Hate-Israel 'Holiday' May Reignite Iranian Dissident Protests

By Nissan Ratzlav-Katz

Iran's Islamist leadership is worried that opposition forces in the country will use the cover of Quds Day - an annual 'national holiday' of anti-Israel rallies and marches - for anti-regime protests in Tehran.

Iranian dissidents, for their part, are encouraging just that outcome, in order to reignite the nascent local pro-democracy movement, which has primarily gone underground since massive rallies led to violent state repression in the wake of Iranian elections in June.

According to Iranian pro-democracy sources, reformists of all types are intending to protest against Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Friday, even at the state-sponsored Quds Day rallies themselves.

Many Iranian dissidents active online urged supporters of "a free Iran" to attend the official state rallies in order to undermine them. Such rallies normally feature chants of "Death to Israel" and "Death to America", but some Iranians are planning to respond to the chant leaders with, "Death to the dictator" and "Death to Khamenei", in reference to Ahmadinejad and Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei.

In addition to general opposition to the regime, many protesters are planning to link their slogans to the theme of the day with demands to halt ongoing transfers of financial aid to the Palestinian Authority.

They see the money transfers as "disregard for the Iranian people's money", which should be spent at home.

One Iranian activist wrote in an online forum: "This year Iranians are going to come to [the] streets to protest not Israel's occupation of Palestine, but occupation of Iran by the illegitimate and unwanted Islamic Republic of Iran."

Former Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini initiated Quds Day after the 1979 Islamic revolution in Iran, but the idea quickly caught on internationally.

It is marked on the last Friday of Ramadan, which falls this week, and is meant to keep the issue of Israel at the forefront of Muslim thought at the climax of the month-long period of religious introspection and fasting. Read more here ...

Source: INN

Iran hardliners take gloves off against opponents

By Alistair Lyon, Special Correspondent

BEIRUT, Aug 9 (Reuters) - Iran's latest mass trial is meant to deter dissent but may also reflect insecurity among hardliners jolted by street protests and political splits after a disputed June election.

The crackdown shows no willingness to compromise on the part of re-elected President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. He must now pick a cabinet and get it approved by a parliament with a conservative majority containing many who mistrust the firebrand leader.

Many conservatives were angered by the death in custody of the son of an aide to presidential candidate and former Revolutionary Guard commander Mohsen Rezaie, which may help explain why Iran's police chief announced on Sunday that the head of one notorious detention centre had been jailed.

But in other signals that the gloves have come off, a senior Guard commander demanded that Ahmadinejad's election rivals Mirhossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karoubi face trial, and a military commander urged greater control over foreign media.

"The sham trials are actually to shore up support among (Ahmadinejad) supporters who have begun having doubts," said Muhammad Sahimi, a professor at the University of Southern California. Read more at http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L9709029.htm

Source: Reuters

Pushing for Human Rights Watch in IranThe Simon Wiesenthal Center and Iranian dissidents in U.S. spring to action

By Lisa Daftari

The Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles invited select members of the Iranian American opposition to petition the United Nations Security Council to expeditiously intervene on human rights in Iran.

A panel of prominent professors, activists, spiritual and political leaders spoke out against the United States’ calculated hesitation and for fervent support of the protestors. These community members came together to discuss, analyze and propose an accurate solution to engage the international community and to diminish the world’s silence toward Iran.

“The Iranian people have already taken their fate into their own hands. All they need is moral support,” said Hamid Arabzadeh, a professor from the University of California Irvine.

“Twitter, the blogs, are the virtual ships that stopped on these shores 60 years ago and were turned away. What we are asking is not to turn the ships of the Iranian people away,” he said pointing around at the walls of the venue, the Museum of Tolerance, a museum commemorating the Holocaust. Arabzadeh was referring to events that took place during World War II. Read more ...

Source: FPM

US condemns sentencing of 12 Syrian dissidents

Washington: The United States on Thursday condemned the sentencing of 12 leading Syrian dissidents sent to jail for advocating for freedom of expression and a democratic constitution in Syria.

A Syrian court sentenced 11 men and a woman to 2-1/2 years each in prison on Wednesday for political crimes.

"The United States condemns the sentencing of 12 members of the Damascus Declaration National Council to two and a half years in prison," White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said in a statement.

The dissidents were arrested last year in a case that drew international condemnation, with the United States and European nations repeatedly calling for their release. Syrian-US are already strained after a deadly American raid on eastern Syria this week. Read more ...

Source: Gulf News

Let the Dissidents Challenge the Jihadists

By Walid Phares
Prague, September 16, 2008

At the invitation of the Prague Security Studies Institute (PSSI), a think tank for international relations in the Czech Republic, I delivered a lecture on “Jihadist Strategies against Europe: Background, Projections and Options.” The event was co-sponsored by the Brussels-based European Foundation for Democracy, and the forum was attended by PSSI officers, diplomats and NGO members. It is to note that under the forthcoming Czech Presidency, the European Union may be able to take perhaps more daring steps in recognizing the importance of the dissident segments of the Greater Middle East in the process of opposing totalitarian ideologies. In this lecture, part of my second summer European tour, I called on policy makers to focus seriously on a strategic support to dissidents and democracy forces inthe Arab and Muslim world instead of relying exclusively on the so-called hopeless engagement with Jihadist movements. For, as I tried to make the case, findings tells us that in every balanced opportunity when counter Jihadist Muslims engage the Jihadists in a battle of ideas, the counter Jihadists win. And everytime the Jihadists have no challengers from within the Arab and Muslim political culture to contend with, they naturally win. Read more ...

Source: Counterterrorism Blog