Free Republic

The demonstrations that shook Iran for the better part of two weeks have died down, but the aftershocks continue to unnerve the mullahs in the run-up to the general strike called for the 9th of July. Even today, the Shiite storm troopers at the service of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and ex-president Mohammed Hashemi Rafsanjani prowl the campuses and go door to door from one youthful leader to the next, arresting and imprisoning all those believed capable of mobilizing a national uprising against the failed regime. From this distance it is impossible to predict what will happen in the next...

he demonstrations that shook Iran for the better part of two weeks have died down, but the aftershocks continue to unnerve the mullahs in the run-up to the general strike called for the 9th of July. Even today, the Shiite storm troopers at the service of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and ex-president Mohammed Hashemi Rafsanjani prowl the campuses and go door to door from one youthful leader to the next, arresting and imprisoning all those believed capable of mobilizing a national uprising against the failed regime. From this distance it is impossible to predict what will happen in the next...

WASHINGTON - U.S. Sen. Sam Brownback today announced he will speak to a large group of Iranian-Americans at a July 9th rally in support of the pro-democracy demonstrations occurring inside Iran. July 9, 2003 marks the fourth anniversary of the original student protests in Iran which were brutally put down by the current regime. The rally will take place on July 9, 2003 at the West Front of the U.S. Capitol. Sen. Brownback will address the crowd at noon. Currently in Iran, we are seeing a constant display of courage on behalf of the Iranian people against their terrorist governmentBrownback...

ROME 28 June (IPS) On the initiative of a group of Iranian intellectuals and journalists in Italy and in collaboration with "Il Riformista" newspaper, a hundred of leading Italian personalities of all walk announced their support for the Iranian student’s freedom seeking protest movement. "On 9 July, all of us we shall be Iranian", wrote Marco Follini, the General Secretary of the "Unione di Centro Democratice" (Union of Democratic Centre), referring to the fourth commemoration of the first major student’s protest revolt against the Islamic Republic, seeking freedom and democracy. The 9 July 1999 rebellion, started as a peaceful protest...

TEHRAN - Disappointed Iranian students issued a "final warning" Thursday to the ruling Islamic establishment, saying their wrath was about to explode as security agents continued arresting classmates in a bid to undermine plans to mark the fourth anniversary of a fatal raid by hard-liners on a university dormitory. "We openly declare that these words are the final words of dialogue between the student movement and the ruling establishment," students said in a strongly worded letter addressed to President Mohammad Khatami. Signed Thursday by 106 prominent students, the letter protested the trampling of legitimate freedoms and a government ban on...

Hundereds of those arrested in the last [Iranian] riots will be brought to speedy trials in order for the public to witness the decision of Islamic 'justice' on their cases.Sources within the regieme are confirming the decision made in an extradordinary meeting of the National Security Council to issue and execute death penalties against many of them for 'Spying for the United States,' 'Attempts Against National Security' and 'Armed Action Intending to Overthrow the Islamic State.' The move intends to go on by a series of public executions and to spread information on the cases of other protestors who are...

TEHRAN, Iran (Reuters) - Iran said Monday it would ban demonstrations outside universities during next month's anniversary of 1999 student unrest after protesters threatened to adopt more violent methods following a government crackdown. While recent nightly protests demanding an end to clerical rule have fizzled out, authorities are eager to keep them from erupting again around July 9, the anniversary of an attack on a Tehran University dormitory that sparked days of rioting. "The Interior Ministry will not give permission to any gathering outside universities," government spokesman Abdollah Ramazanzadeh told a news conference, adding the ban included vigilantes who attacked...

'Dubya' is coming to 'Essay' United States President George Bush is to meet President Thabo Mbeki on July 9, a government official has said. Bush's visit would be part of a tour of Africa that had been planned for January, but was postponed during the run-up to the invasion of Iraq. "I don't know when (Bush) is arriving in South Africa," presidential spokesperson Bheki Khumalo said on Sunday. "All I know is that he is meeting the president on the morning of the 9th. They will have lunch together, after which (Mbeki) will fly to Maputo for the African...

Thousands and thousands have rushed toward the southern poor suburbs of Tehran in order to help or support, by their presences, those who defied the Iranian regieme this afternoon in order to make a massive protest in the localities of Nassim Shahr and Eslam Shahr.Heavy traffic jams are blocking most major traffic arteries which is unprecented for this area and shows the cement of unity solidifying between the different layers of the population. Violent clashes rocked the area earlier in the afternoon as groups of demonstrators tried to approach the warehouses of the GTC where food and different items are...

