Iranian Alert -- June 7, 2004 [EST]-- 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.” 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. I began these daily threads June 10th 2003. On that date Iranians once again began taking to the streets to express their desire for a regime change. Today in Iran, most want to replace the regime with a secular democracy.

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 as well about AQ held in Iran:
http://www.arabnews.com/?page=1&section=0&article=46417&d=7&m=6&y=2004

Kingdom Seeks Extradition of Dissidents
Hassan Adawi, Arab News

JEDDAH, 7 June 2004 ? Saudi Arabia yesterday called on foreign governments to hand over Saudi dissidents allegedly linked to terrorist attacks that have rocked the country over the past year.

Foreign Minister Prince Saud Al-Faisal said the Kingdom wanted to investigate some London-based opposition figures, two of whom it accuses of links to a shooting spree last month that killed six Westerners in Yanbu industrial city.

?There must be a chance to investigate anyone who it has been proven is involved in terrorism, wherever he is, and handed over to the authorities who want them... This so-called opposition in London is one of them,? Prince Saud said.

Riyadh accuses Saad Al-Faqih and Mohammed Al-Masaari of links to a gunman involved in the Yanbu attack. Faqih, who runs a rights group, has rejected the claims.

?We live in exceptional times and all countries must act seriously in this respect. It is not acceptable to say that this (handing over suspects) does not conform to laws because someone is considered ?opposition?,? Prince Saud told a news conference.

Saudi Arabia has been battling militants linked to Osama Bin Laden?s Al-Qaeda network for over a year. An attack claimed by the group last week killed 22 people in Alkhobar.

?These evil criminal acts will not divert the state from its determination to combat this isolated deviant group...and which is now, in cowardly acts, going for easy and random targets after the crackdown,? Prince Saud said.

Referring to the escape of three terrorists in the Alkhobar hostage drama last week, the minister said security forces had given priority to the safety of hostages but added the government would continue efforts to hunt down all terrorists.

He also said that the government had taken extra security measures to protect Saudis and expatriates.

?If anybody feels unsafe they have to tell us the reasons and what kind of protection they require from us,? he said.

Prince Saud also backed a GCC resolution which was passed on Saturday welcoming the new interim government in Baghdad with the hope it would ?respond to the aspirations of the Iraqi people to form a legitimate government...and regain complete sovereignty?.

But he said Iraq must have a legitimate and independent government before Arab countries would consider sending peacekeeping forces.

The interim government, which the United Nations helped form, is set to take over from US-led occupation authorities on June 30 and hold office until national elections due in January.

?For Arab states to be capable of sending forces to Iraq there must be a request from a legitimate and independent Iraqi government,? the prince told reporters.

?The request cannot come from a government which does not have full sovereignty,? he said. Iraqi officials have said they want Arab troops to replace US-led forces.

The Arab League has said there was a possible role for Arab forces only once foreign occupiers left.

Washington has said its troops will remain in Iraq after June 30 to help combat guerrilla attacks.

Iran Intensifies Torture of Political Critics

June 07, 2004
Agence France Presse
AFP

Iran has stepped up its suppression of political opposition with an intense campaign of torture and arbitrary arrests, the New York-based Human Rights Watch said in a report released Monday.

The 72-page report documents systematic abuses of political detainees in Tehran's Evin Prison and in secret jails around the capital since the government launched its current crackdown in 2000.

"Claims that reforms in Iran have put an end to torture are simply false," said Sarah Whitson, executive director of Human Rights Watch's Middle East and North Africa Division.

"More than ever, journalists, intellectuals and activists are afraid to voice opinions critical of the government," Whitson said.

The report argued that anti-torture legislation passed by Iran's outgoing reformist parliament in May had not been effectively implemented.

The long list of maltreatment documented in the report included arbitrary arrest, detention without trial, torture to extract confessions, prolonged solitary confinement, and physical and psychological abuse.

"The Iranian government's use of these harsh techniques has largely squelched the country's political opposition and independent media," Human Rights Watch said.

