Iranian Alert -- August 6, 2003 -- LIVE THREAD PING LIST

Khatami Voices Concern Over Future of Islamic Regime, Slams ‘Fascism’

August 06, 2003
Arab News
Agence France Presse - Reuters

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/958991/posts?page=20#20

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Iran Boosting aid to Fatah Tanzim During Truce

August 06, 2003
The Jerusalem Post
Margot Dudkevitch

Iran has stepped up its funding of Palestinian terrorist cells, especially those affiliated with Fatah Tanzim, since the hudna went into effect on June 29, a senior security official said Tuesday.

Millions of dollars are being sent to fund Fatah Tanzim activities in Samaria, especially renegade cells in Tulkarm, Jenin, and Nablus that do not recognize the cease-fire or obey Fatah's political leadership.

Kamel Ghanem, a senior Aksa Martyrs Brigades commander being sheltered in Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat's Mukata compound in Ramallah, continues to recruit and plot attacks with the help of the Iranian funding, the official said.

"We know without a doubt that Iran and Hizbullah in Lebanon are in contact with elements on the ground, issue orders, and send funds," he said. "Iran views Israel as the occupier of Islamic holy land, an emissary of the West, whose aim is to destroy Islam."

Iran has also given medical treatment to Palestinians wounded during the current conflict. During their "treatment," it recruited them to terrorist causes and gave them military training. Some of them, when they returned, participated in shooting attacks or became more active in local terrorist cells, the official said.

Iran also sends funds to the families of Palestinian "martyrs," such as suicide bombers. The funds are usually transferred via charity organizations, or sent with people traveling to the territories, he added.

Iran attempts to smuggle weapons into the region, the official said. Past smuggling attempts linked to Iran include:

The Lebanese fishing vessel, San Torini, intercepted by naval forces in May 2001 with weapons bound for the Gaza Strip;

The Karine A, intercepted by naval commandos in January 2002 with more than 50 tons of weapons intended for the territories;

The fishing trawler, Abu Hassan, seized by naval commandos last May, which had left Lebanon and was heading for the Gaza Strip loaded with bomb-making components and a batch of CDs with bomb-making instructions prepared by the Hizbullah.

Taking advantage of the current situation, Iran operates through two channels: Hizbullah in Lebanon, which attempts to establish contacts with Israeli Arabs and recruit foreigners to send on attacks in Israel; and the Revolutionary Guard, which has contacts with Tanzim members in the West Bank and Popular Resistance Committee groups in the Gaza Strip.

Most of the terrorist attacks since the hudna went into effect were carried out by Tanzim members who rely on Iranian assistance, the official said. Islamic Jihad remains the most prominent recipient of Iranian assistance, he said.

Hamas maintains its independence to a certain degree, but in recent years its ties with Iran have strengthened, the official said. Hamas relies heavily on funding it receives via charity organizations, schools, and orphanages.

The official said all terrorist organizations, especially Islamic Jihad and Hamas, are preparing for "the day after" the hudna. They are focussing on recruiting "new blood," appointing new leaders, purchasing weapons, improving infrastructure, and evaluating past activities.

Hamas in the Gaza Strip is expecting a delivery of smuggled weapons from Egypt, the official said. It has also intensified efforts to improve the range of Kassam rockets and to conduct military training for recruits, the official said.

Since the hudna was declared, three Israelis and a foreign worker have been killed and 20 civilians wounded in 178 terrorist attacks, including 118 shootings and 10 mortar attacks on Gaza Strip settlements.

Security forces have thwarted 36 terrorist attacks and arrested more than 75 terrorist suspects. Currently, there are 15 warnings of terrorist attacks, mainly in Samaria, according to security officials.

http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=JPost/A/JPArticle/ShowFull&cid=1060144184623

Iran Boosting aid to Fatah Tanzim During Truce

August 06, 2003
The Jerusalem Post
Margot Dudkevitch

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/958991/posts?page=22#22

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Low Oil Price To Harm Iran Development

August 06, 2003
Neftegaz
neftegaz.ru

The strong GDP growth in Iran this year was not only caused by the development in the oil sector but by increasing domestic demand.

