FDI Board member Ayatollah Dr. Mehdi Rouhani was received by a senior State Department official on Jan. 17, in a 90 minute meeting that focused on U.S. policy toward the Islamic Republic and the clerical opposition to the Tehran regime.
The senior official reassured Dr. Rouhani that the United States was not in the process of "making a deal" with Tehran, as some pro-Tehran Iranian exiles have suggested. Instead, he reiterated Washington's long-standing offer to hold a public dialogue with the regime on subjects including the regime's support for international terrorism, its violent opposition to the peace process, its nuclear weapons program, and its human rights record.
Dr. Rouhani explained that for most of Iran's senior religious authorities, the regime "lost its legitimacy" with the death of Ayatollah Khomeini in 1989. "The ruling clerics have betrayed Islam, and they have betrayed the Iranian people," he said. He called Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamene'i "a small time preacher," and argued that the clergy should leave government to more competent professionals. "Ayatollah Khomeini was very good at destroying a regime - the regime of the Shah - but he was totally incapable of constructing a new regime. That job should be left to individuals who have specific competence, not the clergy," he said.
Dr. Rouhani called on the Clinton administration to maintain a tough U.S. policy toward the Islamic Republic, "to give time to opponents of the regime both inside Iran and abroad." The opposition was not seeking direct U.S. help, or U.S. intervention, he said, "only moral support and a halt to trade that benefits the regime. The Iranian people are hoping for a sign from the United States to show its support for freedom and democracy in Iran."
During his brief visit to Washington last week, Dr. Rouhani met with representatives from Congress and the Executive Branch, as well as with journalists and prominent academics. He also addressed a forum hosted by the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs, a conservative think tank.
Dr. Rouhani's older brother, Grand Ayatollah Sadeq Rouhani, is one of Iran's most respected clerics. He has been under house arrest in Qom since 1985 because of his opposition to the regime. [FDI press release, 1/20]
The Movement for Security, Justice, and Progress, a Paris-based exile movement headed by Ali Farasati, held a conference on Jan. 19 in Paris, to analyze the political background and intentions of various opposition groups and individuals active on the Iranian political scene.
The meeting was the first of a series of seminars, Farasati said, aimed at "taking a closer look at the background and achievements of various oppositions groups."
The Jan. 19 meeting focused on the ideology, background, and achievements of the MKO. Farasati is a former member of the Mujahidin who has been publicly reviled by the organization for allegedly collaborating with the regime.
Among those invited were Eslame Kazamieh, an aide to former Prime Minister Ali Amini in Paris, journalist Ali Reza Nourizadeh, Fereidoun Gilani, Dr. Nasr Ahmadi, and Ms. Nadereh Afshar, who addressed the issue of the role of women within the MKO. [Kayhan London 1/16/97]
In his address, Dr. Farasati said "at this point in time it is more important to leave our political, ideological, and ethnic differences aside, and set our priority on peace and unity" among the different opposition factions. Dr. Farasati said his position was the "revival of a notion" held dear by former Prime Minister Ali Amini.
Dr. Farasati said he plans to leave for Iran on Feb. 21, to take part in the coming presidential elections. He did not say, however, whether the Islamic Republic authorities had granted him a visa. [SJP statement, 1/20].
A popular Tehran University professor, Ahmad Tavazoli, was victim of an unsolved hit and run accident last week, according to a statement by the opposition Iran Nation's Party. Tavazoli, who was described by the INP as "a very well known and well-respected scholar... with a national reputation," was found dead next to his own car when he was apparently trying to change the tire. Authorities called it a hit and run accident. [INP statement 1/19]
Students at the Gilan province Teachers University have sent an open letter to the Deputy Minster of Education, alleging that money earmarked for their university has been misappropriated by university officials. Although they provided no specific examples in their letter, the students claimed that university officials had diverted funds for their own personal use. [INP statement 1/19]
Supporters of Dr. Manoucher Gandji's Organization for Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms in Iran (OHRFFI) met in Paris from Jan. 16-18, to map out their plans for action against the Tehran regime. The leadership conference brought together eighty representatives from Pakistan, Egypt, Israel, Germany, France, the UK, Sweden, Norway, and the United States, as well as representatives of OHRFFI cells operating inside Iran.
