Iranian Alert -- July 25, 2004 [EST]-- IRAN LIVE THREAD -- "Americans for Regime Change in Iran"

The US media still largley 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.

Iran Clears Agent Accused Of Killing Canadian Journalist

July 24, 2004
The Associated Press
Toronto Sart

TEHRAN, Iran -- A Tehran court acquitted the sole defendant in the murder of an Iranian-Canadian photojournalist, the lawyer and Nobel Peace laureate representing the victim's mother told The Associated Press on Saturday.

Shirin Ebadi, who is the chief lawyer for the mother of slain photojournalist Zahra Kazemi, said the legal proceedings were flawed.

"I'm required to work until my last breath to make sure that justice is done to my client," Ebadi said.

She threatened to take the matter to international organizations if the Iranian judiciary fails to carry out justice.

"I'll protest this verdict. If the appeals court and other legal stages fail to heed our objections, we will use all domestic and international facilities to meet the legal rights of my client," an angry Ebadi said.

Kazemi, a Canadian freelance journalist of Iranian origin, died July 10, 2003, while in detention for taking photographs outside a Tehran prison during student-led protests against the ruling theocracy.

Iranian authorities initially said Kazemi died of a stroke but a presidential committee later found she died of a fractured skull and brain hemorrhage.

The agent charged with murdering Kazemi, Mohammad Reza Aghdam Ahmadi, pleaded innocent on July 17 and the trial was abruptly ended the next day.

Hard-liners were angered when the defence team led by Ebadi accused prison official Mohammad Bakhshi of inflicting the fatal blow to Kazemi and the conservative judiciary of illegally detaining her.

Ebadi said the court also ruled that Kazemi's blood money has to be paid from public funds, that is by the government. Blood money is the compensation that an Islamic court orders a convicted attacker to pay to the victim or the victim's relatives. In Kazemi's case, the money has to be paid from public funds since no murderer has been identified.

http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_Type1&c=Article&cid=1090665866092&call_pageid=968332188492&col=968793972154

French Carmaker Renault Unveils New Iranian Operation

July 24, 2004
AFP
Yahoo News

TEHRAN -- French carmaker Renault inaugurated its new Tehran headquarters, part of its bid to establish itself as a major player in Iran's fast-growing automobile market.

On show was the Logan, a budget compact family saloon the company is set to produce here as part of a joint venture between Renault Pars, the car giant's Iranian concern, and the Automotive Industry Development Company, a grouping of Iran's two main state-contolled carmakers Saipa and Iran Khodro.

An initial agreement was signed in March, with 51 percent of the operation held by Renault.

The project involves the production of the Logan, to be branded here as the L-90.

Annual production, beginning in 2006, is expected to start at 300,000 units but could eventually rise to 500,000, said Renault group chairman and CEO Louis Schweitzer.

Renault officials here have put the initial investment by the company at some 300 million euros, but said that amount could more than double over the next few years.

It is the largest direct and long-term investment in Iran by a French company since the formation of the Islamic republic in 1979. Renault's rivals Peugeot and Citroen are both already engaged here but under more limited joint ventures.

Iran has seen a sharp growth in demand for new cars in recent years, far outstripping domestic production and imports subject to punishing duties. In 2003, market demand amounted to 700,000 units.

The L-90 is also tipped as a primary successor to the Paykan, Iran's ubiquitous national car. It is a gas-guzzling descendent of Britain's long-forgotten Hillman Hunter, which sold Iran its production line in the late 1960s.

The Paykan, produced by Iran Khodro and with about as much charm as an East German Trabant, is due to cease rolling off the production line in 2005.

Renault also intends to launch production of the Logan model -- which will cost upward of 5,000 euros -- in China, Romania, Russia, Colombia and Morocco.

Although a budget model, Schweitzer asserted it was based on the latest technology and would conform to European safety and environmental standards.

