Iranian Alert -- October 6, 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.

Iran Women Lawmakers Fight to Save Woman

ALI AKBAR DAREINI
Associated Press

TEHRAN, Iran - Three female Iranian lawmakers stepped up a campaign to save a woman facing imminent execution for killing an intelligence officer she claimed tried to rape her, they told The Associated Press on Sunday.

Afsaneh Nowrouzi was sentenced to death two years ago for the "unjustified murder" of the officer in 1997. The sentence was upheld by Iran's Supreme Court in August following an appeal.

Death sentences are normally carried out days after the verdict is delivered to the prisoner. Nowrouzi was notified last week.

One of the female legislators, Azam Naseripour, said the group petitioned Iran's judiciary chief, Ayatollah Mahmoud Hashemi Shahroudi, on Saturday to request a new judicial investigation.

Naseripour told The Associated Press the case should be reopened to "save Nowrouzi from imminent death for legitimate self-defense and protecting her dignity."

Nowrouzi, who is married, has been in a prison in Bandar Abbas, a port city on the Persian Gulf, since killing the officer.

The three petitioning lawmakers, Jamileh Kadivar, Tahereh Ramezanzadeh and Naseripour, said Nowrouzi stabbed the officer to protect her dignity.

Naseripour said the execution would humiliate Iranian women who seek to defend their dignity in this male-dominated society.

"If Nowrouzi is executed, women will be afraid to defend themselves against rape and physical assaults," she said." The execution will have a tremendous negative impact on Iran's women population."

London-based human rights watchdog Amnesty International and other groups have condemned the verdict and appealed to Iranian authorities to revoke the sentence. Iran's Supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, is the only authority able to grant clemency.

http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/6941783.htm

IAEA deadline nonbinding, says Iranian official

2003-10-06 / Agence France-Presse

Iran intends to answer International Atomic Energy Agency questions over its nuclear program "as quickly as possible," even though it does not consider itself bound by an October 31 deadline to do so, the Islamic republic's representative to the IAEA told AFP yesterday.

"This date of October 31 is not a criteria for us, because we have not accepted this resolution," Ali Akbar Salehi said.

"We have said that we do not consider ourselves to be bound by this resolution, but... we will continue to cooperate with the IAEA and will try to make it so that the answers to outstanding issues will be given as quickly as possible," he added.

In a resolution on September 12, the IAEA's board of governors gave Iran until October 31 to guarantee it was not developing and would not develop atomic weapons.

The resolution, passed after heavy U.S. lobbying, also called on it to sign an additional protocol of the U.N. nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and implement it immediately and unconditionally.

An IAEA team is currently in the Islamic republic for what the agency's chief Mohamed ElBaradei has described as a "decisive" round of inspections and talks aimed at clearing up a number of key questions over Iran's nuclear program.

A failure by Iran to meet the deadline could see Iran being declared in violation of the NPT and the matter being passed to the U.N. Security Council, which could in turn decide to sanction Iran.

But while casting aside the deadline - branded by a string of top officials here as part of a U.S.-Israeli plot to undermine the Islamic regime - Salahi said Iran was determined to continue its cooperation with the IAEA.

