Iranian Alert -- August 12, 2003 -- LIVE THREAD PING LIST

The regime is working hard to keep the news about the protest movment in Iran from being reported.

From jamming satellite broadcasts, to prohibiting news reporters from covering any demonstrations to shutting down all cell phones and even hiring foreign security to control the population, the regime is doing everything in its power to keep the popular movement from expressing its demand for an end of the regime.

These efforts by the regime, while successful in the short term, do not resolve the fundamental reasons why this regime is crumbling from within.

Iran is a country ready for a regime change. 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.

Please continue to join us here, post your news stories and comments to this thread.

Saudi Says Iran Drags Feet Returning Al Qaeda Leaders

August 12, 2003
The Washington Post
John Mintz

As many as 15 al Qaeda leaders and operatives are currently in Iran, but Tehran is dragging its feet in responding to requests from Arab governments to repatriate the accused terrorists for interrogation and trial, a senior Saudi official said yesterday.

Among the al Qaeda members being held in what Iranian officials describe as "safe houses" are Saad bin Laden, who was being groomed to succeed his father, Osama bin Laden, as al Qaeda's leader, and Saif Adel, an Egyptian described by U.S. officials as the terrorist network's security chief, said the Saudi counterterrorism official who asked not to be identified.

"Iran has been giving us the runaround" about the al Qaeda personnel in that country, and for months Iranian officials denied knowing their identities, the Saudi official said.

Yesterday's briefing for reporters was part of a wide-ranging attempt by Riyadh to demonstrate that it is working closely with Washington on counterterrorist initiatives, including attempts to win concessions from Tehran. Saudi officials have ratcheted up their public relations efforts in the weeks since a congressional report on the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks suggested that Saudi figures have helped finance worldwide terrorism -- an assertion that the Saudi government strongly denies.

The Saudi official pointed out that in recent days FBI agents in Riyadh have been given full access to Ali al Ghamdi, al Qaeda's leader in Saudi Arabia, who was arrested in June and has been accused of planning the May 12 suicide bombings that killed 34 people, including nine Americans. "It's another sign of our cooperation," the Saudi official said. In past years, U.S. investigators complained bitterly that Saudi officials had barred them from interviewing terrorism suspects jailed in the desert kingdom.

The Saudi official said that in addition to Saad bin Laden and Adel, other al Qaeda members in Iran include Sulaiman Abu Ghaith, the terrorist network's spokesman whose Kuwaiti citizenship was revoked by that government, and Abu Musab Zarqawi, a Jordanian and prominent terrorist operative who hid in Baghdad last year after being wounded in the war in Afghanistan.

The younger bin Laden, who is 23 or 24, is one of the oldest of Osama bin Laden's many children. He lived with his father for five years in Sudan until they were expelled by the government there, and moved al Qaeda's headquarters to Afghanistan. Western intelligence officials have said for almost a year that Saad was in Iran, and there have been periodic reports that the Iranians had deported him.

From Iran, Adel helped coordinate the synchronized attack on three residential compounds in Riyadh in May, according to U.S. and allied intelligence officials. The possibility that Adel could have planned the attacks while under the control of Iran has angered Riyadh and Washington.

The Saudi official yesterday echoed questions raised by U.S. officials about whether the al Qaeda members are being treated as captives or guests by Iranian officials. "That's the million-dollar question," he said. "They're in a place where Iranians are totally in control. . . . But are they engaging in [terrorist] missions? We don't know."

The real question is which Iranian officials control them. Iranian intelligence officials and leaders of the radical Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps have struck periodic alliances with al Qaeda over the years, while reformist Iranian officials have publicly denounced the idea of providing safe haven for bin Laden's fighters.

Saudi officials are trying to persuade Tehran to hand over the seven or eight Saudis among the al Qaeda members in Iran, the official said. The Egyptian and Algerian governments are also demanding that their citizens be turned over, he said. Kuwait has said it does not want Ghaith.

The U.S. government has no diplomatic relations with Iran, but has made clear to Tehran through intermediaries that it wants them extradited here or to other friendly nations. "We've made our concerns very clear to Iran that they should be turned over," State Department spokesman Philip T. Reeker said last week.

The Saudi official said a 10-person al Qaeda cell captured in Riyadh yesterday after a shootout with police is tied to a London-based Saudi dissident who opposes the royal family, Saad al Faqih. Few allegations have surfaced tying him to terrorism in the past, and he could not be reached for comment yesterday.