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=1503&ncid=732&e=8&u=/afp/20040724/ts_afp/iran_france_economy_auto

KQED aired Globe Trekker 308 this morning in the San Francisco Bay Area.

The host meets with a family near the Caspian Sea

Tour guide Ian Wright takes viewers on a hitch-hiking guide around the country, making soothing remarks about the increasing openness of Iran and mumbling justifications for the Iranian revolution between gulps of tea and hooka puffs.

Ian Wright in Tehran

The show is introduced as follows on KQED's website:

308 Iran - Ian Wright explores Tehran, the busy capital city, and visits the last resting place of Ayatollah Khomeini, considered by many to be Iran's holiest site of worship. After taking part in the House of Strength, an ancient Iranian sport, Ian checks out the local nightlife and treats himself to a dish of sheep's brains. He goes skiing in Dizin and then travels to Bandare-E Torkaman on the Caspian coast, where he goes sturgeon fishing and visits a caviar processing plant. Ian wrestles a descendant of Genghis Khan before journeying to Esfahan, site of a magnificent blue-domed mosque. He flies to Shiraz to see the Islamic festival of Ashura, spends a day with the Qashqai Nomads; and then visits Persepolis, a city built at the height of the Persian Empire.

More details about the show appear on their pilotguides.com website.

One of Wright's most naive and simplistic criticisms of the former regime of the Shah came when he visited the city of Persepolois pictured below:

Next, Ian hitch-hikes to Persepolis, the ancient city built by Darius the Great 2,500 years ago at the height of the Persian Empire. The ruins were also the scene of the hugely controversial party thrown by the last Shah of Iran in 1972, costing millions of dollars. It was one of the events that sparked the dissent that would eventually culminate in revolution in 1980.

While Wright's political comments were minimal, they stood in stark contrast to the Iran DoctorZin and Free Republic bloggers know. The friendliness and kindness of the Iranian people, often mentioned here, were obvious however!

Some (rather unrepresentative) images of Persepolis follow.

Map of the Achaemenid Palace at Persepolis

Iran and The American Allegations

July 25, 2004
Al-Hayat
Salameh Nematt

As long as more than 70 percent of the world's oil has an Islamic identity, or as along as more than 70 percent of the oil pipelines pass through Islamic territories, the antagonism between America and the Islamic states is expected to continue until it reaches a stage where one of them knows how to win the "heart and mind" of the other, or until one of them knows how to dominate the other.

In other words, the sole superpower in the world which is threatened by the rise of a united Europe, on the one hand, and by China, on the other, needs to control one of the most important elements of economic growth: energy and its prices. In this context, we can understand the reasons behind toppling both the regimes in Kabul and Baghdad. These are the same objectives behind Saddam's decision to invade Kuwait in the summer of 1990 before America intervened to frustrate his ambitious regional program.

When it was possible to militarily intervene in "rogue" states that might threaten world peace, as in the case of Afghanistan under Taliban's rule and Iraq under Saddam, and in order to guarantee America's leading role in the world, Washington needed more civilized means in order to thwart the united Europe and China's attempts to achieve what Saddam was seeking. Saddam sought to invade Kuwait in order to pave the way for subjugating Gulf oil-producing states under his policies and ambitions that went beyond the borders of the region.

Therefore, bolstering the American influence in the oil regions always required justifications and allegations such as those provided by Osama bin Laden in the events of 9/11. Saddam was also an excuse for America to enter the region in 1991. It could be said that America was in need of Saddam and bin Laden and perhaps it might have provided other allegations had the creative justifications of these two men were not present.

America and Britain had abandoned the Hashemite reign in Iraq because of its ambitions and its national enticement that went beyond its borders. It also abandoned the Shah in Iran because of his ambitions for dominating the oil region in order to promote his regional role and his international standing.