http://www.etaiwannews.com/World/2003/10/06/1065405363.htm

Khatami: Dynamic economy not possible with dictatorial governments

Tehran, Oct 5, IRNA -- President Mohammad Khatami said here on Sunday
that with dictatorial governments in power and without public
participation, a dynamic economy would not be possible.
Addressing representatives and heads of chambers of commerce from
30 members of the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC),
Khatami stressed the need for Islamic states to build up power for
generating thought, and promoting science and technology.
Khatami said a broad-based government, which guarantee public
rights, is needed to ensure progress.
He said, "We should learn and experience economic dynamism along
with democracy."
He added that undoubtedly, the kind of Islam would be durable that
would be compatible with the attitude.
Khatami said Muslim states are in a sensitive and special
conditions and if they use the opportunities, they would be provided
with a favorable future but if they ignore the opportunities the
threats could be detrimental.
Pointing to the efforts by foreign powers to violate independence
and security of other countries, Khatami said in the present world,
there are many threats, including threats to countries` independence
and security and to their national security in the face of powers`
interests.
Khatami said the OIC can serve as a positive point for further
cohesion among Muslim states.
He referred to Muslim world`s exceptional potentials and capacity
in many fields, including huge God-given resources, manpower and giant
oil and gas reserves, saying that such opportunities are the
advantages, which if appreciated, would undoubtedly elevate the world
of Islam to a lofty position.
Elsewhere in his remarks, Khatami said the private sector has not
been very active in Islamic countries. "We should avoid unjustified
concentration and we need courageous and prudent intellectuals to
speed up improvement of economic conditions in OIC member states,"
said Khatami.
He said that any success in establishment of relations and of
exchange of information among Muslim states` private sectors and also
in implementation of true Islamic thought, with the power to meet
today needs of mankind, would help Muslim states to achieve a
civilization that would not only be the enemy of other civilizations
but would also be able to serve as a model for others.
He added that the governments, that are only willing to dictate
and impose their wishes, would not be effective today and Muslim
states should prepare the ground for private sector cooperation and
exchange of information among them.
Pointing to Muslim states` efforts to build up their power in the
contemporary world, Khatami said if Muslim states are equipped with
science and technology as a means for power, they would become strong
and powerful.
He said, "We are for power but power of the world of Islam is in
the service of establishment of peace and friendship not for
aggression on others."
Pointing to the WTO, Khatami said before thinking on WTO, one
should think on the way to compete, while preparing legal and judicial
grounds for it.

http://www.irna.ir/#2003_10_0518_40_554

NEWSWEEK: Roughly 300 Qaeda-Linked Kurdish Militants Are Holed Up in Iranian Border Towns; Training New Recruits for Raids Into Iraq

Press Release

NEW YORK, Oct. 5 /PRNewswire/ -- U.S. and Kurdish security officials tell Newsweek that roughly 300 militants of a Qaeda-linked Kurdish group, Ansar Al-Islam, are holed up in small Iranian towns along the border with Iraq. The group seems to be recruiting new members in Baramawa, a Kurdish refugee camp inside Iran, reports Special Correspondent Babak Dehghanpisheh in the October 13 issue of Newsweek (on newsstands Monday, October 6).
(Photo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20031005/NYSU003 )
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, and though Tehran insists that none of Ansar's 900 or so fighters were allowed into Iran, many of the group's survivors tell Newsweek they did indeed flee there and are now sneaking back across the border to continue their battle against the West.

L. Paul Bremer, the U.S. administrator in Iraq, estimated that "several hundred" Ansar fighters have returned from Iran since spring. "They're a very dangerous terrorist group," said Bremer, "and that's a lot of terrorists." Ansar infiltrators are prime suspects in several recent truck bombings in Iraq, including the explosion outside the Jordanian Embassy and the destruction of the U.N.'s Baghdad headquarters.

Dozens of Ansar foot soldiers have been captured in recent months and are being interrogated by U.S. and Kurdish intelligence officials. 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.

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.

Meanwhile Ansar's spiritual leader Mullah Krekar, who's living in Oslo, Norway, tells Investigative Correspondent Mark Hosenball that the American presence in Iraq is "like any other occupation that happened in history. Everyone knows that Muslims must do jihad against occupation everywhere."

http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/031005/nysu012a_1.html

Iran to disclose imported nuke parts

06.10.2003 - 14:45
By Paul Hughes

TEHRAN (Reuters) - Iran says it will give the U.N. nuclear watchdog a list of components imported for enriching uranium, which Washington
says is the heart of a secret atomic weapons programme.

But Iran's ambassador to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Ali Akbar Salehi said Tehran, which has been given until October
31 to dispel doubts about its atomic aims, could not say exactly where the parts came from.

"These are items which were not bought officially, they were bought through intermediaries and it is not possible to trace intermediaries,"
Salehi told Reuters by telephone.

"We will give them (the IAEA) a list of the items and we will show them where they were stored because they were stored in a number of
places," he added.

