Iranian Alert -- February 20, 2004 -- IRAN LIVE THREAD --Americans for Regime Change in Iran

The US media almost entirely ignores news regarding the Islamic Republic of Iran. As Tony Snow of the Fox News Network has put it, “this is probably the most under-reported news story of the year.” But most American’s are unaware that the Islamic Republic of Iran is NOT supported by the masses of Iranians today. Modern Iranians are among the most pro-American in the Middle East.

There is a popular revolt against the Iranian regime brewing in Iran today. Starting June 10th of this year, Iranians have begun taking to the streets to express their desire for a regime change. Most want to replace the regime with a secular democracy. Many even want the US to over throw their government.

The regime is working hard to keep the news about the protest movement in Iran from being reported. Unfortunately, the regime has successfully prohibited western news reporters from covering the demonstrations. The voices of discontent within Iran are sometime murdered, more often imprisoned. Still the people continue to take to the streets to demonstrate against the regime.

In support of this revolt, Iranians in America have been broadcasting news stories by satellite into Iran. This 21st century news link has greatly encouraged these protests. The regime has been attempting to jam the signals, and locate the satellite dishes. Still the people violate the law and listen to these broadcasts. Iranians also use the Internet and the regime attempts to block their access to news against the regime. In spite of this, many Iranians inside of Iran read these posts daily to keep informed of the events in their own country.

This daily thread contains nearly all of the English news reports on Iran. It is thorough. 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. The news stories and commentary will from time to time include material from the regime itself. But if you read the post you will discover for yourself, the real story of what is occurring in Iran and its effects on the war on terror.

I am not of Iranian heritage. I am an American committed to supporting the efforts of those in Iran seeking to replace their government with a secular democracy. I am in contact with leaders of the Iranian community here in the United States and in Iran itself.

If you read the daily posts you will gain a better understanding of the US war on terrorism, the Middle East and why we need to support a change of regime in Iran. Feel free to ask your questions and post news stories you discover in the weeks to come.

If all goes well Iran will be free soon and I am convinced become a major ally in the war on terrorism. The regime will fall. Iran will be free. It is just a matter of time.

ISLAMIC IRAN PARTICIPATION FRONT OFFICE SEALED OFF

TEHRAN, 19 Feb. (IPS)

The office of the Islamic Iran Participation Front (IIPF), Iran’s largest political formation that controlled the outgoing Parliament was sealed on orders from the Judiciary, it was learned late Thursday night.

The move, on the eve of the controversial elections, was expected, as the Judiciary, which is controlled by the leader of the Islamic Republic, Ayatollah Ali Khameneh’i, had on Wednesday night shut down the party’s official organ Yas e No as well as the reformist daily Sharq.

Mr. Ali Shakkoori-Raad, an outspoken reformist lawmaker barred by the leader-controlled Council of the Guardians to run in the Friday elections with some eighty other colleagues, including Dr. Mohammad Reza Khatami, the younger brother of the badly lamed President Mohammad Khatami, confirmed the information, but did not say on what charges the office was sealed.

The younger Khatami, who is the Majles’ first deputy-Speaker and the leader of the IIPF had announced that in protest to the CG’s decision to disqualify most of the 2.300 reformist candidates, his movement as well as some other reformist groups would walk away from the race.

Mr Khameneh’i and other senior orthodox ayatollahs, afraid of massive abstention, had ruled that going to the polls was a "religious duty".

Analysts said this and more important, an open letter more than a hundred disqualified lawmakers had wrote to the leader, accusing him indirectly for the mass rejection of reformist hopefuls could be the reason for Ayatollah Khameneh'i ordering the Judiciary to shut down the Party.

The Judiciary had also ordered Internet Service Providers to seriously filter three pro-reform internet sites, including Rooydad that belongs to the IIPF, Emrooz and Peyknet, making them difficult for Iranians inside the country to read them.

The Paris-based Reporter Sans Frontieres and the Association of Iranian Journalists Abroad immediately denounced Thursday the Judiciary's decision to close the two newspapers and impose filter on the websites and urged Mr. Khameneh'i to revise the ban on all Iranian press shut down on his orders.

RSF has "awarded" the Iranian leader as the "world's most dangerous predator of press freedom".