Drums are beating for something happening in Iran on July 9, when pro democracy demonstations are planned.English Conservative Andrew Sullivan calls for turning worldwide blogosphere attention on Iran leading up to July 9.He asks bloggers to make their own plans and send it to him.I will continue to link to prominent bloggers in Iran who write in English and I suggest doing the saame. As the network of links widen we will bring more of the worlds attention to these people some who are reporting from the scene.That is our greatest power, our only power and their only power, the...

British and American Intelligence and Special Forces have been put on alert for a conflict with Iran within the next 12 months as fears grow that Terhan is building a nuclear weapons program.Iran has been constructing a nuclear civil power program for some years. It is due to start generating electricity for the national power grid in two years.However, United Nations, American and European Union experts have become alarmed at the extent of nuclear power plants in Iraq and many are of a sophistication that suggests they are for a weapons program rather than for civil use. A full report...

While the recent protests seemed to be disorganized, with no clear leaders, some demonstrators vowed to keep up the pressure until next month's anniversary of the much larger and violent protests in 1999.

The history of U.S.-Iran relations for the past 50 years has been plagued by a series of well-intentioned, but ill-advised U.S. policies toward Iran -- all of which later came back to haunt American interests in the Middle East. America needs to break free from this vicious cycle of misguided polices. The solution is to support Iranian students, and the time is now. Iranian students, increasingly joined by the general public, have held demonstrations denouncing the tyranny of the theocracy for the past two days. These spontaneous outcries for freedom are but preludes to plans for countrywide demonstrations against the...

PARIS, June 11 (IPS) Iranian authorities confirmed Wednesday that students and ordinary people had clashed with security forces and protested against the Islamic Republic system. Thousands of students protested late Tuesday evening at government plans for privatising some of the country’s universities, but when they came out of their dormitories, they were joined immediately by ordinary people and slogans and demonstration’s chants became political, mostly against Ayatollah Ali Khameneh'i, the leader of the regime. Demonstrators did not even spare the lamed President Mohammad Khatami, calling on him to resign. "Khatami, Khatami, resign, resign", one slogan said. "Death to Khameneh'i"; "Death...

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,...

The Islamic republic regime has increased its massive crackdown on opposition networks. Tens of opponents and freedom fighters have been arested in the last 2 days in the cities of Tehran, Esfahan, Ghom and Shiraz. These arrests are made by joint repressive teams composed by members of the Intelligence section of the militia and the narcotic affairs during nightime or in the streets during daylights. The regime intends to dismentale, by this way, any organized popular riot at the approach of July 9th Student Uprising's anniversary.

TEHRAN, 7 June (IPS) Iranian authorities, in the framework of a campaign aimed at preventing demonstrations on 9 July, the fourth anniversary of the student’s anti-regime revolt, renewed the ban on leading journalists and scholars to talk to some foreign-based radio and television stations. Independent journalists Emaddedin Baqi and Mohsen Sazegara have been summoned by the Intelligence Ministry on Saturday and were told that they should stop talking and giving interviews to radio and television stations that aim at destabilising the Islamic Republic of Iran. With almost one month to the date on which the authorities savagely crushed a nation-wide...

The use of lethal force has been granted to the Islamic republic regime's special forces in order to overcome of any type of insurection. The special order has been sent from the office of the Supreme leader to several commanders of units within the Pasdaran Corp. and the Bassidj forces and especially to the Ashoora division which its well trained members will be deployed in the cities of Tehran, Esfahan, Shiraz and Tabriz. This measure which has been adopted intend to abort any wide spread riot from taking place at the occasion of the popular demonstrations planned for the anniversary...

PARIS 5 June (IPS) Almost one month to go to the fourth anniversary of Iranian students uprising of 9 July 1999, Iranian authorities are actively preparing a multiple-faceted plan to prevent the population to commemorate the historic event. Thousands of Iranian students, backed by the population, took to the streets in Tehran and other major cities on 9 July after the authorities had unleashed Law Enforcement Forces (LEF), special units of the Intelligence Ministry and plainclothes men from the Ansar Hezbollah thugs on a raid the night before on student’s dormitories in the Capital, beating savagely the students, throwing some...

ANKARA, Turkey - The son of the late shah of Iran has said he believes there will be protests, strikes and a non-violent uprising against the Iranian regime in July, a Turkish newspaper reported Wednesday. Reza Pahlavi, in an exclusive interview with the daily Vatan, hinted that stopping production in Iran's oil industry would be key to changing the regime dominated by religious leaders into a secular democracy. Pahlavi proposes that Iranians choose a system of governance through a referendum. "Wait for important developments in Iran in July," Pahlavi told Vatan in an interview in Washington on Monday. "There will...