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Iranian exiles to protest in Germany
Khatami rally blocked in Mashad
Experimental poll shows youth prefer Khatami
And... Pro-Nateq-Nouri slams Salam
Qom clerics withdraw support from N-N
Opposition groups announce boycott
Nateq-Nouri challenged over UK visit
Presidential outsider calls for exiles' return
Temporary marriages are worse that AIDS
Brother of slain publisher calls for embargo
More on press ban against Tus editor
Tariq-al-Quds maneuvers to begin in the Persian Gulf
120 satellite receivers seized
Velayati is scolded by Tehran daily
Iranians arrested for illegally entering Kuwait
Iranian exiles are planning a protest in front of the Foreign Ministry in Bonn, Germany, on Saturday, April 26, to demand that the European Union take firmer action against the Islamic Republic when the EU meets next week to determine its reaction after the Mykonos trial. The demonstration is being organized by the Constitutionalists Movement of Iran in coordination with other groups, and will involve a variety of opposition movements from across the political spectrum.
A similar demonstration is being organized on April 27 in Los Angeles, in front of the Federal Building in Westwood.
Iranian exiles also plan to demonstration in Luxembourg on April 29th as European Union Foreign Ministers meet to plan future policy toward the Islamic Republic in the wake of the Mykonos case. EU Foreign Ministers Meeting. [CMI press release 4/21]
Inside Iran, demonstrators from the radical Ansar-e Hezbollah group, which is allied to Majlis speaker Nateq-Nouri, blocked a campaign rally in Mashad by presidential candidate Hojj. Mohammad Khatami on Sunday, April 20. Khatami was addressing supporters in the Haze Loghman mosque in Mashad when Ansar-e Hezbollah supporters began chanting "Down with Liberal" and accosting Khatami's supporters. Khatami stopped speaking and left the meeting to avoid violence. In its report on the incident, Salam daily said that windows in the mosque had been broken in the scuffle. [Salam 4/21]
Interviewed by the BBC Farsi service, the former editor of the outlawed Tus daily, Amoli Moghaddam, said that Khatami told his supporters not to confront the Ansar-e Hezbollah demonstrators and left the mosque to avoid further clashes, not wanting to see the presidential elections marred by violence. [BBC Farsi Service 4/21]
An experimental public opinion poll conducted by Salam (which has been supporting the candidacy of former Intelligence Minister Mohammad Reyshari), gave Hojj. Khatami a resounding lead in the presidential elections.
The poll, which was conducted among students and professors at the Medical Sciences Department of Arak University, gave Khatami 62.3% of the vote, as opposed to a mere 17.9% for Nateq-Nouri. Reyshari came in third with close to 9% of the vote. Liberal opposition leaders Ezatollah Sahabi and Ibrahim Yazdi polled 4.4% and 2.6% respectively.
Salam did not explain how the poll was conducted, nor does the paper appear to have used internationally-recognized sampling techniques, so its results cannot be considered of national significance. However, it is significant that a national newspaper published the poll. Some political observers believe that Nateq-Nouri has called out the Ansar-e Hezbollah thugs against Khatami precisely because he is beginning to feel less confident about his chances of victory in May. [Salam 4/21]
Resalat newspaper published an interview with a Pro-Nateq-Nouri Majlis deputy, Ahmad Rasulinezhad, lashed out at Salam of unethical journalism. "During the past few weeks, Salam has published mocking articles based on factional anger and does not conform with journalistic ethics." Rasulinezhad's comments appeared in the pro-Nateq-Nouri daily, Resalat. He also lashed out at Hamshahri, a daily published by the popular (and pro-Rafsanjani/Khatami) mayor of Tehran, Karbaschi. Noting that the paper had been established using public funds, he said it has become "a propaganda pillar for a specific political faction, while not paying enough attention to the Speaker of the Majlis," Nateq-Nouri. He urged the Minister of Culture and Islamic guidance to crack down on the two papers. [Resalat, 4/10]
For initial punishment, Salam was not allowed to send a reporter along with Nateq-Nouri on his official trip to Russia. Asked whether the paper was being blacklisted because of political line, the head of the Nateq-Nouri's parliamentary office replied: "It certainly is. I have no faith in Salam." He also revealed that instead of the parliamentary correspondents who usually cover the Majlis speakerÕs visits, newspaper editors were invited to Moscow, so that "Nateq-NouriÕs trip will be presented very well on the front pages." [Salam, 4/8]
Adding to Nateq-Nouri's woes was the surprise announcement by two important members of the Society of the Professors of the Qom Religious School, that their influential religious society would remain neutral in the elections, instead of backing Nateq-Nouri, as previously expected.