Meanwhile, Riyadh has concluded that Omar Bayoumi, a Saudi who befriended and aided two of the Sept. 11 hijackers in California in 2000 has no tie to terrorists, the official said. Bayoumi, a former accountant for the Saudi aviation ministry, has been interviewed three times by the FBI in recent days. The report on the Sept. 11 attacks by Congress's intelligence committees recommended that Bayoumi's role be investigated further.

The officials also noted that the Saudis extradited to the United States three members of a group of Muslim activists recently indicted in Northern Virginia for taking part in a conspiracy to support "violent jihad" by members of a Kashmiri movement designated by the U.S. government as a terrorist organization. The Saudis spent months helping to develop the case with Washington, he said.

http://iranvajahan.net/cgi-bin/news_en.pl?l=en&y=2003&m=08&d=12&a=2

Iran to try some Al Qaeda suspects
IRIB NEWS
2003/08/11 Tehran, Aug 11 - Iran will try those Al Qaeda suspects whose nationality remain unclear as well as those who are rejected by their country of origin, a senior Foreign Ministry official said here Monday.

"If the nationality of some individuals are not known and no country accepts them, as the Information Minister has said, we will take action ourselves," Foreign Ministry Spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi told reporters at a weekly news briefing.

Iran's Information Minister Ali Younesi said on Saturday that Tehran will put some of the Al Qaeda operatives in Iranian custody on trial instead of allegedly swapping them with senior elements of terrorist opposition Mujahedin Khalq Organization.

Other Al Qaeda members to stand trial in the Islamic Republic are those who are found to have committed crimes in Iran, Asefi said.

"If it is established that some individuals among them have committed crimes in Iran, we will try them according to the country's laws and international commitments," he said.

Asefi refused to name any of those held by Tehran on the suspicion of being linked to Al Qaeda which Washington accuses of masterminding Sept 11, 2001 terror attacks on American landmarks.

"I am not in a position to announce who are among these individuals, but this is a security matter, the publication of which in the media is not expedient," he said.

Asked to confirm whether Kuwaiti-born Al Qaeda Spokesman Sulaiman Abu Gaith was in Iran, Asefi said, "This is an invented story which is appealing to certain media, especially in Arab countries.

"The discussions (in Arab and Western media about Al Qaeda) do not correspond with the condition of those held in Iran," he added.

Asefi also rejected press reports that Iran sought concessions from certain countries in exchange for extraditing Al Qaeda prisoners.

"This is a false news, invented outside (Iran) about Al Qaeda."We are serious in our fight against terrorism and we have turned back many of these individuals or returned them to their own countries," the Foreign Ministry Spokesman added.

Asefi turned the table on Western governments for being 'not committed to their responsibilities' and for 'supporting terrorist groups and the Zionist regime which is the symbol of state terrorism".

ISRAEL, IRAN, AND U.S. HAVE SECRET CONTACTS

2003-08-12
Source:RadioFreeEurope

ISRAEL, IRAN, AND U.S. HAVE SECRET CONTACTS.
The public displays of mutual hostility between the governments of Israel, Iran, and the U.S. make it very difficult for any of the governments to engage in normal and open relations, regardless of any shared concerns or interests. This situation results in a lack of transparency in their relationships and necessitates secret contacts -- with at times embarrassing results, as illustrated by three recent cases.

Israel and Iran have been negotiating an exchange of prisoners since May, as reported in the 7 August edition of the Tel Aviv Russian-language daily newspaper "Novosti Nedeli." The contacts initially were an outgrowth of Tehran-Washington discussions begun in Geneva in July. According to the report, the interlocutors were a former U.S. official named Frank Andersen and a former Islamic Revolution Guards Corps officer identified as "Mohammad Khatami." Former government personnel were used in order to ensure the deniability of these official contacts. Tehran expressed a willingness to extradite Al-Qaeda's Sayf al-Adel (see above) in exchange for Mujahedin Khalq Organization leaders, but Washington rejected this offer.

