BRIEF ON IRAN No. 605 Tuesday, March 4, 1997 Representative Office of The National Council of Resistance of Iran Washington, DC Stepped up Repression to Confront Uprisings, Iran Zamin News Agency, March 3 Simultaneous with recent activities by the Resistance forces throughout Iran, the mullahs have boosted repression and clampdown on public to an unprecedented degree. In the last week alone, at least 12 persons were publicly hanged in the provinces of Khorassan (northeast) and Western Azerbaijan (northwestern Iran). Also in the past week, the Ministry of Intelligence reported that it had arrested 50 people in Western Azerbaijan under the pretext of "espionage." According to the clerical laws, these individuals will face death. At the same time, several suppressive maneuvers in dozens of cities in southern Khorassan province and the provinces of Isfahan (center) and Boushehr (south) were launched to "confront domestic crises" and curb the growing number of uprisings. In another development, the Majlis (parliament) yesterday to extend the regime's savage and medieval laws, called "the law of Islamic punishment", for another ten years. It should be noted that the a new set of regulations were adopted the week before to suppress the Iranian women. Officials Continue to Downplay the Casualties of the Quake, United Press International, March 3 LONDON - Iran's government news agency says a strong aftershock has struck northwestern Iran, raising the death toll since Friday's tremor to nearly 1,000 people.... The chief of Iran's Red Crescent Society tells the agency Deputy Interior Minister Rassul Zargar said 440,000 people from more than 100 villages were homeless in the area.... [According to independent reports, the death toll in this earthquake prone region may have surpassed 3,000.] Demirel Tells Rafsanjani: Hands Off Turkey, Agence France Presse, March 3 TEHRAN - Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani Monday deplored the recent deterioration in Turkish-Iranian ties and accused unidentified meddlers of being the source of the tension.... He was apparently referring to the United States and Israel.... The visiting Turkish official, Deputy Undersecretary of State for Foreign Affairs Ali Tuygan, gave Rafsanjani a message from Turkish President Suleyman Demirel... According to reports in Ankara, Demirel asked Iran in the letter to stop meddling in Turkish internal affairs, adding that the two countries "must be more attentive on certain points" and "respect the principle of non-interference" in each other's domestic issues.... Bahrain Trial of 81 Mullahs-Linked Militants, Reuters, March 3 MANAMA - The trial of 81 people accused of involvement in an alleged Iranian-backed plot to topple Bahrain's government entered its third day on Monday, with verdicts expected this month.... Bahrain in June accused Shi'ite Moslem Iran of backing an attempt to topple the government and said it had arrested around 60 people in connection with the alleged plot.... U.S. Sanctions Against Tehran is Bearing Fruit, The Washington Post, March 3 The Clinton administration's relentless campaign to undermine the economy of Iran and cut off its access to international investment funds is getting results. Iran's ability to obtain the long-term capital it has been seeking to expand its crucial oil and natural gas industry has been sharply curtailed, according to statements by Iranian officials, reports from Iran in the energy trade press and calculations by independent analysts here. None of the 11 major oil and gas projects Iran put up for international bids in late 1995 has found a taker.... The Clinton administration has sought to limit Iran's access to capital, arguing that the Iranian regime uses its resources to finance an international network of terrorism.... Until recently, Iranian officials and the Iranian media have maintained a bold front of defiance about the U.S. effort to dissuade the Europeans and Japanese from investing there. But a prominent member of the Iranian parliament's oil committee, Mohsen Yahyavi, caused a sensation in late January when he acknowledged that oil and gas investment was lagging. Yahyavi, also a member of the National Iranian Oil Co.'s board of directors, said that "despite widespread arrangements by the [oil] ministry, foreign contractors are not much interested in engaging in petroleum projects in Iran." He said the U.S. sanctions law was partly to blame. A week later, a senior British Petroleum executive, John Browne, was quoted by the authoritative Middle East Economic Survey as saying that the threat of U.S. sanctions has "definitely limited investments" in Iran. Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani criticized Japan for holding up a loan that would have financed a major hydroelectric project... [continued on March 5]