Iranian Alert -- October 5, 2003 -- IRAN LIVE THREAD PING LIST

The regime is working hard to keep the news about the protest movment in Iran from being reported.

From jamming satellite broadcasts, to prohibiting news reporters from covering any demonstrations to shutting down all cell phones and even hiring foreign security to control the population, the regime is doing everything in its power to keep the popular movement from expressing its demand for an end of the regime.

These efforts by the regime, while successful in the short term, do not resolve the fundamental reasons why this regime is crumbling from within.

Iran is a country ready for a regime change. 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.

Please continue to join us here, post your news stories and comments to this thread.

Press Anxious About Nuclear Talks

October 05, 2003
BBC News
BBCi

As Iran announced on Saturday evening that it was prepared to sign, under certain conditions, an additional protocol allowing tougher inspections of its nuclear facilities by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the Iranian papers were split over what action Tehran should take.

While Iranian representatives said they were optimistic about resolving the IAEA's concerns, some papers feared none of the options left for Tehran would solve the nuclear issue.

Indecision

A commentary in the centre-right Entekhab said that although it expected Iran to sign the additional protocol, "accepting this protocol will create some problems for us, but not doing so is not without its consequences either".

It called on Iran's leaders to clarify what guarantees Tehran would obtain if it signed up to the additional protocol, or, if Tehran decided not to do so, what precisely its reasons were.

The divisions within Iran were highlighted by the English-language Iran News: "Some believe Iran must not join the protocol because it would pave the way for further pressures... it is argued [that] we had better clarify the situation from the start and resist further demands."

The paper noted the fear among some Iranians of the country losing access to nuclear technology for peaceful purposes.

However, it went on to say: "Another group says that Iran must accept the additional protocol so as not to give any excuses to Western countries, especially Europe.

"They believe the move will also prove the transparency of Iran's peaceful nuclear activities. After doing this, Iran can expect to receive facilities related to nuclear energy."

Arguing that access to nuclear technology was Iran's "inalienable right", a commentary in Etemaad noted that Iran's contemporary history was "full of agreements signed by men in power with foreign governments, most to the detriment of the Iranian nation".

The national interest

Several papers called on Tehran to consider carefully what was in Iran's national interest and not allow internal political divisions to harm the country.

Etemaad declared that national interests should be the "hallmark" of the behaviour of Iran's foreign ministry.

"Had the forgotten national interests been heeded earlier, we could have solved many problems. But better late than never," the paper said.

It advised Tehran not to repeat the memory of "despicable agreements" signed in the past.

"If political parties and government officials take the national interest into consideration, and make their decisions independent of their political differences... they will have achieved a formidable task," said a commentary in Entekhab.

The reformist Shargh complained that divisions within Iran were leading to a "democracy of chaos". It called on Tehran to find a single voice with which to address the world.

The American hand

A few papers focused on what they saw as US pressure driving the IAEA to act against Iran.

"It seems as if the great powers, and the US especially, have decided to prevent by any means Iran's access to nuclear power, even for necessary and peaceful purposes," the reformist Aftab-e Yazd said.

"Nobody should doubt that we cannot think of resorting to military confrontation to dissuade America and ensure the failure of its efforts and those of its allies," the paper warned.

Describing Iran's decision to discuss the additional protocol with the IAEA as a "positive move", Mardom Salari called on IAEA officials and the European Union to "appreciate the new development".

The paper argued that if Iran had taken this decision earlier, it would have "prevented the EU moving closer to the US position against Iran".

BBC Monitoring, based in Caversham in southern England, selects and translates information from radio, television, press, news agencies and the Internet from 150 countries in more than 70 languages.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/3165012.stm

Iranian Woman Faces Execution in Official's Death
By NAZILA FATHI

Published: October 5, 2003

TEHRAN, Oct. 4 — An Iranian woman accused of killing a police chief in southern Iran who she said tried to rape her has been convicted and is to be executed, the Shargh newspaper reported Saturday.

The woman, Afsaneh Noroozi, 32, who has been in jail since 1997, said during her trial that she stabbed the chief of police intelligence on the island of Kish in self-defense when he tried to rape her. The police chief, whose name has not been made public, was a friend of Ms. Noroozi's family, and she was at his house as a guest.