However, in 2004, the country is expected to be hit by lower oil prices which will have a strong impact on government revenues and economic growth.

It can been assumed, that regional tensions in the Middle East should decline after the US-led war in Iraq. This could lead to significant lower oil prices in 2004.

http://www.neftegaz.ru/english/lenta/show.php?id=38427

Rumsfeld Pessimistic Over Iran's al-Qaeda Hand Over

August 06, 2003
ABC News
ABC News Online

US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld says he sees no chance that Iran would turn over to the United States any detained members of the Al Qaeda network.

Reports have said that Washington had approached Tehran with a request to hand over Al Qaeda members in Iranian custody, including Saif al-Adel, an Egyptian thought to be the group's security chief.

The request follows a public acknowledgement by Iran that it was holding some senior figures of the group and it was prepared to extradite them to what it called friendly countries.

But Mr Rumsfeld is pessimistic about the chances of anyone being sent to the US.

"To the extent that they're in one way or another not being allowed to function and operate out of there, that's better," he said.

"To the extent they would be handed over to us, it would be excellent. The chances of that happening apparently are about zero."

http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/s918816.htm

I didn't mean you!

You know the commies are involved with the repression over there.

They just know how to fly under the radar as usual!

..You know the commies are involved with the repression over there...

Thanks for your clarification.

I don't know if I would call them commies...
They are socialist... command economy types...
They are defintely facists...

The real commies (MEK) are trying to over thrown the regime as well. Its a little complicated.

A Khomeini Breaks With His Lineage to Back U.S.

Stephanie Sinclair/Corbi

Sayyid Hussein Khomeini, the grandson of the late Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, says he would accept American intervention in Iran.

NY Times 8.6.2003
By NEIL MacFARQUHAR

BAGHDAD, Iraq, Aug. 5 — The grandson of the late Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the strident Iranian cleric who built his Islamic revolution on a platform of attacking all things American, said today that the overthrow of Saddam Hussein would allow long-awaited freedoms to flourish throughout the region, and if they did not, United States intervention would be welcomed by most Iranians.

The grandson, Sayyid Hussein Khomeini, also suggested that any Iraqi Shiites calling for an Islamic theocracy here were misguided, probably financed by Iran and lacked the experience or understanding to know how badly the Iranian revolution had failed.

"Iranians insist on freedom, but they are not sure where it will come from," said Mr. Khomeini, 45, whose dark eyes together with the black turban that marks him as a descendant of the Prophet Muhammad evoke his famous forebear.

"If it comes from inside, they will welcome it, but if it was necessary for it to come from abroad, especially from the United States, people will accept it," Mr. Khomeini said. "I as an Iranian would accept it."

The extraordinary remarks came during an interview with a man whose grandfather consistently labeled the United States "the Great Satan," and who exploited the 444-day takeover of the American Embassy in Tehran starting in 1979 to cement clerical rule in Iran.

The subsequent hostile relations between the two countries led Washington to support Mr. Hussein in Iraq's grisly eight-year war against Iran under Ayatollah Khomeini. In recent months the Bush administration has accused the Islamic Republic of developing illegal weapons and has hinted that a change of government in Tehran would be welcome.

The young Mr. Khomeini apparently holds none of his grandfather's animosity toward the United States, correcting a reporter forming a question about the American occupation of Iraq to note that it should be called a "liberation."

The setting for the interview was barely less distinctive than the remarks. Mr. Khomeini has taken up temporary residence in a modest mansion whose expansive lawns and palm grove overlooking the Tigris River were home to Izzat Ibrahim, vice chairman of the deposed Revolutionary Command Council and one of Mr. Hussein's closest confidants. Mr. Ibrahim, the King of Clubs on the list of the most-wanted Baathists, remains at large.

A Rolls-Royce with a golden grill that belonged to Mr. Ibrahim gathers dust in the driveway, but the house has been taken over by an Iraqi cleric who shares Mr. Khomeini's view that religion and state should be separated.

Mr. Khomeini indicated that he could be the vanguard of a considerable number of senior Shiite clerics who are opposed to the way the clergy ruling Iran have used religion as a form of oppression and who will move to Iraq's shrine cities once the violence ebbs. But at present he is little known.

