tradition even when they were attacked by plainclothed officers of the regime,” a spokesman in America for the Student Movement Coordination Committee for Democracy in Iran, Aryo Pirooznia, told The New York Sun yesterday.“They resisted fiercely by using the materials used in celebration of the fire feast.”

Mr. Pirooznia said he had received more than two-dozen witness reports yesterday of demonstrators clashing with the government in Tehran alone. He said that some violent demonstrators had devised explosives from yellow and white powder wrapped in cardboard.

“The authorities started to charge in neighborhoods of Sarsabil, Sadeghieh and Shahrak Gharb,” he said. “The celebrations turned into demonstrations, with chanting, dancing, and booing and cursing at the security forces sent there. The crowds started to throw pictures of Ayatollah Khamenei into the fire.”

The Iranian Student News Agency reported eight people were seriously injured. The agency also reported that 20 people were taken to the emergency room of Motahari and 50 people were taken to the Towhid hospital in the Tehran metropolitan area. Cab drivers, the news agency said, were volunteering to take injured citizens to hospitals free of charge. The Associated Press and CNN did not report anti-regime violence yesterday.

“It is our view that the human-rights situation in Iran has been taking a turn for the worse,” a State Department official told the Sun yesterday. “On the whole it would seem Iran is less democratic now than it was three to four years ago. We take domestic developments in Iran very seriously and we will be talking to other countries that do have diplomatic representation in Iran to find out about these reports.”

The State Department was particularly critical last month of the elections to the Majlis. More recently, Secretary of State Powell has criticized the Iranian regime for threatening to end cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency, after pledging to allow unannounced inspections in the fall.

The IAEA has recently disclosed that Iran’s nuclear energy program was almost definitely a cover for weapons research, a position shared by the American intelligence community.

The president of the Washington based International Center on Nonviolent Conflict, Jack DuVall, said the violent demonstrations in Tehran were a troubling development. “If the regime is authoritarian any domestic violence reinforces the regime’s position because ultimately their power derives from their armed defenders.When violence occurs in the public space those defenders do reflexively what they are hired and expected to do and that reinforces both the authority as well as the control mechanisms of the regime.”

Mr.DuVall was the executive producer of “A Force More Powerful,” a documentary on the history of nonviolent conflict in the 20th century that has ended up in the hands of Iranian activists.

Chaharshambeh Soori celebrations are expected to continue today in the run-up to Nowruz festivities this weekend.

http://www.daneshjoo.org/generalnews/article/publish/article_5381.shtml

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