Iranian Alert -- DAY 13 -- LIVE THREAD PING LIST

Live Thread Ping List | 6.22.2003 | DoctorZin

[DoctorZIn]

We continue to receive so many excellent stories about the protests in Iran that we are maintaining this live thread.

Please continue to post all news stories in this thread and ping your lists to this thread so we can increase the overall awareness of what exactly is going on.

BTW, if you post breaking news, please make a reference to this Iranian Alert -- DAY 13 -- LIVE THREAD PING LIST. This way we can get new readers while still keeping a single location of all important news stories on Iran.

Thanks for all the help.

[Pro-Bush]

France investigates Iran exiles

[DoctorZIn]

Must reading for those wanting to understand the Iranian Student Movement...

Iranian Student Protest Movement Publish Major Letter To the Free People of the World

Student Movement Coordination Committee for Democracy in Iran (SMCCDI) ^ | 6.22.2003 | Press Release

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/933474/posts?page=3

[DoctorZIn]

Remember Baghdad Bob? This report reminds me of him. Although all other reports I am receiving say the protests are growing and getting smarter this report says the opposite. Sounds like wishful thinking....

Iran now enjoying maximum security: Tehran police chief

Sunday, June 22, 2003 - ©2003 IranMania.com

TEHRAN, June 21 (AFP) - A top Iranian police official on Saturday declared nearly 10 days of anti-regime protest to be over, while the Islamic republic's chief prosecutor vowed that those detained in the unrest would be severely punished.

"Our society is now enjoying maximum security, and there are no problems anywhere in the country," Tehran's police chief Morteza Talai was quoted as saying by the official news agency IRNA.

Talai blamed the protests, which erupted around Tehran University on June 10 and then spread to provincial cities, on "American government-financed foreign television stations" -- a reference to US-based opposition satellite channels.

"We as a police force, with all our power, will stand against those who want to jeopardise the country's security," he added.

The protests have been marked by fierce clashes between demonstrators and hardline vigilantes loyal to the nearly 25-year-old clerical regime, and many radical demonstrators also chanted slogans against Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, a serious crime in the Islamic Republic.

Hundreds of people -- including hardline vigilantes -- have been detained in the past week, although many have been quickly released.

The protests, blamed by authorities on the United States and their on-the-ground "agitators", appear to have fizzled out, although student leaders said Saturday that they were planning to keep up their demonstrations with exam boycotts and sit-ins.

Meanwhile, Iran's chief prosecutor Ayatollah Abdulnabi Namazi vowed that detained rioters would be dealt with harshly.

"We will deal toughly with these elements of disruption," IRNA quoted him as saying.

"We will not let the security and calm of society be endangered," he added, blaming "some opportunists and also the foreign media" for inciting the demonstrators.

The ayatollah said that "a number of people arrested in Tehran and Isfahan are still under investigation", but gave no figure for those still being detained in relation to the unrest.

On Friday another top cleric, Ayatollah Mohammad Yazdi, said in a sermon that Iran's hardline judiciary to treat "rioters" as "enemies of Allah" -- a charge that carries the death penalty.

After student riots in 1999, one protestor was convicted of that charge and condemned to die, but the punishment was later commuted to 15 years imprisonment.

http://www.iranmania.com/News/ArticleView/Default.asp?NewsCode=16410&NewsKind=Current%20Affairs

[TigerLikesRooster]

Re #4

You forgot to ping frequent visitors.:)

[Libertarianize the GOP]

http://www.freerepublic.com/perl/bump-list

[DoctorZIn]

Iranian reformers: to resign or not to resign?
The Daily Star
By Ahmad Sadri

June 21, 2003

To resign or not to resign is the question gnawing at the reformers of Iran, today more than any time in their six-year tenure. Iran’s regional and international isolation and the extreme proximity of the business end of the Great Satan have increased the stakes of the resignation game. Reformers have warned (most recently in an open letter signed by 137 MPs) that a semblance of legitimacy is the only prophylactic against American intervention. And yet, the hard-liners continue to treat the threats of resignation as a game of chicken. They appear to dare the reform to go ahead and make their day, damn the resulting American
“occuberation” (occupation plus liberation.) It may be too late for the reformers to extract real concessions with a credible show of will to resign. But such a will never existed, because the concept of resignation as a moral and practical act has not been worked out in Iran’s emerging political culture. The reformists feel pinned. Resigning may appear as dereliction of duty, while staying on continues to cast them as the fall guy in a political charade.

