BRIEF ON IRAN Representative Office of The National Council of Resistance of Iran No. 513 Monday, October 7, 1996 3421 M Street NW #1032, Washington, DC 20007 "Islamicization" of Iranian Universities, Iran Zamin News Agency, October 5 The head of Iran's Judiciary, Mullah Yazdi, emphasized the "necessity to follow Khamenei's orders regarding Islamicization" of Iran's universities. He called for purging of university professors who were , as he described, not in harmony with Islamic and revolutionary values. Yazdi also called for revision of university textbooks and said that textbooks used in universities and colleges must be corrected by mullahs in Qom's Islamic seminaries.... "A True Danger", Reuters, October 6 Former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev said on Sunday that if countries played "new geopolitical games," efforts to reduce nuclear arms in Russia could suffer.... Gorbachev spoke during a debate on nuclear disarmament.... Gloria Duffy, a former deputy assistant defense secretary in Washington, said there was no question that terrorists and rogue states were trying to obtain nuclear weapons and other weapons of mass destruction, such as chemical and biological arms. She said the United States removed enough nuclear material from Kazakhstan for 20 nuclear weapons. "But Iran had been there before us, looking around, as they are in many areas, to obtain the material for nuclear weapons. This is a true danger. There is enough nuclear material in the former Soviet Union for the equivalent of 100,000 Hiroshima and Nagasaki-sized bombs," Duffy said.... Iran Hard-Liners Tighten Grip, Daily Telegraph, September 27 After five years of cautious reform Iranians fear that the pendulum is swinging back towards religious extremism. The past 10 days have seen assaults by the conservative clerics who still dominate Iran on such notions as satellite television and women riding bicycles. A series of televised attacks on newspapers and individuals daring to criticize the government has made a timid press even more fearful.... Other hard-won freedoms are now under attack. Ayatollah Khamenei, the spiritual leader, has recently spoken out against women being allowed to ride bicycles, which they have been able to do for only about a year. He also wants action against illegal TV satellite dishes, banned last year for spiritual pollution.... News Overview Another Christian Priest Murdered in Iran On Friday, news organizations reported that an Iranian Christian priest was murdered in northern Iran. The NCR reported that the body of the Iranian pastor, Mr. Mohammad Bagher Yussefi, known as Mohammad Ravanbakhsh, was found near Qa'emshahr, hanged from a tree. Mr. Ravanbakhsh, 34, was the pastor of the Assemblies of God churches in the cities of Sari and Gorgan in northern Iran. Radio Israel quoted the International Organization of Christian-Iranians as saying that Mr. Ravanbakhsh "left his house 11 days ago and disappeared until four days ago when the Revolutionary Guards said they found his body hanging from a tree." The radio said that although Islamic government's officials said Ravanbakhsh committed suicide, his family and members of the Assemblies of God were certain that he was murdered. A statement issued by the International Organization of Christian-Iranians, quoted by the Voice of America's Persian broadcast, said the Christian priest's death is related to the harassment of Christians from an Islamic ancestry by Iran's Islamic government. In recent years, six Christian priests have been eliminated in horrific manners. The Voice of America reported that Mr. Ravanbakhsh was close to three other Iranian priests who were killed in 1994. In January of 1994, after successful efforts to prevent the execution of pastor Mehdi Dibadj in an Iranian prison, Bishop Hovsepian-Mehr was murdered. Mr. Dibadj had been sentenced to death for having converted to Christianity 45 years earlier. In early July of 1994, the bodies of Pastor Dibadj and bishop Tateos Mikailian were found in Tehran. In recent years, the mullahs' regime has banned printing of the Bible in Persian and has forced the churches in Iran not to advocate their religion and stop entrance of non-Christians to Christian churches. The NCR said in a statement that this tragic murder is but "an example of the inhuman suppression of Christians, as well as the followers of other religions, by the clerical regime. It attests to the mullahs' disregard for human rights and international standards." "Preventing religious rituals, prohibition of religious teachings, imposition of teachings prescribed by the state, forcing compulsory veiling upon non- Muslim women and girls and all forms of discrimination against the employment of religious minorities comprise some of the shameful practices of the anti-human mullahs," the statement said.