Author:
Publication: WorldNetDaily.com
Date: December 5, 2003
Iranian Supreme Revolutionary Guard
forces under the Ayatollah Ali Khamenei reportedly killed a 10- year-old
boy in the country's minority Baloch region yesterday, touching off a massive
uprising against the Islamic regime countered by a deadly crackdown and
imposition of martial law, according to sources on the scene.
Amid burning banks, stores and government
offices, at least 30 Baloch protesters are dead and 80 injured in the southeastern
city of Saravan near the Pakistani border, said Malek Meerdora, who immigrated
to Canada from the city in 1993.
Meerdora told WorldNetDaily the
Iranian government has attempted to shut off communication from the city,
but he has been in contact with sources there via satellite telephone and
the Internet.
He said soldiers approached the
10-year-old, Haroun Balochzahi, and grabbed his bike from him, insisting
on a bribe. The boy did not speak Farsi, the majority language, and responded
by biting a soldier and running. The youth was shelled with bullets in
front of people on the streets and died on the spot, Meerdora said, prompting
an immediate reaction.
In an unusual display of resistance
to the hard-line, cleric-led regime, a crowd set a military jeep on fire
and began beating the soldiers, Meerdora said.
Later, at about 1:30 p.m., thousands
of Balochs, including many from surrounding cities, began to congregate
on the streets in protest.
Revolutionary Guard soldiers opened
fire on the crowd, hitting up to 80 people, witnesses claimed.
The entire city and surrounding
area is raised up against the Tehran government, Meerdora said, burning
down symbols of the regime and attacking Iranian officials.
Crowds reached the offices of the
mayor, commissioners and chief of police and beat them, he said, and many
soldiers have been beaten by unarmed citizens.
The director of the hospital has
been warned by the government to not take in any wounded protesters, and
some Balochs have been shot in front of the hospital, according to Meerdora's
sources.
He said security forces went to
the hospital and killed people in their rooms.
About 300 people have been jailed,
and uncooperative prisoners have had their tongues cut out, he said.
"I mark this as a day of revolution,"
Meerdora said. "I think the Iranian government will face more problems."
He said throughout the evening,
Revolutionary Guard forces watched over the people from roof tops, prepared
to fire at anyone who moves from his home.
No one is allowed to enter or leave
the city, he added.
Similar to the Kurds, the Balochs,
who comprise 2 percent of Iran's population, regard themselves as a nation
separated by borders - in their case the frontier between Iran and Pakistan,
which also has a sizable Baloch minority.
Politically the Baloch identify
as Muslims, but most do not practice Islam, Meerdora said.
Some analysts say Iran's theocratic
regime is unraveling, as resistance movements, including one led by students,
grow stronger.
"This theocratic regime is in shambles,
coming to the end of its rope," according to Fereydoun Hoveyda, senior
fellow at the National Committee on American Foreign Policy in New York
City. "People are not afraid of it anymore."
Hoveyda contends, however, Western
nations have adopted a flawed policy that focuses on support of President
Mohammad Khatami's reform movement rather than on a secular, democratic
movement led by students. He adds that while Arabs in many lands danced
in the streets in praise of the Sept. 11 attackers, "ordinary Iranians
were the only Muslims to openly condemn them and express sympathy to the
American people."
"The American press, as well as
the [U.S.] government, misreads the events in Iran," Hoveyda said in an
interview with WorldNetDaily last fall. "They think that there is one reformist
movement, represented by Khatami."
Khatami, he points out, is against
dismissing the Islamic regime, which came into power after the ruling shah
was forced into exile amid seizure of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran by militant
students. The U.S. no longer has diplomatic relations with Iran.