ENDS IIPF SEALED OFF 19204

http://www.iran-press-service.com/articles_2004/Feb_04/iipf_sealed_off_19204.htm

Voting begins in Iran

Friday 20 February 2004, 9:23 Makka Time, 6:23 GMT

Voting began in Iran's disputed parliamentary election on Friday, overshadowed by a ban on most reformist candidates and a crackdown on pro-reform media.

Supreme leader Ayat Allah Ali Khamenei called on Iranians to vote en masse in the elections, accusing the Islamic republic's "enemies" of trying to encourage a boycott.

"I thank God I am here and able to vote, and take part in this important event," said the all-powerful leader as he voted in his Tehran complex, just minutes after polling stations opened.

"Today is a particularly significant day, because the enemies are trying hard to stop the people from going to the ballot boxes. But the people are very wise," he said in a live broadcast on state television.

Outcome

"Nobody can stop the young people from voting," he asserted, adding that "I hope the outcome will be a good one."

Reformist lawmakers barred from running for re-election have said the ballot is rigged and they will boycott the poll.

Some 46 million Iranians aged 15 and over are entitled to vote for 290 deputies.

Islamic conservatives seemed certain to dominate the new assembly after the Guardian Council, a watchdog panel of unelected clerics, disqualified 2500 mainly reformist candidates.

http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/DA3EC129-4CD7-43A5-BB83-46D08A51A700.htm

Iran's meaningless vote

The Boston Globe
2/20/2004

TODAY'S parliamentary elections in Iran shine a bright light on the terminal crisis of a failed political system.

The travesty of having the 12 members of a hard-line Guardian Council disqualify 2,500 of 8,200 candidates has not been lost on the electorate. Reformists speak of a parliamentary coup. Since a fettered Parliament and the office of the impotent President Mohammad Khatami have been the sole institutions in the hands of reformists, the hard-liners' strong-arm efforts to seize control of these platforms betray a fear of anything that resembles real democracy.

This is the anxiety of rulers who sense that their days in power are numbered. Their judiciary pitched in by closing two reformist newspapers yesterday. The papers were closed for printing a scathing open letter to the unelected cleric who bears the title of Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Signed by 100 pro-reform legislators, the letter castigated Khamenei for allowing freedom to be "trampled in the name of Islam."

In response to the thuggish tactics of the hard-liners, reformists have called for a boycott of the elections. Their logic might make sense to them, caught as they are between rivals who change the rules of the game at will and a public that has voted at least four times for change only to be cheated out of meaningful change. But the idea of a boycott has led the reformists into an impasse of paradoxes.

They say a ballot cast today is a vote for undemocratic elections. Conversely, a refusal to participate becomes a vote in favor of democracy. Iran's eligible voters -- there are 46 million of them -- may be excused for suffering a bout of vertigo from trying to follow this reasoning. They are being asked to believe that democracy requires one not to vote or that the act of voting identifies the voter as someone who actively rejects democracy.

The likely result is that pliant conservatives and zealous hard-liners will gain control of Parliament amid unverifiable claims about the effect of the boycott. Voters may stay home in droves, but vote-rigging by the hardliners will likely enable them to pretend there was a respectable turnout.

These spasms of a moribund system occur at the same time UN inspectors identified traces of highly enriched uranium on advanced centrifuges at an Iranian Air Force base. This suggests the regime has continued to lie to inspectors about its nuclear program.

The Bush administration and its European allies must walk a fine line, obliging the regime in Tehran to choose between a verifiable surrender of its nuclear weapons project and international censure and isolation -- yet refraining from any threat to use force. Left to their own devices, the ruling mullahs are doing a fine job of inoculating Iranians against the disease of clerical dictatorship.

http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/editorials/articles/2004/02/20/irans_meaningless_vote/

Iranian protest stifled

PAUL HUGHES
REUTERS NEWS AGENCY
20 Feb 2004

TEHRAN—A hard-line crackdown on Iran's reform movement widened yesterday on the eve of a disputed parliamentary election when prosecutors sealed a campaign office of the main reformist party and blocked its news Web site.

It followed the closing of the two most outspoken reformist newspapers Wednesday for reporting a scathing open letter to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei by dozens of reformist lawmakers banned from today's election.

"They are blocking our channels of communication with the people," said Ali Shakourirad, a deputy and member of the Islamic Iran Participation Front.

The party is boycotting the election, which it says was rigged when an unelected clerical watchdog disqualified more than 2,500 mainly reformist candidates. A further 1,179 contenders have since withdrawn.