As of June, the Iranian government had closed virtually all independent newspapers, several key journalists and writers had fled the country, many prominent writers and activists had been imprisoned, and scores of student activists intimidated into abandoning peaceful political activity.

Individuals interviewed for the report, including a number of writers and journalists, told Human Rights Watch about brutal interrogations in which they were blindfolded, physically threatened, and forced to recant their political views.

Former detainees also described basement solitary cells where they were left for weeks at a time without any human contact, and threats by judges that if they did not confess, they would be held in solitary confinement indefinitely.

The report documents cases of beatings, long confinement in contorted positions, kicking detainees with military boots, hanging them by the arms and legs, and threats of execution if individuals refused to confess.

A number of former detainees reported that they were treated more harshly after requesting the aid of defense counsel, or inquiring as to the legal status of their cases.

Human Rights Watch called on the European Union to step up pressure on Iran during the next round of their long-running human rights dialogue in Tehran on June 14 and 15.

"The European Union's weak response to continuing human rights violations in Iran is deeply disturbing," said Whitson, "It's time for the European Union to condemn Iran's record of persecution and torture and to set real benchmarks that the government must meet."

http://www.afp.com/english/home/

Sipping Tea with The Reagans in Tehran

June 07, 2004
National Post
Amir Taheri

'The man you are going to meet will be the next president of the United States." This is how my friend Ardeshir Zahedi, Iran's ambassador to Washington at the time, described the "distinguished visitor" he wanted me to meet in Tehran.

The year was 1977 and the visitor was Ronald Reagan -- who, with his wife, Nancy, was spending a few days in Iran as a guest of Zahedi. The hitch, however, was that Zahedi himself was in Washington. It was thus the duty of his friends to look after the Reagans.

Zahedi's friendship with Reagan had irritated many in the Iranian government. Foreign Minister Abbas-Ali Khalatbari, for example, told me "our ambassador over there" was causing unnecessary "complications" in our relations with the Carter administration by "cuddling that radical extremist Ronald Reagan" -- who in 1977 was laying the foundation for his second and successful bid for the Republican leadership in 1980.

When Reagan eventually came to Tehran on a private visit, some of Khalatbari's hesitations had found echoes among other senior Iranian leaders. The Prime Minister, Amir-Abbas Hoveyda, politely declined to receive Reagan. But when a banquet was given in Reagan's honour at Hessarak, Zahedi's residence in the mountains north of Tehran, a good part of the Tehran glitterati showed up. There, in a brief speech, Reagan described Iran as "one of the frontiers of freedom today," adding, to the surprise of those present, that those frontiers would be extended in the future.

For Iranians obsessed with the threat from their Soviet neighbours, this was provocative talk. The best most Iranians could think of was to contain the Soviet monster in its lair. To even dream of forcing it into any retreat was pure fantasy.

What made Reagan's words effective was that he spoke in a tone of sincerity seldom associated with politicians. Reagan may have been acting -- after all, he had been an actor, though not a first-rate one, for years. But there was something in the way he exposed his vision of the world that the first word that came to mind was "conviction."

I had gone to the banquet -- at the time I was Editor-in-chief of Kayhan, the most important newspaper of Iran -- as a gesture toward Zahedi. But I was captivated by Reagan's vision. He appeared to be swimming entirely against the tide. I knew little of the United States but had been disturbed by much of what I had seen and heard during a number of brief visits there. I had visited with Washington's political elite, including House Speaker Tip O'Neil and half a dozen senators, such as Edward Kennedy and Frank Church, and had made the usual tour of newspaper editorial boards. I had concluded the Americans were tired and bored. All they wanted was to be left alone.

At one editorial lunch in Washington I had uttered a few good words about Richard Nixon. Those around the table had suddenly fallen silent, looking at me as if I were an alien.

So, meeting Ronald Reagan in Tehran was like running into a prehistoric man, a long-defunct species that existed only in imagination.

And this was precisely why Reagan was interesting.