Tehran then tried to get custody of the MKO personnel by involving the Israelis, "Novosti Nedeli" reported. In a meeting with an Israeli intermediary identified as "Amnon Zikhroni," Khatami said that, in exchange for MKO personnel, Iran would deport al-Adel, ensure the release of captured Israeli reserve officer Elhanan Tenenbaum, return the remains of Israeli soldiers captured by Lebanese Hizballah, and seek information on captured Israeli pilot Ron Arad. Washington again rejected the deal, according to "Novosti Nedeli," but the Iranian side insisted that the so-called "Jewish lobby" pressure the White House.

The case of Palestinian, Lebanese, Syrian, Jordanian, and Iranian prisoners in Israel was added to in subsequent discussions. According to "Novosti Nedeli," some Israelis would like to have the U.S. release convicted Israeli spy Jonathan Pollard in exchange for al-Adel. These discussions reportedly are continuing, but Pollard's release is not open for discussion.

In another recent case, two officials from the Pentagon working for Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Douglas Feith held "several" meetings with notorious Iran-Contra figure Manuchehr Ghorbanifar, "Newsday" reported on 8 August, citing anonymous "administration officials." Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld confirmed later the same day that the meetings had occurred, but he said they took place more than one year ago, were part of an effort to gather information on Iran, and they had gone nowhere, Knight-Ridder reported.

The White House had not authorized the meetings, and it was only by chance that it, the State Department, and the CIA learned about them, "Newsday" reported. Rumsfeld said that information on the meetings was shared with other government agencies. According to "Newsday's" sources, the "ultimate policy objective of Feith and a group of neo-conservative civilians inside the Pentagon is regime change in Iran." Administration policy, however, is one of engagement over issues such a nonproliferation and the Al-Qaeda extraditions.

An anonymous "senior U.S. official" told Knight-Ridder that Ghorbanifar wanted to be paid for introducing the U.S. officials to Iranian moderates. Michael Ledeen of the American Enterprise Institute opened the Ghorbanifar channel, "Newsday" reported, citing a former CIA officer who learned this from current intelligence officers. Neither Ledeen nor Ghorbanifar would comment, according to "Newsday."

Israeli officials introduced Ghorbanifar to Ledeen -- who was a consultant to the National Security Council -- in the mid-1980s. Ghorbanifar claimed at the time to know Iranian moderates. This eventually would become the arms-for-hostages scandal (see Theodore Draper, "A Very Thin Line: The Iran-Contra Affairs," [New York: Hill and Wang, 1991]; see also Michael Ledeen, "Perilous Statecraft," [Scribners, 1988]).

Late on 8 August, an anonymous "senior defense official" said that another meeting with Ghorbanifar took place in Paris in June, and this one resulted from "an unplanned, unscheduled encounter," "The Washington Post" reported on 9 August.

In a different matter, Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Assefi said on 7 August that President Khatami has not written a letter to any U.S. official, Fars News Agency reported. Assefi added that Iran has transparent relations with other countries and it does not need to establish secret relations with any country and, in the case of the U.S., "Over many long years, official channels have existed for regulating relations between the two countries and Iran has conveyed its views to the opposite side through these official and legal venues."

Assefi was reacting to a 6 August report in the Saudi Arabian "Al Watan" newspaper which stated that Khatami had written a letter to U.S. Secretary of State Powell calling for the continuation of the secret and official Iran-U.S. talks that are reported to have taken place in Geneva. (Bill Samii)

http://www.nitv.tv/main.htm

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Rise of Iraq's Shiites could pose threat to Iran's clerical rulers

By Nicholas Birch | Special to The Christian Science Monitor

TEHRAN, IRAN – Well before the first bomb dropped on Baghdad, Western analysts worried that liberation from Saddam Hussein's Sunni-based tyranny could push Iraq's Shiite majority into the arms of Iranian theocrats.
In the chaos that followed, such concern has seemed justified. Protesters in Shiite districts of Baghdad brandish posters of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, founder of Iran's theocracy. In Iraq's holy city of Najaf, thousands flock to hear the speeches of Moqtada al-Sadr, a virulently anti-American advocate of clerical rule.

But an extraordinary outburst this week from Ayatollah Khomeini's grandson shows that the renaissance of Iraq's Shiites is a double-edged weapon that potentially is every bit as dangerous for Iranian rulers' grasp on power as it is for Washington.

Speaking to journalists in Najaf Tuesday, Seyyed Hussein Khomeini said that "Iranians insist on freedom, but they are not sure where it will come from. 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."