Ayatollah Seyed Jafar Karimi told Kar va Kargar newspaper while on pilgrimage to Mecca that the Society "is not a political party to declare candidates for the presidential elections.... We have come to the conclusion that is better to remain neutral the coming election. The prestige of our Society is more important than introducing someone as a candidate." [Kar va Kargar 4/21]
In a separate statement, another member of the society, Hojj. Masoudi, said the group would soon hold a meeting "to decide about our final recommendations regarding the presidential elections." [Ettelaat International 4/22]
The radical Rouhaniat Mobarez in Tehran is officially backing Nateq-Nouri, and traditionally has very good relations with the Qom Society, making Ayatollah Karimi's profession of neutrality all the more significant.
A union of four opposition groups based inside Iran has invited Iranians to boycott the upcoming presidential elections. The group, known as the Union of National Iranian Parties and Forces, is comprised of the Iran Nation's Party, the Labor Party of Iran, the Movement for Freedom of Iran, and the People's Party of Iran. In a statement issued in Tehran on April 16, they called it a "national duty" of Iranians to boycott the elections, which they claimed were not democratic and "do not adhere to the freedoms guaranteed in the constitution of the Islamic Republic." [UNIPF statement 4/16]
Majlis speaker Nateq-Nouri has come under intense fire in recent weeks, following public exposure of a secret trip to London by one of his top advisors, Dr. Mohammad Javad Larijani.
Larijani's early April trip to London and meeting with Mr. Nicholas Brown, the top Foreign Office secretary in charge of Middle East affairs, were first revealed when a reporter from Salam asked Nateq-Nouri why Larijani had met with a British diplomat. "He had a private trip to London to see his son who is there for medical treatment," Nateq-Nouri replied, embarrassed. "While there, he had a meeting with a British diplomat at the Iranian embassy and prepared a report on the subjects they discussed."
Later, Salam revealed that Larijani gave assurances to the British diplomat, Nicholas Brown, regarding "positive gestures" Nateq-Nouri would make toward Britain after his election, in particular, that he would "forget" about the fatwa against British author Salman Rushdie.
On Sunday, April 13, observers in Tehran reported that the full transcript of Larijani's London meeting, as typed up by the Code Department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, had been plastered all over the walls of Tehran university. [INP weekly bulletin, 4/13].
The official daily Jomhouri-e Eslami, which expresses the views of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamene'i, also joined the assault against Larijani, accusing him of having told Nicholas Brown that the Islamic Republic would protect German interests in Iran whatever the Mykonos verdict. Commented the paper: "if Larijani continues to clean his black file, more revelations will be made" to expose the "real intentions... of this isolated person." [Jomhouri-e Eslami 4/13]
One week later, Morteza Nabavi, editor-in-chief of Resalat daily and a major backer of Nateq-Nouri, told Akbar daily that he fully supported Larijani's trip to Britain. "I believe that the opponents of Hojj. Nateq-Nouri are trying to discredit him by misusing the nature of the meeting in London, which was an officially authorized event." [Akbar 4/20]
Outsider Presidential contender Said Rajai Khorasani, former UN representative of the Islamic Republic, has called into question the economic policies of the Rafsanjani government and has vowed to invite expatriate Iranians and their capital back to Iran if elected. "Specific plans should be shaped to attract these Iranians to invest in the country, a factor that would help make a better and healthier economic atmosphere in the country," he told Iran News. "As a result of an unbalanced economy, people today are suffering at the hands of inflation, overpricing, and economic recession."
Commenting on widespread corruption in the government, he acknowledged that "we occasionally become aware of the wrongs when scandals are exposed publicly." Khorasani also claimed that he was one of the opponents of banning the use of satellite dishes by Iranians. [Iran News 4/11]
Mohammad Khatami attributed widespread bribery and embezzlement to "the unhealthy economic condition of individuals." Khatami, who recently won the backing of Ali Akbar Mohtashemi, was addressing a clerical audience in Yazd. He believes two major problems face the Islamic Republic of Iran. "The issue is not merely one of Islam against the infidels. Today there is a multiplicity of economic and political ideologies and schools of thought around the world against which Islam is pitted. The other problem is that now the world is not as segregated as it once was, and communications have brought the world much closer. Hence the ideologies and thoughts are now inside our homes and we can no longer close the door on them," he said.