Her lawyer cited in her defense an article in Iran's Islamic penal code that allows citizens to take proportionate action to defend "life, honor, chastity, property, or freedom."

The newspaper reported that the final ruling, confirmed by a high-level court in August, was delivered to Ms. Noroozi in prison in the southern city of Bandar Abbas last week. Sentences are usually carried out a few days after the ruling is delivered.

Human rights workers and advocates for women's rights have condemned the ruling, saying that it is a violation of the right of a woman to defend her honor.

Three women who are members of Parliament recently sent a letter to the chief of the judiciary, Ayatollah Mahmoud Hashemi Shahroudi, asking him to send the case to a different judge.

The only person who can grant clemency now is Iran's supreme religious leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

Amnesty International has recorded 83 executions this year in Iran.

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/10/05/international/middleeast/05IRAN.html?ex=1065931200&en=b4ce7eb7e47dc69c&ei=5062&partner=GOOGLE

Iranian woman notified of death for killing policeman

Sunday, October 05, 2003

TEHRAN, Oct 4, (AFP) -- An Iranian woman sentenced to death six months ago for killing a police officer whom she said tried to rape her has just received notice of her punishment, a Tehran daily reported.

Afsaneh Noruzi, 32, was notified of her sentence September 28 while imprisoned in the southern port of Bandar-Abbas, where she signed and fingerprinted her death order, the Shargh daily reported.

The court sentenced Noruzi to capital punishment March 15 for stabbing to death a high-ranking officer on the Gulf island of Kish in 1997. She had testified in her defense that the police man tried to rape her in his office.

Her condemnation was confirmed by the supreme court.

During the trial, Noruzi's attorney invoked an Islamic criminal law article that permits an individual to react proportionately in defense of one's "life, honor, chastity, property or liberty," in the absence of authorities.

Noruzi's 15-year-old daughter appealed to the chief justice to review her mother's case. The girl put her hope in his "paternal hands" to prevent her 75-year-old grandmother from having to care for her and her siblings.

Three female moderate deputies also appealed to have the case transferred to a new judge.

The deputies said that by killing her aggressor, Noruzi was only "doing her Islamic and human duty to defend her honor as a Muslim woman."

Women are executed much less frequently than men in Iran. Last year, five were executed, four of them for killing their husbands.

http://www.iranmania.com/News/ArticleView/Default.asp?NewsCode=18472&NewsKind=Current%20Affairs

