Iranian Alert -- DAY 30 -- LIVE THREAD PING LIST [Riots erupt]

Good one.

Internet is so low to continue, I will try later.
A black smoke from University of Tehran is visible.
A hellicopter is over there.

"The purpose will not be to overthrow the Iranian government -- that is beyond U.S. capabilities."

What a blatantly false statement!

Not just false. Ridiculous.

We'll be waiting to hear from you.
Continue caution.

If one will be hanged for demonstrating, one may as well be hanged for shooting ten vigilante thugs or a few millionaire mullahs.

Your sentiments are understood. However the demonstrators have tried to keep this peaceful. It makes their point. In Iran you can be arrested and tortured and sentenced to death for speaking out.

It's going to be a looooooonnnnng day.

IRANIAN CONSERVATIVES CRITICAL OF ECONOMY...

Iranian conservatives have attempted to shift the focus from disquiet over political and legislative issues to public dissatisfaction with the Iranian economy, and this trend was attacked in an 8 July report in the "Yas-i No" newspaper. The reformist daily opened by saying that complaints about recent hikes in the prices of bread, sugar, railway tickets, potatoes, milk, chicken, etc., ignore the fact that "most of those price rises were within the framework of the five-year [development] plan that had been approved by all the leading figures of the system, and not only by Khatami's government." The report stated that the right-wing press brought up the issue in late May, and this trend continued through June in publications such as "Entekhab," "Jam-i Jam," "Jomhuri-yi Islami," "Kayhan," "Resalat," and "Siyasat-i Ruz." False rumors about the "privatization" of the universities led to clashes and unrest. President Hojatoleslam Mohammad Khatami has been trying to defend his administration's economic record (see below). BS

...AND GOVERNMENT DEFENDS IT.

President Khatami said in a 7 July speech that his political rivals are portraying the economic situation in Iran inaccurately and the level of foreign investment indicates economic development, IRNA reported. "Some dignitaries are taking the tribune of sacred Friday prayers to voice bitter criticism against the government. They speak in the name of religion to accuse the government system in the worst possible manner." Khatami was referring to Ayatollah Mohammad Taqi Mesbah-Yazdi's pre-sermon speech on 4 July. Mesbah-Yazdi said in that speech that the economy is unhealthy and the state is usurious, ILNA reported. Government spokesman Abdullah Ramezanzadeh addressed the accusation of usury during his 6 July press conference, ISNA reported. "The Islamic banking law was approved during the era of the Imam [Ayatollah Khomeini], may his noble soul be sanctified in paradise. All the Guardian Council jurisconsults approved it as well." BS

source: RFE/RL NEWSLINE Vol. 7, No. 128, Part III, 9 July 2003

The government does not know what to do. The banking law is OK in Iran as it accepts interest hence the attack against riba. Note the ref to Khomeini. But the banking law has to be modernized.

The question is when we can strike a deal with the main mullahs and let them move with some of their money. It is always cheaper to pay for a departure than to have a violent destruction.

Compare Vietnam: if we paid each vietnamese 100,000 USD and told them to become a capitalist we would have saved a lot.

Not too much longer. It's night in Tehran..Waiting for DrZ to wake up. We should start hearing things fairly soon.

45 minutes to go.

That's probably inaccurate. DrZ's probably awake. Waiting for him to check-in.

Government loses high hopes for ratification of its dual drafts

Tehran, July 9, IRNA -- Vice President for Legal and Parliamentary Affairs Mohammad-Ali Abtahi here on Wednesday said that the government is less hopeful about the final ratification of the dual proposed drafts.

Speaking to reporters after a cabinet meeting, he added that though no new developments have taken place to the effect, the cabinet's high expectations are now diminishing.

"In the last session held with the Guardians Council to debate on the limits of presidential authorities, a mutual discussion was between the cabinet and the Guardians Council was planned, but this has not yet materialized," he added.

Commenting on reports about an impeachment motion against President Khatami moved by several MPs, he said that he was informed about it through the press but the Majlis has not yet called for it.