Khatami pledged to appoint former Prime Minister Mir Hussein Mussavi as his deputy if elected. He served in Mussavi's cabinet for seven years during the 1980s. [Salam, 3/30]
Another presidential candidate, Heshmatollah Tabarzadi, believes that Iran can have relations with all countries that have not declared war against it, even the United States. Lamenting the fact that IranÕs relations with certain countries are not cordial he stressed that "we should not provide our enemies with excuses, turning our friends into enemies." Turning to economic issues, he noted that "parts of national wealth has been squandered by the monopolists. On the basis of the Article 42 of the constitution the wealth embezzled by some of the officials should be returned to the public treasury." He also pledged to appoint supporters of Nateq-Nouri and Khatami to his cabinet if elected. [Tehran Times, 4/10]
A reader of the Tehran daily Salam called the paper's famous "Allo Salam" answering machine, to comment on President RafsanjaniÕs recent remarks on the issue of "Sigheh" or temporary marriages, a practice viewed as legalized prostitution by many Iranians. Rafsanjani justified in his interview with CBS 60 Minutes correspondent Mike Wallace in March, saying "sometimes men are away from home on a trip or cannot afford to marry permanently; and there are women who have been widowed..."
The irate reader told Salam he had two daughters and, as a father, he considered temporary marriage "as a scourge worse that AIDS. The matter has never been helpful and never will be."
Salam assured the reader that Rafsanjani had only meant that "the arrangement suited widows [young widows of the Iran-Iraq war]. We believe that basically the scheme of temporary marriage will not help young unmarried men who are deprived because of their financial circumstances. The scheme should mostly help the lonely women who have lost their husbands. Here Islam permits eligible men, who for various reasons cannot enter into permanent marriage contracts, to marry these women on a temporary basis." [Salam, 4/8]
The younger brother of the slain publisher and intellectual Ebrahim Zalzadeh has called for an international ban on Iranian oil and gas. Appearing in a news conference in Stockholm before Swedish and Iranian journalists, Mr. Hussein Zalzadeh made a plea to the West to cut off TehranÕs lifeline by imposing a total oil embargo. "Mr. Khamene'i says that international isolation of Iran would be a sweet gift of God. OK. Boycott their oil and gas and we shall see how long they last," he said. Zalzadeh was speaking at a memorial ceremony organized by the Swedish Branch of the Association of the Iranian Writers in exile (AIW).
Also attending was Abbas MaÕrufi, another well-known Iranian writer who recently went into exile and who was a close friend of Ebrahim Zalzadeh. He claimed that Zalzadeh had "big trouble" with the regime "but then the time was too short and they killed him, as they did with SaÕidi Sirjani and many other writers, intellectuals and dissidents."
The body of Ebrahim Zalzadeh, publisher of the printing house "Ebtekar" [Initiative] was discovered 34 days after his disappearance in a Tehran suburb. He died of knife wounds. [Iran Press Service, 4/18]
As we reported in last week's Newswire, the members of KhorasanÕs Press Court (the 11th District Court) have found the editor-in-chief of Tus weekly, Mohammad Sadeq-Javadi-Hesar, guilty of "fomenting public opinion." His arrest was based on a complaint filed by the executive manager of the Mashad Religious Seminary and the head of KhorasanÕs justice department.
Judge Mohammad Shams Gilani told Resalat newspaper that the jury also decided that his sentence could not be reduced. The sentencing date was set for later in April. The juryÕs deliberation lasted for about an hour. [Resalat, 4/9]
Huge amphibious military exercises, code-named Tariq-al-Qods [Path to Jerusalem], are scheduled to be held in the Persian Gulf and parts of the Oman Sea during the last week of April, IRNA announced. IRGC commander Major General Mohsen Rezai told the official news agency that "the maneuvers aim to test the ability of the IRGC personnel to [enter] into action rapidly and catch enemies by surprise in event of potential threats to Iran," and specifically referred to the presence of U.S. navy ships in the Persian Gulf. [IRNA 4/15]
In a subsequent statement to IRNA, he said that the exercises were intended to "improve the political atmosphere of the country" on the eve of the presidential elections. He also denounced the U.S.-sponsored Middle East peace talks, and said the Islamic Republic was seeking to establish a "regional security and defense cooperation system" with "no reliance on foreign forces." [IRNA 4/20]
The ideological-political department of the Law Enforcement Force has arrested 75 "smugglers" and seized 120 satellite dishes in recent raids, the official Jomhouri-e Eslami daily has announced. In its zeal, the LEF has also seized 11,644 head scarves, 2,313 pieces of foreign-manufactured clothing, and an unspecified number of central-heating radiators and other domestic appliances, for reasons unknown. [Jomhouri-e Eslami 4/10].
