Posted on 03/10/2005 6:41:24 PM PST by wagglebee
About 50 Iranian activists are holding a protest on an airplane at the Brussels airport, seeking to convince heads of the European Union to stop accommodating Tehran's cleric-led Islamic regime.
The activists, who refuse to disembark a Lufthansa flight from Frankfurt, are in cell phone contact with an Iranian scholar and activist in London who runs a TV station out of his home, Frood Fouladvand.
The protesters, according to Fouladvand, are chanting: "We are the messengers of peace. We are against global terrorism. We will remove the malignant terrorist regime of the Mullahs."
The Boeing 737 arrived at Brussels' Zaventem airport at 3 p.m. local time with 103 passengers and crew.
U.S. Iranian activist Banafsheh Zand-Bonazzi, who is in phone contact with Fouladvand, told WorldNetDaily the protesters want an internationally monitored referendum that would enable the Iranian people to choose their next form of government.
Zand-Bonazzi said the protesters include constitutional monarchists, some of whom support the late shah.
She insists they should not be delegitimized as a "bunch of crazies, which is how the Islamic regime will spin this."
"These are heroic Iranians who have taken their guts in their hands," she said. "All of the activists, whether constitutional monarchists or seekers of a republic, will stand behind everything they are doing."
Zand-Bonazzi believes the Iranians want a secular democratic state, not a "reformist" regime as advocated by President Mohammad Khatami, who, she said, simply is carrying out the wishes of the ayatollahs.
"This is the first of a series of confrontations with the European Union," Zand-Bonazzi said. "They will always be peaceful and respectful, but the leaders of Europe have to back down now."
The first order of business, she said, is for Europe to recognize the terrorist threat posed by the Iranian regime.
"[The mullahs] may say they are after the U.S. and Israel, but they are after a secular and democratic lifestyle, which includes Europe," Zand-Bonazzi said.
The protesters have been verbally abused by Belgian authorities and accused of hijacking, according to Zand-Bonazzi.
She maintains, however, the activists are doing nothing but singing Iranian freedom anthems and asking to speak to the U.K., French and German representatives of the European Union.
Members of the media are not allowed on the plane.
Jerome Corsi, author of the new book "Atomic Iran," cheered the protesters.
"This protest shows the situation in Iran is getting critical," he told WND. "There is significant dissent within Iran. The mullahs are making a desperate attempt to grab nuclear weapons as a last-gasp effort to hold on to power.
"These protesters want to bring to the attention of the world that the Europeans are pursuing an appeasement policy that favors these criminals who have hijacked Iran."
The Iranian people want the same freedom that the Bush Doctrine is bringing to the rest of the Middle East.
B U M P
Dissent is alive and well among Iranian patriots. Bush's Middle East revolution continues!
The Iranians have had longer than anyone to tire of Islamofascism. They were able to bring down the Shah 26 years ago, and I think they will be successful in securing true freedom very soon.
Europe is the biggest enabler of Mideast oppression and terror. The people of Iran know it and are expressing themselves in a peaceful manner. Maybe if they commited some horribly violent act to express their dissatisfaction with European "foreign policy", the left might talk about their "legitimate greivances" and "root causes".
But I guess you can't have any of those unless your enemies are America or Israel.
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