BRIEF ON IRAN
No. 377
Tuesday, March 26, 1996

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


German Prosecutor Defends Iran Warrant, United Press International,
March 25

        BONN - German Prosecutor-General Kay Nehm, in an interview
Monday, defended his decision to issue a formal warrant for the arrest
of Iran's powerful secret service chief Ali Fallahayan, whom he
accused of three murders and an attempted killing.
        Nehm insisted that, while the warrant had been discussed "in
detail" beforehand with the German government, it was not a political
act.
        Nehm said: "The facts given to us (by the German government)
did not give us cause to decide against seeking (Fallahayan's) arrest."
        Fallahayan is accused of ordering the killing of two Iranian
opposition leaders and an interpreter and the attempted murder of a
fourth as they attended a Berlin conference of the Socialist
International in 1992.
        The chief prosecutor told Der Spiegel news weekly: "An arrest
warrant is never a political act. It is the compelling judicial reaction to
a serious crime."...
        Tehran reacted with fury to the recent disclosure that Germany
wants to try the secret service chief, threatening consequences for
official German-Iranian relations... .


Mullahs' Backing of Hezbollah, Le Point, March 23

        The anti-terrorist circles firmly believe that Al-Alami, one of the
main figures of fundamentalist movement of Hamas, has had a key
role in recent suicide attacks in Israel.  Al-Alami has constantly been
in contact with Iranian and Syrian intelligence services....
        During 1992-193 he was the representative of Hamas in Iran,
where he established a close relationship.  After his expulsion from
Jordan in 1995, he and Musa Abu-Marzouq, who was arrested in U.S.,
returned to Iran.  He supervised the recruiting of Hamas militants by
Hezbollah in Lebanon and Sudan.  The recruiting meetings also took
place in Iran (near Qom).  A unit of skilled Revolutionary Guards
organized the Palestinians' training....


FEATURE

Maryam Rajavi: A Revolutionary View of Islam, British Gemini News
Service, March 15

        Maryam Rajavi is a woman preaching liberation and reform to a
Muslim world dominated by backward-looking male chauvinists.
        The exiled Iranian opposition leader has a tough hill to climb -
being female and a member of the 10 per cent Shia minority, striving
to build a revolution in an antagonistic Sunni Muslim world....
        Against all the odds, she is proposing a 16-point "Freedom
Charter" for the "Iran of tomorrow" and all Muslims.
        If the National Council of Resistance (NCR), the movement she
commands, overthrows the regime of the Islamic fundamentalist
mullahs and takes power in Iran, Rajavi will become a major force for
change in the Muslim world....
        After obtaining a degree in metallurgical engineering, she played
a leading role in recruiting students into the Mujahedin. When the
group emerged as the principal opposition to the dictatorial clerical
regime of Ayatollah Khomeini, she organized demonstrations against
its repressive and "misogynist" policies.
        During the terror unleashed by the mullahs in 1981-82, Rajavi
fled Iran and settled in Paris, where the Mujahedin has made its
headquarters.
        In 1985, she was elected the movement's joint leader, with her
husband, Masoud Rajavi. In 1987, she became deputy commander of
its military wing, the 10,000-strong National Liberation Army, based
in Iraq. And in 1989, she became the movement's secretary-general.
        Then, in 1993, she was chosen Iranian President-in-waiting by
the NCR, the umbrella grouping to which the Mujahedin belongs.
        Maryam Rajavi combines religious devotion with progressive
thinking. She is an elegant revolutionary, favouring stylish suits and
complementing scarves....
        But adherence to modest Islamic dress code does not exemplify
her thinking. She seeks radical religious and political reform.
        She stands for a separation of Church and State and complete
equality between religions and sects. She promotes "total equality"
between men and women, the devolution of power and responsibility
from men to women, and even positive discrimination in favour of
women, "to compensate for their retardation"....        (to be continued)