It is not permissible for small states to play the role of large ones, especially if the game is in a vital region such as the [Persian] Gulf. Whoever has power over this region can control the west's economy by controlling the oil prices, which affect the cost of production and consumption in major industrial countries. This is why Washington invested billions of dollars in launching its war in order to thwart any attempt to holdback the pulse of American economic life, regardless of who is seeking that role. This is also why the Europeans especially the French and the Germans opposed the American military intervention in Iraq. This is also why the Chinese were silent towards its confrontation across the Atlantic.

It is no secret that America refuses to impose taxes on the consumption of oil similar to what Europe is doing. America refused such taxes in order to keep the cost of its oil production low as opposed to the cost of the European production. This would give Washington an economic advantage that it would like to keep.

Iran's insistence today on promoting its influence in Iraq as opposed to the American influence and its perseverance concerning its nuclear program signifies that Tehran learned nothing from the lessons of the fall of the Mossadeq regime in 1953 and the Shah regime in 1979. The policies of dual containment were the bases for encouraging Iraq on launching its eight-year war supported by Washington in order to exhaust Iran and contain its regional ambitions. Because Tehran did not seem to have learned the lessons of the past and what happened in Iraq and Afghanistan, Washington exposed this week Iran's involvement in the events of 9/11. History seems to be repeating itself.

http://english.daralhayat.com/OPED/07-2004/Article-20040725-f5b7c713-c0a8-01ed-0077-896f93507ac4/story.html

Kazemi Slaying Acquittal Draws Fire

July 25, 2004
Victoria Times Colonist
Sean Gordon

OTTAWA -- An Iranian intelligence agent has been acquitted of murdering Montreal photographer Zahra Kazemi, prompting fears among her relatives that Iran's government will now close the investigation into her death.

Iran's official news agency reported that Mohammad Reza Aghdam Ahmadi has been released from custody and absolved in the beating death of Kazemi, an Iranian-born, Montreal-based photojournalist who was arrested last year after taking pictures of a student protest outside a Tehran jail.

Canadian diplomatic officials were also able to confirm that Ahmadi has been formally cleared of "semi-premeditated murder."

Kazemi's surviving family has long contended that Ahmadi, a mid-level counter-terrorism expert, was tried in order to shift the attention away from high-ranking prosecutors they claim ordered Kazemi's arrest and a senior prison official who subsequently beat her.

Now they fear the Iranian government will use the acquittal as a pretext to halt the search for her killer.

"All the indications are that the Iranians would see this as the end of the investigation ... this doesn't mean they're going to go and investigate someone else," said John Terry, a lawyer representing Stephan Hachemi, Kazemi's son.

"It was either going to be a quick conviction and Iran would be done with this, or a quick acquittal and Iran would be done with this. We never expected any more than that."

Hachemi said Saturday the acquittal does not mean the case is closed.

"The Iranian government thinks that the case is over now that there's been an acquittal," he said. "No way."

Hachemi added he isn't surprised by the court decision because he believed the entire court proceedings were nothing more than a show trial, with a predetermined result.

"I expected this," said Hachemi. "The only justice we have come to expect from Iran is injustice."

Despite the acquittal, Kazemi's mother, son and other relatives will be entitled to what Terry called "blood money" from the government.

Terry said that under Iranian law, compensation for the families of murder victims is set at ,000 if the victim is a man, and about half that for a woman.

"Clearly any sort of payment like that is absolutely and completely out of any proportion to the loss that's occurred," he said.

Hachemi is asking Canadian officials to haul Iran before the International Court of Justice in The Hague to demand more appropriate compensation, the return of her remains, and a full investigation of her death.

His representatives met with lawyers from the Department of Foreign Affairs on Friday to discuss their legal options.

It's expected a followup meeting will take place next month.

According to Terry, the family also has 20 days to lodge an appeal of the Iranian court verdict.

"Apparently the victims have a right of appeal . . . and I expect we'll be appealing even though we've never believed they had the right individual," he said.

