Iranian Alert -- DAY 15 -- LIVE THREAD PING LIST

Live Thread Ping List | 6.24.2003 | 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 15 -- 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.

[DoctorZIn]

Iranian Alert -- DAY 15 -- LIVE THREAD PING LIST

Live Thread Ping List | 6.24.2003 | DoctorZin
Posted on 06/24/2003 1:00 AM PDT

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/934512/posts

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

[DoctorZIn]

Power Moves May Be Uniting Hard-Liners in Iraq and Iran

June 19, 2003
The New York Times
David Rohde with Nazila Fathi

NAJAF -- In a step that may intensify a struggle between moderates and conservatives in Iraq, a hard-line Shiite cleric recently met with the leadership in Iran, according to his aides.

American military officials confirmed that the cleric, Moktada al-Sadr, had recently traveled to Iran. The trip comes after repeated American warnings to Iran not to interfere in Iraq's internal affairs.

Just what Mr. Sadr did in Iran is uncertain, other than attending the June 4 anniversary of the death of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the founder of Iran's theocracy.

However, two of Mr. Sadr's senior aides said he had met with Ayatolloh Ali Khamenei, Iran's supreme religious leader; Mahmoud Hashemi Shahroudi, the head of Iran's judiciary; and Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, Iran's former president.

"Yes, they offered help," said Ahmed Shehbani, a senior aide who said he had traveled with Mr. Sadr. "Either humanitarian aid for the Iraqi people or moral support."

The three Iranian leaders could not be reached for comment. But Iranian newspapers recently reported that Mr. Sadr had met with Mr. Shahroudi and Mr. Rafsanjani.

Mr. Sadr's aides also said Kadhem al-Husseini al-Haeri, a prominent conservative Iraqi cleric who lives in exile in Iran, had agreed to return to Iraq. His return could represent a move by hard-liners to challenge the moderate Shiite clerics who now dominate Iraq. Sixty percent of Iraqis are Shiite Muslims.

Attempts to reach Mr. Haeri in Tehran were unsuccessful. His daughter said he had no plans to return to Iraq.

The significance of the contacts is not yet clear, but they could mark an attempt by conservative forces in Iran to maintain power and for their Iraqi counterparts to achieve power after many years of brutal suppression under President Saddam Hussein.

A senior American official said earlier this month that the existence of a prosperous and democratic Iraq next to Iran would undermine Iran's clerics.

"Elements of the Iranian government have determined that they must defeat us here," said the senior American official, who was speaking in Baghdad. "Najaf threatens Qum."

The official was referring to the struggle between two cities holy to Shiite Muslims — Qum in Iran and Najaf in Iraq.

Clerics in Qum, broadly speaking, endorse the rule of society by religious leaders, in obedience to to religious law.

Najaf, the center of the Shiite world for 1,300 years, is where the body of Ali, the son-in-law of the prophet and the founder of the Shiite faith, is buried. The city represents a more moderate Shiite tradition, which holds that politics corrupts religion and the two should be kept strictly separate.

The battle between the doctrines is centered in Najaf, in two nondescript houses less than 200 yards apart. In one sits Mr. Sadr. In the other sits a man who wants nothing to do with Western materialism, politics or wealth. Yet the reclusive Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sestani, in his 70's, has proved to be one of America's crucial allies in southern Iraq.

His fatwas, or religious edicts, have discouraged clerics from engaging in politics. During the war, he urged Iraqis to remain neutral.

At the same time, Mr. Sestani is suspicious of American intentions. "We feel great unease over their goals," Mr. Sestani's son and spokesman, Mohammed Rida Sestani, wrote in response to questions from The Washington Post on Saturday. "We see that it is necessary that they should make room for Iraqis to rule themselves by themselves without foreign intervention."

Nearby, Mr. Sadr, back from Iran, fights for a Shiism much more like that which rules Iran. Only 30 years old, he is the son of Ayatollah Muhammad Sadiq al-Sadr, a revered Iraqi Shiite leader assassinated in 1999 by men believed to be acting under Mr. Hussein's orders.

Mr. Sadr's supporters have already established a small number of Sharia courts, where Islamic law is administered, and called for clerical approval of any new Iraqi government. They have been accused of involvement in the April killing of a moderate Shiite cleric hacked to death by a mob after returning to Iraq. They are also accused of threatening women who do not wear veils, store owners who sell alcohol and theater owners who show what clerics deem to be pornography.

Mr. Sadr's main patron is Mr. Haeri, the exiled cleric in Iran. Last week, he issued a fatwa ordering Iraqis not to sell land to Jews in Iraq. And in April, Mr. Haeri, who is based in Qum, issued a fatwa urging Iraqis to resist American influence.

