Radio Aras wishes all of you a happy and successful new year
HAPPY NOROUZ
Thursday, March 19, 1998
NCR Publishes A New Book
The Foreign Affairs Committee of the National Council of
Resistance of Iran published a new book entitled: "Legacy of A Misguided
Policy: U.S. State Department's 'good-will gesture' to Iran's mullahs at
Resistance's expense."
The book's back cover reads: "This book is an attempt to explain
the political background and motives that led to the U.S. State
Department's inclusion of the Mojahedin in its list of "foreign terrorist
organizations." The move fits into a pattern of attempts to mollify the
ruling mullahs in Iran, an appeasement that is itself the legacy of a
misguided policy that has haunted the U.S. approach to Iran for four
decades. It is time for the U.S. to abandon this failed policy and adopt a
firm and resolute Iran policy. The United States must recognize the right
of the Iranian people to overthrow the theocratic dictatorship and
establish peace and democracy in their country."
More Executions in Iran, Iran Zamin News Agency, March 18
The Geneva office of the National Council of Resistance of Iran
issued a statement today indicating that four men were hanged in public in
Sari, northern Iran. The executions took place in the beginning of March
under the pretext of punishing drug traffickers.
According to the statement, a few days earlier, the clerical
regime's Prosecutor General had announced that the punishment for drug
traffickers had increased between two to ten-fold.
While the highest officials are directly involved in consumption,
trade and distribution of drugs, the mullahs seek to step up repression by
widespread arrests and executions under the pretext of drug trafficking in
a bid to curb social protests.
The NCR said that the clerical regime has announced at least 20
executions in the state-run press since the beginning of 1998.
Kinkel Vows To Deal Personally With Iran Over Jailed German Convicted To
Death, Agence France Presse, March 18
BONN-German Foreign Minister Klaus Kinkel said in an interview
published Wednesday that he would take charge personally of the case
involving a German man found guilty in Iran of having an "illicit"
relationship with an Iranian Moslem woman.
The court said the conviction of businessman Helmut Hofer, 56, was
justified because he was not a Moslem. According to Bonn, Hofer was
sentenced to death in January. Tehran has implicitly confirmed the death
sentence.
The Iranian human rights commission on Tuesday, said the judgement
was "unassailable" and "conforms fully to the judicial standards" of Iran.
Hofer is being held at Evin prison in Tehran.
Punch-Up in Iranian Parliament, BBC, March 18
Two deputies in the Iranian parliament, the Majlis, have been
involved in a fight in the parliamentary chamber, throwing the session
into chaos for several minutes.
The trouble broke out when a deputy started chanting slogans and
advancing towards the Interior Minister, Abdollah Nuri, who had been
explaining why he had allowed a rally by the Freedom Movement to go ahead.
Another deputy then intervened and blows were exchanged before
order was restored.
[In a report today, Reuter said that Khatami's Interior Ministry,
"which does not have control over the police, has been unable to protect
the meetings, which it has authorized, from attacks by hardline militants.
The attacks have drawn little reaction from police forces, which are under
supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei's command.]
Iranian Rial Continues To Falter Against Dollar, Reuter, March 18
The value of the Iranian rial on Tehran's illegal but active
currency market has continued to lose ground against the U.S. dollar.
The Persian-language Farda newspaper on Wednesday reported the
rial had weakened to 5,250 rials to the dollar, compared to the official
rate of 3,000 offered by state banks and 1,750 used to calculate state
budgets.
In early January, street currency traders were quoting a rate of
4,800 rials to the dollar.
The rial is now at its softest level since 1995 when U.S.
President Bill Clinton announced unilateral sanctions against Iran.
The rial has come under pressure from oil prices which are at
their lowest level in nine years, threatening to undermine the Iranian
economy which relies on petroleum exports for more than 80 percent of its
hard currency earnings.
Friday, March 6, 1998
Khamenei, Khatami Call for Rally at Haj Against U.S., Infidels, Reuter,March 5
Showdown Between Regime's Factions, Reuter, March
..."Khatami has no direct control over the police, the military,
the judiciary and in major domestic and foreign policy has to acknowledge
the power of (Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali) Khamenei," said one Western
diplomat....