Dr. Gandji said the past 18 years have proven there "is no such thing as a moderate faction" within the regime, "only factional conflict within the regime." "The regime's leaders continue to brand those advocating moderation, civil society, and respect for human rights as 'hooligan,' 'fascists,' and 'foreign agents.'"
The regime's use of Islam as a tool to maintain power was also highlighted by Dr. Gandji. "What we have in Iran is not an orthodox Islamic regime but a totalitarian regime fashioned after communist and fascist dictatorships," Dr. Gandji said.
After two days of debate, the group called on all Iranians inside Iran "to continue their struggle" against the regime, "and to be mindful of the importance of organized resistance, unity, and solidarity in their struggle for pfreedom and justice." The group called on Iranians in exile "to work toward unity among themselves and to support and help Iranians inside in their struggle against the regime."
The group argued that it was the duty of Iranian exiles to "inform the world of the daily atrocities being committed against the Iranian people. They must demand that Western democracies acting in consort ... bring the pressure of world public opinion against it, to undermine its hold on the country and the tools of power."
Finally, the group called on "all democratic nations to support the Iranian people's struggle... It is in the long term interests of democratic governments around the world to politically and economically isolate the mullahs and impose effective sanctions against them."
"Iran will be freed by Iranians supporting democracy and pluralism. We will remember friend and foe during these turbulant years in the history of our nation. We will never forget those who have supported our people's just struggle in these difficult days and will not forget those who are thinking of nothing other than making a few million dollars more at the cost of the blood and enslavement of our people." [OHRFFI, 1/17]
More supporters of Grand Ayatollah Mohammad Shirazi have been arrested in Qom, according to friends and supporters living in exile. Hojjat-ol eslam Seyed Hussein Faali, 50, was arrested on Jan. 14, 1997 and his home searched. According to supporters, he was blind-folded and beaten in the presence of his family, before security officials took him away to an undisclosed destination. His whereabouts remain unknown.
Seyed Faali had previously received separate one-year and three-year prison terms for his relationship to Grand Ayatollah Shirazi. At least nine of his family members have been jailed, tortured, or sent into exile since 1979. [Supporters of the Iranian Muslim Nation, 1/17]
Also arrested in a separate incident on the same day in Qom was Hojjat-ol eslam Shaikh Amin Ghafoori, 50, along with his wife. The two were handcuffed on the streets, blind-folked, and taken back to their home, where they were beaten in front of their children. [Supporters... 1/16]
There have been unconfirmed reports that other Shirazi supporters have been arrested in recent days in Tehran and in Qom.
A former Mujahidin member, sentenced to 10 years in a British jail on drug-trafficking charges, now faces deportation, but is appealing to the European Court of Human Rights.
The man, identified only as "M.A.R." claimed he would risk of inhumane treatment and possible execution if expelled to Iran
M.A.R. left Iran illegally in December 1981 after becoming known as a political activist supporting the MKO. He was granted refugee status by the UK in March 1982 after intervention by the UNHCR.
But M.A.R. was then convicted on three separate occasions of possessing and/or trafficking in drugs. The Home office recommended he be deported back to Iran after his third conviction in 1988, but the Home Secretary decided not to act.
It was only after his fourth conviction, in June 1988 for selling heroin, that the man was sentenced to 10 years jail and recommended for deportation after his sentence.
M.A.R. was paroled in March 1993, and has been fighting the Home Secretary's deportation order ever since.
He applied to Strasbourg after appeals in Britain failed, but the European Union's Immigration Appeals Tribunal judged that any risk to M.A.R. if expelled to Iran was outweighed by the risk to the British public if he remained in the UK.
The case is unlikely to be heard for another 18 months, with Government lawyers arguing that M.A.R. has not demonstrated any real risk of ill treatment. It was not known whether M.A.R.'s drug-related convictions bore any relationship to suspected Mujahidin drug-trafficking rings. [PA News, 1/17]
"The resistance of the Iranian nation (against Israel) has injected fresh blood into the dried veins of the Palestinian movement," Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamene'i told an audience gathered for Friday prayers at Tehran University last week.