Tension between U.S. and Iran does not mean that war is likely

By Michael Nakoryakov

Talk about growing pains. Were Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini still alive, he would be seriously upset with his little grandson Hossein.
Last week in Washington, D.C., Hossein Khomeini, now 46, had few kind words for his grandfather's followers, blaming them for establishing a theocratic dictatorship in Iran and sponsoring terrorism in Iraq.
Hossein Khomeini told the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative Washington think tank, that Iran was "a huge supporter" of terrorism and that its religious leaders had betrayed the 1979 revolution that ousted Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi by failing to keep their promises to the Iranian people. "The goal of the revolution was the creation of democracy and freedom," he said.
Hard as many Americans could find it to believe, Hossein Khomeini's account sounds like a relatively fair assessment.
No doubt, the post-1979 Iran largely has been a Muslim extremist nightmare and a U.S. foe, and the fate of 62 Americans, held hostage there for many months two decades ago, was a tragedy. But, the warm feelings between the late shah and the U.S. leadership aside, Reza Pahlavi's corrupt reign was an authoritarian disaster for its 66 million people. Most Iranians wanted the shah out. That goal united thousands of people of various political stripes, from ultraconservatives to anarchists to Moscow-backed Marxists, and the hard-core Islamists just proved the strongest and most organized at the end.
The shah's loyalty to the United States was not carved in stone, either. Of course there were plenty of bear hugs and smiles when Reza Pahlavi traveled to Washington with his attractive young wife, but the front-page pictures of him kissing then-Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev in the mid-1970s should have been a much bigger shocker than the recent Madonna-Britney Spears MTV Awards encounter.
And it was long before today's concerns over oil-rich Iran's nuclear ambitions that the shah proclaimed the beginning of Iran's "white revolution" -- an ambitious late-1960s program that involved a complete rearming of the country's military and building a large network of nuclear power plants (read: potential sources of weapons-grade uranium).
The U.S. antipathy toward Iran was strong enough in the aftermath of the hostage crisis that the Reagan administration actively supported Saddam Hussein in the 1980-1988 Iran-Iraq war. But since then, Iran has taken steps to open itself up to the West. In 1997, the Iranians elected a moderate, Sayed Mohammad Khatami, as president, even though his authority has been restrained by the mullahs. A much-publicized U.S.-Iran soccer game a few years back, the recent large-scale anti-ayatollahs street rallies in Tehran and the obvious popularity of pro-reform politicians in Iran offer a preview of new, better times.
But, even though Iran quietly cooperated with the American military during the 2001-2002 conflict in Afghanistan, the Islamic republic remains on the State Department list of states that support terrorists. U.S. intelligence officials say Iran has ties to Middle Eastern terrorist groups ranging from Hamas and Hezbollah to al-Qaida.
And Iran's nuclear program remains a stumbling block.
Iran insists the new plant in Beshehr, being built with the help of Russia, is strictly for generating electricity. But the U.N. International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspectors earlier this year found highly enriched uranium particles at another Iranian nuclear plant in Natanz, which the IAEA deemed "not consistent" with Iran's stated peaceful purposes. The inspectors later said that they have found additional traces of weapons-grade uranium at another site. Last month, with U.S. encouragement and backing, the IAEA's governing board voted unanimously to give Iran an Oct. 31 deadline to prove it is not making nuclear weapons.
Maybe Iran will prove that. After all, the Iranian foreign minister said last week in New York that his nation's supreme spiritual leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has forbidden the production of nuclear weapons as haram, or prohibited on religious grounds. In Iran, an ayatollah's orders aren't taken lightly.
The question is, what if Iran fails to demonstrate its peaceful intentions? Will it have to be treated with another "shock and awe," as its former "axis of evil" companion was treated recently?
Apparently, Hossein Khomeini wouldn't mind that at all. "The U.S. invasion is really a blessing for the people of Iraq," he said. In contrast, he said, "Iranians are frustrated, not hopeful, but lacking a movement to bring about their yearning to be free."
Yet, there is no sign Bush is prepared to go beyond the testy words, and the harsh reality of trying to rebuild Iraq may have something to do with that.
One key lawmaker on Capital Hill praised the president's decision to work with the United Nations. "It 's the right course," said Rep. Curt Weldon, R-Pa., vice chairman of the House Armed Services Committee. "You can't go around and wage war every time there's a problem." Hear, hear.

Michael Nakoryakov is editor of The Salt Lake Tribune's World Desk. His foreign affairs column dates to 1991, when he came to The Tribune after 11 years as a journalist in Moscow. His e-mail address is michaelvn@sltrib.com

http://www.sltrib.com/2003/Oct/10052003/opinion/98452.asp

Iran's policewomen return to the beat

By Miranda Eeles
BBC correspondent in Tehran

Policewomen in Iran will soon be joining their male counterparts and working on the beat in Tehran.

At their graduation ceremony on Saturday they trooped in front of President Khatami together with thousands of male police officers.

It is the first time since the 1979 revolution that women have graduated from the police training college to become fully trained officers.

Swearing allegiance to the Islamic Republic and to the Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Khamenei, more than 200 policewomen gathered on the outskirts of the Iranian capital to attend their graduation ceremony.

They were dressed in smart black, green and gold chadors, the Islamic garment which covers women from head to toe.

Some carried guns while others held ceremonial swords.

Twenty-four year-old Susan Jejod Nejad said it was one of the best days of her life:

"Today I'm so happy because after three years I'm graduating and now I know how to shoot... and all the things that a real policewoman is, I know it".

The new recruits have been training since 1999 at the Kotar complex in Tehran.

