London: Iran`s former crown prince backed a
campaign of "civil disobedience and non-violence" today to
oust the government in Tehran and urged Western support, but
warned against any armed intervention.
"The end of the apartheid regime in South Africa, of
military juntas in South America, of the former Soviet Union
-- all of it came at the hands of the people of those nations
themselves," Reza Pahlavi told the Daily Telegraph.
"None of this could have happened without foreign
support, but that is not the same as an occupying army that
comes in and changes a regime -- I don`t see how that can ever
be legitimate."
The son of the late shah added: "Change must come to Iran
by civil disobedience and non-violence, I stress that. We
can`t have change at any cost... what happens must be the will
of the people."
Pahlavi left Iran a year before his father, shah Mohammad
Reza, was ousted in the 1979 Islamic revolution, and has lived
in the United States since 1984.
As more protests were held this week on the streets of
Tehran, he told the Telegraph that "the ingredients for change
have reached almost boiling point, despite the attempts of the
regime to crack down".
Bureau Report