Turning to recent university unrests, he hoped that the rioters will be investigated properly in custody and students who just voiced their protests will not go through any difficulties.

http://www.irna.ir/en/tnews/030709180637.etn08.shtml

Towards the showdown with express train. If the drafts will not be accepted (they are about removing the vetting procedure by the Guardian Council) Iran will go towards a violent clash with the inevitable eradication of the Guadian Council. A peaceful dismantling is better.

I'm back....

Mouvement uses only remaining Satellite TV to call for massive demos
By SMCCDI (Information Service)
Jul 9, 2003, 4:03am

The SMCCDI called, from the early hours of this morning and till mid day (local time), Iranians to come this evening into the streets and squares in order to show their rejection of the regime and to "break its last bones".

The call which was broadcasted by the Los Angeles based Pars TV Network was capted in most areas of Iran"; And Despite the bad condition of the transmission, due to the regime's persistent jammings and the satellite carrier's controversial action, the message was received by many inside the country.

Aryo Pirouznia, speaking on behalf of the SMCCDI, called on regime's Military forces to avoid defending a dying regime and reminded them of the consequences of such crimes. He called as well on the Tavanir (Electrical Company) employees to shut off all lights and electricity in order to help the residents who were requested to shut off their lights from 22:30 till 23:00 (Local time).

http://www.daneshjoo.org/generalnews/article/publish/article_1029.shtml

The Future of Iran

July 09, 2003
National Review Online
Michael Ledeen

Today, July 9, is the day the Iranian student movement has designated for national demonstrations against the regime, and a general strike in favor of democracy. Shaken by weeks of recent protests, and worried about the mounting criticism from several Western countries, the regime has taken unprecedented steps to head off a potential showdown with its own people:

- Thousands of political activists, students, and others, have been rounded up and packed into prisons, subjected to torture, and in some cases murdered.

- Children of parliamentarians have been summarily arrested, as have parents of Iranian democracy advocates living abroad.

- Great efforts have gone into ensuring that Iranians cannot communicate with one another, either by telephone (cells have been shut down) or radio or television (the U.S.-based independent radio and television stations have been reporting a new jamming campaign against their satellite broadcasts. As of late on the night of the 8th, it was impossible to isolate the source of the jamming). Satellite dishes have been torn down, and smashed in the streets.

- Ditto for the press. Journalists have been arrested, newspapers have been closed. In short, everything the regime could do to isolate the Iranian people from the outside world has been done.

- New security forces have been recruited. Lacking confidence in the willingness of Iranians to beat and kill their own, the regime has brought in Lebanese Hezbollahi, members of the Badr Brigades from Iraq (where they'd been dispatched as part of the "insurgency" against American forces), the usual "Afghan Arabs," and, reportedly, Palestinian toughs. All reminiscent of the Chinese tactics in Tiananmen Square, where they imported soldiers from remote regions to suppress the pro-democracy uprising.

For those who believe that revolution is a test of will, and that a regime willing to use any amount of terror required to retain power will probably survive, these are at once ominous and encouraging signs. Ominous, because this regime does not appear ready to go quietly; encouraging, because the mullahs are not facing a handful of revolutionaries, but a mass movement.

I have long argued that the United States could provide the decisive support that would guarantee success of the democratic revolution. All Iranians, from the top ayatollahs to the student organizers, believe that America is capable of guaranteeing the outcome of the conflict, and they are all trying to decipher the American strategy. Whenever President Bush speaks warmly of the demonstrators, they are enormously encouraged; whenever some other official — typically from the State Department — speaks words subject to many interpretations (or, worse still, proclaims the current regime "a democracy," as Deputy Secretary of State Armitage did in February), it sends a chill through the hearts of the freedom fighters. Despite the endless barrage of anti-American rhetoric from the mullahs, they still maneuver to be able to demonstrate American acceptance of their power, knowing that any hint of American legitimization of the regime will weaken their opponents.