An IAEA team arrived in Tehran late last week to conduct talks and inspections aimed at verifying Iran's position that its sophisticated
nuclear programme is solely geared to producing electricity and not bombs.

Should outstanding doubts remain at the time of the next IAEA Governors Board meeting in November, Iran's case may be sent to the U.N.
Security Council for possible sanctions.

Salehi's comments were the first details to emerge of concrete steps Iran is taking to meet the IAEA's demands for full transparency about
its nuclear programme since the IAEA team arrived.

The IAEA has said getting to the bottom of Iran's uranium enrichment programme -- which Tehran now acknowledges dates back to 1985
and not 1997 as it had originally told the agency -- is its top priority.

Enriched uranium can be used as fuel for nuclear energy reactors, or as bomb material if highly enriched.

SUSPICIOUS TRACES FOUND

IAEA inspectors have found traces of arms-grade enriched uranium at two sites in Iran this year. Tehran says the findings were caused by
contamination from imported parts and not a sign that it is secretly producing fissile material.

A Vienna-based diplomat said it was theoretically conceivable that the intermediaries who sold Iran the components on the black market in
the 1980s (during the Iran-Iraq war) were no longer contactable, as they probably did not run standard above-board businesses.

At the same time, the diplomat said it would be crucial for Iran to hand over a complete import list and all original documents pertaining to
the imports. Anything less would not be considered complete.

Iran refuses to accept as binding the IAEA's September resolution which set the October 31 deadline and called on Iran to halt enrichment
activities.

But Salehi said Iranian officials had agreed on an action plan with visiting IAEA officials to answer their outstanding concerns.

"So far things have been going very well. We hope it will continue as it has been. We have an initial understanding of what to do and I hope
it speeds up," he said.

However, diplomats remain sceptical that Iran will do enough to satisfy the IAEA.

http://www.swisspolitics.org/en/news/index.php?section=int&page=news_inhalt&news_id=4313490

Kharazi Condemns Israel Raid on Syria

October 06, 2003
Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting
IRIB News

Tehran -- Foreign Minister Kamal Kharrazi on Sunday condemned the Zionist regime's air raid on Syria and said that the practice inflames tension and conflict in the region.

He said that the air raid is a gross violation of Syrian territorial integrity and national sovereignty.

"Israeli attack against Syria is an attempt to divert the public opinion from the sufferings of Palestinian people arising from occupation of their country and the subsequent legitimate defense of the Palestinian nation against the occupying force," he s aid.

"By resorting to such aggressions, the Zionist regime posed a threat to the security of the Middle East region," Kharrazi said.

He called on the international community to take explicit stance vis-a-vis the Israeli greed and expansionism and stop continued occupation of the Palestinian territories.

The security of the Middle East and the entire world is being put at risk of the Israeli greed and expansionism, he said.

"The international community's inaction in condemning the Zionist regime's aggression on Syria will embolden the occupying Israel in its aggressive ambitions," Kharrazi said.

http://www.iribnews.com/Full_en.asp?news_id=189641

Iran: A Nuclear Suicide Bomber?

October 06, 2003
FrontPageMagazine.com
Dick Morris

After 60 years of the threat of nuclear war, we have become a bit blasé when other nations such as Israel, India and Pakistan acquire nuclear weapons.

But if Iran gets the bomb, as it appears to be in a headlong rush to do, it will be a very, very different world in which to live. President Bush needs to be far more aggressive in alerting the American people to that danger and in pressuring Russia to cut off its aid to Iranian nuclear reactors.

As shocking as the actions of individual suicide bombers are to Western sensibilities, imagine what could happen if Iran were to acquire nuclear weapons. Would the ethos of men and women willing to die to kill Israelis and Westerners transfer to a nation willing to ignore the constraints of deterrence in its desire to wage a global jihad against the “Great Satan?”

Once, the very tactic of suicide bombing by individuals was so incomprehensible to the American way of thinking that our security measures took no account of the possibility that fanatics would willingly lose their lives to pursue their religious agenda.

The recommendations of the Gore Commission on Air Safety in 1997 focused largely on ensuring that all passengers who checked baggage on a flight actually were on board. The idea that one of them might happily enter a plane that he had arranged to destroy and die with the heathens was so far from the ken of the commission that it did not even address the possibility.