Aged between 17 and 25 they have taken intensive military courses, including judo, fencing, using firearms and laying mines.

It has been nearly 25 years since women have played such an active role.

After the revolution women in the police worked mostly in administration.

Now, with the easing of restrictions and with more and more crimes being committed by women, the government decided it was necessary to have policewoman back on the beat.

There has been much speculation about what they will wear.

Reports say rather than the all-encompassing chador, their uniform will consist of trousers and a long coat. The new recruits are expected to start their duties immediately.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/3164946.stm

Press anxious about nuclear talks

Sunday, 5 October, 2003
BBC News

As Iran announced on Saturday evening that it was prepared to sign, under certain conditions, an additional protocol allowing tougher inspections of its nuclear facilities by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the Iranian papers were split over what action Tehran should take.
While Iranian representatives said they were optimistic about resolving the IAEA's concerns, some papers feared none of the options left for Tehran would solve the nuclear issue.

Indecision

commentary in the centre-right Entekhab said that although it expected Iran to sign the additional protocol, "accepting this protocol will create some problems for us, but not doing so is not without its consequences either".

It called on Iran's leaders to clarify what guarantees Tehran would obtain if it signed up to the additional protocol, or, if Tehran decided not to do so, what precisely its reasons were.

The divisions within Iran were highlighted by the English-language Iran News: "Some believe Iran must not join the protocol because it would pave the way for further pressures... it is argued [that] we had better clarify the situation from the start and resist further demands."

The paper noted the fear among some Iranians of the country losing access to nuclear technology for peaceful purposes.

However, it went on to say: "Another group says that Iran must accept the additional protocol so as not to give any excuses to Western countries, especially Europe.

"They believe the move will also prove the transparency of Iran's peaceful nuclear activities. After doing this, Iran can expect to receive facilities related to nuclear energy."

Arguing that access to nuclear technology was Iran's "inalienable right", a commentary in Etemaad noted that Iran's contemporary history was "full of agreements signed by men in power with foreign governments, most to the detriment of the Iranian nation".

The national interest

Several papers called on Tehran to consider carefully what was in Iran's national interest and not allow internal political divisions to harm the country.

Etemaad declared that national interests should be the "hallmark" of the behaviour of Iran's foreign ministry.

"Had the forgotten national interests been heeded earlier, we could have solved many problems. But better late than never," the paper said.

It advised Tehran not to repeat the memory of "despicable agreements" signed in the past.

"If political parties and government officials take the national interest into consideration, and make their decisions independent of their political differences... they will have achieved a formidable task," said a commentary in Entekhab.

The reformist Shargh complained that divisions within Iran were leading to a "democracy of chaos". It called on Tehran to find a single voice with which to address the world

The American hand

A few papers focused on what they saw as US pressure driving the IAEA to act against Iran.

"It seems as if the great powers, and the US especially, have decided to prevent by any means Iran's access to nuclear power, even for necessary and peaceful purposes," the reformist Aftab-e Yazd said.

"Nobody should doubt that we cannot think of resorting to military confrontation to dissuade America and ensure the failure of its efforts and those of its allies," the paper warned.

Describing Iran's decision to discuss the additional protocol with the IAEA as a "positive move", Mardom Salari called on IAEA officials and the European Union to "appreciate the new development".

The paper argued that if Iran had taken this decision earlier, it would have "prevented the EU moving closer to the US position against Iran".

**BBC Monitoring, based in Caversham in southern England, selects and translates information from radio, television, press, news agencies and the Internet from 150 countries in more than 70 languages.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/3165012.stm

Inside Al Ansar

October 05, 2003
Newsweek
Babak Dehghanpisheh

Taha Mahmud remembers thinking he was going to die. He was thrashing through knee-deep mountain snow toward his last hope of safety, the Iranian border.

High overhead in Iraq’s sky, U.S. warplanes homed in on him and nearly 120 other Islamic radicals belonging to the Qaeda-linked Kurdish group Ansar Al-Islam. American bombs and missiles had already obliterated Ansar’s stronghold in the valley below. While Mahmud wondered whether to risk being shot by Iranian border guards, a pair of American bombs solved his dilemma. Two thunderous explosions sent him staggering into Iran, his path traced by blood from his shredded left knee. “Only Allah saved me,” Mahmud says.

