Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi in a news conference
Posted on 06/03/2005 10:13:32 PM PDT by F14 Pilot
PARIS, 3 June (IPS) Prince Reza Pahlavi joined his voice to other Iranian dissidents inside and outside Iran to urge Iranians not to participate in the coming presidential elections and do not give popular legitimacy a “discredited regime”.
“With more than 20 million votes, (outgoing President) Mohammad Khatami was not able to implement his reform program, what can a Hashemi Rafsanjani do, a man who is also very unpopular?”, the 45 years-old son of the late Iranian Monarch observed during a press conference held in Paris on 2 June on the invitation of the French-American Press Association, referring to reports giving the Chairman of the Expediency Council, Ayatollah Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani as the possible winner in the elections, due on 17 June 2005.
In his view, more than 65 per cent of the voters would abstain from going to the polls, a percentage confirmed by several opinion surveys, some of them realised by the government, including the Interior and the Intelligence ministries.
“It is not important who is president, but what the ruling establishment is after is preserving the regime. By the same token, they want to lure the West by presenting elections as meaning freedom and democracy. This is exactly the opposition is determined to resist by urging the people to support the idea of referendum”, he told journalists.
In a “Manifesto for Republicanism” published ten days ago, Mr. Akbar Ganji, an outspoken dissidents sentenced to ten years of imprisonment observed that under the Constitution of the Islamic Republic, real powers are in the hands of the leader, the revolutionary guards, the Judiciary, the Council of the Guardians or the Expediency Council, all non-elected organs in which the president, “a manager”, has no role.
“Eight years of Khatami’s presidency showed that the first choice of the people is nothing more than an intendant, as Mr. Khatami himself realised. The problem in Iran is not who become president or even elections are fair and free or not, but it is the system that needs to be reformed”, said Mr. Naser Zarafshan, a prominent lawyer sentenced to five years of imprisonment for taking the defence of the families of the victims of the November 1998 “Serial murders”.
“The passages to democracy needs the people’s no cooperation with the regime and by not collaborating, help to delegitimise the system”, Mr. Ganji, who is on a short leave for medical treatments, wrote, adding that insisting on a national referendum under international observation can help bring a smooth change of the present theocracy.
In echo to Mr. Ganji and Mr. Zarafshan, Mr. Pahlavi said “boycotting the elections is in itself a kind of referendum, one that sends a clear signal to the international community that the Iranians do not give legitimacy to a regime the majority of them reject”, he said.
Asked by journalists if he is after the restoration of monarchy to Iran or sees himself as an alternative to the present regime, he repeated that this is not his aim at this stage.
“The nature of Iranian regime must be decided by the people. What we want for now is a free, democratic, secular regime having good relations with all nations and respected by the international community”, he pointed out, adding that “this is what all the opposition must fight for, not waiting to see what the United States is going to do or what France would do”.
Mr. Pahlavi said he is against foreign intervention in Iran. “Any change of regime should come from the people, not others’, he said.
Asked about the controversial Iranian nuclear activities, the subject of perilous negotiations with European Troika and American-Israeli suspicion that the ruling ayatollahs are developing an atomic bomb Mr. Pahlavi, like the majority of his countrymen, defended, albeit indirectly, the right of Iran to have nuclear power for civilian uses, saying with Iran under a democratic regime respectful of international laws, “there is no reason to fear a nuclearised Iran”.
Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi in a news conference
The only true leader of the Iranian regime opposition is Prince Pahlavi!
Nice of you!
Thanks!
This might be interesting to you
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1416274/posts
do the iranians need a prince?
perhaps...but his father was still a despot!
His father is really respected among us!
And I do think calling him names is because of what Liberals and Leftists have done to portray him and his reign as some thing bad which is really untrue!
I can't talk on behalf of them but what I know is that they seek a true leader who might be able to lead them to their freedom!
I did speak out of turn in that my opinion is based on media opinions and nothing else. My apologies. I will bone up on my recent Iranian history. My knowledge relates to the great Persian history of the ancient past.
Arabs/Muslims are engaged in an explicit campaign of destruction and expropriation of cultures and communities, identities and ideas. Wherever Arab/Muslim civilization encounters a non-Arab/Muslim one, it attempts to destroy it (as the Buddhist statues in Afghanistan were destroyed, as Persepolis was destroyed by the Ayotollah Khomenie). This is a pattern that has been recurring since the advent of Islam, 1400 years ago, and is amply substantiated by the historical record. If the "foreign" culture cannot be destroyed, then it is expropriated, and revisionist historians claim that it is and was Arab, as is the case of most of the Arab "accomplishments" you cited in your speech. For example, Arab history texts in the Middle East teach that Assyrians were Arabs, a fact that no reputable scholar would assert, and that no living Assyrian would accept. Assyrians first settled Nineveh, one of the major Assyrian cities, in 5000 B.C., which is 5630 years before Arabs came into that area. Even the word 'Arab' is an Assyrian word, meaning "Westerner" (the first written reference to Arabs was by the Assyrian King Sennacherib, 800 B.C., in which he tells of conquering the "ma'rabayeh" -- Westerners. See The Might That Was Assyria, by H. W. F. Saggs).
http://www.british-israel.ca/Arab.htm
The above article refers to the destruction of Persepolis by Khomenie. Is this correct? I was always under the impression the destruction was caused by Xerxes.
The photographs I reproduce here are from the following link, taken around 1930.
http://www-oi.uchicago.edu/OI/MUS/PA/IRAN/PAAI/PAAI_Persepolis.html
Persepolis was destroyed by Alexander.
But Arabs and late, Khomeini regime did help to destroy it more!
****Xerxes built the city*****
thanks
Dont feel like that!;-)
The Mullahs' regime has tried so hard to take things away from the site and sell them in world black market
Yes, the stairways are still there but not in any good condition.
The last efforts to save the ruins was done back in 1970s during the Shah regime.
LoL~~~!!!
Good. I'm planning to go to Persia for the Coronation. I have no idea why I feel so strongly about this, but I do know that day will come. And it will be soon.
Iranians will welcome you like you're their brother or sister. The level of pro-Americanism in Iran is beyond belief. I honestly think it's the most pro-US country in the world.
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