BRIEF  ON  IRAN, No. 249
        Representative Office of
        The National Council of Resistance of Iran
        Monday, September 11, 1995



        3421 M Street NW #1032, Washington, DC 20007


Workers of No.1 Textile Factory in Qa'emshahr Arrested,
From a statement by the Secretariat of the NCR-Paris,
September 10

        According to the reports from Iran, the Khomeini
regime's Guards Corps attacked the sit-in staged by
workers of the No.1 Textile Factory in Qa'emshahr and
arrested 30 participants. The arrested workers are
presently under interrogation and torture by agents of
Tehran's Ministry of Intelligence. A torturer by the name
of Javad oversees the team of interrogators from the
Ministry of Intelligence.
        In a message to the workers of Qa'emshahr
yesterday, the NCR President Massoud Rajavi saluted the
protesters and called on the nation and the blue-collar
workers to rise to their support.
        The protest by No.1 Textile workers began on
Saturday, September 9, simultaneous with the arrival in
the northern Mazandaran Province of Hassan Habibi, first
deputy to Rafsanjani. The security forces of the northern
provinces were put on full alert....
        The Iranian Resistance calls for immediate
intervention by international human rights organizations
to save the lives of the imprisoned workers....
        Various Iranian cities have been the scene in recent
months of workers' strikes in protest to the non-payment
of their wages. Reports from Mazandaran indicate that the
No. 2 and 3 textile factories in Qa'emshahr are also on the
verge of being shut down....


Iranian Opposition Reports Factory Sit-In, 30 Arrests,
Associated Press, September 10

        NICOSIA, Cyprus - Security authorities in Iran have
broken up a sit-in strike by textile workers demanding
unpaid wages and arrested 30, an opposition group said
Sunday.
        The Paris-based National Council of Resistance of
Iran said the workers in the city of Qa'emshahr, northwest
of Tehran, began their sit-in on Saturday.
        Those arrested were being interrogated by a team
which arrived in the city from Tehran, it said in a
statement faxed to The Associated Press in Cyprus....
        Its report could not be independently confirmed and
there has been no word in Iran's official media of any
industrial unrest in the Islamic republic.
        But there have been frequent eruptions in various
parts of the country over the last two or three years as
Iran's economic problems have steadily worsened....
        The National Council said Saturday's protest was the
second by the workers of "No. 1 textile factory" since they
went on strike Aug. 21, also to demand unpaid back
wages. The workers are owed three months' wages, it
added.


Mullahs against Women's Rights in Beijing, The Wall Street
Journal, September 8

        Many of the conflicts surfacing here are simply
cover for political battles that are taking place at home.
Take the Iranian delegation's campaign to drop references
to "universality of human rights" and "equality of women."
The official delegation wants the word "equity" to replace
"equality" in the conference platform.  Equity isn't
objective and would permit Iran to keep laws that forbid
women from holding certain public posts, such as the
presidency, without flouting the platform.
        Fighting Tehran is the National Council of Resistance
of Iran, a Paris-based parliament-in-exile that is
represented in Beijing as a nongovernmental group.
Soheila Sadegh, a soft-spoken 36-year-old who belongs to
the council, notes that in Iran, women's career paths are
restricted, their rights under marriage are limited, and
they must wear head coverings. "It's ludicrous to talk
about women's rights in a country where women cannot
choose their own clothing," she says.


Iran Says World Medical Symbol Jewish-Influenced,
Reuters, September 5

        TEHRAN - The Iranian parliament said on Tuesday
the international medical symbol was Jewish- and
Freemason-inspired and urged Iran's medical organization
to cure the problem by designing a new one.
        "The snake is a symbol of Jewish power...and the
staff is a sign of Freemasonry," Mashhad deputy Hossein
Fattahi, a general surgeon, said in a debate broadcast live
on Tehran radio.
        Tehran deputy Ali Movahedi Saveji, a Moslem cleric,
backed the amendment rejecting the international symbol,
called the caduceus, saying: "I am amazed: What do a
snake and a sword have to do with medicine?"...