Kazemi's relatives are represented in Iran by Nobel laureate Shirin Ebadi, who has fingered a senior member of the Iranian judiciary as bearing responsibility for Kazemi's death.

Ebadi has been sharply critical of the judiciary, which is heavily influenced by conservative Islamic clerics, as have other reform-minded government officials.

Federal government officials were unable to get many details concerning the verdict, and received no formal notification from Iranian authorities.

"Because our people at the embassy don't have access to the court proceedings, we're trying to piece things together ... our understanding is there was an acquittal, but we don't know the circumstances," said Andre Lemay, a Foreign Affairs department spokesman. "Is this an acquittal because there wasn't enough proof, is it an acquittal based on the fact there's going to be another trial? These are all elements we don't have at this point."

Lemay said more information would be available today.

Relations between the countries have been strained since Kazemi's death, and reached the breaking point last week when Canadian representatives and Western journalists were barred from attending Ahmadi's trial.

Last Sunday, Ottawa made good on a threat to recall Canada's ambassador to Iran unless Philip Mackinnon was allowed to attend the trial. Relations were suspended with Tehran and Mackinnon returned to Canada and briefed Foreign Affairs Minister Pierre Pettigrew on the Kazemi case Wednesday.

The trial ended abruptly last Sunday, after just two days of testimony and despite Ebadi's strenuous objections.

The 54-year-old Kazemi, who left Iran for Canada a decade ago, succumbed to head injuries a year ago this month.

Iranian officials originally claimed she died of a stroke, but a presidential inquiry later revealed she had been beaten and likely tortured by her captors.

CanWest News Service; with files from Gary Francoeur, Montreal Gazette

http://www.canada.com/victoria/timescolonist/news/story.html?id=a228873f-b266-469e-a146-8254443ce238

Iran Says U.S. Senators 'Daydream' of Regime Change

July 25, 2004
Reuters
reuters.com

TEHRAN -- Iran's Foreign Ministry on Sunday branded as "daydreamers" U.S. senators who have sponsored a bill aimed at toppling Tehran's clerical rulers by supporting opposition groups inside and outside the country.

Republican senators Rick Santorum, representing Pennsylvania, and John Cornyn of Texas introduced the "Iran Freedom and Support Act of 2004" earlier this month.

The bill authorizes the U.S. president to provide $10 million to foreign and domestic Iranian pro-democracy groups such as radio and television networks in order to promote regime change in the Islamic state.

"Those who draft such plans lag behind the times, they live in their daydreams," Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi told a weekly news conference.

"They neither know Iran, nor the Iranian opposition," he said adding that arch-foe Washington had been "plotting against Iran ever since the (1979) Islamic revolution" without success.

While disillusionment with the 25-year-old Islamic revolution is widespread among Iran's disproportionately youthful population, opposition to the ruling establishment is weak and disorganized.

Despite appeals by California-based satellite channels run by Iranian exiles for mass demonstrations last month to mark the fifth anniversary of student protests brutally crushed by security forces, there were no large gatherings in Iran.

Nor were there any mass protests in February when Islamic conservatives fiercely loyal to the country's clerical rulers swept to victory in elections denounced as a sham by reformists allied to moderate President Mohammad Khatami.

Political analysts say exile opposition groups such as supporters of the former monarchy or the Iraq-based People's Mujahideen Organization enjoy negligible support within Iran itself.

http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml;jsessionid=ELDJDAWMG30GWCRBAE0CFEY?type=topNews&storyID=5764319

Al-Qaeda's Kurdish Allies Find Home in Iran

July 13, 2004
Institute for War & Peace Reporting
IWPR reporters in Mariwan, Iran and Biyara, Iraq

The Kurdish militant group Ansar al-Islam is reorganising in Iranian Kurdistan, say residents of the area, Iraqi security sources and local Iranian officials.

The radical group's presence - an open secret in the small towns of this mountainous region - appears to have, at the very least, the acquiescense of the Iranian authorities, and some sources report that Iranian intelligence offers logistics and possibly military training.