"Naturally if the Hawza is located in a free country," he said, using the common word for the entire Shiite seminary movement, "that will give space for debate, for free discussions and so of course there will be an exodus from Qum." The holy city of Qum is Iran's leading religious center.

"If Qum remains under the same kind of oppressive atmosphere, everyone will come to Najaf," he added, referring to the Iraqi holy city.

Mr. Khomeini's viewpoint has attracted the interest of the Coalition Provisional Authority, with a spokesman noting today that various officials had met with Mr. Khomeini because they found his ideas about the separation of religion and state interesting.

Although Mr. Khomeini does not have a wide following, his remarks could resonate among Shiites because of the respect and devotion commanded by his grandfather. His is the latest voice flowing from the Shiites over how exactly the community, which forms an estimated 60 percent majority among Iraq's 25 million people, should attain a role in running Iraq equal to their numbers.

One militant clergyman, Moktada al-Sadr, has called for opposition to the United States and for a system of clerical rule that mirrors Iran's.

Mr. Khomeini said he believed that Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, was financing such calls, although he has no direct knowledge about that. He said he understood why Shiites, newly freed from decades of oppression, might be pressing for an Islamic form of government. But he said he believed that they should learn from the failure of the Islamic revolution.

"People were desperate in the days of the shah to attain freedom, which was the basis of the revolution," he said, his Arabic accent mostly Iraqi with a slight cadence of Persian. "But they didn't get it."

He noted the incongruities separating the seminary cities on opposite sides of the border. In Qum, he said, most religious scholars oppose mixing politics and religion but toe the line in public because that is what the supreme leader demands.

The senior ayatollahs of Najaf, on the other hand, oppose mixing politics and religion but have been making some political remarks — demanding elections over who will write the constitution, for example — because that is what the Iraqi public expects of them.

Rather than religious rule, he suggested that Shiites should overcome their historical persecution complex by pushing for a democratic government that respects their rights.

He grinned at the idea that he was following in the footsteps of other famous revolutionary offspring, like the daughters of Stalin and later Castro, who split with their families and sought refuge with the United States.

Mr. Khomeini said he broke with his grandfather in the early days of the revolution over the killing of people with even minor links to the shah's regime, which he did not believe religious law sanctioned. He has been studying in Qum ever since.

Mr. Khomeini noted that he lived in Najaf from 1965 to 1979, when his grandfather was in exile there plotting the Islamic revolution. Although he has several male cousins, he is the only son of Mustafa Khomeini, a favorite of the late ayatollah's who helped him plot an uprising in 1963 that led to his exile. Mustafa Khomeini died in Najaf 15 months before the Islamic revolution.

Mr. Khomeini said that some Muslims in Iraq were quick to label the Americans as infidels, and that would probably be the case no matter how much the United States acted for the good of Iraq.

"All the countries in the region fear Iraq becoming a free, liberal, democratic state," he said.

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/08/06/international/middleeast/06KHOM.html

A Khomeini Breaks With His Lineage to Back U.S.

Stephanie Sinclair/Corbi

Sayyid Hussein Khomeini, the grandson of the late Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, says he would accept American intervention in Iran.

NY Times 8.6.2003

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/958991/posts?page=28#28

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

Thank you all for your posts this morning.

Interesting reading...

I'm currently reading the book 'The Bridge At Andau' by James Michener.
It's about the 1956 Hungarian revolt against the communists.
The AVO 'army' (Allam Vedelmi Osztag, State Protecting Group) was a select bunch of sadists/murderers who helped keep the population in line with torture and executions. But the Russians also had a hand in repressing the revolt using tactics similar to the Nazi's.

That'll get ya riled up!

.

If you have been reading our posts here for a while, I would be interested in how the current events in Iran today compare with past attempts by citizens in overturning their governments.

I would particularly be interested in lessons learned and how those lessons could be effectively applied in Iran today. It would make an interesting discussion since this thread is read by Iranians struggling for their freedom, as we speak.

Do you have anything concrete to share?