Conservative factions continue to wield great power over the
judiciary and other important levers of state control.
Their loyalty to Khamenei, the successor to Khomeini who ousted
the U.S.- backed shah in 1979, and to revolutionary principles remains
undiluted 19 years on.
Powerful bazaar merchants and the landowners who bank-rolled the
revolutionaries of 1979 show little willingness to cede privileges and
monopolies which economists see as vital to shake up a staggering,
state-dominated economy.
The force of the conservatives has been seen in the judicial
investigation into Tehran mayor Gholamhossein Karbaschi and his aides,
which has provoked at least one Khatami cabinet member, Interior Minister
Abdollah Nouri, to lash out at the head of the judiciary, Mohammad Yazdi.
Conservatives have already succeeded in getting some of the
mayor's aides sentenced to jail and flogging.
[The National Council of Resistance of Iran issued a statement and
stated that Wednesday's remarks by mullah Abdollah Noori affirm that the
escalation of feuding among the mullahs has reached the point of no
return. There are also reports of deepening crisis among various factions
of the regime in Isfahan. The city is tense and clashes take place
sporadically. A group of bazaar merchants in Isfahan have announced that
they will stage a sit-in on Saturday.
Journalist Given Three Months in Jail for Criticism, Agence France Presse,March 5
An Iranian journalist has been sentenced to three months in prison
and placed on probation for "disturbing" public opinion, the official IRNA
news agency said.
Ganji, the director of the literary monthly Rah-e-No (New Way) and
former journalist for Kian cultural review, has been held since December 6
with no explanation from the authorities.
He was reportedly picked up after a speech he made in the southern
city of Shiraz.
His trial was held in secret and the sentencing was based on the
Islamic law of Sharia .
Iranian Soccer Rejects Exhibition Matches in US, Agence France Presse,March 5
The Iranian soccer team has turned down an invitation to play
exhibition matches in the United States before the World Cup...
The US and Iranian teams were drawn into the same group along with
Germany and Yugoslavia for the World Cup finals in France and they will
face each other in Lyon on June 21.
Smuggling of Jet Parts to Iran Discovered, The Associated Press, March 5
Two men were charged with scheming to illegally export engine
parts for F-14 Tomcat fighter jets to Iran.
The two New York men were charged Tuesday with conspiring to
violate the Arms Export Control Act. If convicted, each could face at
least five years in prison.
Earlier this week, a New Jersey aviation vendor was arrested on
suspicion of plotting to export batteries illegally to Iran for long-range
missiles used on Tomcat fighter jets.
Thursday, March 5, 1998
Political Fever Grips Iran Ahead of By- Elections, Agence France Presse,March 4
Frenzied political activity has returned to Iran ahead of
legislative by-elections which have pitted the two main factions of the
Islamic republic against each other in a bitter confrontation.
The rivalry turned violent on Monday when hardliners attacked
3,000 Islamic students gathered in front of Tehran university.... Several
people were wounded in the clashes and scores more arrested.
Interior Minister Abdollah Nuri, a cleric close to Khatami,
condemned the attack and vowed to help bring fundamentalist "agitators' to
justice....
Several MPs and officials, including Culture Minister and
government spokesman Ataollah Mohajerani, have also condemned the
violence....
But the hardliners, backed by the conservative press, defended
their attack, accusing the students of seeking to undermine the legal
institutions of the Islamic theocracy....
The Council [of Guardians] said Wednesday it had rejected 118 of
the 229 people who had signed up for the polls, which will elect five
deputies from Tehran and the provinces.
In the capital alone, 82 people were rejected after tight
screening to ensure candidates meet the political, moral and ideological
requirements of the Islamic regime....
Interior Minister Harshly Attacks Top Judge for First Time, Reuter, March 4
Iran's Interior Minister Abdollah Nouri on Wednesday launched a
rare attack on the country's top judge for an alleged campaign against a
key political supporter of Khatami.
Nouri, appointed by Khatami to his cabinet last August, said an
investigation Ayatollah Mohammad Yazdi, head of the judiciary, was
carrying out into Tehran mayor Gholamhossein Karbaschi and his aides was
misplaced....