Indeed, IWPR spoke to an Iranian official who says that he was ordered to assist the militants, as well as a local Kurd who was recruited by them for training.

Despite the ideological gap between the radical Sunni Islamism of the Ansar and the Shia Islamism of the Tehran government, both Iranian and Iraqi observers believe that there is room for an alliance of convenience between the two parties.

While the Kurdish militants need room to rebuild, the Iranians can use them to undercut the influence of secular Kurdish nationalism in the area, and simultaneously have a bargaining chip in dealings with the Americans.

Ansar al-Islam was established in September 2001, first under the name Jund al-Islam, in Iraqi Kurdistan. Most of its founding members were Iraqi Kurdish Islamists who fought in Afghanistan and had strong ties with al-Qaeda.

According to Ansar prisoners in Iraq, many received al-Qaeda training in Afghanistan and then returned to Iraq to conduct attacks against the secular Kurdish political parties, and later against US targets in Iraq.

Ansar's fighters fled the mountains of Iraq last March after an American cruise missile pounded their headquarters. Ground assaults on Ansar-held areas continued throughout the war, and most of the surviving fighters, thought to be close to 800, fled east into Iran.

"When we were fleeing to Iran after the US bombing, the Iranian authorities singled out the Ansar fighters and their families, and took them away in military cars," said Golala Salih, a resident of the Iraqi town Tawela which sits on the Iraq-Iran border and was the former stronghold of Ansar al-Islam.

"They did not let us [ordinary refugees] cross into Iran."

Like most non-Ansar people named in this story, Salih is not her real name, as it has been changed for her protection. Most Ansar operatives are identified but they use code names, which change with their location.

The Ansar gunmen and their families who crossed the border are now in camps at the foot of an Iranian mountain range - the first in Baramawa village, 20 kilometres west of Mariwan, and the Darbandi Dizly camp further to the west, say residents of the area.

In addition to being outsiders, the militants, who wear the short-hemmed garment and grow the trimmed beard associated with Sunni radicals, are highly conspicuous in the region.

The area is renowned for its spectacular beauty, and, perhaps more importantly for the Ansar gunmen, it is surrounded by forests and rugged mountains and lies close to the Iraqi border.

Ansar fighters and their families are now mixed in with the local villages, leaving the residents feeling fearful and resentful.

"Since these gunmen and their families have been living here, we have been in constant fear," said Mam Rasoul, an elderly resident of the village. "The US might fire missiles at them, or the Kurdish peshmerga (soldiers) might come here to get them."

Others are resentful of the apparent financial support the Islamic fighters are receiving. "They get food rations and money every month," said Gulnaz, an elderly woman who lives in Daranaxa village near the Darbandi Dizly Ansar camp. She says that the Ansar group's living standards are better than long time residents of the area.

A high-ranking Iraqi security official said that while the foot soldiers of Ansar are living in these camps "their leadership and cohorts in other radical Islamic parties are spread over the Iranian Kurdish cities and towns of Bokan, Sanandij, Mariwan and Saqiz".

Two prominent Kurdish newcomers in the area bear the same names as Iraqi Ansar activists known to Iraqi intelligence.

Both of them have been spotted by locals going to a three-story house in Mariwan's Zrebar Road occupied by Iraqi Kurds with beards and short-hemmed trousers, which locals say was until recently one of Ansar's two headquarters in the town. The second is a two-story marble building near its Stadium Roundabout.

One of the two local Ansar leaders is Sheikh Jamal, who lives in the Laylakh district of Mariwan. His neighbours told IWPR that he spent the last five years in Afghanistan fighting with al-Qaeda and that he is now teaching military tactics to Ansar al-Islam new recruits.

The Iraqi security official said that they know of a Sheikh Jamal but could not confirm that he is the Mariwan Ansar official. "They use different code names in different cities," said the official. "Some had a codename in the town and different one in the mountain."

