BRIEF ON IRAN No. 352 Tuesday, February 20, 1996 Representative Office of The National Council of Resistance of Iran 3421 M Street NW #1032 Washington, DC 20007 Iranian Exiles Say UN Rights Envoy Misled by Tehran, Reuters, February 19 GENEVA - The exiled Iranian National Council of Resistance accused the Tehran government on Monday of preventing a U.N. envoy from meeting "genuine victims" of human rights violations during a visit last week.... The Council... alleged some political prisoners were moved from Tehran's Evin prison while government agents at the envoy's hotel prevented families of prisoners contacting him.... Copithorne, a former senior Canadian diplomat, spent six days in Tehran last week and is due to make a report next month to the U.N.'s Human Rights Commission which last summer appointed him its special representative for Iran. During his trip, a statement distributed in Geneva by representatives of the Paris-based Council said the Iranian administration "did its utmost to prevent Mr. Copithorne from meeting genuine victims of the regime's anti-human crimes...."... At his news conference, Copithorne declined to give any indication of his preliminary assessment after his visit. He said "several hundred" people had sought him out but he had not been able to see all of them.... Iran Militants Disrupt Memorial, Reuters, February 15 Iranian Moslem militants on Thursday disrupted a large memorial service held in a Tehran mosque for a leftist poet who died in exile last week, a witness told Reuters by telephone. "The memorial for Siavash Kasraei had just started...when a group of young men burst into the mosque," an Iranian writer, who asked to remain anonymous, said from Tehran. "One of them grabbed the microphone and said the group was from the Hizbollah. He attacked Kasraei as anti-Islamic and told everyone to go home," he said.... Another witness said police arrived as the scuffles were going on but did not make any arrests. "Instead of throwing out the Hizbollah, they also told us to leave," said the witness, who requested anonymity. Hizbollah groups have increased their activity in the past year, holding marches and attacking bookshops and meetings for what they see as anti-Islamic tendencies.... Rafsanjani Restates Hard-Line Mideast Stance, United Press International, February 16 Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani restated his government's hard-line stance against the Middle East peace process Friday... Rafsanjani warned developments "in the so-called Middle East peace process" did not have universal acceptance.... "The Islamic Republic of Iran, with its immense resources, possibilities and facilities and revolutionary spirit, is the staunch supporter of the Palestinian cause," IRNA quoted him as saying.... Mullahs' Training Center for Terrorists in Bosnia, The New York Times, February 17 Angry NATO officers said today that a building near Sarajevo they raided on Thursday, arresting 10 men including three Iranians, had been a terrorist training center... ... And it appears that all the students were Bosnians and the instructors were Iranians, judging by the material on hand." Pointing to a airline ticket on one of the tables, he added: "One of these guys caught here still has an open ticket to get him back to Tehran."... Nearby sat the "Manual for Terrorism," a photocopy of a document written in Persian and published only last December. A picture of the Ayatollah Khomeini... hung on one wall... And a book titled "The Mission of Tehran" sat prominently on a bookshelf... FBI Probed Iranian Nuclear Attack Plan, United Press International, February 18 NEW YORK - The FBI investigated a group of Iranians shortly after the 1993 World Trade Center bombing whom it suspected were plotting a nuclear attack against New York, according to a report published Sunday. New York's Daily News quoted a former FBI informant as saying the agency investigated whether terrorists were planning to smuggle in radioactive material that could be distributed around Manhattan. The report cites a former FBI counterintelligence official as saying the agency was concerned that a discharge of radioactive would cause a panic. "And it could make a large area unusable for a long time," Oliver Revell said.... The informant, a former electrical contractor named Dennis Pappas... said he spied on two former presidents of the New York- based Alavi Foundation, which reportedly is controlled by Iran. In 1992, one of the presidents was arrested and identified in court papers as an agent of the Iranian mission....