Calling for Solidarity With the People of Iran, Reza Pahlavi: 'Don't Turn Your Back on the Iranian people, While You Face Our Oppressors'

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Democracy & Security ConferencePrague, Czech RepublicLadies and Gentlemen:I have come to Prague to ask for your solidarity with the people of Iran against a common enemy: Islamist preachers of intolerance who turn young men and women into walking bombs, shouting death to America, death to Israel, death to whosoever resists their murderous ideology.To the realpolitik cynics who say Islamist theocracy is a reality we have to live with, I respond: funny – they never said they can live with YOU! To those who say the theocrats can reform if we are nice to them, I say you do not know the difference between Islamist revolution and secular ones. Those who believe they speak with the absolute authority of Allah demand absolute submission. As the Islamist regime of Iran develops nuclear weapons, to neutralize Western conventional superiority, to have a free hand to use low-intensity violence in support of exporting Islamist revolution, remember this: good strategy is not fighting the enemy’s strengths, at the nuclear negotiations table where they hold the cards, or on the streets of neighboring countries where they find sympathy. Good strategy aims at their weakness: Inside Iran, where the people know the theocrats' wretched reality, rather than neighbors who only hear their divine promise. Islamist theocrats' incompetence in delivering a minimal level of welfare and freedom is driving Iran's women, youth, teachers, workers, ethnic groups and many others to resist Hizbullahi stormtroopers in Iranian cities everyday. All those courageous Iranians want is to join the Free World. The Free World must respond. Four years of diplomatic jostling, of economic carrots and sticks, have proven the insensitivity of theocrats to external pressures. What has not been tried is tying external pressures to human rights in Iran, to boosting the morale of Iranians in their everyday resistance, to encouraging internal pressures that Islamists can feel.From Iran's different faiths, ethnic groups and social sectors, from the left to the right of the political spectrum, from my brave countrymen and women struggling for human dignity and freedom, this is the message I carry to you: As you face our oppressors, do not turn your back to us. We are your best friends in the struggle against a common enemy, the enemy of peace on earth.

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PRAGUE, Czech Republic, June 5 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Attending the 'democracy and security' conference, hosted by Vaclav Havel, Jose Maria Aznar and Natan Sharansky, Reza Pahlavi of Iran said, "I have come to Prague to ask for your solidarity with the people of Iran against a common enemy: Islamist preachers of intolerance who turn young men and women into walking bombs." In remarks delivered after President Bush's address at the conference, the former jet fighter pilot reiterated his rejecting of war as an option against his homeland.Skeptical with the prospects of diplomacy as a tool to pressure Iran's theocracy, the forty seven year old Iranian said, "four years of diplomatic jostling, of economic carrots and sticks, have proven the insensitivity of theocrats to external pressures." Instead, he offered the conference the "untried option of tying external pressures to human rights in Iran, which would boost the morale of Iranians in their everyday resistance, and encourage internal pressures that the Iranian regime would really feel." Highlighting the clerical regime's failure to deliver "a minimal level of welfare and freedom," Reza Pahlavi said the regime has driven "Iran's women, youth, teachers, workers, ethnic groups and many others to resist 'Hizbullahi stormtroopers' in Iranian cities everyday. All those courageous Iranians want is to join the Free World. The Free World must respond." "As an Iranian who has dedicated my life to help bring representative democracy to my homeland, the message I carry to you from Iranians inside my homeland is: As you face our oppressors, do not turn your back to us. We are your best friends in the struggle against a common enemy, the enemy of peace on earth," he said. Opposition leader to Iran's clerical regime, Reza Pahlavi has rejected the option of war against his homeland, instead drawing attention to the mass discontent in Iran against a regime that is ripe to fall. Reza Pahlavi is an advocate of a non-violent campaign of civil disobedience as a method of defiance to the ruling theocracy. Iran's former crown prince, Reza Pahlavi is an author, a husband and father to three daughters.
http://www.rezapahlavi.org ---SOURCE Reza Pahlavi's Secretariat : Contact: Secretary: Farideh Vafai, +1-703-827-0928, Cell: +1-703-282-8188, Fax: +1-703-827-9101