Iranian analysts and journalists said that Nouri's comments were a
clear warning to the judiciary to lay off Karbaschi, one of the
president's closest advisers.
In last Friday's prayer sermon broadcast on Tehran radio, Yazdi
denounced the mayor's aides....
Nouri responded at Wednesday's news conference: "I recommend to
Yazdi that when he makes speeches he should speak more cautiously...the
head of judiciary must not be contradictory and bring anxiety into the
system," according to an unofficial translation of his comments....
Karbaschi's top aides have been jailed and received flogging
sentences for graft. A closed court last year banned the mayor himself
from travelling abroad and only freed him on bail of five billion rials
($1.7 million).
Nouri made it clear he backed Karbaschi and his aides....
Ever since the May election, Karbaschi has been in the firing line
of conservatives who lost out at the polls but still control large parts
of the Islamic justice system and many other levers of power....
There Is Still Time To Prevent Nightmare, The Jerusalem Post, March 4
... Today, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu's adviser Uzi Arad
begins talks with US special envoy Robert Gallucci regarding ongoing
efforts to convince Russia to clamp down on the transfer of missile
technology to Iran....
Also today, Industry and Trade Minister Natan Sharansky returns
from his meetings with Russian leaders on this same subject. On his second
visit as a minister...Sharansky warned that "we have a very serious time
limit" in which to stop the Iranian missile program....
After going to the brink of war with Iraq in order to prevent
Saddam Hussein from developing weapons of mass destruction, it is somewhat
bizarre that the US seems reluctant to use economic tools to accomplish
the same goal in Iran....
There is still time to prevent the security nightmare of an
aggressive Iranian regime armed with missiles that can reach both Israel
and Europe....
Ukraine Designing Turbines For Iran Nuclear Plant, Reuter, March 4
KIEV-A Ukrainian state-owned factory that makes equipment for
atomic power stations has begun work on designing a turbine for Iran's
first nuclear plant, Interfax-Ukraine news agency said on Wednesday.
The reported project appeared to fly in the face of U.S.
opposition to any foreign assistance for Iran's fledgling nuclear power
program on the grounds that this could help Tehran develop atomic weapons.
Ukraine's neighbor Russia has been under heavy U.S. pressure to
sever its energy links with Iran, which the Americans regard as a rogue
state that sponsors terrorism and seeks to build up a nuclear arsenal....
Tuesday, March 3, 1998
Dozens Killed In Border Clash: Iranian Opposition, Agence France Presse,March 2
BAGHDAD - Dozens of fighters were killed as Iranian forces
launched a cross-border attack on opposition bases inside Iraq, in the
biggest such raid for several years, Iran's main armed opposition group
said Monday.
The People's Mujahedeen said five of its fighters were killed as
well as "dozens of enemy agents" after Iranian Revolutionary Guards
militiamen and interior ministry forces launched the attack on Sunday.
The raid targeted two Mujahedeen bases near the small Iraqi town
of Tarsaq along the central sector of the border, it said. The bases were
attacked with 82mm mortars...
It said the confrontation spread over an area of 150 square
kilometers (60 square miles) and "turned into hand-to-hand combat at some
points" before the Iranian forces retreated back across the border.
"Despite their large numbers, the Guards suffered heavy casualties
... The corpses of several of them were scattered on the scene and others
were transferred into Iran," it said in a statement.
A source at the Iraq-based opposition group said it was the
biggest Iranian attack in the border region "for several years."
In a simultaneous attack on Sunday, Iranian forces fired RPG-18
rockets at a patrol of the People's Mujahedeen near the city of Kut, also
along the central sector of the border, the Mujahedeen said.
The Mujahedeen "opened fire on the terrorists who fled before
firing all their rockets. None of the rockets hit their targets and none
of the combatants was harmed," it said.
On September 29, Iranian warplanes attacked Mujahedeen bases
inside Iraq, triggering a protest from Baghdad which called for the
lifting of a Western-patrolled "no-fly zone" over the south of the
country.
