SMCCDI-The Events of 2002 and Prospects of Future

For the Persian version, please visit:

http://iona.ghandchi.com/Groups/sal2002.pdf

SMCCDI (Public Statement)
January 1, 2003

The Student Movement Coordination Committee for Democracy
in Iran (SMCCDI) sends its sincerest greetings for the
[Christian] New Year to the freedom-loving nations and
peace-loving democratic governments in the world. With best
wishes for the victory of the world alliance against
terrorism and for the establishment of a secular democracy
in Iran during 2003, the committee announces its views on
the events that occurred last year.

The [Christian] year 2002, which we have now put behind us,
should be noted as a turning point for the Iranian people's
liberation struggle from the theocratic rule of the
religious fundamentalists. [In] the year that past, despite
the drunken roars of the Hezbollah, notable victories were
attained by the Iranian nation and the freedom-strugglers
were capably able to neutralize the designs of the power
mongers, and once again, they sent defeat and humiliation
to the Hezbollah encampments-- even though, for attaining
these victories, the people paid a heavy price.

The Islamic Republic, by using the opportunistic tendencies
of the countries of the European Union, and by offering
enormous economic tributes, was able to create a rift among
the votes of these countries in the United Nations' Human
Rights Commission and, thus, this commission remained
incapable of passing a declaration on the abuses of Human
Rights in Iran and the mission of the special envoy of the
UN overseeing the activities of the religious
fundamentalists was not extended. In the shadow of the
unbelievable oversight of the claimants of Human Rights, by
removing the structure for monitoring Iran, the Hezbollah
camp, drunken with their victory, proceeded with attack
formations both domestically and internationally.

Domestically, the religious fundamentalists, by leveraging
their Islamic courts of injustice, displayed Islamic
punishment and a return to the Stone Age with Taliban-like
methods-- and even beyond Taliban cruelty-- during the
Third [Christian] millennium.

The regime's courts, with impunity, resumed executions (and
mass executions at that), public stonings, and public
whippings. In fact, they extended their barbarism,
savagery, and cruelty so far that they even issued and
carried out cruel and unusual punishments such as
extraction of eyes from the socket and the simultaneous
amputation of hands and feet. In one instance, the verdict
of hurling the accused from a mountain elevation was also
reported.

The so-called vigilante groups became more active, and with
the help of Law Enforcement Forces, the incidence of
kidnappings, unaccountable arrests, and torture of
prisoners once again went on the rise. In many cases, no
official organization knew the location of the arrested or
the parties responsible for the arrests. Most
interestingly, after the location of hidden imprisonment
and the responsible parties were revealed, the 'Law
Observing Government' would make no attempt whatsoever to
end the lawlessness.

A well known incidence that received coverage in the
international media was the kidnapping of an old
journalist, whose fate nobody new for a long time, and
eventually turned up in one of the illegal holding
facilities, and who afterwards was convicted to 11
years in prison on trumped up charges. During the year that
past, many students of the glorious Student Uprising of
July 9, 1999 are still languishing in the regime's
dungeons, and many more have been added to them.

During this year, many newspapers and magazines, by order
of the censorship authorities, lost their right to publish;
and, many books, after being published, were not allowed to
be distributed and were turned into paper paste [for
recycling]. New restrictions were also put in place for
mediums allowing the free exchange of information such as
the Internet, which caused many 'net cafes' to shut down.
Confirmed reports have brought to light the efforts of the
regime to observe and control the flow of information from
domestic sites and servers.

In the regional and domestic arena, the Islamic Republic,
as a supporter of terrorist groups, openly and without any
cover-up, continues its [terrorist] duties, and in addition
to setting up terrorist gatherings in Tehran, earnestly
acts upon delivering the weapons through air and sea
corridors. The endless support for the terrorist group
Hammas and disruption of the Middle East peace process are
considered to be some of the main policies of the Islamic
Republic. The agitating statements of the officials of the
Islamic Republic regime on the missile capabilities, and
the efforts of the mullahs in obtaining nuclear weapons, is
a serious threat to the stability of the region and the
world at large.

In contrast to the shortcomings of the International
community in producing a proper response to the atrocities
that the regime in Iran commits daily and systematically,
and despite the opportunistic self-serving negotiations and
efforts of the European Union for expanding commerce and
economic ties with a regime that for years has lost its
legitimacy in the eye of the nation, and that is known as
one of the three members of the axis of evil, the
struggling freedom-loving nation of Iran-- including the
students, laborers, teachers, and other strata of society--
take advantage of every opportunity and every opening to
rid themselves of the clench of the mullahs.