ANIMALS HAVE MORE RIGHTS THAN IRANIANS

(An Open Letter to President Khatami, From an Iranian Journalist)

By Koorosh Afshar

What comes here is an open letter by one of my dear compatriots, my dear friend, A. Hedayat, to the so-called president Khatami, the smiling mullah whose smile seems to have deceived some of the E.U. leaders!!!

He is a journalist who resides in Iran, in the city of Tabriz . Read his words carefully, as he is another member of the "Burnt Generation".
(The letter is translated from its original Persian and some parts are excluded for brevity.)

Attention: The President of the Islamic Republic of Iran Mr. Khatami
Your Excellency

I am Ali Hedayat, a journalist who was captured and after being beaten, got transferred to the Police Intelligence prison on 16th June by the vigilantes of Tabriz. Seventeen members of the vigilantes were involved in this process. They punched and kicked me for more than 300 times. They cursed me, my mother and my wife with very obscene words for hundreds of times which I will have to mention exactly in the following without any consideration and euphemism.

Also you will find out in this report that by "plainclothesmen of Tabriz" I do not only refer to the Basiji (voluntary) forces or the forces of the so-called Mosque Bases. 90 percent of those people were the official personnel of the police disciplinary forces (Law Enforcement Forces) of the Islamic Republic "NAJA", the intelligence office of the disciplinary forces, the anti narcotics office of the Police forces and public places supervision office. The remaining 10 percent were members of the Revolutionary Guards (Sepaah-e-Paasdaaraan) and Basiji forces of the factories and official organisations.

Your Excellency!

The blows that the trained members of the Disciplinary Forces inflicted on people were much more painful than those of the Basiji's and the members of the Revolutionary guards (they need to be trained and practice more!) since the latter left bruises and wounds and inflammations, unlike the former who were trained and knew how to do their job without leaving an evidence.
Your Excellency!

Before I get to the point let me inform you that none of the judges or the interrogators of our trials ever bothered to ask us why our eyes, foreheads, chins and whole bodies were inflamed and bruised. They didn't bother to ask us who had attacked us so savagely and ruthlessly. They didn't bother to ask whether we wanted to see a doctor or to be sent to a medical examiner. They didn't bother to ask us whether we had any complaints or not.

They did not even suspect that these ruthless vigilantes arrested people and beat them to death and after discovering that they were innocent, kept them in prison for some time until their wounds are cured, so that nobody would detect the truth.

I take witness the primary verdicts made by the judges of the (Islamic) revolutionary courts who had ordered (after the interrogations) that many of the young prisoners had to be released on the 20th and 21st of June provided their families could afford to pay a five-million toman bail. On the contrary, they were kept for more than three more weeks so that their wounds wouldn't be left as evidence against the vigilantes.
Your Excellency!

I apologise if (in some sentences) my pen is fouled with swear words and obscenity. For if you had also received knee-kicks in your testicles and could have also been able to feel the killing pain, you would definitely stop smiling and sitting calmly in rest posing as a reformist. You would have definitely started the never-put-into-practice reforms in practice. In spite of the fact that 17 people had mistaken me for a punching bag, all my emphasis on being sent by the judge to a medical examiner was in vain.
Any way….

In the morning of 16th of June I was notified that the university students were going to show their opposition to the government inside the university in support of the students of the universities of Tehran and other cities.

I, as a journalist who is also a university graduate in the same field, carrying my journalist card issued by the ministry of Islamic Culture and Guidance and another card from the local officials of "East Azarbaijan" province went inside the university with a few other journalists and stayed then until noon. But then the guarding forces identified most of the journalist and dismissed them from the university.

(Mr. Hedayat describes the circumstances before his arrest and continue)

It was still 7:30 p.m. when a group of five plainclothesmen passed us by, one of them showed me to the others pointing to me with his head and his eyebrows.

I told my friends: "let's leave here, they showed me to each other, they are gonna beat me…."

My friends laughed at me and said, "What do they have to do with us?" Accusing me of being a paranoid, they continued saying "even if they wish to beat anybody they would do it with the ones who are chanting slogans. You could only be their last choice!"