Criticizing the Islamic leader is an offence and the Supreme National Security Council had ordered newspapers not to report the letter in which deputies accused Khamenei of presiding over a system that trampled on people's rights. The dailies and Web site were closed when they disobeyed.

http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_Type1&c=Article&cid=1077232211112&call_pageid=968332188854&col=968350060724

Iranians Vote in Election That May End Reform Drive

Fri February 20, 2004 06:24 AM ET
By Parinoosh Arami and Paul Taylor TEHRAN (Reuters)

Urged by prayer leaders to "slap America in the face," Iranians voted Friday in a disputed parliamentary election set to tighten hard-liners' grip on power and end President Mohammad Khatami's faltering reform drive.

A short, lackluster campaign was overshadowed by a ban on most reformist candidates and a crackdown on pro-reform media amid apparent public indifference. The main uncertainty concerns the turnout, with even the size of the electorate in dispute.

Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, among the first to cast his ballot, said the Islamic Republic's enemies were trying to deter young people from voting -- an apparent reference to a boycott by blacklisted reformist lawmakers and student groups.

"You see how those who are against the Iranian nation and the Islamic revolution are trying so hard to prevent people from going to the polls," Khamenei told state television.

Conservatives seem certain to dominate the new assembly after the Guardian Council, an unelected panel of hard-line clerics, disqualified 2,500 mainly reformist aspirants and a further 1,179 contenders withdrew.

A gloomy-looking Khatami voted at the Interior Ministry. In an oblique criticism of an election he has branded "unfair," he told reporters: "This nation has been defeated many times but continued its path and created surprises."

State media, controlled by the conservatives, pulled out all the stops to boost the turnout and legitimise the poll, broadcasting patriotic songs and old footage of revolutionary marches and mass voting in past elections.

"TRAITORS"

Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati, head of the Guardian Council, used the main Friday prayers sermon in Tehran to attack the reformist parties and student groups shunning the poll, saying the boycott was "rooted in the palaces of America."

"Those who whisper 'don't vote' are traitors to the country and Islam," he said. Some reformists say they fear a wave of arrests after the election.

Ahmad Amjadi, 42, a government employee in the holy city of Qom, south of Tehran, told Reuters: "It is our religious duty to vote."

"Iranians are united against the enemy and to slap the Americans' face, we will vote," he said, echoing the anti-U.S. rhetoric Khamenei and state media have been using.
The election could halt Khatami's frequently obstructed drive to liberalise the 25-year-old Islamic state, which has fostered lively political debate and some relaxation of strict social codes in the oil-producing nation of 66 million.

Disenchantment with his failure to achieve more during seven years in office meant many voters were likely simply to stay at home, handing victory to his conservative opponents.

"Or course I'm not going to vote and I don't think anyone else is. All of them (politicians) have only worked for themselves," said war veteran Ali Asghar, a white-haired man with shrapnel lodged in his leg.

Nobel laureate Shirin Ebadi, whose surprise choice as winner of the 2003 peace prize shone a spotlight on the struggle for human rights in Iran, said this week she would not vote because people were not free to choose their representatives.

Foreshadowing a dispute over the turnout, the reformist-run Interior Ministry and the Guardian Council, which has the power to validate the results, issued conflicting figures for the size of the electorate.

The ministry said 46,351,032 Iranians aged 15 and over were entitled to vote. The Council, whose 12 members are appointed directly or indirectly by Khamenei, said it was 43 million.

"The figure given by the Guardian Council on the number of voters in the country is incorrect," the Interior Ministry said.

Most analysts expect turnout to be well below the two thirds who voted in 2000 elections, when reformist allies of Khatami won. A low turnout could undermine the authority of the result.

The Guardian Council disqualified the best known reformists, including 80 sitting deputies such as the president's brother, Mohammed Reza, as un-Islamic or hostile to the constitution.

In what many reformers fear is a sign of things to come, the hard-line judiciary Thursday sealed the campaign headquarters of the Islamic Iran Participation Front, led by Khatami's brother, and blocked access to its news Web Site.

The two most outspoken reformist newspapers were closed on Wednesday for reporting an unprecedented scathing open letter to Khamenei by reformist lawmakers banned from Friday's poll.

http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=worldNews&storyID=4402091

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