The second leader is Zryan Hawleri, whom Iraqi officials say is a top Ansar operative from Arbil in Iraq, now living in Mariwan.

Residents of Mariwan say that an out-of-town Kurd by that name currently owns a small corner shoe repair store.

A nearby shopkeeper said that he does not believe that Hawleri has come to Mariwan for business, "He is not working most of the time and receives many visitors."

According to a local Iranian interior ministry official, Hawleri has probably received a new identity from Iranian intelligence.

The official, who disapproves of the Islamists' presence in the region and fears they will radicalise the local population, showed IWPR a copy of an Iranian ID card with Hawleri's picture.

It was issued by the Islamic Hawza of Iran, the Islamic Shia school of Iran, with the name of Zryan Ali Pour, an Iranian surname.

The official said he was ordered by the Iranian Ittilaat intelligence service to provide special permits, required by foreigners to rent houses, to other likely militants, including two Afghans wearing Salafi garb who rented a mud-brick house in a district heavily populated by Ansar members.

A neighbour said that during Ramadan the two men received 15 to 20 visitors every night. Most had long beards and short Kurdish trousers, another Salafi trademark. "The meetings would last until midnight," the neighbour said.

The official, as well as an IWPR reporter, have also seen Kurdish Islamists being given rides in the Iranian-made pickups and landcruisers favoured by the Ittalat.

IWPR also met a young man who claims he signed up with the group in the town of Sanandij for 250 US dollars a month.

"Ansar al-Islam was able to attract 150 to 200 young Kurds from the poor neighborhoods of the town," the recruit said.

He said he is not a supporter of the group's ideology but joined only for the income. He further said that he disapproves of Ansar tactics which he says exploits needy people. "Leading people in Ansar would not themselves do what they are asking the poor foot soldiers to do," he said.

He told IWPR, on the condition of anonymity, that the Sanandij branch of the group has ties with a newly-formed group in Pakistan called Tabligh, or proselytizing.

Once Ansar leaders feel they can trust a recruit, he said, they are sent to the Iranian city of Zahedan on the Pakistani border for political and military training - and while he has not been trained himself, 35 new recruits left for training in two camps in May.

The local ministry of interior official also said that militants are sent for training in Baluchistan, the region of Iran in which Zahedan is located.

An Iranian journalist who has extensively covered militant affairs in Afghanistan says that before the toppling of the Taleban regime, Kurdish militants received training in the Afghan city of Herat.

After 2001, he says, the Iranians allowed fleeing al-Qaeda operatives to set up in two camps on the Afghan and Pakistani borders, one of which lies near Zahedan.

The Ansar presence in Iranian Kurdistan has coincided with the growth of Sunni radicalism in the region.

Mullah Muhammed is the most prominent preacher of Yakshawa village near the city of Bokan. Locals refer to this Iranian Kurdish cleric as the Ansar head there.

Mullah Muhammed is a popular preacher. One young government employee who attends Muhammed's Friday sermons regularly says that he understands Islam "better than anyone else" and can explain things very clearly.

"He attacks the Kurdish secular parties of Iran and Iraq, and says that jihad is the only right path for Islam," said the government worker.

Ansar also maintains what appears to be a propaganda apparatus in Mariwan. The sermons and speeches of Ansar leaders and other radical Sunnis are on sale in the town's shops.

Studio Dangi Islam, the Voice of Islam, is a record shop that sells CDs of speeches of Mullah Krekar, the Ansar leader, Osama Bin Laden, Taleban leader Mullah Omer, the Iraqi Kurdish Islamic Group leader Ali Bapir, and other hard-line mullahs. It also sells video CDs of Ansar battles in Iraqi Kurdistan.

