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Pro-Democracy Protest in Iran Gains Momentum
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Spenta



Joined: 04 Sep 2003
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PostPosted: Mon Sep 27, 2004 11:24 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote



http://www.iranvajahan.net/cgi-bin/news.pl?l=en&y=2004&m=09&d=27&a=12
Demonstration in Iran Hints at Momentum for Change

September 27, 2004
VOA News
Ursula Lindsey, Cairo

Listen to Ursula Lindsey's report (RealAudio)
http://www.voanews.com/mediastore/lindsey_iran_demo_27sep04.ram

A rare pro-democracy demonstration took place in Tehran on Sunday, sparked by foreign TV channels and the promise of a Zoroastrian mystic to return to Iran on October 1st and solve the country's problems.

According to press reports, about two thousand people milled around streets in downtown Tehran, many of them driving cars up and down major avenues, honking their horns and flashing victory signs. Hundreds of volunteer militiamen arrived on the scene, but there were no violent clashes.

Demonstrations are rare in Iran, although Iranian students have taken to the streets several times to call for change from the country's conservative clerical leadership. In 1999, the closure of a reformist newspaper led to student protests and six days of rioting. In 2003, thousands of students held nightly marches in Tehran calling for democratic reform.

The demonstration on Sunday appears to have been catalyzed by the statements of a Zoroastrian mystic, Ahura Pirouz Khalegi Yazdi. Dr. Ahura, as he's known, has been appearing regularly for the last three months on a Los Angeles-based Iranian expatriate TV channel, saying he has the spiritual power to heal Iran's problems. He promised to return to Iran on October 1, along with thousands of other expatriates, if Iranians in the country showed their support for him.

Ali Nouri Zadeh is a member of the Arab Iranian Studies Center in London and has a program on the popular expatriate Iranian radio and TV show Yaran. He said Iranians are so desperate for change nowadays that they are willing to believe anything. He added that many who don't put faith in Dr. Ahura's claims still went into the streets out of a desire to see something happen.

"The majority of people who participated in the demonstration came out either out of curiosity or they came out expecting something big is going to happen," he said. "I mean, I was talking to a university professor and he was telling me: I know all this is a shamble, it's crooks, and all of that, but I came out with my wife and my children just to see what's going to happen."

In 2000, reformists aligned with President Mohamed Khatami were voted into power on an agenda for change. But in the last four years, the Council of Guardians, a highly-conservative, 12-man appointed watchdog body which supervises both legislation and elections, has blocked most proposed reforms. Before the country's last parliamentary elections, the Council struck hundreds of reformist candidates from the rolls, ensuring that conservatives returned to control the parliament.

Tensions in Iran have been further aggravated recently as the country's nuclear program has come under international scrutiny. On September 19, the International Atomic Energy Agency told Iran to freeze all operations connected with uranium enrichment or face possible retaliation. But Iranian officials declined to do so, saying that Iran is developing atomic power for peaceful purposes and describing U.S. claims that it is developing nuclear weapons as "lies."

According to Mohamed El-Saiid Abdel Moamen, Professor of Iranian Studies at Ein Shams University, the demonstration points to the broader tension over access to information in Iran. The reformers in government, led by President Khatami, are in favor of greater openness towards the outside world, says Mr. Moamen. The hardliners who surround Iran's supreme spiritual guide Ayatollah Ali Khameni, on the other hand, view foreign media as a threat to their power, and try to curtail access to it.

There's a ban on satellite dishes in Iran, says Mr. Moamen, and the installation of dishes takes place in secret. This is an attempt on the part of the regime to stop foreign cultural infiltration. The regime controls and monitors the foreign channels and penalizes those who are caught watching them.

But according to Mr. Moamen, it is increasingly impossible for the government to control access to TV, radio and the Internet. Expatriate Iranian communities, particularly in the United States, operate several radio and TV channels that oppose the government, says Mr. Moamen, and that have vast audiences.
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shahee2
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PostPosted: Mon Sep 27, 2004 11:25 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Do not demean His name by RP! It is His holy majesty Reza Pahlavi or H.H.M. Reza Pahlavi!
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Spenta



Joined: 04 Sep 2003
Posts: 1829

PostPosted: Tue Sep 28, 2004 12:11 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

RP has no problem with anyone calling him RP, everyone knows this, so get over it and spare me the nonesense designed to discredit him!!
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9karevatan



Joined: 16 Jan 2004
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PostPosted: Tue Sep 28, 2004 1:15 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

