Authoritarianism: The Ultimate Equalizer

I have had several diary entries lately in which I have laid out a plan in which Iran can be confronted peacefully and brought down from with in.

Since then newsmax has published a story about Kurds organizing for an armed uprising.

Rahman Haj Ahmadi, president of the Kurdistan Free Life Party (PJAK), told NewsMax in an exclusive interview that he hoped to meet with senior administration officials to discuss the situation inside Iran and how the U.S.could help the opposition."PJAK has thousands of fighters in the mountains of Iran and deep inside Iranian cities," he said. "With U.S. help, we will lead the Kurdish people in an uprising that could spread to the whole of Iran."PJAK fighters seized government buildings in Marivan briefly in the summerof 2005, in
armed clashes with regime security forces that spread to majorcities and towns through the Kurdish region. The clashes were sparked by the brutal murder of a Kurdish human rights activist.Ahmadi and his group havebeen accused by the Tehran regime of being lackeys of the U.S. government. TheJuly-August 2005 clashes occurred after PJAK officials met with U.S. militaryleaders in northern Iraq, Tehran alleged. Such accusations make Ahmadismile. "Actually, this is the first time we have had contacts here inWashington," he told NewsMax. "We would love to have received U.S. help, butuntil now we have had no direct contacts with the U.S. government.""We, the12 to 14 million Kurds in Iran, will be the dependable and loyal allies of theUSA and the democratic world," he added.

All of this is great news, however, the thing about authoritarianism is that the regime will they whatever they have to in order to maintain power. Just this past week 230 youths were arrested for going to a rock concert

Iran arrested more than 200 music fans at an underground rock concert that one official called a "satanic" gathering and authorities accused the youths of breaking Islamic law. A witness said Sunday that police raidedthe concert as it was ending late Wednesday near the town of Karaj, some 30miles west of the capital." Police detained the young people who had gatheredto enjoy music in a private orchard," said the witness, who requested anonymityfor fear of government retaliation.The arrests come during a recent crackdown on "immoral behavior" in Iran, where holding mixed parties or concerts withoutpermission has been forbidden since the 1979
Revolution that brought hardlineShiite Muslim clerics to power.Calls to authorities were not immediatelyreturned on Sunday. But the public prosecutor in Karaj, Ali Farhadi, saidSaturday about 230 people were arrested during the concert."Most of the mwere wealthy young people who were not aware of the satanic nature of theconcert," Farhadi told state television. "A female singer, who was performing,and some rock and rap music bands were among the detained

Now, The Wall Street Journal Published a piece by Amer Taheri. The reign of terror in Iran has been ratched up since the regime is feeling more pressure from with in.

The latest wave of executions is the biggest Iran has suffered in the same timespan since 1984, when thousands of opposition prisoners were shot on orders from Ayatollah Khomeini. Not all executions take place in public. In the provinces of Kurdistan and Khuzestan, where ethnic Kurdish and Arab minoritiesare demanding greater rights, several activists have been put to death in secret, their families informed only days after the event

it continues...

The campaign of terror also includes targeted "disappearances" designed to neutralize trade union leaders, student activists, journalists and even mullahs opposed to the regime. According to the latest tally, more than 30 people have"disappeared" since the start of the new Iranian year on March 21. To intimidate the population, the authorities also have carried out mass arrests on spurious grounds.According to Gen. Ismail Muqaddam, commander of the Islamic Police,a total of 430,000 men and women have been arrested on charges related to drug use since April. A further 4,209 men and women, mostly aged between 15 and 30,have been arrested for "hooliganism" in Tehran alone. The largest number of arrests, totaling almost a million men and women according to Mr. Muqaddam, were related to the enforcement of the new Islamic Dress Code, passed by the IslamicMajlis (parliament) in May 2006. Most of those arrested, he says, spent afew hours, or at most a few days, in custody as "a warning." By last week,40,000 were still in prison. Of these, 20,363 men and women are held on chargesrelated to violating the Islamic
Dress Code. According to the Deputy Chief ofPolice Gen. Hussein Zulfiqari, an additional 6,204 men and women are in prisonon charges of "sexual proximity" without being married.The wave of arrests has increased pressure on the nation's inadequate prison facilities. At a recentpress conference in Tehran, the head of the National Prisons Service, Ali-AkbarYassaqi, appealed for a moratorium on arrests. He said Iran's official prisonscould not house more than 50,000 prisoners simultaneously while the actualnumber of prisoners at any given time was above 150,000. Mr. Yassaqi alsorevealed that each year on average some 600,000 Iranians spend some time in oneof the 130 official prisons.Since Mr. Ahmadinejad ordered the crackdown,work