During the past year, the teachers, these mothers and
fathers of our conscience, requested an improvement in
their living standard during a peaceful demonstration,
which as a result of the assault of the suppression forces
who bludgeoned and battered them, unfortunately, two of the
teachers were declared dead by medical personnel as a
result of the beatings. This inhumane behavior of the
religious regime took place exactly at the time that the
Secretary General of the United Nations was in Tehran--
only tens of meters from the demonstration-- preoccupied
with praising the religious democracy.

During the past year, the anniversary of the July nine
uprising turned into an epic of national unity and a great
demonstration of the ability of the civil disobedience
movement of the third force. The Ministry of State of the
'Reformist' government, in line with their cooperation with
the fundamentalists, refrained from issuing a permit for
this demonstration by the students; and, instead, a few
days ahead of time they dispatched to the capital their
special forces that were equipped with modern suppressive
weapons in order to terrorize the youth. Despite these
arrangements, the presence of tens of thousands of youth
and elderly, men and women, in the streets of the capital
and other cities of Iran, shouting "Referendum, Referendum,
This is the People's Desire," sent the clear message of the
Iranian people to anybody willing to listen in Iran or
worldwide.

During the past year, the President of the United States,
in a brave message, declared the support of the United
States for the justice-seeking people of Iran [in pursuit
of democracy]. The open letters of the former supporters of
the regime to the Leader of the Islamic Republic explaining
the reasons behind the political, social, and economic
chaos in the country, and targeting the leader as the cause
and the apex of the pyramid of corruption, had played an
important role in enlightening the masses. The looted
fortunes that the heads of the Islamic Republic and their
'prince-lings' possess while next to them there are
thousands of street children in a country which had an
excess of foreign reserves until before the mullahs, makes
any thinking person realize the painful reality of the
template the 'Rule of the Oppressed' has for the world.

During the past year, the uproarious uprising of the
students in response to the death verdict for a
free-thinking and religious-reformist scholar-- which led
to more than just the overturning of the death sentence--
laid waste to the political equilibrium and forced the
leaders of the Islamic Republic to back off. The three
weeks that started with the student demonstrations and were
followed by the memorial of the assassination of two of the
well known domestic opposition members as part of the
'Chain Murders' and which reached its climax with the
arrival of the official 'Student's Day' showed that the
student
movement, despite the mullahs' scheming to nullify this
movement, has enough momentum [not to be deflected] and it
goes to become the proverbial engine of motion for the
Iranian nation's liberation movement. The slogans of the
students and other strata of society in these
demonstrations showed that neither the Religious
Fundamentalists nor the Regime Reformists have any level of
acceptance among the people, and that the people want a
referendum for determining the type of secular democratic
regime for the future of Iran. During the same
demonstrations, the Leader of the Islamic Republic revealed
his command of a group of thugs in the country known as the
'plain clothesmen'. This group, which operates outside the
law, has thus far injured, maimed, and even murdered many
defenseless demonstrators in plain view of the Law
Enforcement Forces-- often with their assistance, and the
'Reformist' Government has not been capable of encountering
them.

Now, we begin the New Year by remembering all those who
have lost their lives for the country's liberation, and
wishing the release of all the well-known and lesser-known
political prisoners and prisoners of conscience who are
languishing away in the dungeons and resisting the tyranny
of the mullahs with their very lives; and, with the cries
of the nation of Iran for a referendum for determining the
type of future secular democracy to replace the current
regime in Iran during the New Year.

The people of Iran will qualitatively and quantitatively
continue to expand upon the civil disobedience movement
till they cripple the faltering regime. For their
democratic and non-violent struggle against the inhumane
and suppressive Islamic regime the people of Iran require
the moral support of the international community more than
ever. The Iranian people posses both the right and the
merit to live free and comfortably in a democracy like any
other free nation on earth, and to participate in all world
affairs in a mutual and healthy relationship with the other
countries on earth.

The "Student Movement Coordination Committee for Democracy
in Iran" asks all civilized and free nations to place
themselves alongside the struggling Iranian nation in
overthrowing the fundamentalist and terrorist-nurturing
regime; and, with real political pressure in support of the
Iranian nation, to remove this scourge upon human history
from the political scenes of this world.

Long Live Freedom!
Established be Secularism!


January 1, 2003 (11th Dey 1381)

The "Student Movement Coordination Committee for Democracy
in Iran" (SMCCDI)

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Neveshtar be Farsi be soorat e PDF dar peyvast mibashad.
Persian/Farsi text is attached in PDF format.

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