If Iran gets the bomb, do we seriously believe that the concept of deterrence will effectively preclude its use? What is to prevent the logic of the homicide/suicide bomber from functioning at the nation-state level? Is it beyond the realm of possibility that the Iranian ayatollahs might, indeed be willing to sacrifice the faithful in Tehran to obliterate the infidels in New York, London, Washington, Chicago and Los Angeles?

In the ’60s, much was made of China’s huge population and the willingness of its leaders to accept huge casualties in a nuclear exchange with the United States. But China never had elevated suicide to an art form as the radical Muslim community has done.

Anyone who doubts Iranian efforts to acquire nuclear weapons need only ask one basic question: Why is this nation with among the world’s largest oil reserves seeking to develop nuclear power if not for a bomb? It cannot be a need to replace oil. Iran is drowning in enough oil to last it for decades if not centuries.

Bush seems to have been finessed by worries that he will be accused of crying wolf if he stands up and accurately warns us of the danger we face from an Iranian bomb. But the failure to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq will appear to history to have been an odd reason for complaisance in the face of determined Iranian efforts to go nuclear.

North Korea, while also a deadly nuclear threat, is susceptible to pressure from China, its leading source of food and fuel. But Iran is not subject to pressure from anyone. The insanity of the regime and the fanaticism of its religious devotion to countering the infidel make it the very worst country to get the bomb.

But the instability in Iran, the massive student demonstrations, the overt rejection of the theocracy by three quarters of the voters in the last two elections, all show the vulnerability of the Ayatollah Ali Hoseini-Khamenei’s regime. Strong American pressure, economic sanctions (enforced on other countries through the D’Amato Amendment of 1996), television broadcasts into Iran and saber rattling by American troops next door in Iraq could work together to solve this problem for the world.

Bush just needs to get it going. His relative silence on the subject and reluctance to elevate it to its proper place in presidential rhetoric is not just bad politics (inexplicably so) but poor policy, as well.

Dick Morris is a former adviser to President Clinton.

http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=10157

Nuclear Weapons in Iran -- a Threat to Take Seriously

October 06, 2003
The Orlando Sentinel
Ilan Berman

Question: Is Iran trying to develop nuclear weapons?

Ilan Berman: Absolutely. The International Atomic Energy Agency recently found traces of highly enriched uranium in the country. This was confirmation of what a lot of people have suspected for a long time -- that the Iranians are trying to develop their own nuclear fuel cycle, so they can create and enrich radioactive materials on their own for a weapons program.

Q: What role has Russia played in supporting Iran's nuclear program?

A: The Iranian nuclear reactor at Bushehr has essentially been a Russian operation since 1998. Last summer, Russia hammered out a 10-year plan to build five additional reactors for Iran. Russia does everything with a wink and a nod -- that its help is only for "commercial" nuclear activity.

Q: Why have the Russians helped the Iranians?

A: After the Soviet Union collapsed, a wave of radical, violent nationalism with a religious tinge swept Russia's southern rim. The Russians knew the Iranians have a well-deserved reputation as a state sponsor of terrorism. So the Russians created this Faustian bargain to give the Iranians arms and missile know-how in return for Iran staying out of the Caucusus.

Q: How imminent a threat is Iran's nuclear program?

A: Conservative estimates place Iran acquiring a nuclear capability by the end of the decade. More realistic estimates put the window at anywhere from 18 months to three years. An Iranian nuclear capability, per se, is not the problem. If the regime changes and they're pro-American, it doesn't matter. But with the Iranian regime that we have now, a nuclear capability is certainly a problem.

Q: Who controls Iran?

A: The source of power is twofold. The public face of Iran is the president and the regular standing armed forces. The private face is an Islamic council and Islamic clergy that have their own separate structure of power. They're the ones who really call the shots. They have their own armed forces, the Islamic Republic Revolutionary Guard. It's the point of contact with terrorist groups like Hamas and Hezbollah.

