Week in Review

DoctorZin provides a review of this past week's [4/17-4/23] major news events regarding Iran.

SPECIAL REPORT - Major Unrest in Southern Iran:

• SMCCDI reported violent clashes rocked the southern City of Ahwaz following the rumor that the Islamic regime was intending to diminish the Arab population in the area.
• SMCCDI reported that the unrest continued in cities of the oil rich Khoozestan province and spread to cities, such as, Abadan and Khoramshahr. More reports.
• Reuters reported Iran said some 200 people were arrested in ethnic unrest in its southwest in recent days and the regime closed the offices of the Arab language Al Jazeera television channel, accusing it stirring up trouble.
• Iran Press Service reported unrest continued unabated in the oil rich Iranian province of Khouzestan, with local and international sources putting the death toll at about 30 people. The regime denies this, of course.
• Reuters reported that more than 140 people out of 344 arrested in southwest Iran remain in jail.
• Reuters reported that the government organized a "march for peace" in southern Iran after the bloody ethnic unrest.
  
• Iran Focus reported that Iran’s Revolutionary Guards executed a number of teenage demonstrators in the streets of Ahwaz.
• Radio Free Europe reported that we should expect the people arrested in the Ahvaz unrest to confess on television that they were involved with foreign elements.
• Adnkronos International reported that following the ethnic unrest in southern Iran, the government cut-off internet connections in many cities.

Iran's Presidential Elections:

• IranMania.com reported that Iran's Supreme National Security Council Secretary Hassan Rowhani says he may become a presidential candidate if Rafsanjani does not.
• Gooya.com reported that Iranian parliament members want to pay people to vote! Why not bribe everyone?
  

The EU3 Negotiations with Iran:

• Iran Press Service reported that Iran has offered the EU3 to allow the IAEA to install monitoring devices in its uranium enriching facilities.
• Yahoo! News reported EU-Iran talks reopen to make sure Tehran provides air-tight guarantees that it will not make atomic weapons amid agreement by European diplomats that Iran must cease uranium enrichment.
• Mehrnews reported that in the EU3/Iran negotiations, for most European states, "the issue of objective guarantees is not clear to them."
• Turkish Weekly reported that Iran said that the US should observe the nuclear talks between Iran and Europe "from the sidelines."
• AFP reported Iran had not seen enough incentives from the European Union to pave the way for a deal over its controversial nuclear activities.
• The Financial Times reported that Iran's top nuclear official warned that Iran will continue negotiations for a few more months only if the EU3 signal that Iranian ideas on limited uranium enrichment can be the basis of the negotiations.

Iran's Nuclear Program:

• FOX NEWS will air a Special Report "Iran The Nuclear Threat - hosted by Chris Wallace Sunday night, April 24th at 9PM PST.
• Janes Defence Weekly reported that inspectors from IAEA believe they have resolved a key question underlying Iran's nuclear program.
• The Los Angeles Times reported that critical components and specialized tools destined for Libya's nuclear weapons program disappeared before arrival in 2003 and international investigators now suspect that they were diverted to another country.
• Reuters reported that Tehran is not cooperating fully with a probe by the U.N. nuclear watchdog into Iranian officials' meetings with smugglers who had links to Pakistani atom bomb-maker Abdul Qadeer Khan.

Iran's trouble making outside of Iran:

• The Guardian reported that more than 400 young men and women have volunteered to carry out suicide bombing attacks against Americans.
  

US Policy and Iran:

• FOX News reported on how Iranian nuclear dreams challenge the Bush doctrine.
• Radio Free Europe reported on Tehran's opposition to U.S. Democracy efforts.
• The Associated Press reported that the Bush administration accused Iran of violating the rights of Arabs and other minority groups.
• WorldNetDaily.com reported that Democratic Sen. Joseph Biden is partly responsible for the growing threat the U.S. faces from the mullah regime.

Rumors of War:

• The Guardian reported that President Bush will receive a Pentagon plan for military strikes on Iran in June.
• Fox News reported on the military options that the U.S. has towards a nuclear Iran.

Iran's economy:

• The Telegraph reported senior British ministers held meetings with the Iranian government hoping for a deal that could have saved MG Rover.
• Forbes.com reported Russia's largest oil producer, Lukoil, wants to take part in both onshore and offshore oil exploration tenders in Iran.