"People have to be taught not to collapse morally before the means used by the Great Satan, if it stays in Iraq," Mr. Haeri wrote of the United States. "It will try to spread moral decay, incite lust by allowing easy access to stimulating satellite channels, spreading debauchery to weaken peoples' faith in schools, governments and homes."

Mr. Haeri, in his 60's, does not have Mr. Sestani's authority, but if he returned to Iraq, as Mr. Sadr's aides say he will, he could mount a challenge to the moderates.

American officials predict that after decades of dictatorship, the Shiite community will spurn any authoritarian rule, secular or religious. And in interviews, Najaf residents emphasized that although they wanted Islam to be part of the government, they also wanted democracy.

"We don't want another oppressive regime like the one we had before," said Laith Hasan Shamsi, the 38-year-old owner of a telephone store. He and other residents spoke of Mr. Sestani with reverence and called Mr. Sadr only a promising young leader.

But a senior aide to Mr. Sadr made it clear that hard-liners see this moment as just the beginning of a long campaign — a battle for the future of Shiite Islam — that will last for years.

"This conflict is not new," the senior aide said. "It won't stop tomorrow."

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/06/24/international/worldspecial/24CLER.html

[backhoe]

Cross-link:

-Unrest in Iran--

[firewalk]

Good morning
bttt

[nuconvert]

last night you reported that a mullah had been beheaded. Any follow-up to that story?

[DoctorZIn]

Family members of some of the arrested beaten up

SMCCDI (Information Service)
June 24, 2003

Several family members of those arrested protesters kept at the inafamous Evin Political jail were wounded, yesterday, as the Islamic regime instructed its enraged militiamen to attack them in order to smash their protest gathering held in front of the doors of the penitenciary's facilities.

Clubs and chains were used against mothers and fathers of the prisoners who were asking the release of their children. Several of them were seen with faces in blood or arrested at their turn.

The Islamic regime fears that such gathering will bring other residents to the area and might lead to the attack of the Prison.

Evin is notorious for its torture installations and most of Iran's political dissidents are kept in its premises.

Same brutal actions against the families of the detainees has been reported from the LEF center of Zandjan avenue as well as in many other cities.

Source: SMCCDI

http://www.iran-daneshjoo.org/cgi-bin/smccdinews/viewnews.cgi?category=5&id=1056461208

[DoctorZIn]

Blair: Iranian Student Protests Deserve Support

June 23, 2003
AFP
IranMania

LONDON -- British Prime Minister Tony Blair on Monday said that student anti-regime demonstrations in Iran "deserve our support."

"I think people who are fighting for freedom everywhere deserve our support, yes," Blair said in answer to a question from an MP in the House of Commons.

"The exact nature of our support we are able to give, that is a different question. But I think that those people in whavever part of the world who try to have basic human rights and civil liberties deserve support all over," the British leader continued.

His comments echoed those made last week by US President George W. Bush, whom Blair supported during the war against Iraq earlier this year.

A small student demonstration over government education policy in Tehran on June 10 has spiralled into nearly two weeks of unrest throughout the country, marked by virulent anti-regime protests and clashes between protestors and security forces or vigilantes.

Scores of people have been seriously injured and hundreds arrested during the unrest, blamed by clerical leaders on the United States. Latest protests have largely fizzled out following a police crackdown.

The US has made no secret of approving of the demonstrations, while denying any direct involvement.

On Wednesday, Bush said of the unrest: "This is the beginnings of people expressing themselves toward a free Iran which I think is positive."

"I think that freedom is a powerful incentive, and I believe that someday, that freedom will prevail everywhere because freedom is a powerful drive for people," he told reporters.

http://iranvajahan.net/cgi-bin/news_en.pl?l=en&y=2003&m=06&d=24&a=4

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

[DoctorZIn]

last night you reported that a mullah had been beheaded. Any follow-up to that story?

Nothing more on that story at this time.

[Libertarianize the GOP]

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

[DoctorZIn]

I just heard form Banafsheh Zand-Bonazzi, a leader among the Student Protest Movement.

She asked me to publish this...

24 June 2003 (la version française suit)

IRAN
Two more journalists detained in current wave of arrests
Appeal court upholds three-year jail sentence for another journalist

The arrests of freelance journalist Amir Teirani on 16 June and Mohamed Reza Bouzeri, a journalist with Golestan-e-Iran, on 18 June - both for allegedly inciting students to demonstrate - has brought to the number of journalists detained since 14 June to at least eight.

