FDI's Weekly Newswire

The life and [troubled] times of the Islamic Republic of Iran

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FDI WEEKLY NEWSWIRE NO 18

Sept. 02, 1996

Ayatollah Rouhani said that Turkey has "dreamed and aspired to signing such a deal" with Iran since the 1970s. He criticized the lower-than-market price Turkey would pay for Iranian natural gas. "To retain authoritarian power, the Iranian regime is ready to not only squander all the national resources, but also the very interests of the Iranian people and nation."

Rouhani, who is the spiritual leader of the Shiite community in Europe, said that Iranians who know the details of the contract "can find no legitimate value with this contract." [Iran Brief 9/2]

Baha'is deported from Turkey

Twenty-one Iranians, twenty of whom were members of the Baha'i faith, "disappeared" at the Turko-Iranian border on August 7, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees reported, after the Iranians had been told in Ankara to file their requests for political asylum with the border authorities. According to eyewitness accounts, a Turkish police bus carrying the asylum seekers was seen that morning at the border town of Agri, heading for Maku, Iran with the 21 Iranians on board. The bus returned empty to Agri that evening.

A Turkish businessman who had been at the border that evening said he had witnessed a group of about 20 persons being deported by the Turkish police. His attention was drawn to the incident by the crying and screaming of the women and children, who begged the Turkish officers not to send them back to Iran.

The Baha'is had approached the UNHCR in Ankara on August 6, seeking political asylum, but were told that they had to report to the Turkish authorities at the nearest police station to their point of entry, which was Agri. To assure the group's safety during the trip to the border, the UNHCR informed the Turkish Ministry of Interior about their travel plans.

The Turkish authorities, however, have denied any knowledge of the incident, which is still under investigation by the UNHCR. Ankara has told the UNHCR that the Turkish government has "no policy" requiring the expulsion of asylum seekers, and that such decisions are usually taken by the border police, who have been granted sweeping powers of arrest, expulsion, and "hot pursuit" across the borders after suspected terrorists.

As members of an outlawed faith, the deported Baha'is face imprisonment and possible death sentences in Iran. The Foundation for Democracy in Iran has protested the deportation to the Turkish authorities, and has called on the government of the Islamic Republic not to persecute the returned deportees because of their faith or their attempt to seek political aslyum. [FDI Action Memorandum 8/31; The Iran Brief 9/2]

Rafsanjani aid blasts PLO, praises Hamas

A top Rafsanjani aid, Ataollah Mohajerani, blasted the PLO and praised Hamas and Islamic Jihad, in an Aug. 20 meeting in Tehran with the Palestinian ambassador.

Mohajerani, who is vice president of the Islamic Republic for parliamentary affairs and also heads the "Special Committee for the Support of the Palestinian Cause," called the PLO a "betrayer" of the Palestinian people. "By denying their true rights, and by the torture and intimidation of Palestinian fighters, the PLO is playing into the hands of the Zionists," he was quoted as saying.

But Mohajerani was all praise for Hamas and Islamic Jihad, and noted that "the intifada is spreading" despite Arafat's attempts to prevent stone-throwing youths from attacking Israelis. "This movement will be the decisive factor in the fate of the Palestinians," Mohajerani said.

It was unclear whether he was meeting with the PLO representative to Tehran, or with a representative of the rival groups. [Kayhan International, 8/19]

Three men hanged, fourth reprieved

Three men were hanged and a fourth reprieved as he stood on the scaffold inside Tehran's Qasr prison with the noose around his neck on Aug 21.

Ahmad Reza Papar, 21, watched as three other prisoners were hanged before his eyes. When his turn came, the executioner put the noose around his neck... and then the parents of the victim he had been convicted of murdering agreed to pardon him, and he was brought down from the scaffold.

Under the Islamic Republic's unique judicial code, the family members of a murder victim may "forgive" a murderer by accepting blood money in payment for his crime.

The name of the three other hanged men were not released, nor were their alleged crimes described. [Kayhan, 8/22]. A subsequent account of the execution, appearing in Jomhouri-e Eslami two days later, failed to mention Papar's reprieve and said that four men had been hanged that day.

Islamic CDs to counter satanic software

The Islamic Republic authorities have announced they will soon be producing CD-ROM video games, to counter "corrupt Western computer games."

"One of the aspects of [western] cultural assault against our Islamic values is a computer assault. The enemy is targeting us with its ominous and anti-cultural software," said Mohammad Hussein Ali-Mohammadi, head of the Islamic Revolution Cultural Documentation Organization. "Our youth has been singled out as the target of this campaign."