I had gone to the banquet with some reluctance. But my curiosity had been aroused. This is why I asked to accompany the Reagans on a trip to Isfahan the following day. I saw the exercise as part of my education in American politics. The man in charge of the trip was Shapour Dolatshahi, scion of an old aristocratic family and a punctilious protocol officer. But his five-star program had been designed in such a way as to minimize Ronald and Nancy Reagan's contacts with the ordinary folk in the historic city.

Reagan would have none of that. "Ronny" insisted on pressing some flesh in the bazaar, at the mosques and at a local steel mill. Despite the obvious barrier of the language, he showed that he was a genuine man of the people, capable of communicating with individuals from all backgrounds.

Over lunch and at tea time, he asked numerous questions about Iran. I in turn asked him questions about the United States. In an interview a few weeks earlier, the Shah had told me he believed the United States had "entered an historic period of decline." Without revealing its source, I asked Reagan what he thought of that analysis.

"These are big words for me," he quipped. "But I can tell you that those who write us off make a big mistake."

At a tea shop in the bazaar, Reagan stopped to watch two men playing backgammon, a game every Iranian knows and plays.

"Sounds like international politics," Reagan joked. "Maybe I should practise it."

The hint was enough for Dolatshahi to present Reagan with a luxury backgammon set the following day, plus a 20-minute course in how to play.

I don't know whether or not Reagan learned the game. But his subsequent career showed that he used many of its rules in confronting and ultimately helping destroy the "Evil Empire."

Back in Tehran, and a few days later, Foreign Minister Khalatbari asked what I had thought of the strange American visitor.

"He is great," I said. "The exact opposite of Jimmy Carter, he is the other America, the America of Gary Cooper."

"But does he have any chance?" the minister had asked.

"None at all," I had said.

Amir Taheri is an Iranian author of 10 books on the Middle East and Islam.; www.benadorassociates.com.; Obituary of Ronald Reagan.

http://www.benadorassociates.com/article/4984

Mohammad Ali Samadi is more likely >Mohammad Yasser Samadi
[see this article........very revealing...>>>]

28 May 2004 Agence France Presse
English
Copyright Agence France-Presse, 2004 All reproduction and presentation rights reserved.

TEHRAN, May 28 (AFP) -

Hundreds of Iranian men and women, even children, declared their willingness to carry out suicide attacks in Iraq and Israel following weekly Friday prayers in Tehran, an AFP correspondent said.

The "volunteers" signed their names and gave their telephone numbers to an obscure group calling itself the Committee for the Commemoration of Martyrs of the World Islamic Movement.

A spokesman, Mohammad Yasser Samadi, told AFP the action was to "show our friends in Iraq and all other Muslims that we are ready to give our lives to defend our honor and Islam's.

"Suicide operations are the best way to fight the oppressors and they have already shown their worth in Lebanon and during the war between Iran and Iraq," he said, referring to the neighbours' bloody 1980-88 conflict.

***However, there was no evidence the action was anything more than symbolic, and Samadi said they would renounce suicide operations if asked to by supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

The group announced earlier this month it had begun recruiting potential suicide bombers for Iraq in the wake of serious clashes between US-led coalition forces and the militia of radical cleric Moqtada Sadr around the Shiite Muslim holy cities of Najaf and Karbala.

Iran Faces Challenge at IAEA Meeting

June 07, 2004
The Irish Times
ireland.com

IRAN -- France, Britain and Germany are drafting a UN nuclear resolution on Iran that could set them on course for a confrontation with Tehran at an International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) board meeting next week, diplomats said.

The IAEA, the UN nuclear watchdog, issued a report last week praising Iran for granting UN inspectors access to sites, but said it has continued to change its story about imports of nuclear technology that could be used to develop atomic weapons.

"The three Europeans'...draft resolution is going to say that there are areas where Iran has been co-operating with the agency and areas where they haven't been cooperating," a Western diplomat on the IAEA's board of governors said.

"It will also tell them (the Iranians) to co-operate more," the diplomat said, adding that the point of the resolution will be to keep the inspection process going.

