BRIEF ON IRAN
        No. 300
        November 27, 1995


        Representative Office of
        The National Council of Resistance of Iran
        3421 M Street, NW, #1032
        Washington, DC 20007


Rafsanjani's Preposterous Claim, from a statement by NCR,
November 25

        Today, Hashemi Rafsanjani, the President of the mullahs'
religious, terrorist dictatorship, brazenly claimed that "genuine
large political parties" can be active in Iran.
        This ridiculous claim comes while on June 20, 1981, upon
Khomeini's orders, the peaceful demonstration of more than
half a million Tehran residents was turned into a bloodbath by
the Guards. Since then, it has been impossible for any
opposition political party to engage in political activity. At the
same time, some 100,000 have either been executed or killed
under medieval torture for political reasons.
        "Parties" whose activities Rafsanjani has welcomed are
none other than factions and groups set up by the regime and
totally supportive of the ruling clerics' repressive policies in
the past 16 years. Moreover, many of their officials have
directly participated in the torture and the slaughter of the
Iranian people.
        It is worthy of note that the mullahs did not even allow
the so-called Iran's Freedom Movement, whose leader Mehdi
Bazargan died last January, to engage in political activities,
despite the group's persistent expressions of loyalty to the
clerical regime over the years.


U.S. Set to Widen Boycott on Iran, The Washington Times,
November 25

        The Clinton administration, under pressure from an angry
Congress, is preparing to intensify its boycott of Iran by taking
action against non-U.S. companies that help Tehran's oil and
gas business.
        A new willingness by the administration to move toward
a "secondary boycott" emerged from recent congressional
hearings at which U.S. experts on Iran painted an even blacker
picture of the Tehran regime's military machine and
subversive activity.
        Michael Eisenstadt of the Washington Institute for Near
East Policy said Iran "can probably deploy biological weapons"
of a kind that the United States is powerless to counter.
        Chinese companies reportedly are helping Iran develop
chemical weapons.
        This testimony, as well as Iran's opposition to the Middle
East peace process and its gloating reaction to the assassination
of Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, helped to harden
congressional sentiment.
        A further twist was added by the suggestion, aired by the
U.S. ambassador in Riyadh, of an Iranian hand in last week's
bomb attack against Americans in Saudi Arabia....


Women Take Charge of Iran's Opposition Army; Tehran regime
clings to sexism, The Washington Times (Reuters), Nov. 22
[Continued from BOI 299]

        ... Mojahedin members explain this extraordinary
reversal of roles, which goes much further than in the national
army of any Muslim state, as both ideological and pragmatic.
        The Mojahedin say they are committed muslims, and
some of the female commanders do not shake hands with men.
        But their Islam is a liberal variety, based on the idea that
the disadvantages women suffered in early Islam should no
longer apply in the circumstances of the 20th century.
        "The God of the mullahs, like the mullahs themselves, is a
misogynist torturer. They view women as the embodiment of
sexual desire, the source of sin and the manifestation of Satan,"
says the Mojahedin booklet "Women, Islam and Equality".
        "Everything about the Khomeini regime depends to some
extent on the oppression of women. Whenever they feel
threatened, they choose women as scapegoats," said Mojahedin
spokesman Farid Suleimani.
        Javad Ghadiri, an operations officer, said he thought
women showed greater commitment to the struggle because of
the Iranian government's gender policies.
        "The mullah regime denies even the humanity of women.
They stone them to death and make them wear the chador," he
said.
        The movement quotes Iranian President Ali Akbar
Hashemi Rafsanjani as making overtly sexist remarks. "Men are
stronger and more capable in all fields. Men's brains are larger.
Men incline toward reasoning and rationalism, while women
tend to be emotional," he is alleged to have said in 1986.
        The men of the National Liberation Army, which came to
Iraq in 1986 and now has a moderately impressive array of
military hardware, strongly dispute Mr. Rafsanjani's prejudices.
        "Women commanders have shown themselves to be very
reliable and competent," said Shahram Kiamanesh of the
Mujahedin's public relations department.
        "They have shown more courage and more capacity for
work, and the men have found this very encouraging. It is
something they have earned and now they have done so, it has
set us apart from the Khomeini system and its backward
ideology," he added.
        "It was under Maryam Rajavi that we evolved from an
infantry army to an armored force, so it's a great source of
pride to be commanded by women," said Mahboub Sabahati,
deputy to tank repair workshop commander Mahboube Ali, a
woman.
        "It's something we welcome, not merely accept, and there
will be an explosion of women's energies when the mullahs are
overthrown," he added....