Ali-Mohammadi's organization claims to have produced computer video games and CD-ROMs inspired by scenes from the "Imposed War," the 1980-1988 conflict between Iran and Iraq. With texts in Farsi, Arabic, and English, the new CD-ROMs will be released on the anniversary of the outbreak of the war in September. [Kayhan 8/20]

Rafsanjani defeats sanctions

President Hashemi-Rafsanjani has won the battle against U.S. sanctions single-handed, a top aid said in a recent speech, because of his "brilliant leadership."

Speaking in Zanjan, the capital of the northwestern province of the same name, Deputy Minister of Information and Security, Hojjat-ol eslam Pour-Mohammadi said that Rafsanjani's leadership had so thoroughly defeated U.S. plots to isolate Iran that the Islamic Republic "has succeeded in joining the main centers of influence on the international scene in political and cultural issues.... Today, even U.S. allies have discovered that they can't ignore Iran, or sever ties with it."

This tremendous turn-around in the international stature of the Islamic Republic was the result of the "amazing reconstruction process undertaken through the brilliant leadership of President Hashemi-Rafsanjani," he added.

The comments from this top intelligence official appear to be part of a campaign currently underway in official circles in Iran, to refurbish Rafsanjani's image after the drubbing he took in this spring's Majlis elections. [Jomhouri-e Eslami, 8/24]

Party-goers fined, whipped, and jailed

Law Enforcement Force agents raided a house in Shemiran, a northern Tehran suburb, and arrested 28 teen-agers on charges of attending a "nocturnal party," Kayhan reported on Aug 24.

The paper said the LEF was alerted by a "popular report," Hezbollahi jargon for a complaint call by a neighbor.

The youths, aged between 17 and 20, were quickly sentenced by an Islamic judge. All of them received 10 lashes and a fine of 100,000 rials (around $33). Three of them were given unspecified jail terms. The owner of the house where they party took place, who was also the mother of one of the arrested girls, was also arrested and fined 500,000 rials ($166).

The LEF "found and confiscated music records, unauthorized cassette tapes, compact discs, and 41 corrupt video cassettes," Kayhan reported.

While such raids have long been a familiar feature of life under the Islamic Republic, the authorities have stepped up the pressure in recent months, apparently in an effort to instill fear into the population. [Kayhan 8/24]

Shirazi supporters released, others still held

Faced with international pressure from groups including the Foundation for Democracy in Iran and Amnesty International, the Islamic Republic released ten supporters of Grand Ayatollah Mohammad Shirazi. However, 18 other followers, including two of Grand Ayatollah Shirazi's sons, still remain in prison and face stiff sentences from the Special court of the Clergy, which is headed by former Intelligence Minister Ali Akbar Rayshahri.

Of particular concern is the health of Grand Ayatollah Yaqoubodin Rastaghari, aged 70, who was abducted from his home in Qom in February 1996. Ayatollah Rastaghari was reported taken to a Tehran hospital at the end of August to receive medical attention for injuries caused by torture.

Like the supporters of Grand Ayatollah Shirazi, Rastaghari is a political prisoner who has been jailed because of his public refusal to accept the authorities of Ayatollah Khamene'i. A follower of the late Grand Ayatollah Shari'at Madaari, Rastaghari has been arrested on several previous occasions, and received a 30-month prison sentence shortly after Shari'at Madaari's death in 1986 for holding a memorial service. Shortly after his release, he was arrested again on charges of holding a public prayer service at a mosque in Qom without a government permit.

Rastaghari has publicly disputed the right of the regime to control the clergy, and has rejected the Special court for the Clergy, which he claims "relies on terror and unlimited powers" granted it by the Islamic Republic authorities.

A statement from the Supporters of the Iranian Muslim Nation, an exile group close to the dissident clergy inside Iran, said that Rastaghari had been kept in an unheated room with iron walls during the winter and had also been held in an unlit underground cell with a hole in the ceiling, through which hot, thick smoke billowed. He had also been prevented from sleeping for long periods. [Statement from the Supporters of the Iranian Muslim Nation, 8/26; FDI Action Memorandum 8/12;

INP activist jailed

An activist belonging to the outlawed Iran Nation's Party has been arrested in the city of Kermanshah in northwestern Iran, a statement issued by the INP in Tehran said.

The activist, Sepehr Sanjabi, is the nephew of the well-known Iranian nationalist figure Dr. Karim Sanjabi, who played an instrumental role in the 1979 revolution against the Shah.