Iran, which says its nuclear programme is peaceful, wants to be off the IAEA board's agenda as a special item, but diplomats on the board said the resolution would likely keep Tehran on the agenda for some time.

Iran said yesterday it had done everything necessary to clear up concerns about the programme, which the US said could be used to make atomic bombs.

IAEA chief Dr Mohamed ElBaradei said yesterday the agency hoped it could wind up its probe into Iran's nuclear programme within the next few months.

"I would hope it's a matter of months that we should be able to bring these issues to closure," he said at a symposium in the eastern French town of Talloires.

Dr ElBaradei said he also hoped a second dossier Tehran has provided - after an incomplete first report - was now the full picture of the programme.

The UN has been investigating Iran since an exiled Iranian opposition group reported in August 2002 that Tehran was hiding a massive uranium enrichment plant at Natanz and other sites from UN inspectors.

The IAEA's new Iran report and the draft resolution prepared by the three European countries will be the main topics of discussion at a meeting of the IAEA's 35-nation board that begins on June 14th. The Europeans have been working with Iran since last year to get them to end their uranium enrichment programme in exchange for peaceful nuclear technology.

http://www.ireland.com/

RELATIONS DETERIORATE BETWEEN IRANIAN AND IRAQI SHI’A LEADERS

By Safa Haeri
Posted Monday, June 7, 2004

PARIS, 6 June (IPS) Under God’s skies, clouds are gathering over relations between the Islamic Republic of Iran and Iraq, as seen from the latest statements by leaders from the two major Shi’a Muslim nations.

“After having supported the tyrant Saddam Hussein until the last minute, the Iranian radio and television is now backing the Ba’thists and the Wahabites”, the Friday imam of Najaf, Shi’a’s holiest place, complained recently, referring to coverage of Iraqi news and reports by the al-Aalam television, the 24 hours Arabic-language service of the Iranian Radio and Television that is under the direct control of the leader of the Islamic Republic, Ayatollah Ali Khameneh'i.

Addressing thousands of worshipers, Hojjatoleslam Sadreddin Qabanji, the Friday Preacher, described al-Aalam” as a “dirty thing” that presents the fighting between followers of the turbulent cleric Moqtada al Sadr with American forces as “Iraqi Muslim people resistance operations”.

With a staff of more than 50 journalists, cameramen and technicians, “al-Aalam” (The World) is the most viewed, if not the most popular, of all foreign television networks in Iraq, being also the only non-Iraqi television to receive without the need of sophisticated dishes and other costly equipments.

Mr. Qabanji also accused the Iranian clergy of keeping silent over the ongoing events in Iraq, stating that what Moqtada al-Sadr is doing under the name of Islam and the Iraqis has “nothing to do with opposing the American presence in the country”.

“This is the strongest ever criticism delivered by a high-ranking Iraqi cleric against the policy of the Islamic Republic concerning his country”, observed Mr. Sadeq Saba, the BBC’s senior commentator on Iranian affairs.

A senior member of the Supreme Assembly of the Islamic Revolution of Iraq (SAIRI) led by Hojjatoleslam Abdol Aziz al-Hakim, Mr. Qabanji was in fact expressing the dissatisfaction and unhappiness of most leading Iraqi Shi’a authorities with the policies of the ruling Iranian ayatollahs concerning Iraq, mostly the support they provides to Mr. Sadr and his so-called Jaysh (Army) al-Mahdi.

To the majority of Iraqi moderate clerics, including Grand Ayatollahh Ali Sistani, the highest religious authority in Iraq, Moqtada, the son of an Ayatollah killed by Saddam Hussein and his skirmishes with American forces are nothing but adventurism that harms the position of the Shi’as, as seen from the latest “adaptations” made by Washington in its relations with the Iraqi Shi’a and Sunni forces, creating a “balance” between the two major religious components of the Iraqi society.

Both the Americans and the Iraqi justice are hunting the young Sadr for the alleged murder of Hojjatoleslam Abdol Majid al Kho’i, a moderate cleric assassinated savagely in Najaf days after the fall of Saddam Hussein.