There is no doubt that the hard-liners are playing hard ball. The unrelenting waves of right-wing revenge that have whipped the hapless ship of reform for the past five years are once more gathering as a squall of new aggression by the goons of the Hizbullah. Meanwhile the noose of the right-wing judiciary continues to choke the life out of the reformist students and intellectuals. The Council of Guardians has again humiliated President Khatami and the Parliament by rejecting their twin bills aimed at reclaiming a measure of political authority for the elected institutions of the Parliament and the presidency. The bill will be returned to the Parliament and a watered-downed version of it will probably pass the Council of Guardians just in time to do next to no good for an outgoing reformist Parliament and president. The strategic merits of mass resignation aside, the reformers will do well to ponder the legitimacy and feasibility of political resignation as an integral part of any democratic social order.

Politics is a bid to participate in the acquisition of power for the purpose of implementing an ideal. As ideals are not always attainable in their entirety, a responsible politician might have to compromise in order to gradually approach his or her goal. Compromise might be a dirty word in the parlance of logicians and moralists but it must not be considered as such in the world of responsible politics. An uncompromising artist is in all likelihood a good artist but an uncompromising politician is nothing but a fanatic.

However, compromise is only a means for achieving a political goal. Like the search for power, compromise is never legitimate in itself or as means to private ends. Once a politician’s axial ideals have been compromised there remains no room for compromise. Once hope for attaining or approaching the ideal is lost both compromise and the search for power must cease. Thus, resignation is of the essence of democratic political ethics. A political system devoid of resignations must be viewed with suspicion.
Of course, it will not do to exhort others to abandon their livelihood on idealistic grounds. As modern politicians might face the moral obligation to resign at any time, they must be financially and psychologically prepared for a Plan B in their lives.

They must emerge into politics from a suspended profession and possess a will to leave the glories of public office for a humble but honest living. The German sociologist Max Weber argued that politicians must live “for” and not “off” politics. I believe that with the rejection of the twin bills by the Council of Guardians that moment arrived for the Iranian reformers. The ongoing spontaneous combustion of Tehran’s streets is another sign of the hopelessness of the cause of political reform.


Ahmad Sadri, professor and chairman of the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at Lake Forest College, Illinois, USA, writes a regular commentary for The Daily Star

http://www.dailystar.com.lb/opinion/20_06_03_d.asp

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

[DoctorZIn]

Today's NYTimes Editorial...

Buy One, Get One Free
By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN
NYTimes 6.22.2003

Students in Iran are rebelling against the Ayatollahs. Is there anything we can do to help? The truth is we have very few tools to influence events in Iran, and even if we had more it's not clear we'd know how to use them. But there is one huge tool we do control that will certainly have an impact on Iran: It's called Iraq.

Iraq, like Iran, is a majority Shiite country, with myriad religious links with Iran. If the Bush team could make a psychological and political breakthrough with Iraqi Shiites, and be seen as helping them build a progressive, pluralistic state in Iraq, it would have a big impact on Iran — much bigger than anything America alone could say or do.

No one should have any illusions that Iran's Islamic theocracy is about to fold tomorrow. Iran's clerical rulers are tough and ruthless and have a monopoly of power. But many of their people detest them. And while Iran will play out by its own logic, there is no question that if the other big, predominantly Shiite state in the region, the one right next door, the one called Iraq, were to become a reasonably decent, democratizing polity of the sort Iranians are demanding for themselves, it would pressure Iran's clerics to open up.

A friend in Tehran sent me an e-mail message Thursday, saying, "The Iranian state-run TV is just reporting how Americans have failed in Iraq. [But] average people, like my grocer, actually think Iraq and Afghanistan have become heaven. It seems that they come up with the opposite version of what the government is trying to tell them. My grocer keeps on saying, `When are the Americans coming here? They fixed Afghanistan and Iraq and we are still miserable. . . .' "

We do not want the story in Iran to be America versus the Ayatollahs. We want the story to be the Iranian people versus the Ayatollahs, and the best way to foster that is by showing Iranians that there is another way and it's happening right next door. In short, America's intervention in Iraq is a two-for-one sale: improve Iraq, improve Iran. Buy one, get one free. Mess up one, mess up the other.

So then, how do we forge a breakthrough with the Shiites of Iraq, who make up 60 percent of that country? Let's start with some good news. While the U.S. forces in Iraq are meeting mounting resistance from the remnants of Saddam's regime, these are primarily Iraqi Sunni Muslims who sense that their long hold on power in Iraq is over.

"The fact is, the Iraqi Shiites have clearly decided to give the Americans a grace period to see how they intend to rebuild Iraq," says Yitzhak Nakash, the Brandeis University professor whose book, "The Shi`is of Iraq," is one of the most important works on this subject. "Iraqi Shiite religious leaders have thus far not issued any fatwas against the U.S. troops. They have adopted a wait-and-see approach."