Human Rights/Freedom of the press inside of Iran:

• Reporters Without Borders reported that Iranian journalist Akbar Ganji, who has served his fifth year in Tehran's Evin prison tomorrow, is seriously ill.
• Al Jazeera reported a joint statement by the Arab Commission for Human Rights in Paris and International Justice Organisation in The Hague has expressed concerns about the unrest in al-Ahwaz.
• IranMania reported that Iran's Guardian Council Secretary Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati said that if the dossiers of some dissidents are referred to courts, no lawyers can defend them and their death sentences are inevitable.
• Amnesty International put out an urgent call for action regarding Iran's arbitrary arrest and torture of seven men and at least 130 others following the recent unrest in Ahvaz.
• The Washington Post published Elahé Sharifpour-Hicks's criticism of Nobel laureate Shirin Ebadi and former Iranian president Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani.

Popular struggle for freedom inside of Iran:

• SMCCDI reported an unprecedented protest action took place at Esfahan's Court building. Employees of the Department of Justice occupied the corridors and protested against their conditions and the Gender Apartheid Policy existing in Iran.
• Assreemrooz.com reported one of Iran's most beloved and famous dissidents, Ahmad Batebi is in hiding. It was reported that on a recent furlough from prison he married and went into hiding. Some dispute this.
• SMCCDI also reported a local soccer game lead to protest and clashes.
• Iran va Jahan published Navid Zahedi, an Iranian student activist, who said the UN could be defined in three words; it is a corrupt, inefficient and ineffective body.

Popular struggle for freedom outside of Iran:

• SMCCDI made an urgent for help after their website was shut down. Funds have been raised and they hope to be online soon.
  

Iran and the world community:

• World Tribune.com reported that Kuwait fears an eco-threat from Iran's reactor and the Saudi's want nuclear technology.
• The Economist is reported that Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, is calling on Lebanon's clerics to apply his fatwa to abstain from political office.
• The International Herald and Tribune argued that UN sanctions against Iran will not produce the result the Bush Administration is looking for.
• IranMania reported that Saudi Arabia's Chief of Staff said his country is determined to expand military cooperation with Iran.
• Iran Focus reported that 2.8 million Iraqis had signed a petition sharply criticizing Iran’.
• Newz.in reported that Pakistani officials would study US laws prohibiting investment in Iranian oil infrastructure before finalizing the construction of the proposed gas pipeline from Iran.
  

Middle East Experts:

• Memri.org reported that the official Iranian news agency Fars published a statement by Ayatollah Hossein Nouri-Hamedani, one of the Iranian regime's leading religious authorities, in which he advocates fighting the Jews in order to prepare the ground and to hasten the advent of the Hidden Imam, the Messiah according to Shiite belief.
• Nir Boms criticizes the EU saying "in the name of promoting democracy and reforms (and against the pleading of Iranian dissidents), the EU improved its economic ties with yet another despotic regime."
• Michael Ledeen writes, "We're in the midst of a great paradigm shift, which, ... involves both a transformation of the world and of the way we understand it."
• WorldNetDaily published excerpts of Dr. Corsi's new book Atomic Iran. Here are links to the excerpts. Part 1: Sleeper cells in America - Atomic Iran' explains terrorist threats to U.S. homeland. Part 2: Terrorists' weapon of choice - 'Atomic Iran' describes how Tehran could help with bomb. Part 3: Horrific scenario: NYC hit by terrorist nuke - 'Atomic Iran' presents second-by-second description of feared attack.
• Dr. Corsi reported his TV ad about the danger of Iran is now on the air, in 20 markets.
• Iran Institute for Democracy criticized the Bush Administration for not doing more to support the freedom loving people of Iran.
• Henry Kissinger warned that if Iran succeeds in building nuclear weapons, it could touch off an arms race that leads to the end of civilization.

And finally, The Quote of the Week:

Sheikh Ali Al-Shammari, a Shiite tribal leader from southern Iraq in attendance at the unveiling of the petition signed by 2.8 million Iraqis, sharply criticising neighbouring Iran’s rising meddling in Iraq, said:

“We, as Iraqis who value our independence, feel we must speak out as strongly as possible against this undeclared war by Iran..."