BRIEF ON IRAN	 
No. 573	
Wednesday, January 15, 1997 

Representative Office of 
The National Council of Resistance of Iran	
Washington, DC  
 

Iran's Everyday Terror Blocks out The West, 
The Journal of Commerce, January 6 
 
	TEHRAN — There are voices of anger. 
There are voices of friendship. But the first 
voice an American hears in Iran is the voice of 
fear. 
	It starts on the flight from London, 
hours before the jet touches down in Tehran. A 
middle-aged woman, seeing your guidebook, 
whispers an introduction of her own: 
	"They will watch you everywhere. They 
will control everything."... 
	Critics of Iran's fundamentalist 
government condemn the abuses in its prisons. 
But for citizens, there is everyday terror that fills 
their homes and streets. Iranian women are its 
most visible victims.... 
	The chador may also represent the 
greatest challenge for Iran's government. The 
total isolation enforced on women and young 
people can't ever be at peace with the Western 
world.... 
	Most Iranians see few foreign goods, 
other than cars. There are no Western chains 
and little packaging.... 
	...the lot of Iran's soaring population is 
overwhelmingly poor. The government has been 
printing money, contributing to a 50% annual 
inflation rate. The indexed wage for urban 
laborers is the equivalent of about $50 a week. 
In the country's free-trade zones, it is half that. 
Despite its oil wealth, Iran's per capita GDP is 
on a par with long-embargoed Iraq. 
	The rial, Iran's currency, which once 
traded at 70 to the dollar, is now officially 
offered to foreigners at 3,000. Cabdrivers...ply a 
black market exchange at 4,300 to the dollar 
and more.... 
[To Be Continued in the Next BOI] 
 
 
Most Government Employees Under Poverty 
Line, Reuters, January 14 
 
	An Iranian newspaper [the English-
language Tehran Times] on Tuesday called on 
parliament to revamp the country's tax system 
which was pushing government employees 
below the poverty line.... 
	"Most of the government employees 
live below the poverty line. And some of them 
have to work on more than one shift to be able 
to meet the cost of an ordinary life."... 
 
 
Journalists Muzzled in Iran, Radio Israel, 
January 12 
 
	In an open letter to the government 
officials, more than 350 Iranian journalists 
asked that journalism be recognized as a 
profession with financial burden and hard 
labor.... 
	In their letter, the journalists wrote that 
in Iran a reporter has to deal with various 
psychological stress and physical pressure due to 
which the average life expectancy of a reporter 
is 10 years less than that of the general average. 
	Iranian journalists are not only 
deprived of freedom in producing in-depth 
political and news analyses, but they are also 
being subjected to attacks and beatings when 
they report about routine news items such as 
existence of long lines at the gas stations every 
day. 
 
 
Iran Majlis Approves Fund To Counter U.S. 
"Plots", Reuters, January 14 
 
	Iran's parliament Tuesday approved a 
$14.3 million budget for fighting what it called 
U.S. actions against the Islamic republic, a 
newspaper said.... 
	The United States imposed a trade and 
investment ban on Iran in 1995, accusing it of 
backing "terrorism" and seeking to develop 
nuclear arms.... 
	Washington stepped up its campaign in 
August with a new law imposing sanctions on 
non-U.S. firms which invest $40 million or 
more in a year in Iran's vital oil and gas 
industries.... 
 
 
Nuclear Power, Russia, Iran, The Associated 
Press, January 14 
 
	After lengthy negotiations, Russia 
intends to remove a cache of highly enriched 
uranium and spent nuclear fuel from Georgia 
that dates back to the Soviet era.... 
	Meanwhile, [Russian Nuclear Energy 
Minister Viktor] Mikhailov also pledged to 
increase Russia's export of nuclear power 
plants.... Russia has been helping to build a 
nuclear plant in Iran, despite U.S. objections.... 
 
 
Iran Holds The Highest Record of Road 
Accidents, Radio France, January 12 
 
	In two fatal accidents in Iran's roads 29 
people lost their lives.  
	Collision of a minibus, in the Qouchan-
Mashad road, with a tow-truck led to the death 
of 18 minibus passengers and one rider in the 
truck. Also on Friday, ten people lost their lives 
when their car collided with a bus. 
	With 205 thousand accidents during 
1996 for a total of about 3 million cars in the 
country, Iran holds the highest record of road 
accidents in the world. 
	[Reports link the lack of improvements 
and poor maintenance of the roads as one of the 
main causes of this level of accidents in Iran.]