[DoctorZIn]

YEARNING FOR FREEDOM

Iran forces quell massive uprising

Protesters gunned down as people resist Revolutionary Guard assault

Posted: December 5, 2003
1:00 a.m. Eastern
© 2003 WorldNetDaily.com

Iranian Supreme Revolutionary Guard forces under the Ayatollah Ali Khamenei reportedly killed a 10-year-old boy in the country's minority Baloch region yesterday, touching off a massive uprising against the Islamic regime countered by a deadly crackdown and imposition of martial law, according to sources on the scene.

Amid burning banks, stores and government offices, at least 30 Baloch protesters are dead and 80 injured in the southeastern city of Saravan near the Pakistani border, said Malek Meerdora, who immigrated to Canada from the city in 1993.

Meerdora told WorldNetDaily the Iranian government has attempted to shut off communication from the city, but he has been in contact with sources there via satellite telephone and the Internet.

He said soldiers approached the 10-year-old, Haroun Balochzahi, and grabbed his bike from him, insisting on a bribe. The boy did not speak Farsi, the majority language, and responded by biting a soldier and running. The youth was shelled with bullets in front of people on the streets and died on the spot, Meerdora said, prompting an immediate reaction.

In an unusual display of resistance to the hard-line, cleric-led regime, a crowd set a military jeep on fire and began beating the soldiers, Meerdora said.

Later, at about 1:30 p.m., thousands of Balochs, including many from surrounding cities, began to congregate on the streets in protest.

Revolutionary Guard soldiers opened fire on the crowd, hitting up to 80 people, witnesses claimed.

The entire city and surrounding area is raised up against the Tehran government, Meerdora said, burning down symbols of the regime and attacking Iranian officials.

Crowds reached the offices of the mayor, commissioners and chief of police and beat them, he said, and many soldiers have been beaten by unarmed citizens.

The director of the hospital has been warned by the government to not take in any wounded protesters, and some Balochs have been shot in front of the hospital, according to Meerdora's sources.

He said security forces went to the hospital and killed people in their rooms.

About 300 people have been jailed, and uncooperative prisoners have had their tongues cut out, he said.

"I mark this as a day of revolution," Meerdora said. "I think the Iranian government will face more problems."

He said throughout the evening, Revolutionary Guard forces watched over the people from roof tops, prepared to fire at anyone who moves from his home.

No one is allowed to enter or leave the city, he added.

Similar to the Kurds, the Balochs, who comprise 2 percent of Iran's population, regard themselves as a nation separated by borders – in their case the frontier between Iran and Pakistan, which also has a sizable Baloch minority.

Politically the Baloch identify as Muslims, but most do not practice Islam, Meerdora said.

Some analysts say Iran's theocratic regime is unraveling, as resistance movements, including one led by students, grow stronger.

"This theocratic regime is in shambles, coming to the end of its rope," according to Fereydoun Hoveyda, senior fellow at the National Committee on American Foreign Policy in New York City. "People are not afraid of it anymore."

Hoveyda contends, however, Western nations have adopted a flawed policy that focuses on support of President Mohammad Khatami's reform movement rather than on a secular, democratic movement led by students. He adds that while Arabs in many lands danced in the streets in praise of the Sept. 11 attackers, "ordinary Iranians were the only Muslims to openly condemn them and express sympathy to the American people."

"The American press, as well as the [U.S.] government, misreads the events in Iran," Hoveyda said in an interview with WorldNetDaily last fall. "They think that there is one reformist movement, represented by Khatami."

Khatami, he points out, is against dismissing the Islamic regime, which came into power after the ruling shah was forced into exile amid seizure of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran by militant students. The U.S. no longer has diplomatic relations with Iran.

http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=35967

[DoctorZIn]

Important News From Iran - DoctorZin

YEARNING FOR FREEDOM

Iran forces quell massive uprising

Protesters gunned down as people resist Revolutionary Guard assault

Posted: December 5, 2003
1:00 a.m. Eastern
© 2003 WorldNetDaily.com

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/1034349/posts?page=3#3

[ZAKJAN]

Good to see you again DrZin

You read this story FIRST here on Free Republic, Breaking news, with first hand reports. I posted them in Breaking News but they were moved....

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1033895/posts?page=2#2

I was very sad to see it moved from Breaking News, wonder if it's breaking news now that it made the front page of World Net Daily??