The seizure of the satellite receivers comes at a time when the deputy head of the Voice and Vision Organization [Iranian Radio and Television IRIB] announced in Mashad that this summer his network will begin broadcasting via satellite to Europe 24 programs in Persian, English, and Arabic. [IRNA 4/13]
It would seem that the Islamic Republic has nothing against satellite broadcasting, as long as its citizens on not on the receiving end...
The recent conviction of four leaders of Azerbaijan's Islamic Party on charges of spying for Iran has escalated tensions between Baku and Tehran. The leader of the party, Ali Akram Alyiovo, was sentenced to 11 years in jail. A commentary by Tehran Voice of the Islamic Republic of Iran in English likened to the trial to the Show trials conducted in the 1930s in the former Soviet Union. The commentary warned Azerbaijan's intelligence forces against any further crackdown against the Islamic Party, which is believed to be financed and backed by Tehran. [IRIB 4/15]
The convictions came days after Majlis Speaker Ali Akbar Nateq-Nouri sharply criticized Azeri President Geidar Aliev for his position on the Caspian Sea pipeline routes... which are going to bypass Iran because of the Islamic Republic's radical policies and support for international terrorism. Nateq-Nouri accused Aliev, who is eager to deal with Western oil companies to develop the Caspian oil and gas deposits, of being a Western lackey. "It is a historic dream of the United States to gain a solid foothold in the Caspian Sea after the Persian Gulf," the Majlis speaker told Russian reporters during his trip to Moscow. "Superpowers always use local factors for penetrating into another region." [Moscow Interfax, 4/12]
A Saudi-backed paper published in London, Al-Sharq Al-Awsat, claimed recently that the Islamic Republic Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Velayati recently gave assurances to his Egyptian counterpart, Amr Musa, that Tehran Iran would not assist terrorists opposed to the Egyptian government or provide safe haven to them in Iran.
Quoting Egyptian sources, the paper also said Velayati had declared his readiness to cooperate with the Egyptian security forces and exchange information regarding the activities of Egyptian extremists, and invited Egyptian Interior Minister Hasan al-Alfi to visit Tehran to discuss security issues.
What's remarkable about all this is the way it was reported by the official Jomhouri-e Eslami in Tehran. The paper chided Velayati for not denying the reports, which it called "disgraceful propaganda tactics aimed at overcoming [Egypt's own] internal problems." The Arabic news account was trying "to project an impression that the Islamic Republic of Iran has adopted a softer and more flexible posture regarding the contemptible stance of the Cairo regime toward the Israeli usurper and presumably concurs with the continuing treachery of the Cairo regime" - fighting words, indeed.
The paper concluded: "One should not overlook that it is the silence of the Foreign Ministry in this regard and its hesitation in denying these falsehoods that have motivated Cairo to capitalize again on this atrophied ploy...This is why it is not expedient to keep silent." [Jomhouri-e Eslami, 4/6]
IranÕs Atomic Energy Organization has denied claims broadcast by a Russian television network that had quoted IAEO head Reza Amrollahi as saying Iran had the scientific capability to produce a nuclear bomb. The report, which focused on the cooperation between Iran and Russia on the construction of the Bushehr nuclear power plant, said that nuclear material produced at the power plants could be used for military purposes. IRNA officially denied the report, stating that Iran has announced repeatedly that it adheres to the nuclear nonproliferation treaty and thus has no intention of developing nuclear weapons. [IRNA 4/15]
The Kuwaiti security forces have arrested 17 Iranians who were trying to enter the country illegally by sea. The Iranians were spotted on Thursday by the Coast Guard as they were trying to enter Mina Abdullah, a port south of Kuwait City, in wooden boats. The Coast Guard eventually discovered that 23 more Iranians in the same group had managed to flee before the security forces arrived. [AFP 4/20]