Free Republic

<p>For the first time, Congress is set to approve government funds openly earmarked to help undermine the Islamic government of Iran by providing money for dissidents inside the country, according to US officials and specialists.</p> <p>The program calls for an initial $1.5 million to be spent next year to support the efforts of Iranians and Iranian organizations seeking to replace the government in Tehran with a democracy.</p>

Al-Sa'dawi called for amending the Egyptian constitution and eliminating the article that declares Islam to be the official state religion, "because we have among us Copts, and because religion is a matter between man and God and no one has the right to impose his faith, his God and his rituals on others. Therefore, I am one of the die-hard opponents of a religious state, because our God should not be involved in politics in any fashion. "However, the Copts lived happily and in paramount fairness under the wings of Islam," commented the interviewer. Al-Sa'dawi responded: "We are the sons...

Four people were killed in southeastern Iran when police put down a riot sparked by their shooting dead a motorcyclist who defied orders to stop, a local MP said today. The motorcyclist ignored police instructions in the city of Saravan, Sistan-Baluchistan province, on Thursday, said MP Jafar Kambouzia. Police shot the motorcyclist dead “provoking outrage among witnesses,” Kambouzia said in a phone call from his home. A number of people marched to the provincial governor’s office and smashed the windows of a police car on the way. “There were scuffles with police, as a result of which four people were...

Hard-line vigilantes attacked a close aide to Iran's president as he was about to give a speech Friday, repeatedly punching and kicking him, his wife and a witness said. Mohsen Mirdamadi, a prominent reformist lawmaker who heads the parliamentary National Security and Foreign Policy Committee, was treated at a hospital for a head wound after the attack in the central city of Yazd, his wife, Elaheh Mojarradi, said. A witness, Mohammad Reza Raji, told The Associated Press by phone from Yazd, that ``as he took the podium, around 15 vigilantes rushed into the hall where Mirdamadi was to speak. They...

We don’t know if Saddam Hussein, in his hide-out, reads the Arab press these days. If he were he would not be too happy with the way his self-styled friends are commenting on his life work. Broadly speaking, Saddam’s demise has produced three positions among those who lament it. The first comes from nostalgics of pan-Arabism who would rather have Iraq crucified for decades than witness an Arab despot thrown out of his palace by the Americans. The second position is that of those who claim that Saddam was a pawn in a power game played by the West, specially...

The head of the U.N. nuclear watchdog on Thursday rejected criticism of its failure to detect Iran's clandestine experiments to make enriched uranium and plutonium, saying they were practically undetectable. Mohamed ElBaradei, director-general of the U.N. International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), also said Iran had yet to sign a protocol accepting more intrusive snap inspections, though diplomats said it was too early to say whether Tehran was stalling. Iran acknowledged to the IAEA in October that it hid a secret centrifuge uranium enrichment programme from U.N. inspectors for nearly two decades.

France is determined to ensure that Iran permanently freezes experiments to make enriched uranium and plutonium, which could be used in nuclear weapons, its foreign ministry spokesman said on Thursday. The spokesman, Herve Ladsous, said he believes a permanent freeze is still possible, despite a senior Iranian official's recent assertion that "there has been and will be no question of a permanent suspension or halt at all." Ladsous, in Washington to meet U.S. officials, discussed the situation in Iran and Iraq and other issues of concern to both nations at a breakfast with a small group of reporters. The U.N.'s...

Iranian Supreme Revolutionary Guard forces under the Ayatollah Ali Khamenei reportedly killed a 10-year-old boy in the country's minority Baloch region yesterday, touching off a massive uprising against the Islamic regime countered by a deadly crackdown and imposition of martial law, according to sources on the scene. Amid burning banks, stores and government offices, at least 30 Baloch protesters are dead and 80 injured in the southeastern city of Saravan near the Pakistani border, said Malek Meerdora, who immigrated to Canada from the city in 1993. Meerdora told WorldNetDaily the Iranian government has attempted to shut off communication from the...

Congress is preparing for the first time to authorize public funding for human rights and democracy activities inside the Islamic Republic of Iran. Tucked inside the 2004 Omnibus Appropriations bill is language that instructs the State Department to spend $1.5 million “for making grants to educational, humanitarian and nongovernmental organizations and individuals inside Iran to support the advancement of democracy and human rights in Iran.” While the amount is modest, it breaks a long-standing barrier against American spending inside Iran and could signal the Bush administration’s intention to no longer heed a 1981 agreement with Tehran that pledged that Washington...

From the beginning, Iran's decision to comply with the International Atomic Energy Agency's (IAEA) latest stipulations on its nuclear research program was an attempt to politically outmaneuver Washington. Tehran agreed to temporarily cease its uranium enrichment program and to allow for more stringent inspections of its nuclear facilities. The Bush administration has been pushing for international pressure to be placed on Iran in the hopes of stunting the country's nuclear research program. Washington fears that Iran's growing nuclear knowledge and sophisticated nuclear facilities will allow the country to develop nuclear weapons, a scenario that would greatly increase Iran's power potential...