[Also, a statement by the Mojahedin said: "Twelve hours after the
Mojahedin announced the attack, the mullahs' regime admitted the outbreak
of extensive clashes saying that three forces including the regime's
military troops, the State Security Forces, and the Intelligence Ministry
agents had participated in this operation.
"The clerical regime also admitted that one of its top torturers
and head of the Intelligence Ministry's prison, Hossein Hosseinzadeh, had
been killed."]
Now Regime Tortures Its Own, Agence France Presse, March 2
TEHRAN - Accusations by Tehran city officials that they were
tortured in police detention have for the first time publicly sullied the
reputations of two pillars of the Islamic republic, the police and the
courts.
The accusations have taken on an unprecedented political dimension
since they were made last week by municipal officials during a meeting
with parliamentary deputies close to Iranian President Mohammad
Khatami....
The storm over the torture charges is the latest chapter in the
ongoing battle between religious conservatives and the controversial mayor
of Tehran, whom the conservatives consider their bete noire....
The public scandal over the police and court system again shows
the intensity of the political struggle being waged here between the two
principal political-religious factions in Iran's Islamic government.
The police are under the control of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the
supreme leader of the Islamic republic. Khamenei delegated that power to
the interior minister of the previous conservative government, but has not
done so with the new interior minister, Abdollah Nuri....
Clash of Regime's Supporters Near Tehran University, Reuter, March 2
TEHRAN - Students loyal to Iranian President Mohammad Khatami
clashed with hardliners outside Tehran University on Monday, prompting
security forces to make arrests and disperse a crowd approaching 5,000
people.
Clashes broke out when hardline members of the Ansar-e Hezbollah
group tried to disrupt a rally by students affiliated with Daftar-e Tahkim
Vahdat (Office to Foster Unity) and the Islamic Society of University
Students....
Tension broke out when around 15 members of Ansar-e Hezbollah,
which tends to reflect conservative opinion in the Islamic republic,
pushed into the crowd and shouted "Death to liberals," ...
Daftar-e Tahkim staged the rally to protest against the rejection
of their candidates to run in coming parliamentary by-elections, the
official IRNA news agency reported. The by-elections, scheduled for March
15, are expected to become a major showdown between... factions....
Monday, March 2, 1998
Stoning in Iran, The Washington Times, February 27
The condemned are wrapped head to foot in white shrouds and buried
up to their waists.
Then the stoning begins. The stones are specifically chosen so
they are large enough to cause pain, but not so large as to kill the
condemned immediately. They are guaranteed a slow, torturous death.
Sometimes their children are forced to watch. Their offense is usually
adultery.
This is capital punishment Iranian style, even under the so-
called moderate new president, Mohammed Khatami.
Two members of Congress this week helped expose the continued
savage practice under the new government when they showed a video of a
recent public stoning. The video was smuggled out of the country by
supporters of the Iranian resistance...
Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, Florida Republican, called stoning
"inhumane, cruel and degrading."
"It is important to note that at least seven persons have been
stoned to death in public during the tenure of the Iranian regime's new
president. Four of these victims have been women," she said.
Rep. Gary L. Ackerman, New York Democrat, called Iran the "world's
worst violator of human rights."
"This savagery sanctioned by the Khatami government proves that
the moderation of the Iranian regime is but a mirage," he said....
Meeting Beteen Khatami And UN Human Rights Chief Cancelled, Agence France
Presse, March 1
TEHRAN - A meeting between Iranian President Mohammad Khatami and
UN human rights commissioner Mary Robinson was cancelled at the last
minute on Sunday, a presidential spokesman said.
The conservative newspaper Farda said the meeting was cancelled by
the Iranian foreign ministry in protest at comments about human rights in
Iran by Robinson's spokesman John Mills. Mills was quoted by the press
here as saying Robinson would discuss alleged violations of human rights
in the Islamic republic during her stay.
Torture Reported by Khatami's Faction, Reuter, February 27
Iran's top judge on Friday denounced city officials close to
President Mohammad Khatami for alleging that they were tortured during
detention on corruption charges.