In Iran, where treachery has long been the national sport and superstition the bedrock of political analysis, the people are casting runes and reading entrails, searching for certainty about the American strategy. Once they know it, they will act accordingly. If they see clearly, once and for all, that the United States is serious about regime change in Tehran, the ranks of the opposition will swell beyond counting. If they conclude that we have betrayed them to their masters, they will give up the struggle, at least temporarily. This is yet another reason why a clear American policy is so desperately needed. And still, the defining document, the long-awaited National Security Presidential Directive (NSPD) on Iran, gathers mold in the bowels of the bureaucracy, even though we have declared ourselves at war with the terror masters since September 12, 2001.

In this confusion, the mullahs are stalling for time. They believe that if they can ride the whirlwind until next year, the president will forget foreign policy and devote all his energies to his reelection. They also believe that they can bloody us in Iraq, sending scores or even hundreds of body bags to American shores, eventually sapping our will and sending us home. And they believe that once they can demonstrate possession of an atomic bomb, they will become the North Korea of the Middle East, invulnerable to American attack.

They are wrong on all counts. If this president sees our victory in Iraq threatened by Iranian sabotage, he will act with the same resolve he has shown since the war against the terror masters began nearly two years ago. Nothing would spur him on more than the spectacle of dead American soldiers. And an Iranian bomb would only add to his urgency, and strengthen the case for American support of the democratic revolution. The bomb might deter a military attack, but the doom of the mullahs will not come from the barrel of a gun. It will come from millions of Iranians in the public spaces of the major cities, demanding an end to their misery.

So what are we waiting for?

— Michael Ledeen, an NRO contributing editor, is most recently the author of The War Against the Terror Masters. Ledeen, Resident Scholar in the Freedom Chair at the American Enterprise Institute, can be reached through Benador Associates.

http://nationalreview.com/ledeen/ledeen070903.asp

"If you want on or off this Iran ping list, Freepmail me”

My heart is with your people. I will be praying for your country. I have many Persian friends who love me just as much as I love them. I also had wonderful Iranian students (young boys, young men and some girls) in my English classes while I was in Ankara. I have always remembered them fondly all these years and wondered how their lives turned out. Their stories broke my heart. I hated them being so far away from their parents and siblings. I pray they are free, wherever they are....America or Canada, where they were headed. I have always worried about the families they left behind in Iran.

Anyhow, please add me to your ping list and know that I'm praying. God bless you. Be safe.

Beaming Discontent

By By Leela Jacinto
Jul 9, 2003, 5:34am

'Subversive' L.A.-Based Satellite Channels Tell Iranians of Protests

When student demonstrations began rocking Tehran last month, Sarah H. learned what was happening outside her apartment in the Iranian capital in part from an unlikely source — a satellite TV channel beamed in from distant Los Angeles.

Along with her friends, Sarah, a 25-year-old former English literature student who asked that her name be change for fear of arrest, quickly determined it was too dangerous to join the protests in the early hours of June 11, shortly after baton-wielding police and militias arrived to disperse the crowd and the protests turned nasty.

But in the anxious days that followed, she was hungry for news about the demonstrations that rocked the sealed-off Amirabad area around the Tehran University dormitories.

While the Internet quickly sprouted Web logs and postings, Sarah found the most visceral news of the demonstrations could be found on a handful of satellite channels brought in from L.A.

With a lively, often impassioned mix of political talk-shows, news summaries and patriotic music from a bygone age, Farsi-language satellite TV stations established by Iranian immigrants in Southern California were broadcasting up-to-the-minute news of the protests, inviting viewers to call in and share their experiences, and exhorting Iranians to join the cause.

Their raucous on-air rabble-rousing did not go unnoticed by the Iranian government, which had been attempting to crackdown on protests against Islamic clerical rule spreading across the country. Within days, senior hardline Iranian leaders were denouncing the "evil" TV stations that "America had established."

Stirring Audiences

Since the Islamic revolution more than 20 years ago, the Iranian government has been quick, if not necessarily adept, at pointing accusatory fingers at the United States — the "Great Satan" in hardline Tehranspeak — for a host of problems facing the nation.