According to the INP, Sepehr Sanjabi had earlier been harassed and beaten by agents of Iran's Intelligence Ministry while participating in the annual memorial service held in honor of his uncle on July 4. The INP said he was arrested on Sunday evening, Aug. 25 at his home in Kermanshah, bordering Kurdistan province.

In addition to heading the INP's youth organization in Kermanshah, Sepehr Sanjabi was also a prominent leader of the Sanjabi tribe, a Kurdish tribe in Kermanshah province.

The INP's youth organization serves as a recruitment vehicle for the party in its efforts to build networks of supporters and sympathizers across Iran. The INP is led by Darioush Forouhar, who briefly served as Labor Minister in the Barzargan government in 1979. [The Iran Brief, 9/2; INP statement 8/26]

Sanjabi went on a hunger strike on Saturday, Aug. 31, vowing that he would not stop until he was released or he died. The INP youth organization announced on Sept. 1 that it would stage a peaceful demonstration on Azadi avenue in downtown Kermanshah on Wednesday, Sept. 4 in support of Sanjabi, and that "it was up to the regime to decide whether the demonstration remained peaceful or not." [INP statement, 9/1].

200 spies and saboteurs behind bars

The Ministry of Information and Security has captured more than 200 "spies and saboteurs," officials said, who were spying against the Islamic Republic on behalf of the U.S., Iraq, Israel, and unidentified "other" countries.

MOIS boss Hojjatol-eslam Ali Fallahian told IRNA that over the past twelve months his organization has arrested 137 spies and saboteurs, capturing "huge amounts of weapons and ammunition," including ten bombs.

In a separate statement, the local MOIS boss for East Azerbaijan province announced that another 42 people had been arrested on charges of spreading Pan-Turkish and separatist propaganda. (In an apparent sop to the new Islamist government of Necmeddin Erkaban, Turkey was not named as one of the countries running spy rings in Iran).

Fallahian also claimed that 69 foreign currency smuggling rings, and 100 arms smuggling networks had been dismantled, with the authorities seizing $6 million in cash and large quantities of arms.

Akbar daily reported on Aug. 25 that "several counter-revolutionaries who intended to bomb banks and other public places" were arrested in northern Mazandaran province. The paper quoted an unidentified intelligence official in the province as saying the group called itself "Kaveh," and had been distributing leaflets denouncing the Islamic regime. The "saboteurs" were arrested some time in July, the paper said, in possession of explosives "which they were intending to place in banks and other economic centers." The same official noted that a separate spy ring had been arrested in the province, but gave no further details.

The name "Kaveh" suggests that those arrested did not belong to the Mujahidin-e Khalq, but were instead a nationalist group. [IRNA 8/29; Akbar 8/25]

Drug smugglers executed

Two men accused of being tied to the "main drug dealer of Shiraz" were publicly executed in Shiraz recently, Kayhan reported. The two men, Ghahreman Bahmani and Ali Jamshidi, had been arrested in June in possession of large quantities of drugs, said the Rev. Guards commander for Fars province, Bahram Nowrouzi.

Nowrouzi said that Bahmani and Jamshidi were tied to Hamid Naroui, whom he presented as the "main drug dealer of Shiraz. Naroui was killed in a clash with security forces earlier this year, he said. [Kayhan 8/24]

Iran to get Russian satellite

The Islamic Republic not only gets submarines and nuclear power plants from Russia; now the two countries have signed a major new technology transfer agreement, that will give Iran access to significant military and aerospace technology, including an "educational" satellite, Iran's ambassador to Moscow told the Tehran daily, Iran.

Ambassador Mehdi Safari told the paper that under this latest deal, Iran's first "educational" satellite would be launched into space within the next three years.

Russia will train Iranian aerospace technicians in Russia, and at a later stage send Russian space scientists to train Iranians at Isfahan's Sheikh Bahai University. [Iran daily 8/27]

"No right to say we are not free"

Stepped up pressure on the Iranian media has taken its toll, even among the official press.

In its column devoted to reader's comments, Salam daily made an astonishing avowal recently. When a reader complained he was "unsatisfied" because the paper has watered down its political commentary, and has ceased publishing the harsh criticism of the regime that used to appear in its popular column, "Hello Salam," the paper replied: "We are not satisfied either. But we do not have the right to say we are not free."

"Hello Salam" used to print uncensored comments readers had left on the newspapers telephone answering machine, some of which were highly critical of the regime. [Salam 7/20]

FDI's Weekly Newswire

FDI WEEKLY NEWSWIRE NO 18

Sept. 02, 1996

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