Very tellingly, Iran's most advanced intermediate ballistic missile is controlled not by their standing armed forces, but by the Republican Guard. So there's a potential for groups like Hezbollah to be fueled with very sophisticated weaponry. I would think this would be keeping people up nights in Washington.

Q: How realistic a possibility is an internal regime change in Iran?

A: This only works if the will of the people is stronger than the will of this increasingly disenfranchised ruling clergy, who control the weapons and the guns and the missiles. I don't think we're there yet.

There's a very narrow window of opportunity for internal regime change before Iran goes nuclear. Then, the chances for a peaceful domestic transition of power towards a more liberal, pluralistic, non-religious-based form of government decline dramatically, because the ruling regime gains all sorts of credibility internationally. They're a nuclear power, and they have stood down the United States.

Q: How would you like to see the threat from Iran addressed?

A: It would be really nice if the international community joined ranks on this issue. It's one thing for the United States to say our companies can't trade with Iran. That's a significant blow to the Iranian economy. But it's a substantially larger blow when everybody decides not to trade with Iran.

For that, you have to talk to the Russians. The Russian consensus that cooperating with Iran is a good idea is beginning to crumble domestically. A respected think tank in Russia recently estimated that by 2006, the Iranians could field an extended-range nuclear missile that would put 20 million people in southern Russia and Ukraine and Kazahkstan at risk.

Q: How can Russia be persuaded to drop its support?

A: My word to the Russians is that caution is in order. You've invested so much into this relationship with Iran, assuming it's going to be an asset. But politics change and countries change and strategic interests change. And all of a sudden Iran becomes a liability.

I think we're going to see a measure of our success in at least slowing down Iran's march toward nuclear capability in how much we can convince the Russians that Iran is actually a liability -- that the more you impede their progress, rather than facilitate it, the better. That's a start.

Ilan Berman is vice president for policy at the American Foreign Policy Council in Washington.

http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/opinion/orl-edpqa06100603oct06,0,4670266.story?coll=orl-opinion-headlines

Iran to Give IAEA Details of Imported Nuke Parts

October 06, 2003
Reuters
Paul Hughes

TEHRAN -- Iran said on Monday it would give the U.N. nuclear watchdog a list of components imported for enriching uranium, which Washington says is the heart of a secret atomic weapons program.

But Iran's ambassador to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Ali Akbar Salehi said Tehran, which has been given until October 31 to dispel doubts about its atomic aims, could not say exactly where the parts came from.

"These are items which were not bought officially, they were bought through intermediaries and it is not possible to trace intermediaries," Salehi told Reuters by telephone.

"We will give them (the IAEA) a list of the items and we will show them where they were stored because they were stored in a number of places," he added.

An IAEA team arrived in Tehran late last week to conduct talks and inspections aimed at verifying Iran's position that its sophisticated nuclear program is solely geared to producing electricity and not bombs.

Should outstanding doubts remain at the time of the next IAEA Governors Board meeting in November, Iran's case may be sent to the U.N. Security Council for possible sanctions.

Salehi's comments were the first details to emerge of concrete steps Iran is taking to meet the IAEA's demands for full transparency about its nuclear program since the IAEA team arrived.

The IAEA has said getting to the bottom of Iran's uranium enrichment program -- which Tehran now acknowledges dates back to 1985 and not 1997 as it had originally told the agency -- is its top priority.

Enriched uranium can be used as fuel for nuclear energy reactors, or as bomb material if highly enriched.

SUSPICIOUS TRACES FOUND

IAEA inspectors have found traces of arms-grade enriched uranium at two sites in Iran this year. Tehran says the findings were caused by contamination from imported parts and not a sign that it is secretly producing fissile material.

A Vienna-based diplomat said it was theoretically conceivable that the intermediaries who sold Iran the components on the black market in the 1980s (during the Iran-Iraq war) were no longer contactable, as they probably did not run standard above-board businesses.

At the same time, the diplomat said it would be crucial for Iran to hand over a complete import list and all original documents pertaining to the imports. Anything less would not be considered complete.

Iran refuses to accept as binding the IAEA's September resolution which set the October 31 deadline and called on Iran to halt enrichment activities.