And while she's no fan of the hardliners, Sarah believes this time there was an element of truth to the government's claims.

"These satellite TVs were informing people about the riots and Tehrani people could easily find out in which part of the city there were riots," she told ABCNEWS.com in a telephone interview from Tehran. "They were moving people to go to the riots."

Satellite dishes are technically illegal in Iran. But in a society that draws a sharp distinction between public and private spaces, where homes are refuges from the theocracy's strict rules, foreign satellite channels are a fact of upper middle-class Iranian life.

Offering a range of foreign channels — including the popular Turkish TV stations — satellite dishes in Iran present viewers a welcome alternative to the dreary fare on state-owned channels.

Jamming the 'Subversive' Signals

But for the Iranian authorities, sowing the seeds of political discontent from abroad is a lot more worrisome than melodramatic Turkish sitcoms. And in the days following the outbreak of the student demonstrations, the Iranian government proved unwilling to tacitly look the other way.

Residents of upscale Tehran neighborhoods — where satellite dishes mushroom from roofs and garden walls — said government microwave trucks designed to jam satellite signals were making street rounds. And there were rumors that large circular white boxes installed on the grounds of government compounds were in fact satellite signal jamming devices.

But in a characteristically Iranian display of civic deception, owners of satellite dishes have been devising ingenious ways to catch the "subversive" signals, from attaching tins on their dishes to inserting strips of aluminum foil.

"They can't do it," said Reza Fazelli, TV host and station manager of the California-based Azadi TV, referring to the Iranian government's efforts to jam their signals. "They try to disturb the wave of Azadi TV, but they can't cover the whole country."

But at Channel One TV, one of the fastest growing L.A.-based Farsi TV stations, the executives are taking no chances.

"Most of our satellite feeds are being blocked by government signals," said Iman Foroutan, vice president of Channel One TV. "So we have decided to add a shortwave radio station and a [print] magazine, and we're also going to use the Internet to reach people."

Eyes on the Future of Iran

Almost a month since student protests broke out in Tehran, Iranian-Americans today will be demonstrating in support of a general strike called in Iran to mark the fourth anniversary of the July 9, 1999 crackdown on protesting students.

One of the expected speakers at the pro-democracy demonstration in Washington, D.C., is Sen. Sam Brownback, R.-Kan., who proposed the Iran Democracy Act earlier this year, which seeks $50 million to promote democracy in Iran and fund Iranian opposition groups abroad.

Similar in scope to the Iraq Liberation Act passed by Congress in 1998, the Iran Democracy Act would make regime change in Iran the official U.S. policy and would provide funds to "expand pro-democracy broadcasting into Iran."

In what Ervand Abrahamian of the City University of New York calls "the same scripting" of U.S. policy of backing the Iraqi National Congress before the Iraq war, experts say some members of the Bush administration have been building ties with a number of U.S.-based Iranian groups, including exiled monarchists, in a shared dream to bring about a regime change in Iran.

Although the recent upsurge in guerrilla attacks against U.S. troops in neighboring Iraq has resulted in a cautious ring to Washington's drumbeats for regime change in Iran, influential neoconservatives — including members and supporters of Washington-based Coalition for Democracy in Iran — have been pushing for a more aggressive U.S. policy on Iran.

And while the Iran Democracy Act still awaits approval, the U.S. government has been beefing up its Farsi radio news service by the VOA (Voice of America). According to a Reuters report last week, the VOA has recently launched a nightly news service to provide information to Iranians opposed to conservative leaders.

Quoting an unnamed spokeswoman for the VOA, the report said the news program would run until the end of September at a total cost of $500,000. The news broadcasts are in addition to Radio Farda, a 24-hour U.S.-run radio service.

Where Does the Money Come From?

But funding from Washington is a thorny issue within the Iranian exile community, where rumors of "CIA funding" abound.

And the fact the California Farsi channels played a vocal role in the student demonstrations just as some members of the Bush administration were advocating regime change in Iran, has led several experts to question the source of the TV stations' funding.