It was just after 7:30 p.m. and we were sitting on a bench and I was trying to write down the slogans, which we could hear from inside the university or the street with my "Parker" fountain pen. Suddenly we noticed that a group of 7-8 people were approaching us quickly from the pavement. Some of my colleagues went back for a few steps but I couldn't move for three reasons: first of all I thought that if move I would be considered as an agitator. Secondly I presumed that my escape would encourage them to follow me and finally since I already knew what they were after me, therefore my escape would be of no use.

I sat where I was sitting and my only choice was to shout that I was a journalist, so that they and others would notice so that in case they beat or captured me the story wouldn't remain silent.

The first person that reached the bench was a "Mr. Iman Nejad" who started beating me with his punches and kicks. He is the head of the Public Places Supervision Office of the disciplinary forces (Amaaken-e-NAJA). He had only started that 6-7 other people also arrived.

"…You are a journalist?!..."
"…Eat Shit…mother fucker…."
"I'll fuck your mouth."

They were saying these sentences and beating me at the same time and no body listened to my cries that I was a journalist….

A few of them held my hands and the rest of them were beating me with their boots and shoes and punches. They were more than 15 people by this time. They took turns in beating me, each time one of them came forward aimed one part of my body hit me with a few punches and kicks and then went back and another face would appear with new curses.

In between, a yellow-faced youth by the name of "Colonel Roostaa", deputy commander of the Intelligence of The Disciplinary Forces of Tabriz arrived at this crowd.

As he was beating me on my jaws on the left and right he said, "I'll cut your testicles…" "You inform the world? …I won't let you live in this city. You'll be dead in less than 6 months!"….

I remember that as I was there lying at the curbs, one of those people held my head in his hands. I was surprised by this action and heard another voice shouting: "no…don't hit his head to the curbs…." So the guy turned my head from the curbs toward the grass and hit it hard there. The voice ordered, "Take him away so that they wouldn't kill him…."

Under those conditions I found a ray of hope with this sentence. They took me to the traffic department room a few meters away. As I was there, two guys entered the room and to my greatest surprise started beating me to death until they got tired. I remember that I tried to provoke their religious sense and said "Muslims! at least give me a glass of water."

All was in vain. No religious taste.

After some time one of them said: "Handcuff him and hold his hands up so that everybody would see him wouldn't kill him!" This was the first time that I felt the cold steel handcuffs on my wrists. As my nose, my mouth, my teeth were bleeding and there was a lot of blood on my clothes, we left the room and passing though these people each one of them took advantage of the time once again and kicked me. After a short while they changed their minds and decided not to walk. They stopped a car and we three people sat in the back seat.

The driver was astonished, therefore he asked: "what has this poor guy done?"

On of the vigilantes answered:" This mother fucker is a journalist for VOA and BBC and Radio Farda. He informs that bitch, Maryam Rajavi (the co-leader of the Mojahedeen Khalq Organisation). He is a spy. He is a traitor…etc."

They asked what he thought so he turned back and cursed me, but I could read it in his eyes that he was afraid and was begging me with them.

I forgave him there.

They took me to the police station and as we wanted to get off the car they covered my head so that no body would photograph me, which could "disgrace" them! One of them put my jacket on my head and covered my face with it. Also before that, the time when we were in the car they had pushed my head to the lowest position possible.

There was a guard who hit me in the eyes.

Those minutes that I spent there were like ages for me. They were beating me as a group; they were beating me in my testicles, my belly and my face with no rest. After that a revolutionary guard arrived and as if he wanted to throw an 80 kilogram punching bag into the sky he punched my in my chest and on my heart with all his power, I hadn't received such a strong blow until then, I couldn't breathe and tears filled my eyes due to the intensity of the pain.

They emptied my pockets and found my journalist cards and documents such as cash card and also my pen and my cell phone.

They took all of them from me.

After that they forced me and the others into a bus and took us to the prison of Tabriz. As we were sent there on the 19th of June I had my first meal, which was the breakfast of the prison for the first time after my capture. Even the time when the head of the police of East Azarbaijan came to visit the detainees I told him that those guys avoided giving us even the mere warm tap water, let alone food.

I told him but in return they didn't even give us a piece of bread.