Most Kurds were glad to think Mahmud and his cohorts were gone forever. For 18 months Ansar had waged a fratricidal jihad against its secular Kurdish neighbors instead of helping them fight Saddam Hussein. After the U.S. assault on its enclave last March, the group seemed to vanish. Tehran still insists that none of Ansar’s 900 or so fighters were allowed into Iran. Hundreds of them managed to get in anyway, welcome or not. Now they’re sneaking back across the border to continue their battle against the West. L. Paul Bremer, the U.S. administrator in Iraq, estimates that “several hundred” Ansar fighters have returned since spring. “They’re a very dangerous terrorist group,” he says, “and that’s a lot of terrorists.”

Ansar infiltrators are already prime suspects in some of the deadliest terrorist strikes against Americans and their allies in Iraq. The attacks include the Aug. 7 truck bombing outside the Jordanian Embassy and the Aug. 19 destruction of the United Nations’ Baghdad headquarters. The former Qaeda associate suspected of masterminding the Jordanian Embassy bombing, Abu Mussab al-Zarqawi, remains on the loose. And Ansar’s founder, the man known as Mullah Krekar, makes no secret of his enthusiasm for holy war even as he fights efforts to deport him from Norway (box). Increasing evidence suggests that Ansar fighters are joining forces with Baathists and members of Al Qaeda. In one such case, a suspected Qaeda operative was caught with 11 surface-to-air missiles in Ar Ramadi, west of Baghdad; he told investigators he had trained with Ansar members to use the weapons against Americans.

Dozens of Ansar foot soldiers have been captured in recent months and are being interrogated by U.S. and Kurdish intelligence officers. The prisoners who were made available to NEWSWEEK presented an unsettling picture. The young men themselves were a diverse lot, not unlike the rank and file of any fighting organization. But they described a group that has mutated and adapted since being forced out of its former base in Iraq, and whose leaders have an implacable hatred of America.

U.S. and Kurdish security officials say roughly 300 Ansar militants are holed up in small Iranian towns along the border. The group seems to be recruiting new members in Baramawa, a Kurdish refugee camp inside Iran, and the fighting force is said to have been reorganized into small units of 10 to 15 members, each headed by an “emir.” Most captured operatives have been unarmed. Before leaving Iran they were told only where to go for further instructions, usually a shop or house near the border where they would be sent on to another meeting place. Only after several stops would they receive weapons and specific orders for an attack.

Military analysts in the region aren’t sure how much help Ansar is getting from Iranian officials. Tehran gave at least tacit support to the group before expelling Krekar in 2002 as a conciliatory gesture to Washington. Now Iranian police stage frequent sweeps of the border towns, arresting and quietly expelling any members of the group they catch. Nevertheless, some of those expelled have been given weapons upon departure, and some continue to use Iran as a sanctuary. “It’s not like Ansar has set up an office in Tehran. It wouldn’t be good for the Iranian government to be linked with them,” says Sgt. Bill Fleck, 33, a member of the 101st Airborne Division who has interviewed numerous detainees. “But it seems like the Iranians have decided to contain them near the border.”

That’s as much as the group needs to continue its operations. Mariwan Hussein, 20, spent about four months hiding out with other Ansar members there after the Americans drove them out of Iraq. His superiors sent him to join four other fighters at a house in the border town of Marivan. He says there were as many as 30 such houses in town, some holding 10 or 15 members. Plainclothes agents raided his house one day and arrested four other Ansar members, but Hussein got away. He says he changed houses three times to avoid arrest before his superiors sent him back to Iraq in late August. Kurdish security officials caught him with a crate of pistols on —Aug. 24. During the interview with NEWSWEEK he giggled wildly, then stopped himself. “Ansar fighters aren’t afraid of anything,” he declared, staring straight ahead.