While his name carries great weight for Iranians, Mr. Khomeini has little standing in the Shiite hierarchy. But his comments echo the discontent many Iranians feel about heavy-handed clerical rule.

Faced with US warnings not to meddle in Iraq's affairs, Iran has limited itself to barbed declarations that no one has the right to interfere in another country's affairs. "Tehran has no intention of trying to impose its political model on Iraq," says Amir Mohebbian, a columnist for the ultra-conservative daily Resalat. "All clerics, whether political or apolitical, share our goals and objectives."

But other Iranian observers say there is plenty of evidence that many in Iran would like Iraq to adopt clerical rule. The outspoken support of senior ayatollahs in the Shiite's sacred city of Qom, Iran, they say, has gone a long way toward legitimizing Najaf-based Mr. Sadr.

The rationale behind such behavior is clear, argues Seyyed Mostafa Mohaghegh Damad, expert on Islamic law at Tehran University. "The revival of politically independent seminaries in Najaf will have a spillover effect on Iran. It could create a breathing space for those wishing to conform to the age-old precepts of Shiite tradition - the pious, apolitical links between senior ayatollahs and their followers."

Mesmerized by the push for change of Iran's reformist government, the West has tended to underestimate clerical opposition to the Iranian regime. One London-based clerical opposition group estimates that of approximately 5,000 ayatollahs in Iran, only 80 wholeheartedly support it.

While Ruhollah Khomeini was alive, doubts about his doctrine of clerical rule were tempered by his clerical credentials. The same is not true of his successor Ali Khamenei, only a middle-ranking cleric when he was appointed supreme leader in 1989. "Senior clerics treat his theological pronouncements with disdain," says Nadeem Kazmi, of the London-based Al-Khoei Foundation, a charity with close links to the apolitical Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani in Najaf.

But what Ayatollah Khamenei lacks in credentials, he has made up for in surveillance, such as increased attempts to bring Qom's independent seminaries under state control. Nobody knows how many dissenting clerics have been executed by special clerical courts, although some sources put the figure at 60 since 1989.

"If Qom remains under the same kind of oppressive atmosphere, everyone will come to Najaf," Seyyed Hussein Khomeini said on Tuesday.

In a recent book on Iran's ruling elite, German Iranian scholar Wilfried Buchta goes further. "A Shia grand ayatollah from outside the Iranian system of power..., could issue fatwas [legal judgments] on religious-social matters that run counter to Khamenei's political line," he writes. "If this should happen, it could bring the whole system to the verge of breakdown."

Following a series of high-level clerical defections in recent years, some Iranian analysts see signs that dissatisfaction in Iran has spread to traditionally pro-regime clerics. But most Iranians doubt the clerics will transform passive opposition into active revolt. "If we're going to depend on them, we have a long wait on our hands," says Davoud Hermidas Bavand, law professor at the Supreme National Defense University in Tehran. The political editor of reformist daily Etemad, Rouzbeh Mirebrahimi, agrees. "Even if Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani stood up in Najaf and criticized the Iranian regime, which he won't, nobody would listen to him."

But this is north Tehran, where students brandish copies of Nietzsche and whisper "God is dead" behind closed doors. While their more secular reform movement seems deadlocked, more traditionally minded Iranians may be willing to listen to clerics in Iraq who advocate separation of mosque and state.

http://www.csmonitor.com/2003/0808/p06s01-wome.html

from the August 08, 2003 edition

Rise of Iraq's Shiites could pose threat to Iran's clerical rulers

By Nicholas Birch | Special to The Christian Science Monitor

TEHRAN, IRAN - Well before the first bomb dropped on Baghdad, Western analysts worried that liberation from Saddam Hussein's Sunni-based tyranny could push Iraq's Shiite majority into the arms of Iranian theocrats.

In the chaos that followed, such concern has seemed justified. Protesters in Shiite districts of Baghdad brandish posters of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, founder of Iran's theocracy. In Iraq's holy city of Najaf, thousands flock to hear the speeches of Moqtada al-Sadr, a virulently anti-American advocate of clerical rule.

But an extraordinary outburst this week from Ayatollah Khomeini's grandson shows that the renaissance of Iraq's Shiites is a double-edged weapon that potentially is every bit as dangerous for Iranian rulers' grasp on power as it is for Washington.

Speaking to journalists in Najaf Tuesday, Seyyed Hussein Khomeini said that "Iranians insist on freedom, but they are not sure where it will come from. 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."