Head of judiciary Ayatollah Mohammad Yazdi said the Tehran
district mayors, who backed Khatami's election campaign last year, could
face prosecution for saying after their trials that they had been tortured
and kept in long solitary confinement.
Commentary Economy Threatened by Falling Oil Prices Agence France Presse,
February 27
The Iranian economy, heavily dependent on oil exports, is
suffering from the fall in crude prices, as the country goes through a
deep recession.
The Iranian currency, the rial, has already fallen by around five
to seven percent against major currencies on the black market in reaction
to the plunge in oil prices.
The dollar which traded around 4,700 rials until two months ago
has now approached 5,000 rials and "the drop in oil prices could further
push down the rial in the coming days," the English-language newspaper
Iran News said Thursday.
The government had initially calculated to earn 17.5 dollars from
the sale of each barrel of crude in its draft budget for next year, but
the parliament reduced the figure to 16 dollars.
Many experts still dispute the target price as "unrealistic." "Our
officials are unable to properly assess the economic realities of the
international oil market," the Iran News complained.
The Iranian economy is already going through a recession, prompted
by a series of protectionist measures taken by the central bank to check
soaring inflation. Inflation, according to official figures, has dropped
to 20 percent, but at the cost of a halt to many development projects and
a sharp drop in investment.
To compensate for falling oil revenues, the government has also
taken measures to encourage non-oil exports, which are also stagnant
leading to a crisis in the industrial and agricultural sectors.
The current recession has further cut the public's purchasing
power in a country where average salaries are below 100 dollars a month.
Kar-Kargar, a newspaper representing state labor unions, said the
average family in big cities faced a budget deficit of 23 percent.
The economy is the greatest challenge facing the new government of
President Mohammad Khatami, who was elected in a landslide in May
promising economic prosperity.
But few expect a miracle from a government which runs around 85
percent of the economy, plagued with inefficiency and corruption.
The private sector has shown little interest in investing given
strict labor laws, red tape and government regulations which keep
changing.
"Our officials continue to gloss over economic realities, lack
proper planning and they wait for a miracle to happen," said the Iran
News.
Friday, February 27, 1998
Iranian Resistance Demands Cancellation of Dini's Trip to Tehran, Iran
Zamin News Agency, February 26
The National Council of Resistance of Iran issued a statement
today and strongly condemned the scheduled trip by Italy's Foreign
Minister Lamberto Dini to Tehran, and demands that it be canceled
immediately. Shaking hands with the officials of the mullahs' religious,
terrorist dictatorship runs counter to the highest interests of the
Iranian people.
The statement said that: In its April meeting in Luxembourg, the
European Union made any progress or improvement in relations contingent
upon the clerical regime's respect for "international law" and its
refraining from terrorism. Since then at least 24 Iranian dissidents have
been assassinated abroad by the mullahs' death squads.
In 1997, alone, more than 200 persons were executed in public. No
less than 138 of them, including seven who were stoned, were executed
during Khatami's tenure.
The NCR said that Western countries' trade and political ties with
the Iranian regime have effectively helped Iran's ruling theocracy to
continue its crimes against the Iranian people and persist in its enmity
to peace and tranquillity in the region.
Engulfed in acute political, economic, and social crises, and
unable to confront the growing popular resistance, the clerical regime is
devoid of any legitimacy among the people of Iran. Any political and
economic investment in this regime is doomed to fail. The growth of
popular uprisings and expansion of students and workers' protests in
recent months attest to this truth.
Iranian MP's Son Detained over Links with Dissident Cleric, Agence France
Presse, February 26
The son of an outspoken Iranian MP was briefly detained for having
links with a dissident cleric, Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri, a
newspaper reported Thursday.
The English-language Iran News said Ali Movahedi-Savoji...had
confirmed newspaper reports that his son had been arrested in Montazeri's
office....
Movahedi-Savoji, who has been an MP in all of the five assemblies
convened since the 1979 Islamic revolution, is a staunch conservative...
He is...hostile to Montazeri, whom he accuses of being manipulated by the
liberal opposition.
Montazeri, 75, the former designated successor of the late Iranian
leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, angered the conservatives in November
after he attacked supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei....
