Today was supposed to be a momentous day for the revolt against throcracy in Iran, but sadly, according to a Reuters article, it appears that the mullahs' arrests, murders and threats have struck terror into those hoping to speak out: Iran students cancel protest to mark 1999 unrest. We'll see what actually happens throughout the day.
*****************
UPDATE: Yahoo News is reporting that Islamic Vigilantes Seize Three Iran Student Leaders. Excerpts: "Armed Iranian Islamic vigilantes seized three student leaders on Wednesday as they left a news conference where they announced they had canceled protests to mark the anniversary of 1999 university unrest, witnesses said. ... Authorities have banned off-campus rallies, closed campus dormitories, postponed summer exams and vowed to deal strictly with any unrest after arresting 4,000 people during 10 nights of sometimes violent protests across the country in June. [...] Witnesses said police and military units were posted outside the Tehran U.N. headquarters on Wednesday and photographers and camera crews were prevented from taking pictures at the scene." (Via Little Green Footballs)
A sworn enemy dedicated to our destruction is censoring, kidnapping and murdering dissidents right before our eyes, and all the media and the administration are talking about is Liberia. This is outrageous.
*****************
UPDATE 2: Yahoo News reports: Islamic Vigilantes, Police, Youths Fight in Iran. Excerpt: "Hundreds of Iranian hard-line Islamic vigilantes, police and pro-democracy youths fought three-sided running street battles near Tehran University on Wednesday on the anniversary of 1999 student unrest. ... A witness said police had fired tear gas at groups of youths near the campus and also fought fistfights with plainclothes Islamic militiamen to prevent them from engaging in more running battles with youths."
CNN and Fox News have nothing on this crucial story. One would think that after 9/11 the media would consider it a priority to report news of an anti-Islamist revolt in Iran, a country that even the State Department lists as the world's biggest sponsor of terrorism. But apparently not. It is a horrible error.
*****************
UPDATE 3: BBC reports: Raid anniversary sparks tensions. Excerpts: "[T]he students agreed to call off all protests after an intervention by reformist members of the Iranian parliament, who told them their demands would stand a better chance of being met -- and their leaders of being freed -- in an atmosphere of calm. ... Despite their compliance, three more student leaders were detained immediately after giving a news conference [...] One of them is believed to have had his nose broken as he was being detained. 'If I am arrested today, I don't guarantee that I won't come out with confessions against myself after they've held me for a while, because of the pressures they put people under,' Ameri-Nassab told journalists only minutes before he was seized."
Apparently detained student leaders were used as hostages to pressure the remaining student leaders not to protest. Once the protest was suppressed, the remaining leaders were taken hostage.
The BBC story notes more of the government censorship measures: "The authorities have also taken steps to silence the radio and TV stations run from California by Iranian exiles bitterly hostile to the Islamic regime. Residents who defy the ban on satellite dishes and watch the broadcasts said they had been jammed for several days. ... Several of the stations had openly incited Iranians to rise up against their rulers."
No need for mullah censorship in the American media. As of 2:30pm CST, CNN had buried the Update 2 story in their World section. Still nothing on Fox that I could find.
*****************
UPDATE 4: Iran-Va-Jahan reports that Clashes Are Spreading in Iran.
CNN online has finally moved their story to the bottom portion of their front page (under World tab). Still nothing on Fox online.
*****************
More editorials on the Iranian demonstrations against the mullahs:
Reading the Popular Mood in Iran by Patrick Clawson of The Washington Institute for Near East Policy. This contains good background information on the protests. (Via Iran-Va-Jahan)
Iran is the Root of Islamic Terrorism by Joseph Kellard. Excerpt: "In January 2002, Israel intercepted a ship from Iran delivering 50 tons of weapons to the terrorist Palestinian Authority. A month before this, former Iranian 'President' Hashemi Rafsanjani stated publicly that when the Islamic world has nuclear weapons 'the strategy of the West will hit a dead end, since a single atomic bomb has the power to completely destroy Israel.' Last month, an Iranian opposition group discovered another secret nuclear facility in Natanz, undoubtedly part of Iran's advanced nuclear weapons program." (Via Capitalism Magazine).
It's Mullah time! by Mark Steyn. Excerpt: "[W]hatever the defects of post-ayatollah Iran, the fall of the prototype Islamic Republic will be a huge setback to the world's jihadi. ... It was Ayatollah Khomeini who successfully grafted a mid-20th-century European-style fascist movement on to Islam and made the religion an explicitly political vehicle for anti-Westernism. It was the ayatollah who first bestowed on the US the title of 'Great Satan.' And it was the ayatollah who insisted that this new Islamic revolution had to be taken directly to the West -- to the embassy hostages, to Salman Rushdie, and, ultimately, to America itself."
For more information: Blogs of War features an extensive list of Web sites; Winds of Change today features a compilation of articles; and Jeff Jarvis is following the news (latter via Andrew Sullivan).
This cartoon is from August 2002 and is in our book, Black & White World.
Posted by Forkum at July 9, 2003 08:19 AM
|