After that the interrogations started again and the interrogators kept on asking me questions on what were the names of the foreign radios and televisions and newspapers and magazines that I sent news for? And how much money I had received from them, as these people believed I was very rich and their reason for that was, by their conclusion, my well-pressed clothes and suspenders!

Their other conforming discovery on considering me as a rich and callous journalist who was working for the CIA and (US President George W.) Bush was the pressing of my clothes, which was "too" tidy for them. This, also, brought me more beatings.

The other issue put forward by the interrogator was that I gave false news to the foreign media to provoke the people against the regime. But the irony was that the guy could not even count "one" case to prove himself. Later the judge also based whatever he said on these sorts of comments but with no acceptable reason.

I didn't notice my bloody diarrhoea on the first day but later it got worse with very serious bleeding, so they took me to "Kowsar" clinic, which is affiliated to the police. There the doctors refused to visit me as the agents accompanying me didn't pay the money and I didn't have any money with me as whatever I had was already confiscated. The physician of the clinic accepted to examine me for free in the end. When he saw that I, a journalist, was beaten like that, he laughed and joked: "who is safe, then?!..."

After a few days the prison guard opened the small window on the metal door of my cell and said that the judge was waiting for me. They took me to the judge blindfolded. He said that my charges were: "advertising against the government", "attacking the police with a knife" and "interviewing with foreign radios". I rejected and said that two of my charges were " press crimes" and were to be tried in the "press court". I also requested to be sent to a forensic pathologist as I could have diseases in the future due to those blows I had received on my testicles, head, teeth and eyes.

The judge said: "do you want that for future possibilities?" I answered yes; he replied:" You can see it your self that these days we are very busy. Let me see what I can do in the later."

One evening they took me to see my mother and my wife. As we were passing through the yard, I could recognise a lot of my attackers and I got frightened to find out that most of my "plainclothesmen" attackers were the "official" personnel of that office.

I told my mother that I had been beaten as I had been transferred to that place but since entering I had not been beaten and also told her that at that time I was only afraid of the future as one of the attackers (whose was colonel Roosta’i) had made a vow to kill me. As I said this the agent who was there stopped the conversation and I was taken away.

I had demand my mother to announce on the radios that I was worried about my life. That doubled the problem. A soldier told me afterwards that they were not going to kill me and also advised me that in case I was taken to the basement "close your eyes and stiffen your muscles. The rest is not important!"

I tried to concentrate and make myself ready for the new beating session.

I would like to admit that I am not a hero and I, also, get afraid. At times before they were taking me for interrogations and torture I wetted myself for which I hated myself. But I couldn't help it. I was handcuffed and they were absolutely free to do whatever they wanted with me. In this country a normal citizen has no rights. He is not even considered as a human being let alone having any rights.

The only document that is used here most of the times is the confession of the poor detainee and for that purpose one thing is sufficient: "force".

As I was in the prison I heard of a lot of terrifying stories of the youth who were arrested and tortured to confess. I learned of different methods such as: "grilling", "jack in crutch", "24 hour-on-foot", "hanging weights to the testicles" and… flogging and bastinado were among the simple methods.

They interrogated me for several times and made me sign some sheets and also wanted me to make a commitment not to interview with foreign radios but I refused as I believed that it was not the word of law. On the other hand I told them that the judge could easily nullify my social right in journalism so that I wouldn't be active in this field anymore. This was my answer. One of the interrogators told me that it was the order of the Security Council (Supreme Council for National Security) that no one was allowed to interview with the foreign radios, I said that in case such a law existed really, I would be obliged to observe it.

Anyway after all these days, finally the so-called judge ruled that I could be released provided that my family would leave a 3.000,000,000 Rial (37.500 US Dollars) bail.

After all this I was released.

I went back to receive my cell phone (they are very expensive in Iran the regime charges nearly 625 dollars for each sim card and in the free market it is more than 1000 dollars which is too much for the average Iranian people whose income is less than 200 dollars per month) they said it wouldn't be returned. They didn't give back my journalist card my cash card either. As I went to a police station to which I was guided for the purpose, I notice that those official members of the police who were in uniforms treated me with respect, which was exactly opposite the way that the plainclothes had been treating me until that time. But I could feel that they kept their distance from me, this was quite obvious. It was as if they were afraid of something. They did their best to help me as much as they could, but the problem was somewhere else.