While his name carries great weight for Iranians, Mr. Khomeini has little standing in the Shiite hierarchy. But his comments echo the discontent many Iranians feel about heavy-handed clerical rule.

Faced with US warnings not to meddle in Iraq's affairs, Iran has limited itself to barbed declarations that no one has the right to interfere in another country's affairs. "Tehran has no intention of trying to impose its political model on Iraq," says Amir Mohebbian, a columnist for the ultra-conservative daily Resalat. "All clerics, whether political or apolitical, share our goals and objectives."

But other Iranian observers say there is plenty of evidence that many in Iran would like Iraq to adopt clerical rule. The outspoken support of senior ayatollahs in the Shiite's sacred city of Qom, Iran, they say, has gone a long way toward legitimizing Najaf-based Mr. Sadr.

The rationale behind such behavior is clear, argues Seyyed Mostafa Mohaghegh Damad, expert on Islamic law at Tehran University. "The revival of politically independent seminaries in Najaf will have a spillover effect on Iran. It could create a breathing space for those wishing to conform to the age-old precepts of Shiite tradition - the pious, apolitical links between senior ayatollahs and their followers."

Mesmerized by the push for change of Iran's reformist government, the West has tended to underestimate clerical opposition to the Iranian regime. One London-based clerical opposition group estimates that of approximately 5,000 ayatollahs in Iran, only 80 wholeheartedly support it.

While Ruhollah Khomeini was alive, doubts about his doctrine of clerical rule were tempered by his clerical credentials. The same is not true of his successor Ali Khamenei, only a middle-ranking cleric when he was appointed supreme leader in 1989. "Senior clerics treat his theological pronouncements with disdain," says Nadeem Kazmi, of the London-based Al-Khoei Foundation, a charity with close links to the apolitical Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani in Najaf.

But what Ayatollah Khamenei lacks in credentials, he has made up for in surveillance, such as increased attempts to bring Qom's independent seminaries under state control. Nobody knows how many dissenting clerics have been executed by special clerical courts, although some sources put the figure at 60 since 1989.

"If Qom remains under the same kind of oppressive atmosphere, everyone will come to Najaf," Seyyed Hussein Khomeini said on Tuesday.

In a recent book on Iran's ruling elite, German Iranian scholar Wilfried Buchta goes further. "A Shia grand ayatollah from outside the Iranian system of power..., could issue fatwas [legal judgments] on religious-social matters that run counter to Khamenei's political line," he writes. "If this should happen, it could bring the whole system to the verge of breakdown."

Following a series of high-level clerical defections in recent years, some Iranian analysts see signs that dissatisfaction in Iran has spread to traditionally pro-regime clerics. But most Iranians doubt the clerics will transform passive opposition into active revolt. "If we're going to depend on them, we have a long wait on our hands," says Davoud Hermidas Bavand, law professor at the Supreme National Defense University in Tehran. The political editor of reformist daily Etemad, Rouzbeh Mirebrahimi, agrees. "Even if Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani stood up in Najaf and criticized the Iranian regime, which he won't, nobody would listen to him."

But this is north Tehran, where students brandish copies of Nietzsche and whisper "God is dead" behind closed doors. While their more secular reform movement seems deadlocked, more traditionally minded Iranians may be willing to listen to clerics in Iraq who advocate separation of mosque and state.

http://www.csmonitor.com/2003/0808/p06s01-wome.htm

Islamic regime to adopt policy of "Burned Land" in case of US attack

SMCCDI (Information Service)
Aug 12, 2003

The Islamic republic regime seems to have adopted an "expected" policy in case of a US invasion of Iran. This policy which is called "Burned Land" intends to destroy anything, such as cities, Industrial and military installations and agricultural fields before the arrival of the invasion forces.

Such policy has been used by other countries during the last centuries and especially by Russia during the French and German invasions of 19th and 20th centuries.

Based on a report, issued on Aug. 11th by IRNA, the Head of the Islamic Revolution's Guards Corps Major General Yahya Rahim Safavi, has stated that Iran has drawn up a new defensive strategy to confront probable American invasion.

Safavi has stated "Since America has superiority over us in terms of (military) equipment, We have shifted from defending the borders to putting up a defense over surface and this means no land is left to allow Americans to set their foot on

The Islamic republic regime's leaders have always confirmed their dis-respect of Iran's National Interests when it comes to the survival of their illegitimate regime and bankrupt ideology.