In a number book stores, some of the most prominent titles are biographies of Bin Laden and Mullah Omer that were published in early 2003 by the Iranian ministry of culture. The ministry banned them in mid-2003 but copies still circulate.

http://www.iwpr.net/index.pl?archive/irq/irq_74_1_eng.txt

Terror in Iran by means of Islam
By authur ^ | July 24, 2004 | Amil Imani

Posted on 07/25/2004 9:52:09 AM PDT by Amil

Terror in Iran by means of Islam

By: Amil Imani July 24, 2004

The Islamic Republic terror machine once again has taken off at the speed of light. The Islamic Republic exemplifies a depraved, clerical system of government, which legitimizes its depravity through a series of terror, fear and intimidation of Iranian people. With the additional handpicking of the newly selected members of the "Majles," the clergies have intensified their terror and war against the people of Iran and their insatiable appetite for another holocaust against the Jewish State, at all cost. The leaders of the Islamic Republic have gone completely mad.

The Islamic Republic has stationed revolutionary and the militia troops to actively and deliberately prevent anyone from any demonstrations or objections against the totalitarian regime. They are planning to silence people by any means available to them.

Mothers and fathers who come to police headquarters to inquire about their arrested sons and daughters could be taken away or simply disappeared. Students are tortured and, on many occasions, murdered for crimes they never committed. And yet, we see the European governments are engaging and heavily investing in the Islamic Republic where its survival depends upon shedding the blood of Iranians.

The members of the Guardian Council determine the goals of the state and the means of achieving them in almost complete isolation from the people. They believe that the interests of the individual are to be sacrificed to those of the clergies and the Islamic agendas, which are in contrast with the needs and the goals of 90% of the population.

The Islamic Republic has subjected all aspects of Persian society to strict control, not tolerating even the slightest expression of local initiative, let alone political unorthodoxy. The regime's leadership feels especially threatened by the intelligentsia, the writers, the poets and the journalists whom they started to kidnap and murder by the hundreds. This action is now known as "the chain murders."

"18 people - three principals and 15 accomplices - charged with assassinating five dissident writers and politicians in 1998. They are said to have been part of a 'terror machine' working for the establishment. The accused are described routinely in the Iranian media as 'rogue elements' of the Intelligence Ministry. They were led by Saeed Imami, a senior ministry official, reported to have committed suicide in detention in June 1999 by drinking hair remover while having a bath."

Thousands of lives have been ended by evil, despicable acts of terror in the land that was the cradle of civilization, and now the cradle of Islamic Terrorism, which has given new meanings to the depth of Islamic terrorism. When the evil empire of communism in Russia was still alive, no one had ever imagined a stronger or more complicated evil empire would soon emerge. Islamic terrorism is responsible for the death of millions of innocent lives since its inception 1400 year ago.

The founder of Islam said, "invitation first, that is, call them first to embrace Islam. If they refuse, then war." That is how Islam advanced in Persia and completely burned and destroyed the most advanced library and the relics of one of the greatest and most civilized empires this world has ever seen. They turned it to the darkest chapters of Persian history, and 1400 years later, we see replication of history right in front of our own eyes, except, now, they are equipped with the weapons of mass destruction and willing to use them at any time and at any cost, in the name Allah.

The Islamic regime is simply following the orders of their holy prophet, thus they are doing it for the sake of Allah "The sword", said the holy prophet, "is the key of heaven and hell; a drop of blood shed in the cause of Allah, a night spent in arms, is of more avail than two months of fasting or prayer: whosoever falls in battle, his sins are forgiven, and at the day of judgment his limbs shall be supplied by the wings of angels and cherubim."

Today, the entire world is witnessing what true Islam can do to humanity. The world's awareness is increasing. But, how do we stop the spread of Islamic terrorism in the world before we all start to speak Arabic or die, as the holy prophet had prescribed 1400 years ago? There is a very simple answer, support the aspirations of the Iranian people in Iran for freedom, justice and liberty, and eradicate the Islamic Republic at once, before it's too late.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/1178191/posts?page=1

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