YEA THIS GUY IS AGAINST WHAT THE MAN REZA PAHLAVI HIMSELF IS SAYING...... AND PERSONALLY I THINK HE IS A MULLAH REGIME PERSON IN DESGUISE AND ITS SUPPORT FOR THE SHAHS SON IS FAKE AND IS ONLY TO DRAW OUR ATTENTION FROM THE THINGS GOING ON TO STOP US FROM DEALING WITHT THE REAL ISSUES
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ke az to daram in jaanam
janam fadayat
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payande baadi IRANam!!!!!!!
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redemption



Joined: 30 Dec 2003
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PostPosted: Tue Sep 28, 2004 3:22 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Shahee - please stop wasting everyones time... Reza would be laughing at you now if he could hear your words. Just drop the charade and cease your uneeded statements. Reza is a cool dude - he's mom is even cooler, but you're too obvious. get real

shahee2 wrote:
Do not demean His name by RP! It is His holy majesty Reza Pahlavi or H.H.M. Reza Pahlavi!

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IRANIANS UNITE
PERSIA LIVES ON!!
FREE IRAN NOW!
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redemption



Joined: 30 Dec 2003
Posts: 1158
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PostPosted: Tue Sep 28, 2004 3:22 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Shahee - please stop wasting everyones time... Reza would be laughing at you now if he could hear your words. Just drop the charade and cease your uneeded statements. Reza is a cool dude - his mother is even cooler, but you're too obvious. get real

shahee2 wrote:
Do not demean His name by RP! It is His holy majesty Reza Pahlavi or H.H.M. Reza Pahlavi!

_________________
IRANIANS UNITE
PERSIA LIVES ON!!
FREE IRAN NOW!
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stefania



Joined: 17 Jul 2003
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PostPosted: Tue Sep 28, 2004 6:48 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

New Photo


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Spenta



Joined: 04 Sep 2003
Posts: 1829

PostPosted: Tue Sep 28, 2004 10:53 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote



Another picture from Tehran, near Tehran university on Sunday
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Spenta



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PostPosted: Tue Sep 28, 2004 10:55 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

http://www.iranmania.com/news/articleview/default.asp?NewsCode=25556&NewsKind=Current%20Affairs

Iran police break up pro-democracy demo

Sunday, September26 , 2004 - © 2004IranMania.com

London, Sept 26 (IranMania) - Iranian police on Sunday broke up a demonstration for increased freedoms outside Tehran university apparently inspired by calls from a US-based opposition television, the student agency ISNA and witnesses reported.

"People gathered around4 . 30pm (1200 GMT) in front of Tehran university's main entrance shouting slogans and handing out flowers and sweets," the news agency said.

"These people are obviously under the influence of the Iranian opposition based abroad," added the report, in an apparent reference to anti-regime satellite television channels broadcast into Iran.

Witnesses confirmed that hundreds of people had gathered in front of the university shouting pro-freedom slogans.

The report said the gathering was broken up by police, but there was no suggestion that any violent clashes took place.

According to AFP, an AFP reporter who toured the area around the university later in the evening reported heavy traffic but no sign of any fresh gatherings.

Security forces could be seen maintaining a discreet presence around the campus, an area that has in recent years been the focal point for often violent pro-democracy and anti-regime demostrations.

Details of the protest and comments from one protestor suggested the gathering was inspired by a US-based Iranian exile and opposition television personality, Ahura Pirouz Khaleghi, who appears on the Rangharangh satellite channel.

Satellite television is banned in the Islamic republic but the restrictions are flouted by millions of home owners.

For several weeks, Khaleghi has been declaring he intends to return to Iran on October 1 with some 50 aeroplanes, and his scheme -- while in all appearances totally absurd -- has become a hot topic of conversation here.

The conservative Kayhan newspaper has described him as being viewed as insane even by the Iranian opposition, and has reported that he had abandoned his plan and instead asked residents of Tehran to go out onto the streets to distribute sweets.

Khaleghi has reportedly not been in Iran for some 40 years, having left the country at the age of seven.

"We were responding to his call to avoid a war," recounted one person who said he had taken part in the gathering.

"Ahura Pirouz Khaleghi was saying that Israel intends to attack Iran and that he had asked (Israeli Prime Minister) Ariel Sharon to give him the time to return home and sort out the problem," he said.

The gathering is not the first time residents of the capital have responded to calls from opposition satellite television channels. Thousands gathered around the campus area, mostly in their cars, in June and July 2003 in a call for greater freedoms.

Iranian opposition television stations are mostly broadcast from California, and are seen by the regime here as instruments of destabilisation backed by the US administration.

The last serious violent clashes between security forces and pro-democracy protestors took place in July1999 , in which at least one protestor was killed and scores of others injured.
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Spenta



Joined: 04 Sep 2003
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PostPosted: Tue Sep 28, 2004 11:07 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

From
http://www.iranianvoice.org/



5 Mehr Mobarak
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