Rouh-Ollah Khomeini, the founder of the theocratic system, was believing of Iran as just a platform to be used in order to create a vaste Islamic system and everyone remember his infamous comment when he came back from exil back in 1979.

To a reporter asking what was his feeling following putting feet on his Motherland's soil, after 15 years of exil, he responded: "Nothing!".

http://www.daneshjoo.org/generalnews/article/publish/article_1702.shtml

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U.S. Wants Access to Al Qaeda Suspects in Iran

August 12, 2003
Reuters
Reuters.com

CANBERRA -- The United States said on Tuesday it wants access to high-level members of al Qaeda who have been detained in Iran so it can interrogate them on any future attacks Osama bin Laden's network could be planning.

Iran publicly acknowledged for the first time last month that it was holding some senior al Qaeda figures and said it planned to extradite some of them to "friendly countries."

"Some we believe are quite high-level. We would like to get access to them and interrogate them to try and head off whatever plans they have in the works," U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage told reporters in Canberra.

"Much of the al Qaeda leadership is dead or in hiding. The ability to conduct terrorism is more difficult, but having said that they are still out there...the battle goes on," he said.

Iran's government spokesman Abdollah Ramazanzadeh has said al Qaeda members could only be handed over to countries with which Iran had extradition agreements.

He said Iran did not have such an agreement with the United States, which blames al Qaeda for the September 11, 2001, suicide attacks on New York and Washington.

Ramazanzadeh has declined to reveal the identity of the al Qaeda members in Iran's custody for "security reasons." He said that arrested members of al Qaeda who had committed crimes in Iran would be prosecuted by Iranian courts.

http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=topNews&storyID=3261881

Kurdish Party Says It Captures Iraqi Islamists Near Iranian Border

August 12, 2003
Reuters
Reuters.com

BAGHDAD -- An Iraqi Kurdish group said on Tuesday its Peshmerga fighters had captured several members of Ansar al-Islam, a shadowy group reported to have links with al Qaeda, near the border with Iran.

"We captured a number of them yesterday (Monday) and we shall do our investigations to know who are those people and what is their plan," Adel Murad, a spokesman for the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), told Reuters in Baghdad.

Murad said Kurdish fighters rounded up 50 people who had entered north of Iraq through borders with Iran coming from Afghanistan.

"I do not know if all of them are from Ansar al-Islam or the majority of them or some of them. Our security forces captured them on the borders with Iran," Murad said.

Ansar al-Islam has been identified as one of several groups suspected of carrying out a car bomb attack against the Jordanian embassy in Baghdad last week which killed 17 people.

Murad said that before the U.S.-led war to topple Saddam Hussein the PUK raided headquarters of the group and killed and captured a number of militants.

"Now we think the group returned to the area to resume their terrorist acts in Kurdistan and to participate in terrorist operations inside Iraq," he said.

"We will capture them and send them to trial."

The PUK has clashed repeatedly in recent years with Ansar al-Islam and says its members have trained in al Qaeda camps in Afghanistan.

Independent observers have not confirmed the Ansar's link with al Qaeda and bin Laden.

http://reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=worldNews&storyID=3262698

Khatami Admits Democratic Reforms Have Failed

August 12, 2003
The Associated Press
Dow Jones Newswires

TEHRAN -- Iran's president Tuesday admitted his program of democratic reforms has largely failed but said he hasn't broken his promise to voters to promote democracy and freedoms, the official Islamic Republic News Agency reported.

"Lately, speaking for me has become difficult because I feel many of the ideas and programs I sincerely offered and the people voted for have not materialized, " IRNA quoted Khatami as saying.

He added: "I remain committed to the promise I made to the nation, although doubts may have surfaced, because of the existing problems, that their servant ( Khatami) has broken his promise."

Last month, Khatami said he would resign if Iranians - dissatisfied over his failure to deliver promised reforms - want him to go.

Khatami made the remarks Tuesday amid continuing attempts by ruling hard-line clerics to undermine his reform agenda and deepening public discontent over the country's slow pace toward democratic change.

"Perhaps part of the population, especially the youth, who want quick realization of their demands, have become disappointed," he told the National Congress of Non-Government Youth Organizations in Tehran.

