BRIEF ON IRAN	 
	Representative Office of 
	The National Council of Resistance of Iran
	No. 503	
	Monday, September 23, 1996 
 
 
 
3421 M Street NW #1032, Washington, DC 20007
 
 
 

Iran To Receive Third Russian-Made Submarine, 
Reuters, September 22 
 
	Iran will take delivery of its third Russian-
made Kilo-class submarine within six months, an 
Iranian navy commander said on Sunday. 
	"The third Russian-made submarine 
purchased by Iran will join the Iranian navy within 
the next six months," the official Iranian news 
agency IRNA quoted deputy commander of the 
Iranian navy... as saying. 
	Analysts in the region say the United States 
and Iran's Gulf Arab neighbors ... are concerned 
about Iran's armament program. 
	Iran is the only regional state to operate 
submarines in the region... 
 
 
Mullahs' Conduct Another War Games, The 
Associated Press, September 22 
 
	Iran's armed forces on Sunday began war 
games in the Persian Gulf.... 
	Naval units of the paramilitary Islamic 
Revolution Guards Corps and the army are taking 
part in the exercise somewhere between the port city 
of Bushehr and Kharg island in the Gulf, official 
Tehran radio reported.... 
	Speed boats equipped with rocket launchers 
practiced maneuvers on the first day of the exercises 
Sunday, it said.... 
 
 
U.S. Airlines To Stop Flying Over Iran, The 
Associated Press, September 21 
 
	U.S. airliners may no longer fly over Iran 
under an emergency Federal Aviation 
Administration order issued in response to the 
installation of surface-to-air missile sites near the 
Turkish border. 
	"The FAA has determined that the presence 
of the missile launch site in proximity to civilian air 
traffic corridors has increased the potential threat to 
civil aircraft," FAA Administrator David Hinson 
wrote in a memorandum explaining the decision.... 
 
 
News Overview 
 
In Iran, Backlash of Intolerance Stirring Fear 
The New York Times, September 20 
 
	With inflation raging around 50 percent, 
the capital choked by air pollution, the prodigious 
carpet-weaving industry in the doldrums, and the 
government infested with embezzlement scandals, 
one of the most vociferous debates gripping Iran is 
whether women should be permitted to ride 
bicycles.... 
	This is a time of vehement intolerance in 
Iran, a backlash against the incremental loosening of 
clerical control over the last few years in the arenas 
of politics, education, the arts, and social activities. 
Today, castigation comes not only through official 
channels but also in the form of free-lance attacks by 
the Partisans of the Party of God, shock troops 
devoted to the most hardline government factions. 
	The atmosphere is inescapable. A new 
television program singles out specific writers and 
professors as Israeli spies or social misfits; the 
university system is being purged of "un-Islamic" 
elements whose loyalty to the revolution is deemed 
insufficient; professors who are considered dissenters 
have been beaten; publications are being shuttered; 
and the outdoor social season provoked a frenzy of 
raids on private celebrations. 
	"There is deep fear and absolutely no 
freedom of expression; almost everyone has been 
silenced," said an editor whose journal was shut 
down and who now writes screenplays under a 
pseudonym. Few Iranian intellectuals want to be 
quoted by name anymore because remarks that 
reached the outside world have been distorted in the 
local witch hunt.... 
	The culture battles intensified in the spring 
after Khameini attacked the "perverse resistance" of 
intellectuals toward the Islamic Republic. That 
speech further inspired the Partisans of the Party of 
God. 
	"We consider the main threat to our society 
at the present time to be a cultural one," a leader of 
the group, Hossein Allahkaram, told Sobh, saying 
the group would not tolerate imported thoughts. 
"Those who want to establish political parties are in 
fact trying to take politics out of the mosque. This is 
the first step toward secularism."... 
	...The usual spring crackdown on 
"debauched gatherings" extended for months, with 
10 lashes a frequent punishment. 
	In one infamous case, a 23-year-old man 
tumbled 18 stories to his death during an apartment 
raid. Thousands packed his funeral in protest after 
family members suggested zealots might have tossed 
him over the balcony.... 
	In an unusual address broadcast nationwide, 
Khameini said that in the parks and cultural centers 
of a model Islamic capital, "the corrupt should find 
no refuge for degeneration." 
	Women are not the only targets. Two male 
students were recently detained in the park -- one 
because his T-shirt contained too many Western 
images and the other because his long shorts left 
eight inches of calf exposed.... 
	Now a new road sign marks the entrance to 
the women's bicycle trails: A man with a red X 
across his body. "Well I am certainly not coming 
back here again," said Mondanah Karami, 30. "The 
police stood next to the trail the whole time and told 
me not to look at men and to cover my hair."...