"If the movement of young Palestinians around the borders and inside occupied Palestine continues, then all this peace for which they have sat around tables will turn out meaningless and void and will lead nowhere... Iranians shout in one voice that the usurper Zionist state should leave Palestine," he said. Voices in the crowd answered with chants of "Death to Israel" and "Death to America." Tehran radio 1/17]
The authorities have arrested six persons accused of spying on behalf of foreign countries, IRNA reported from West Azerbaijan province last week.
The official news agency quoted the leading internal security official in West Azerbaijan province as saying the six had confessed to having provided "foreign elements...with films and pictures of strategic and military areas (and) assisting these elements in their sabotage operations." [IRNA, 1/15]
Majlis deputies should overhaul the tax system in the Islamic Republic, a lead editorial in the Tehran Times said last week, because it was pushing government employees below the poverty line.
While Iranian government employees were being hit hard by the taxation system, businessmen were growing richer because of rising prices, the paper said.
"Most government employees live below the poverty line. And some of them have to work at more than one job" to be able to provide for their families, the paper said. Many businessmen, however, "do not face any financial problems but enjoy the bonanza of rising prices every year," the editorial claimed. [Tehran Times 1/14]
Majlis deputies last week approved a bill to earmark 25 billion rials ($14.3 million) of this year's budget for "uncovering and neutralizing the American government's plots and interference in the internal affairs of Islamic Iran."
The budget covers the Iranian year starting on March 21. The Majlis bill calls for the government to use the money to bring suits against Washington at international bodies and to fight a "U.S. cultural invasion," Iran's term for Western cultural influences.
Last year, the Majlis appropriated $20 million to counter alleged U.S. covert action against the Islamic Republic. [Kayhan, 1/14]
It would appear either that the U.S. has scaled back its covert actions budget against Tehran, or it has gotten better at hiding it...
Twenty government officials in a poor suburb of Tehran, including the Mayor, have been arrested for taking bribes, Iran News paper reported last week.
Those arrested included officials responsible for security in the working-class area of Robatkarim, as well as the mayor of Sultanabad, the paper said. "The mayor of the district of Sultan-Abad, whose name was not disclosed, is among those being prosecuted," the paper said. [Iran News, 1/13]
Members of the opposition Mujahidin-e Khalq Organization (MKO) were killed by security forces in a series of border clashes during the first ten days of January, according to government accounts and statements issued by the Iraq-based opposition group.
The Islamic Republic News Agency announced that three MKO rebels had been killed when they tried to enter Iran from a base in Iraq. According to the official account, the two men and one women were chased by local tribesmen into a mine field, where they were killed. [IRNA 1/6/97]
Reuters quoted Islamic Republic officials as saying that two MKO fighters were killed and a third arrested in a separate attack [1/6]. However, in a statement issued by the "command Headquarters of the Mujahedin inside Iran," the group said that "no Mujahedin members were arrested or slain last week in western Iran," and called such reports "a desperate attempt." [NCR statement 1/6/97].
In a separate statement, issued in Baghdad on Jan. 10, the group claimed responsibility for "popular uprisings in different cities in Kermanshah province" in late December, and claimed that "Dozens of Guards and other agents of suppression were killed in Kermanshah, Ilam and Khuzestan provinces. In one of the clashes in Dasht-e Khuzestan, the regime's forces had to use helicopters and armored units for five day to follow and suppress a group of Mujahedin." [NCR statement 1/10/97].
Three days later, the group's news agency acknowledged that six MKO members and 15 sympathizers had been killed during "uprisings," and that many others were "arrested and executed secretly by the regime forces [Iran Zamin News Agency 1/12].
The MKO has been stepped up its media campaign over the past two weeks, and has invited reporters from major U.S. and western media organizations to visit their military training camp in Iraq, perhaps to coincide with a military incursion into Iran. [FDI sources 1/17/97]