If all of you that are concerned with these issues would be so kind as to Thank Mr. Art Moore at World Net daily for publishing this story for us. I phoned him yesterday and he immediately went to work investigating this horrible story, and got it up immediately!! I am told that many news sources simply are not interested...

http://www.worldnetdaily.com.

Thanks...Blessings Iranians!!!
ZAKJAN

[freedom44]

Unforuntately some radical fringe groups are trying to use this anti-government demonstration for their own perverse separtist agenda.

Not all opposition is good opposition and we have to be wary of groups trying to undermine the massive pro-Democracy demonstrations in Iran to their own radical agendas.

DOWN WITH THE ISLAMIC REPUBLIC!

[freedom44]

Congress Readies Iran Freedom Funding
New York Sun - By Eli Lake
Dec 4, 2003

WASHINGTON -- Congress is preparing for the first time to authorize public funding for human rights and democracy activities inside the Islamic Republic of Iran.

Tucked inside the 2004 Omnibus Appropriations bill is language that instructs the State Department to spend $1.5 million “for making grants to educational, humanitarian and nongovernmental organizations and individuals inside Iran to support the advancement of democracy and human rights in Iran.”

While the amount is modest, it breaks a long-standing barrier against American spending inside Iran and could signal the Bush administration’s intention to no longer heed a 1981 agreement with Tehran that pledged that Washington would not interfere in the internal affairs of that country.

The expected passage of the spending measure next month would coincide with a campaign on the ground in Iran to urge citizens to boycott February’s elections to the Majlis, the Iranian parliament.

At the American Enterprise Institute yesterday, democracy activists in Iran speaking by teleconference said they had seen many buildings in their neighborhoods emblazoned with “Na,” Persian for no, the unofficial slogan of the upcoming boycott campaign.The push to keep Iranians away from the polls next year is in keeping with recent tactics of Iran’s democrats to avoid large demonstrations in favor of more diffuse actions.

Last March, municipal elections were boycotted and on July 9 many Iranians did not show up for work to commemorate the anniversary of violent crackdowns against students.

In the last three months, the Bush administration has signaled that it is not prepared to confront Iran’s government, a regime that the president nearly two years ago declared a member of the “axis of evil.”The Pentagon has chilled its ties in the last two months with anti-regime Iranian activists, while Secretary of State Powell last month praised a resolution from the International Atomic Energy Agency that found no evidence that the country intended to use uranium centrifuges it had kept hidden from the U.N. body for nuclear weapons.

At the same time, the American-appointed Iraqi Governing Council concluded a series of diplomatic and trade agreements with the Islamic Republic last month with the blessing of the Coalition Provisional Authority.

While the executive branch softens its stance against Iran, many in Congress have pushed a harder line.

Earlier this year, Senator Brownback, a Republican of Kansas, introduced legislation that would have set aside $50 million each year for broadcasts from exiles into Iran and stated that American policy was to end the rule of the clerics in charge there.The proposal was opposed by the State Department and the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Richard Lugar, a Republican from Indiana.

But Mr. Brownback continued to push for some funding for those opposing Iran’s government, and he managed to get the rather modest $1.5 million into the appropriations legislation.

“This is an important precedent,” the president of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, Clifford May, said. “For the first time we are seeing Washington give concrete support for the democratic forces in Iran.”

While the National Endowment for Democracy runs a handful of programs that aim to push democracy in Iran, all of them are grants to organizations in America that have supported reformists in Iran.The new instructions in the budget for next year would for the first time go toward programs on the ground in Iran.

The State Department in the past has been wary of American funding for programs inside Iran because of the 1981 Algiers Accord, which established a commission to settle outstanding property claims between Iran and America and pledged that future presidents would not interfere in the Islamic Republic’s internal affairs.

Rep. Brad Sherman, a Democrat of California, said he supported the money for Iranian democracy building.

“I hope that this is the start of a concerted effort by our government to assist the Iranian people in their struggle for a more representative government,” he said.

http://www.daneshjoo.org/generalnews/article/publish/article_3928.shtml

[PhilDragoo]

Hoveyda contends, however, Western nations have adopted a flawed policy that focuses on support of President Mohammad Khatami's reform movement rather than on a secular, democratic movement led by students. He adds that while Arabs in many lands danced in the streets in praise of the Sept. 11 attackers, "ordinary Iranians were the only Muslims to openly condemn them and express sympathy to the American people."

Screw Khatami; support the students.

Oh! They tell me, "Your regime is doomed!"
But I cover my ears like this and sing,
"La la la la la la la la I can't hear you!