In his speech, Mr. Qabanji challenged the Iranian Shi’a clergy, asking them why they remain silent in face of Moqtada Sadr’s fighting the Americans in the holy cities of Najaf and Karbala and do not call the reel cleric to order? “What Sadr is doing is a purely personal vendetta and adventurism, having nothing with the American presence in Iraq or fighting the occupation of the country and what the al-Aalam television is doing is only harming our position”, he stated.

Iranian analysts said it is a matter of fact that from the start of Anglo-American attack on Iraq, the Iranian Radio and Television took the side of the now toppled Iraqi dictator, predicting the Americans “another Vietnam”, or a “quagmire they would sink in it”. Pointers at hand, high-ranking officers from the Revolutionary Guards would explain why the Coalition forces would be defeated.

“Iranian Radio and Television repeated to the last minutes al-Sahhaf’s declarations that the Americans had been booted out”, reminded Mr. Alireza Noorizadeh, a veteran Iranian journalist, referring to the then Iraqi Information minister statements in the one hand and the anti-American policies of Iranian regime during the days prior to the fall of Baghdad on the other.

Both the networks and the Iranian Friday preachers in their sermons also portray the Jaysh al Mahdi as an Iraqi Muslim national resistance force that fights American occupiers.

[Mr. Hasan Abedini, the director of al-Aalam denied the charges, stating that the network’s criteria are objectivity and news worthiness of the events]

Eyewitnesses present at the Friday ceremonies in Najaf, where Ali, the Shi’a’s first imam and a cousin of the prophet Mohammad is buried, reported that followers of the young Sadr tried to disturb the sermon and stop Hojjatoleslam Qabanji delivering his speech, but they were opposed by the worshippers.

In one of his last diatribes against the United States and its military intervention in Iraq, Mr. Khameneh'i had described the IPG as “an American puppet council” and called on the Iraqi people to “consolidate, generalise and unify” the resistance against the evil occupation forces.

“This statement is important since SAIRI, which has its real roots in Iran and for decades, had received all kinds of material, financial, logistics, propaganda and military assistances and support from the Iranian ayatollahs is an influent member of the American-installed IPG. It shows that ties between Tehran and the SAIRI are near breaking point”, Mr. Saba added.

According to a recent Washington Post report, the Bush Administration, in a major policy upheaval, is shifting the minority Sunni Muslims as its major ally against the Shi’a majority and at the same time is re-organising the Iraqi intelligence services to curb Iranian influence and meddling in Iraqi affairs.

The disgrace that has befallen on Ahmad Chalabi, the leader of the Iraqi National Congress who until recently was still the darling of the Pentagon and other in the American Administration is part of the same political re-evaluation, analysts says, referring to the raid, ten days ago, on the residence and offices of Mr. Chalabi in Baghdad and the accusations of espionage for Iran, including informing the Iranians that the US intelligence had broke their secret communications codes.

Taking the information seriously, the radical daily Jomhoori Eslami that belong to Mr. Khameneh'i called Saturday on all Iranian “responsible authorities” to “send proper warning signals to Washington” and called on the government to “mobilise all national and popular forces” to resist and defeat the new “evil coup” prepared by the enemies of Islam and the Islamic Revolution.

“The scheme must be taken seriously. The evil occupation forces must be told that the Islamic Republic would never allow them interfering in its domestic affairs and all necessary measures must be taken to dissuade the occupiers from a dangerous game against Iran”, the paper said in an editorial.

“It was clear from the outset that the forces of occupation would, in due time, pour their poison against Iran. The plot was hatched in Fallujah, after the Americans handed over the security of the city to the Ba’thists. Now, they are mobilising the most vicious of the remaining Saddamists to destabilise Iran”, the paper added., referring to the Washington Post’s story.

ENDS IRAN IRAQ RELATIONS

http://www.iran-press-service.com/ips/articles-2004/june/iran_iraq_relations_7604.shtml

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