Just last week Abdelaziz al-Hakim, a key Iraqi Shiite leader, gave an interview to the newspaper Al Hayat in which he stressed that Iraqi Shiites were not under the control of Iran and had no intention for now of engaging in violent resistance to the U.S. forces in Iraq.

This grace period from Iraqi Shiites is the most important thing happening in Iraq, and the U.S. needs to take advantage of it. The U.S. could start, suggested Mr. Nakash, with President Bush apologizing for the fact that the U.S., in 1991, encouraged Iraqi Shiites to rise up against Saddam, and then abandoned them, leading to the slaughter of thousands of Shiites in southern Iraq. Visible gestures from the world's only superpower — affirming the dignity of the Iraqi Shiites and their right to a share of power in proportion to their numbers — could help lock in this grace period and foster a mass base for moderate Shiite politics.

What the U.S. also needs to do, argued Mr. Nakash, is "create conditions for the Shiites of Iraq to experiment with defining relations between religion and politics. Their challenge will be to find a compromise allowing clerics in the seminaries of Najaf to focus on matters relating to religious worship and learning — and have their impact on society felt that way — while leaving politics to the politicians in Baghdad."

Bottom line: We need to get Iraq right before we raise expectations about Iran, and getting Iraq right will be hard. But the key to getting Iraq right is getting the Shiites on our side — if not openly, at least tacitly — while helping them nurture a progressive political system. Do that, and it will encourage Iranians to do the same. Fail to do that, and we will lose in both Iraq and Iran.

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/06/22/opinion/22FRIE.html

[DoctorZIn]

...You forgot to ping frequent visitors.:)...

I am trying not to ping on every article. It's hard to balance how many to ping on. If you all want pings on every article let me know, I am just trying to keep from overwhelming people.

[Steel Wolf]

Iran’s regional and international isolation and the extreme proximity of the business end of the Great Satan have increased the stakes of the resignation game.

I don't know what I like best about this line; the grudging, bitter admission of doom, or the fact that it was written by an American college professor.

Iran, you are surrouned. Come out with your Mullahs up (preferrable attached to trees) and everything will be OK!

[DoctorZIn]

Thought you should be aware of this... The Students Are Pushing For A Huge Turnout In LA... There are similar plans in DC...

Invitation for a National Gathering Commemorating July 9th [LA rally for Iranian freedom 7/09]
Alliance of Iranian Students|
June 11, 2003 | Gholamreza Mohajerinejhad
Posted on 06/11/2003 7:56 AM PDT by Eala

Greetings Compatriots-

The anniversary of the July 9th national uprising is near. The uprising was doubtlessly an event that not only caused the night worshipping manipulators of religion ruling our country to tremble but it also revealed the democracy seeking struggles of the third generation.

Indeed, the worshippers of the night carried out an assault on the university. They attacked, murdered, set fires, and left, but the doves of freedom remain incarcerated. Doves such as Manoochehr Mohammadi, Abbas Deldar, Akbar Mohammadi, Ahmad Batebi, Mehrdad Lohrasbi, Javid Tehrani, Mostafa Piran, Ali Afshari, Koroush Sahti, Abbas Fakhravar, Mehdi Sanjari, Abbas Amir Entezam, Nasser Zerafshan have been held as political prisoners and Ezat Ebrahimnejad lost his life in the struggle for freedom. But the aggressors do not know that these events have ignited a fire in the hearts of Iranian youth that will blaze on until the enemies of Iran and Iranians have been reduced to ashes.

It is up to us to gather in great numbers during the anniversary of the national uprising so that we make apparent our support for our youth and the doves of freedom during this sensitive time in our national history.

The students and youth of Iran have extended a hand to you compatriots for support.

The gathering of the student movement will take place on Sunday July 6, 2003, at four in the afternoon in front of the Federal Building in Los Angeles.

On that day together we will call for the release of all political prisoners. We will shout "No to an Islamic Republic" and we will tell the world that "We want a referendum".

Looking forward to seeing all of you beloved compatriots,

Gholamreza Mohajerinejhad
Alliance of Iranian Students
Organizing Committee for July 9th Gathering

Sunday July 6, 2003-four in the afternoon-WestWood
Telephone and Fax (818) 346-4317
P.O. Box 664, Reseda, CA 91337
www.daneshjooyan.org

For your convenience, the Federal Building Parking lot will be open on the demonstration day

[DoctorZIn]

Iran students say hundreds held

June 22, 2003
CNN News
CNN.com

TEHRAN, Iran -- Iranian student leaders said hundreds of students had been arrested following a wave of protests against Islamic clerical rule, and warned the crackdown could make them adopt more radical and violent methods.

The student leaders, who came to parliament to protest the arrests, said Sunday that since Thursday 87 students had been detained in Tehran, 250 in the northwestern city of Urumiyeh, 105 in the northeastern city of Sabzevar and 30 in Hamadan in western Iran.