But Salehi said Iranian officials had agreed on an action plan with visiting IAEA officials to answer their outstanding concerns.

"So far things have been going very well. We hope it will continue as it has been. We have an initial understanding of what to do and I hope it speeds up," he said.

However, diplomats remain skeptical that Iran will do enough to satisfy the IAEA.

"We need a report from (IAEA chief Mohamed) ElBaradei," a Western diplomat told Reuters in Vienna. "But I think it's likely that the board will find Iran in non-compliance in a number of areas in November."

http://iranvajahan.net/cgi-bin/news.pl?l=en&y=2003&m=10&d=06&a=7

Dissident Iranian Journalist Released on Bail

October 06, 2003
Reuters
MSNBC News

TEHRAN -- A dissident Iranian journalist known for his outspoken criticism of the Islamic Republic's clerical leaders was released on bail on Monday after four months in jail, his brother said.

Mohsen Sazgara, a one-time press aide to the leader of Iran's 1979 Islamic revolution Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, was freed after his family paid the equivalent of $750,000 bail.

Sazgara, who has been editor of several liberal newspapers and news Web sites closed down by the hardline judiciary in the past four years, was arrested in June.

He was charged with provoking student protests that shook Tehran and several other Iranian cities in June and July, his lawyer told the official IRNA news agency.

Rumours had been flying in recent days about Sazgara's deteriorating health, prompting the judiciary to take the unusual step of denying that he had died while in custody.

''He has lost around 20 kg (44 pounds) and we will take him to hospital for a general check-up tonight or tomorrow morning,'' his brother Mehdi Sazgara told Reuters.

''He was imprisoned for almost 113 days but he spent 79 days in solitary confinement,'' he added.

Paris-based media rights watchdog Reporters Without Borders (RSF) on Friday called on Iranian authorities to give immediate news and guarantees about the health of Sazgara who has heart problems.

According to RSF Iran is the biggest jail for journalists in the Middle East with 17 journalists in prison.

http://famulus.msnbc.com/FamulusIntl/reuters10-06-072937.asp?reg=MIDEAST

Aghajari Deserves Nobel Peace Prize

October 06, 2003
Iran va Jahan
Shaheen Fatemi

Last month some 450 Iranian intellectuals and dissidents sent a petition to the Nobel Committee in support of Hashem Aghajari, a jailed dissident Iranian intellectual as a nominee for the prestigious Nobel Peace Prize.

We support this nomination and urge the Committee to seriously consider the implications of such an award as a token of support for the heroic struggle of the Iranian students and intellectual against the oppressive regime of the Mullahs in Iran.

As an intellectual and a university professor, Aghajari was sentenced to death in November 2002 for blasphemy. His statements and utterances in regard to varying interpretations of religious theories and practices have been fully within the realm and practice of "Academic Freedom and Tenure Statement" recognized by the academic community world-wide.

Although his jail term has since been reduced to three years, he is still waiting for a review of his death penalty. He sparked the anger of Iran's religious establishment in a speech on June 19, 2002, when he questioned clerics' right to rule in Iran by calling for an "Islamic Reformation" and saying Muslims "should not blindly ... follow their religious leaders".

The prize is set to be announced in Oslo on October 10. The five members of the Nobel Committee have shown extraordinary courage in the past by choosing such controversial candidates as the Soviet era dissident Andrei Sakharov (1975), the Polish labor-union leader Lech Walesa (1983), Dalai Lama (1989), the Burmese opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi (1991), the Guatemalan human rights crusader Rigoberta Menchu Tum (1992), and South Korean peace activist Kim Dae Jung (2000).

Among all the candidates being talked about this year, Aghajari is the only one in jail with a pending death sentence hanging over his head.

According to today’s Sunday Times, "Iranian dissident Hachem Aghajari, currently imprisoned in his own country, is one possible laureate, Toennesson said.

"This would send a message of democracy to Iran to encourage it on its road of reform, as well as a message of peace to the United States to convince them that a change in Iran will not come by way of war," he said.

http://iranvajahan.net/cgi-bin/news.pl?l=en&y=2003&m=10&d=06&a=2

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