That’s what their leaders say. Yet Sangar Mansur, 19, found out they were lying. He lived with his father and two sisters in Biyara, a village near the Iranian border, when Ansar fighters arrived in the fall of 2001. The group’s Taliban-style restrictions were harsh: no smoking, no jeans, no music. The punishment for drinking was 100 lashes. But when Mansur was invited to join the group, he accepted. “It was hard to say no,” he says. “I’m the eldest son, and joining Ansar made life easier for my family.” He grew his hair and beard to blend in with the other fighters, who included not only Iraqi Kurds but Saudis, Turks, Afghans, Iranian Kurds and Chechens. Still, he noticed that the foreigners rarely mixed with the Kurds—a habit that was driven home when the Americans started bombing. The Arab leaders ordered the Kurds to stand and fight. Then they fled. Mansur turned himself in to Kurdish authorities. He says he’s sorry he had anything to do with Ansar: “It was a big mistake.”

Mahmud doesn’t claim to be sorry. When he stumbled down the snowy mountainside, Iranian border guards packed him off to a detention cell with more than 100 other Ansar fighters. A few days later he was driven to a military hospital where surgeons spent two hours working to repair his knee. Two weeks later the Iranians took him and roughly 300 other Ansar men back to the Iraqi border. The fighters were given weapons, blankets, food and a warning: “Don’t come back.” As he started toward home, he could see some members of the group doubling back, following other mountain trails into Iran. The border guards watched without trying to stop them. Mahmud didn’t get far before a Kurdish patrol picked him up. He says he was headed home to see his wife. His captors say he was sent back to Iraq on a suicide mission. If so, he’s safely behind bars now. But hundreds of fighters like him are not.

With Mark Hosenball in Oslo
NEWSWEEK - Oct. 13 issue

http://www.msnbc.com/news/976017.asp

Israel Strikes Islamic Base in Syria

October 05, 2003
The Associated Press
International Herald Tribune

JERUSALEM -- The Israeli army attacked an Islamic Jihad training base in Syria in retaliation for a suicide bombing at a Haifa restaurant that killed 19 people, the army said in a statement Sunday.

The raid was carried out by warplanes and hit the Ein Saher camp near Damascus, Israel radio reported.

The army said the attack, which occurred late Saturday or early Sunday, targeted a base deep in Syrian territory used by several terrorist organizations, including Hamas and Islamic Jihad.

The attack came several hours after a Palestinian woman wrapped in explosives entered a beachside restaurant in Haifa during the busy lunchtime hour and blew herself up, killing 19 people, including four children.

Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility for that attack.

"Following the attack, the army has started operating against those behind the attack, those who support (terror) and those who use the strategy of terror in order to harm citizens of Israel," the army said in a statement.

Islamic Jihad, a militant Palestinian group responsible for many attacks against Israel, enjoys support from other countries, including Iran and Syria, the statement said.

"Syria is a state that supports terror, that constantly tries to frustrate efforts to bring calm and stability to the region and gives cover in its territory and capital to the terror organizations that act against Israeli citizens," the army said.

"Israel will not accept the rules of the game that the terrorists are trying to dictate, and will act with determination against all who harm its citizens, in accordance with the right to self defense and defense of the state," it said.

On April 16, 2001, Israeli warplanes blasted a Syrian radar station in Lebanon, where Syria is the main power broker, killing three Syrian soldiers. That strike was the first in five years against the Syrian military and came in retaliation for an attack by Syrian-backed guerrillas in which an Israeli soldier was killed.

Syria closed the offices of both Hamas and Islamic Jihad after the U.S. invasion of Iraq out of fear it could be the next nation targeted by the United States.

The United States had been pushing Syria to act further and expel Hamas and Islamic Jihad leader, but Syria has refused.

Western diplomats say Syria is loathe to be seen as betraying the Palestinian cause, and it also does not want to give up one of the few bargaining chips it still has in negotiations with Israel.

http://www.iht.com/articles/112409.html

Sentimental Journey

October 05, 2003
The Middle East
Cyrus Kadivar

For many thousands of Iranian who were forced to leave Iran following the fall of the Shah in 1979, the Rifa'I mosque in Cairo has become a place of pilgrimage. In a conversation with THE MIDDLE EAST, Empress Farah Pahlavi spoke candidly of her husband's final days.