Yes, it seems, anything and everything is a crime in Iran. Holding hands in public is a crime. Not wearing the right amount of clothes is a crime. Opposing the government is a crime. Organizing a union is a crime. Make no mistake. This regime is not going to roll over. They will respond to pressure from within and without with cruel, evil, and vicious and violent desperation, and the ones that suffer will be the people of Iran most of all. Just like the terrorists in Iraq and elsewhere use their tactics to break the will of their enemies: real and perceived, so to does the regime of Iran, at least the ones they can terrorize. While they instill terror in the minds of Israelis by threatening to wipe them off the map, and the UN, and its limp sanctions, by threatening counter attacks, they instill fear in their own citizenry, by arrests, imprisonment, and even public executions. They will make sure that everyone knows that any challenge to the regime will be met with swift reprisal. They will break the will of the opposition.

Make no mistake bringing down the Iranians cannot happen with token effort, or half effort, or even 90%, but all the way. It will take each and every state disinvesting from each and every company that does business in Iran. Here is a list of the so called dirty dozen companies. These are the worst, most greedy offenders, who redefine greed as we know it. These companies are willing to foresake any hope of peace and prosperity for the sake of the all mighty dollar or whatever other currency they deal in.Alcatel SABNP ParibasENI SPAHyundaiLundin PetroleumOil & Natural Gas Corp.PetroChinaSiemens AGStatoil ASAStolt NielsenTechnip CoflexipTotal SAlinks to their web pages are provided and I encourage everyone to make their feelings known. Second, pressure must be put on each and every peace loving ally that embassies in Iran only go to further prop up these evil, murderous regimes. Iran must be further isolated not welcomed into the world community with an embassy in Tehran. The same is true for Iranian embassies in their home countries. Their diplomats must be expelled immediately.Finally, we must all help the freedom loving peace groups fighting at risk of life and limb to bring these regimes down. I have spoken about it here...
Furthermore, this effort would need to be combined with an effort to supportthose groups that are themselves working to bring freedom and Democracy in Iran.A simple Google search of Iranian freedom finds many such groups, like this, andthis. Movements to bring freedom to Iran are everywhere however they areweak and need help. The first thing they need is cash. I say this because Ibelieve that there are conservatives everywhere organized and ready for a cause,and they all should be flushed with cash. I say this because there should beConservatives everywhere that just recently were part of an effort to defeat theSenate Amnesty bill. Many of them swore that politicians and political partieswere no longer going to get their money. In other words, their money is in needof a cause.Finally, and most importantly, we must win in Iraq. Victory in Iraq secures momentum, huge momentum, for bringing down the Iranian regime, and a loss has the exact opposite effect. Thus, I also encourage everyone to visit http://www.win-the-war.com/ and see how you can help to secure victory in Iraq.Update,In what can only be described as a surreal usurpation of authoritarian power The American Israeli Patriot has the story of some teen agers arrested at a birthday party...
Tehran, 7 August (AKI) - Iran stepped up its moralisation campaign thisweek with the arrest of 17 teenagers aged between 13 and 17 years of age at abirthday party in Tehran. It is the latest arrest in a controversial campaignordered by president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and enforced by the supreme leader,Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei.The United Nation's children's fund, UNICEF,immediately expressed concern about the arrests of nine males and eight females- all minors - who have been accused of "promiscuity", "alcohol use", and"dressing indecently".The adolescents, being held at the court's discretion,could be sentenced to three years' jail, a police spokesman said