This report was only a short summary I hope that I will be able to write a book of my observations in the near future.

I hereby, would like to say that our lives are in danger as people like a so-called colonel Roosta’i and henchmen like him have threatened us. They are after us. Therefore if any of us gets killed or kidnapped, or any member of my family, have an accident in a street or anywhere else, if we get shot or stabbed or fall from a mount, -- things which have already happened for dissidents in Iran under the mullahs -- I announce in advance that those people and their henchmen and accomplices are responsible.

Are there any people, politicians, men and women in this country who will defend our human rights or do we have to wish that we were citizens of other countries like Canada?
Regards
Ali Hedayat
Independent and free journalist from Tabriz

And this is how it goes and goes in this plagued country. We have lost a lot of people like Mr. Hedayat in the past. They didn't even have the chance to "write" their observations for the others.

The girl students were raped at the nights of their executions in the next morning by the fatwas of the clerics for the charge of having a dissident magazine with themselves.

Their families even had to pay for the bullets by which their loved ones were executed. They didn't even have the right to be buried in a grave in the cemetery of the city.

Those boy and girl students, my peers, who were captured recently didn't have this right. They didn't want others to decide on how they think and what religion or ideology they preferred.

They hated to be called a Muslim only because they were forced to.

Human rights are what we are fighting for. That is why we get captured and tortured.
Koorosh Afshar ENDS JOURNALIST TORTURED 6803

Editor’s note: Koorosh Afshar is a pseudonym for a student in Tehran. His name has been changed for his protection.

The above letter was published by the Paris-based "Iran va Jahan" (Iran and the World) website on 5 August.

Highlights, some editorial works and explanations (inside brackets) are by IPS

http://www.iran-press-service.com/

The Iranian economy is in major trouble and problems could lead to greater civil unrest. -- DoctorZin

Iran blocks share price gains

BBC 8.6.2003
The stock exchange is often full of day traders
The Tehran Stock Exchange has taken steps to try and halt an explosive rally in share prices amid fears the market could be headed for a crash
The head of Iran's stock market sent a statement to brokers on Tuesday forbidding share price increases for a two-week period.

Iran's stock market has been one of the best performers in the world this year, gaining nearly 80% since the start of the financial year in March.

The country's main share index has risen by 11% in the past week alone.

But there are already concerns that the rally is unsustainable, and that the country's investors could end up being badly burnt.

The oil effect

The surge in share prices has enticed many ordinary savers into the stock market who, so far, have enjoyed the chance to make some easy money.

The gains have been driven by high oil prices, an increase in the amount of cash being repatriated from abroad since the 11 September attacks, and rapid growth in the number of private investors.

But many fear that the rally will be unsustainable if oil prices fall next year, as widely expected.

Experts say that capping share price rises can work if previous increases were caused by market manipulation, but not if the market is being driven by genuine demand.

Unease

"Price caps work in the short-term but can create a backlash in the long-term," Professor Mehrdad Valibeigi, an Iranian economy expert at American University told BBC News Online.

"People will hold their breath for fifteen days, and then start aggressively buying again, prolonging the inevitable," he explained.

Brokers were also worried about the impact of the cap on prices, with one broker telling Reuters that the action will destabilise the market.

The psychological impact of an official intervention may also deter institutional investors.

Sources say the central bank of Iran and the Tehran Stock Exchange have been at odds over whether to intervene in the market over the past weeks.

The stock market fell by 4% on Tuesday after the price cap was announced.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/3129995.stm

The Iranian stock market is manipulated. The islamic funds are investing to let the big sharks (=Rafsanjani and his clan) sell before the prices collapses. This is a robbery of the Iranian nation!

This is a picture of Hussein Khomeini:

Yes, but your anaylsis assume a collapse. A collapse will force major changes and ignite civil unrest. If all this is true, we better hold onto our hats, its about to get stormy.

Looks like he has a make over then.

This is the photo of him in the NYTimes today.