The kelidar or holder of the key to the Rifa'i Mosque is a fifty-three year old disabled man with protruding eyes and wrinkled face that breaks into a smile at the sight of visitors. Mahmoud Abdul Hafez takes great pride in his ancestral role as he hobbles around with the help of his stick, opening the creaky wooden doors to the royal crypts, many of which are damp and poorly lit by ancient hanging lamps with Arabic verses.

For the Iranian exiles flocking to the Rifa'i mosque the most important key Mahmoud holds is the one with which he unlocks their past. For those embarking on the sentimental journey to the mosque, there is a sense of undertaking a sort of pilgrimage.

The sight of the mosque is reassuring. Overshadowed by the Grand Mosque of Sultan Hassan and dominated by the Citadel, the Rifa'i mosque is situated in an area covering 1767 square meters and flanked by four massive columns. Pointed arches divide the royal mosque into three porticoes. Two marble columns, one white and the other dark green, stand at the sides of the great dome. Once past the guarded metal gates the shady grounds are lined with eucalyptus trees in pots that flank the massive stairways leading up to the mosque and into the prayer hall with its minbar decorated with mother of pearls.

Commissioned by the mother of the Khedive Ismail as a dynastic mosque that would house, in addition to the Sufi relics, the tombs of the royal family, its construction was painfully slow and eventually halted completely in 1880. After 25 years of inactivity work on the mosque resumed when Abbas Hilmi entrusted Max Herz Bey, the Austro-Hungarian architect, and his Italian assistant Carlo Virgilio Silvagni, with the enormous task. Most of the materials were imported from Europe. Finally inaugurated in 1912, the mosque came to represent a turning point in the cultural and political history of Cairo.

Beyond the latticed wooden frames that separate the grand prayer hall from a smaller one reserved for ceremonial visits and graced by seven Persian carpets donated to the mosque by grateful Iranian exiles, is a large door beautifully carved in oriental style. Behind it, lies a vast marbled room.

The lights from above cast a sombre glow illuminating the multicoloured carved stones that pattern the inner walls. To the right of the mausoleum stands the former Iranian flag emblazoned with a fierce lion holding a sword with a rising sun behind its back. In a niche is an open Koran set in an inlaid wooden case.

On the marbled floor beside an enormous silk carpet lies a pale green tombstone carved with the imperial coat of arms and an inscription in Persian words that reads: His Imperial Majesty, Mohammed Reza Pahlavi, Shahanshah of Iran.

After more than two decades of theocratic rule in Iran nostalgia for the monarchy is increasing steadily. For those Iranians who find themselves in this mausoleum there is a poignancy for an emperor who reigned for 37 years during which Iran was an island of stability and progress in a volatile part of the world.

The Shah left his homeland on 16 January 1979. In Aswan, Egypt, President Sadat received him with open arms. It was the only real welcome he would receive over the next 18 months as he searched for a secure exile for his family. America, which had advised him to leave Iran, would not accept him and Britain, Germany, and France also turned their backs, anxious not to upset the ayatollahs.

Cast adrift by his former allies, the Shah was forced to travel from Morocco to the Bahamas, Mexico, New York, and finally to Panama where he narrowly escaped being extradited to Tehran by revolutionaries baying for his blood. By the time the Shah accepted President Sadat's offer of refuge in Egypt, he was a dying man.

At Cairo Airport President Sadat and his wife Jehan were on hand to offer a state welcome to the exiled monarch and his empress. Even after 23 years the sad memory of those days has not faded for generations of Iranians.

Seated on a floral sofa in the main salon of one of several residential palaces where she is staying as a guest of the Egyptian government, the Shah's widow is grateful for all the hospitality she receives. "In Egypt," she says, "we always know that we are among friends."

In a conversation with The Middle East, Empress Farah Pahlavi spoke candidly of her husband's final days. She recalled the night she was summoned to his bedside at the Maadi military hospital near the Nile.

Surrounded by his family and loyal members of his entourage, the emperor had passed away on the morning of 27 July, 1980. "At the end it seemed as if His Majesty had resigned himself to rise above all the betrayals and pettiness of life," she remembered. "As for myself I had to take care of so many things that I did not even have time to mourn."