They also brought the total of journalists held in Iran to at least 16, making it the biggest prison for journalists in the Middle East. Reporters Without Borders called for the immediate release of all them.

Meanwhile, an appeal court on 17 June upheld a prison sentence passed in April on journalist Ali-Reza Jabari, a contributor to several independent newspapers including Adineh, but reduced the term from four to three years. As well as a prison term, Jabari had been sentenced on 19 April to 253 lashes and a fine of 6 million rials (about 1,000 euros).

The official charge against Jabari was "consuming and distributing alcoholic drinks, adultery and immoral acts" although his real offence was to belong to a writers' association and contribute articles to news websites based abroad.

Following expressions of concern by Reporters Without Borders about the location of journalists detained in the past 10 days, Tehran state prosecutor Said Mortazavi reported that Teirani and Taghi Rahmani, a journalist with the weekly Omid-e-Zangan, Reza Alijani, editor of the monthly Iran-e-Farda and winner of the Reporters Without Borders - France Foundation press freedom prize in 2001, and Hoda Saber, a member of Iran-e-Farda's senior staff were being held in Evine prison in Tehran.

The daughter of Ensafali Hedayat, a journaliste with Salam arrested on 16 June in Tabriz university in the north of the country, learned that he was detained in Tabriz's main prison. He was beaten by police at the time of his arrest.

Prosecutor Mortazavi also told the family of journalist Amin Bozorgian, which had received no word of him since his arrest on 15 June, that he was officially detained. The prosecutor threatened the families of detained journalists (including the wives of Rahmani and Alijani) for saying they had been detained illegally.

Mohsen Sazgara, the editor of the website Alliran and the (closed) reformist daily Jameh, has been on hunger strike since his arrest on 15 June. He has a heart ailment and the state of his health is a matter of concern. His wife has also started a hunger strike to protest against her husband's imprisonment.

All of these journalist are alleged to have incited students to revolt. Many anti-government protests have been staged around the main university campus in Tehran and other major cities since 10 June, in the course of which police and militiamen in civilian dress have targeted journalists. The regime has also put heavy pressure on the ISNA and ILNA news agencies, which have been covering these events closely.

The relatives of Abbas Abdi, a journalist with Salam who has been imprisoned since 4 November 2002, have meanwhile voiced concern about his health. Abdi, who is being held in a separate cell and who was in poor health at the time of their last prison visit, told them he nonetheless planned to go on hunger strike if he was not granted a few days of release, as required by the Iranian law.

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

[JulieRNR21]

Thanks for keeping FR informed.......BTTT

[firewalk]

bttt

[nuconvert]

Thank you.

[nuconvert]

bump

[dixiechick2000]

Have you heard anything new about the beheading of the cleric?

Late afternoon BTTT!

[McGavin999]

We keep hearing that the demonstrations have fizzeled out, is that true, or have they just gone underground?

I'm amazed at the article about the journalists being imprisoned. You would think the media would be going nuts over that.

[McGavin999]

The Iraqi people have to hear about what's going on in Iran. They should be told that the people are rising up against the Islamic mullahs and why they are rising up. It might make them think long and hard before they accept radical Islam.

[DoctorZIn]

The Iraqi people have to hear about what's going on in Iran. They should be told that the people are rising up against the Islamic mullahs and why they are rising up. It might make them think long and hard before they accept radical Islam.

The mullahs of Iraq know it. Most of the Iraqi Mullahs who fleed Saddam and lived in Qom, Iran (center of Iran's Shia community), are now returning, but a great many do not want to repeat the mistakes of Iran.

They have witnessed firsthand what an Islamic Republic does to their followers.

In Iran their followers now want to "attach the Mullahs to trees."

[DoctorZIn]

From Banafsheh...

Hi Everyone,

I just wanted to make it clear that the demonstration organized by SECULAR-minded Iranians who support the movement of the people of Iran who are not necessarily partisan is on WEDNESDAY, JULY 9th. PLEASE note that the demonstration organized on the 8th is organized by a young man, GHOLAMREZA MOHJERNEJAD, who is NO LONGER a part of the student group. The student movement disaccosiated themselves from him in a written statement, issued 7 weeks ago, due to alleged involvement with extremely questionable characters and behavior that have cost the group dearly. The correct sites to refer to for any and all student movement in formations is:

http://www.iran-daneshjoo.org
http://www.jonbesh.org

PLEASE DISTRIBUTE THIS...IT IS VERY VERY IMPORTANT THAT EVERYONE IS CLEAR WHEN TO SHOW UP. THANK YOU.

BANAFSHEH