"Even if they send us to prison and take us to solitary confinement there are others who have more daring slogans than us and they will confront the system with more violent methods," Saeed Razavi Faqih, one of the student leaders, told Reuters.

"Today we are sitting on a keg of gunpowder. Anyone who wants to play with this fire will be burned," he said.

The protests have been lauded as a cry for freedom by the United States, which also accuses Iran of seeking to develop nuclear weapons. Iran denies any ambition to build atomic arms and has accused U.S. officials of blatant interference in its internal affairs.

While venting most of their anger at the conservative opponents of reformist President Mohammad Khatami, demonstrators have also called on the president to resign for failing to deliver promised improvements in justice, democracy and social freedoms after six years in power.

Students and reformist lawmakers said the students had been arrested by plainclothes security officials carrying arrest warrants authorizing them to detain anyone under suspicion. The whereabouts of many of the detained was unknown, they said.

"There has been a mass arrest order. They can arrest whoever they want," one MP told Reuters on condition of anonymity.

'Usual response to protest'

Diplomats said the arrests appeared to be aimed at snuffing out a recent spate of pro-democracy protests centered around university campuses which began in Tehran two weeks ago and spread to other cities.

Although those demonstrations have all but fizzled out, authorities are eager to prevent them from erupting again around the July 9 anniversary of the violent attack on a Tehran University dormitory by hardline Islamic vigilantes in 1999.

"It's the usual response to protest. They want to try to round up any troublemakers to prevent any big rallies on July 9," one diplomat in Tehran said.

It was not immediately possible to confirm the number of student arrests. Officials have said around 500 "hooligans" were arrested during the recent protests in Tehran but that only a handful of students were among those detained.

Among those arrested was the son of reformist MP Ahmad Shirzad, a fact which students said highlighted the impotency of Khatami's government compared with powerful unelected conservative clerics who have opposed his reformist agenda.

"I don't have any hope when the son of an MP is arrested. I don't even have hope in Khatami," said Aydin Aminizadeh, wife of arrested student leader Mehdi Aminizadeh. "I only hope the media and international organizations pressure them to secure their release," she said.

Some 166 of the 290 lawmakers in the reformist-controlled parliament read out a statement condemning the arrests and attacks on student dormitories by hardline vigilantes fiercely loyal to Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

http://edition.cnn.com/2003/WORLD/meast/06/22/iran.protests.reut/index.html

[Smile-n-Win]

So a bunch of kooks who happen to want the regime gone have been arrested in France. Is that all the BBC has to say about Iran?

(I entered "Iran" into the Search box on the BBC site, and nothing about the ongoing revolution came up!)

[Smile-n-Win]

I would suggest that you ping once or twice every day, when you post the most important articles. Once pinged, we'll read the rest of the thread. (At least that's how I do it.) :-)

[Smile-n-Win]

Remember Baghdad Bob? This report reminds me of him.

Hmm, perhaps this guy will soon be saying, "There are no American infidels in Tehran! NEVER!"

:-)

[McGavin999]

They are burying their heads in the sand. They simply don't understand what is going on or that they are helpless to stop it now.

When is the next election? Have they thought about write in candidates?

[ewing]

Wow, an average Iranian grocer -'When are the Americans coming?'

He undersands better than ABC, CBS and CNN combined

[SevenofNine]

DOCTOR have you been surfing on FR Honey

OMGGG students are watching Fox news and Mullah cracking down THAT IS VERY FUNNYY RACK THEMMMM

Rack Iranian students LOLOLOL!!!!

[DoctorZIn]

Major Mistake By DoctorZIn

Shortly after posting the event below I was contacted by representatives of the Student Movement and told that this event was NOT sponsored by them.

Invitation for a National Gathering Commemorating July 9th [LA rally for Iranian freedom 7/09] Alliance of Iranian Students| June 11, 2003 | Gholamreza Mohajerinejhad Posted on 06/11/2003 7:56 AM PDT by Eala

PLEASE DO NOT ATTEND THIS EVENT

I was told that this event and it's sponsor, Gholamreza Mahajerinejhad, do NOT represent the Student Movement. I was told, he was once associated with it, but that the movement has long ago disassociated themselves from him. I was told that he is part of "pro-stalinist" movement.

I will get you the dates of the "real" student movements demontrations soon.

Sorry for the mistake.

[grapeape]

`When are the Americans coming here? They fixed Afghanistan and Iraq and we are still miserable. . . .'

See I told you guys that this was going to happen and look right here. I know this is anecdotal evidence but if the revolution has stalled because these people are going to wait for the US then the blame can only be put on the people who pressured our government to make statements of support. We haven't ever been in a position to help them. Our plate is over flowing right now.