At 65, Empress Farah is an elegant and stoical figure whose presence continues to attract the loyalty of Iranian exiles across the globe. She has never forgotten that hot day in Cairo when she walked behind the Shah's flag-draped coffin during a three mile journey that was to carry the emperor's mortal remains from the Abdeen Palace to a "temporary" grave at the Rifa'i Mosque where once upon a time the embalmed corpse of Reza Shah, Mohammed Reza Shah's father, had also been deposited pending reburial in Iranian soil.

"His Majesty had great ambitions for his people," she says. "I became his wife and Queen at a time when everything in our country was taking off at great speed. We worked very hard to bring a better life for everyone. After the tragic events in our country I owe it to him and my compatriots to honour his memory. I believe that light will triumph over darkness and that one day my husband will be buried in his own homeland."

The day after our conversation, Empress Farah laid flowers at the tomb of the late President Sadat, in what has become an annual event. Later at sunset, the Empress and Jehan Sadat attended an Islamic memorial service at the Rifa'i mosque. As usual, many Iranians travelled from afar to be with them. In the mausoleum, four golden candlesticks had been placed around the Shah's tombstone. The Empress knelt and placed a kiss on the soft stone, her eyes closed in prayer.

The day after the ceremonies the mosque seems quiet. The rooms are scented with jasmine and filled with flowers sent from Iranians around the world. Hanni, Mahmoud's son, reminds visitors of Egypt's links with Iran. "King Farouk's sister, Princess Fawzia was once married to the Shah of Iran," he says pointing to the white stone belonging to Egypt's last king whose resting place is in a chamber adjacent to that of the Iranian monarch.

The large wooden doors to the royal crypts are shut with several turns of the key. Mahmoud was 30 years old when he buried the Shah in an underground chamber located a few feet beneath the tombstone. He is convinced that Mohammed Reza Pahlavi was a ‘good king' who died in peace and that his soul is with other ‘good kings' history has not always treated with the respect they commanded in life.

The Middle East
October 2003
Issue 338

http://iranvajahan.net/cgi-bin/news.pl?l=en&y=2003&m=10&d=05&a=6

Judiciary fiercely denies death of jailed dissident

AFP - World News
Oct 5, 2003

TEHRAN - Iran's judiciary has dismissed as "pure lies" rumours of the death in custody of jailed journalist and political dissident Mohsen Sazegara, the official news agency IRNA reported. The statement from the proscution office said speculation that Sazegara -- on hunger strike according to some reports -- had died were "lies", "rumours" and being circulated by those "seeking to provoke tensions by giving a dark image of the prisons".

The prosecution office said the dissident was in "good health" and "in full physical and mental health." The office for Tehran, headed by hardline judge Said Mortazavi who is best known for his closure of dozens of pro-reform papers, also denied Sazegara was even on hunger strike and warned newspapers against "publishing lies". Sazegara, who played an active role in the 1979 Islamic Revolution, has since become critical of the authorities.

He was arrested in June, during a wave of student unrest in Tehran. An author of virulent open letters, he was also arrested in February for challenging the current political regime and calling for a referendum, but was released in a few days after starting a hunger strike.

Reformist newspapers on Saturday reported that fears were mounting for the health of Sazegara and cited rumours of his death. Both the Nasim Saba and Shargh newspapers reported the rumors. According to the man's brother and one of his lawyers, reports are circulating that he has been admitted to a heart unit at the Baghiatollah hospital, affiliated with the elite Revolutionary Guards Corps.

Shargh quoting close relatives as saying Sazegara, who suffers from serious heart problems, has started a hunger strike, not only abstaining from solid food but also not taking any water or medication, of which he is in dire need.

In parliament on Sunday, reformist MP Rajab Ali Mazrui -- also the head of the Iranian press association -- warned that the regime could "not afford" another death in custody case, and requested the chamber appoint a committee to report on Sazegara's health.

http://www.daneshjoo.org/generalnews/article/publish/article_2725.shtml

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