In June, thousands of Iranians held a week of nightly protests, railing not only against their usual targets - Iran's unelected hard-liners who control key institutions - but also against Khatami for his failure to introduce greater political, social and economic freedoms.

But Khatami said he still had some hopes for success.

"A ray of hope still exists. Considering the circumstances (in the country) I believe there is no way other than continuing the path we have begun. With patience and wisdom, hopefully we will succeed," IRNA quoted him as saying.

Khatami's hopes for a compromise with hard-liners have been thwarted in recent weeks after the hard-line Guardian Council, which vets all parliamentary legislation, rejected two key reform bills presented by the president.

Those bills would have given greater powers to Khatami to stop constitutional violations by his hard-line opponents and barred the Guardian Council from arbitrary disqualification of candidates in legislative and presidential elections.

Khatami has repeatedly complained that he has been powerless to stop hard- liners violating the constitution and acting against voted reforms and hoped the bills would give him the necessary instruments to push for reforms.

The president has said the closure of more than 90 pro-democracy publications over the past three years, the arrest of dozens of prominent intellectuals and writers and closed trials without jury were open violations of the constitution, but hard-liners have ignored his warnings.

Separately, a woman activist Tuesday held a sit-in in front of Iran's most notorious prison to protest the death of an Iranian-Canadian photojournalist while in police custody and "lack of security" for prisoners.

Azam Taleqani said her three-hour sit-in in front of Evin Prison in northern Tehran was a "symbolic" gesture of protest against trampling of freedoms and the rights of prisoners by the hard-line ruling Islamic establishment in Iran.

http://iranvajahan.net/cgi-bin/news_en.pl?l=en&y=2003&m=08&d=12&a=6

Woman Risks Iran's Wrath to Protest Canadian's Death

August 12, 2003
Toronto Star
Ali Akbar Dareini

TEHRAN - A woman activist held a three-hour sit-in outside Iran's most notorious prison today to protest the July death of a Canadian photojournalist while in police custody and "lack of security" for prisoners.

Azam Taleqani said her sit-in at Evin Prison in northern Tehran was a "symbolic" gesture of protest against the trampling of freedoms and the rights of prisoners by the hardline ruling Islamic establishment in Iran.

"I held a sit-in to protest the death in prison of Zahra Kazemi and the judiciary's failure to inform the public about who was behind the crime," Taleqani told The Associated Press in a telephone interview.

Taleqani said she was approached by prison officers, curious to know the reason for her sit-in. The officers asked her to leave, without forcing her.

Kazemi, 54, died July 10, nearly three weeks after she was detained for taking photographs outside a Tehran prison during student-led protests.

Iranian Vice-President Mohammad Ali Abtahi said Kazemi had been murdered. Earlier, a presidential committee that investigated Kazemi's death shied away from calling the death intentional, saying she died of a "fractured skull, brain hemorrhage and its consequences resulting from a hard object hitting the head or the head hitting a hard object."

A judicial inquiry into the death led to the detention of five Intelligence Ministry agents, two of whom were released earlier this month on bail.

Canada withdrew its ambassador after Kazemi was buried in her birthplace, the southern Iranian city of Shiraz, against the wishes of Canadian authorities and her son, who lives in Montreal.

"The mysterious death of Kazemi creates greater concerns about the safety of prisoners. How can we be sure that political prisoners don't meet the fate of Kazemi in jail?" asked Taleqani, who is close to the outlawed Freedom Movement of Iran. She said she is also concerned about prisoners held in solitary confinement for months without trial.

The Freedom Movement — which opposes the clerics ruling Iran — rejects violence and seeks peaceful but profound democratic changes.

Taleqani is the daughter of the late Ayatollah Mahmoud Taleqani, a highly respected liberal cleric in the early years after the 1979 Islamic Revolution that toppled pro-U.S. Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi.

Kazemi's death has become a new point of contention between Iran's elected reformers — who support President Mohammad Khatami's program of democracy and social freedoms — and unelected hardline conservatives, who stubbornly resist them.

Hardliners have closed down more than 90 pro-democracy publications and jailed several dozen writers and political activists in the last three years, almost all of them without trial or in closed trials without a jury.

http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?GXHC_gx_session_id_=1a284655ea620662&pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_Type1&c=Article&cid=1060684975073&call_pageid=968332188492&col=968705899037

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