<p>The blunt warning, delivered by U.S. Under Secretary of State John Bolton on Tuesday, could involve measures that include the interdicting and seizing of such "illicit goods" on the high seas or in the air if those nations weren't willing to follow a path of non-proliferation.</p>

Despite mounting Western pressure and the implicit threat of sanctions, Iran still has not signed a key agreement to open its nuclear facilities to intrusive inspections, the U.N. atomic energy watchdog said Thursday. Mohamed ElBaradei, director-general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, said he expected Iran to sign the accord "shortly." But a Western diplomat suggested that Tehran was stalling, and said the United States and other countries were waiting impatiently "for Iran to keep its promises and sign." Iran agreed last month to open suspect nuclear sites that until now have been off-limits, and to let IAEA inspectors conduct...

A panel composed by selected Iranian activists. from inside and outside Iran, reached, this morning, tens of American think tanks during an unprecedented meeting held at the famous "American Enterprise Institute" (AEI). The panel was composed by Mandana Zand-Karimi; Ramin Parham; Roozbeeh Farahanipoor and Aryo Pirouznia, of SMCCDI, and was broadcasted live worldwide by the famous Los Angeles based KRSI which had placed Saeed Ghaem Maghami, its famous anchor, as the moderator and special reporter. Several female and male activists were joined in duplex from Iran and exposed as well their views and aspirations for an audiance shocked about the...

On Nov. 10, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) issued a report charging Iran with violating its obligations under the nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. In particular, the IAEA said that Tehran had been conducting experiments with imported nuclear material without informing the agency. The report also revealed that Iran had carried out a variety of clandestine nuclear activities for more than two decades. In doing so, it had deceived the agency on numerous occasions by concealing facilities and providing the IAEA with incomplete and false information. A discussion of the IAEA’s revelations follows. Uranium Enrichment Gas-Centrifuge Enrichment Iran’s gas-centrifuge uranium-enrichment program...

The US army came under renewed pressure on Wednesday over its conduct in a battle at the weekend in the central Iraqi town of Samarra, as Iran's senior religious leader accused the American forces of "a savage massacre" in which 54 locals were reportedly killed. The battle, in which US forces attempting to deliver new Iraqi currency to two Samarran banks were ambushed by a small force of insurgents - said by US officials to have been dressed as fighters from Saddam Hussein's fedayeen militia - has led to wildly differing accounts from American military officials and local witnesses. Hospital...

Lawyers for victims of torture are challenging the federal government in a court case both sides say is a crucial test of Canadian and international law. The case concerns Houshang Bouzari, an Iranian-born Canadian who's trying to sue the government of Iran. Bouzari alleges that 10 years ago while he was an oil industry consultant living in Tehran, he was kidnapped by Iranian government agents, tortured and held for months until his family paid several million dollars ransom. Iran has ignored the lawsuit Bouzari filed in Ontario. But lawyers for the federal attorney general have intervened in the case. They...

Ali Mandalwai has a dream: A Disney-style theme park in his hometown of Mandali. The problem is that Mandali is now a ghost town in eastern Iraq, close to the Iranian border. It was set to the torch by Saddam Hussein during the Shiite revolt of 1991. Thousands of its inhabitants were massacred, and many more became refugees. Mr. Mandalawi was among those who fled into exile, ending up in Holland, where he started "putting together the bit and pieces of a shattered life." Saddam's henchmen even cut down most of the one million palm trees that had borne Mesopotamia's...

The United States on Tuesday turned up the pressure on the International Atomic Energy Agency's board of governors to refer Iran's pursuit of nuclear weapons to the UN Security Council, where sanctions could be imposed, should there be "one more transgression by Iran." "The IAEA's November 26 resolution should leave no doubt that one more transgression by Iran will mean that the IAEA is obligated to report Iran's noncompliance to the Security Council and the General Assembly of the United Nations, in accordance with Article XII.C of the IAEA Statute," Undersecretary of State for Arms Control and International Security John...

The inquiries from Mr. Rockefeller’s committee began in October, and it was around this time the August guidance was reiterated to Pentagon officials. One administration official said word traveled quickly. “It went down the chain of command to cease and desist all contacts with the Iranian Diaspora,” the official said. Senator Brownback, a Republican of Kansas, said he thought now was the time to increase contact with Iranian Democrats. “My overall viewpoint is that we need to engage the Iranian Diaspora — the people who have come out of Iran, the defectors who have come out of the regime of...

Undersecretary of State John Bolton said on Tuesday the United States would act decisively to impede any transfers of nuclear and missile technology to Iran. In prepared remarks for a speech at a security conference, Bolton also reaffirmed a U.S. pledge to provide North Korea with a written security assurance. But this can only happen if the North agreed to "an effective verification regime" that assured Washington it would not reconstitute its nuclear program, he said. "For our part, the United States will continue its efforts to prevent the transfer of sensitive nuclear and ballistic missile technology to Iran, from...