"It's unclear where exactly the finances come from," said Eric Hooglund, fellow of Iranian studies at St. Anthony's College, Oxford University in England. "There have been rumors that they [the L.A.-based stations] have not been able to attract the advertising revenue they had hoped. And people are certainly very curious — for the obvious reasons."

Satellite executives, however, insist they are not being funded by the U.S. government for the very same "obvious" reasons. Instead, they say, they are desperately scraping by, paying between $45,000 to $60,00 per month for satellite air time through a combination of advertising and donations from viewers and wealthy Iranian-Americans.

"Air time is killing us," said Fariborz Abbassi, vice president and co-founder of Azadi TV. "If we didn't have such financial problems, we would be able to produce better programs."

While welcoming Brownback's attempts to infuse funds into the Iranian opposition effort, Foroutan said Channel One was "not in a position to accept any money that would compromise" the station's credibility.

"It would be nice to know what the United States wants in return for the money. Otherwise, we'll be viewed like the shah," said Foroutan, referring to Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, the last monarch of Iran who was widely reviled as a "puppet" of the West.

A Vocal Minority

The specter of the late shah continues to haunt some of the U.S.-based Farsi TV stations. Although the Iranian-American community is a diverse mix of new and not-so-new immigrants cutting across religious and class divides, a vocal section of the community are older Iranians who were in the United States when the 1979 Islamic Revolution shook the nation.

Experts say a large section of this group support Reza Pahlavi, the Virginia-based son of the deposed shah. Although Pahlavi advocates a referendum in Iran on the return of the monarchy and says he is committed to democracy, he arouses mixed passions among Iranians. Many of his detractors say the former crown prince — who fled Iran 25 years ago, shortly after graduating from high school — is out of touch with his former homeland.

But some Iranian-Americans say a number of the U.S. Farsi stations are controlled by Pahlavi's supporters who have seized on the recent student demonstrations to lobby for a regime change in Iran. "The people politically active in the community don't represent the community as a whole," said Abrahamian. "They are the ones with aspirations to become leaders in Iran. The vast majority of Iranians do not support regime change in Iran and the articulate minority do not reflect the rank and file."

While most Iranian-Americans do want Washington to support the students' aspirations without getting directly involved, some experts say many Iranian immigrants do not support any U.S. involvement, arguing instead the Bush administration can best support the students by not interfering in Iran's internal affairs.

It's a view Sarah H. in Tehran seconds even as she supports the demonstrating students. "It's very clear we don't want foreign support," she said. "We have voted for [reformist Iranian President Mohammad] Khatami and we want him to deliver. What we have is somehow a democracy and if we try, we can reach for it. This is our country. Americans can do what they want in their own country."

http://www.daneshjoo.org/generalnews/article/publish/article_1030.shtml

If one will be hanged for demonstrating, one may as well be hanged for shooting ten vigilante thugs or a few millionaire mullahs.,

Truer words were never spoken. Die fighting to win, do not die on your knees.

US is a dog and Britain is its tail, Iran's Rafsanjani says

By World News
Jul 9, 2003, 4:03am

TEHRAN - The United States is a dog and Britain is its tail, Iran's powerful former president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani was quoted as saying Wednesday in his latest colourful reference to the Western allies.

"The British have become the tail of a dog, and they move whenever the Americans want to wag their tail," he told the hardline Jomhuri Eslami in an interview.

Rafsanjani, who heads Iran's top political arbitration body, made the comment after being asked to give an analysis of US-British relations.

However the charismatic cleric, seen as a pragmatist in the Islamic republic's conservative camp, does like to mix metaphors when it comes to old arch-enemy Washington.

Earlier this month, he said the United States was a "dinosaur with a sparrow's brain".

http://www.daneshjoo.org/generalnews/article/publish/article_1028.shtml

I will be reporting again soon...

DoctorZin

Lacking confidence in the willingness of Iranians to beat and kill their own....

I guess when the Iranian military was asked the now ifamous question, they just said "no."