BRIEF ON IRAN No. 627 Thursday, April 3, 1997 Representative Office of The National Council of Resistance of Iran Washington, DC Iranian Exiles Say Writer Killed in Tehran, Reuters, March 2 GENEVA-A major Iranian exile group said Wednesday a well- known writer and publisher had been murdered in Tehran and suggested the country's Islamic authorities were responsible. The National Council of Resistance (NCR), in a statement issued in Geneva where the United Nations Human Rights Commission is holding its annual session, said Ibrahim Zalzadeh had been the victim of "criminal assassination."Š The statement was issued a day after a report to the Commission from U.N. human rights investigator for Iran Maurice Copithorne said the Tehran government had maintained heavy pressure on dissent in 1996 although there was a "climate of change" on the status of women. Some delegates to the six-week meeting of the 53-member body have criticized Copithorne, a Canadian lawyer, for failing to include details of executions inside the country and assassinations of Iranian exiles abroad in his report. In a separate statement on the 22-page document, the NCR alleged that last year at least 32 political opponents of the Iranian administration were assassinated abroad, four times the number in 1995, and that 150 people had been officially reported executed, three times the number in 1995Š. Iranian Journalist Found Murdered: Report, Agence France Presse, April 2 Iranian journalist Ibrahim Zal Zadeh, who was arrested a month ago by the secret service, was found murdered on March 29 near Tehran, the Paris-based Reporters sans frontieres (Reporters without borders) said on Wednesday. The journalist's death was confirmed on Sunday, the following day, by his family, the press freedom campaigning organization said in a protest letter to Iranian President Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani. It said that the body of 45-year-old Zadeh, editor of the literary monthly Me'yar and owner of the publishing house Ebtekar (Initiative), was found half-buried in the outskirts of TeheranŠ. Kurds Murder Trial in Berlin and Expected Terrorism, The Associated Press, April 1 BERLIN-On what was supposed to be the last day of testimony, a court agreed Tuesday to extend the trial of five men accused in the assassination of a Kurdish opposition leader to consider new statementsŠ. Prosecutors charge that Iran's powerful spiritual leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and Iranian President Hashemi Rafsanjani were behind the killings. The accusations prompted angry denials from Iranian officials and a series of anti-German street protests in Iran late last year. [Last week, German daily Tageszeitung quoted Peter Frisch, the head of the Office for the Protection of Germany's Constitution, BfV, as saying that Germany had prepared itself for terrorist actions by the Iranian regime following the announcement of the court verdict in the Mykonos trial. He added that: "We must expect demonstrations and violence in Iran and major disruption in our foreign relations with Iran."] Rafsanjani's Gradual Demise, Asharq Al-Awsat, March 25 The appointment of Rafsanjani as the head of the Council for the Discernment of the Exigencies of the State is in fact the gradual removal of Rafsanjani from power. Since Khamenei, as the spiritual leader, is controlling all political and executive powers, describing Rafsanjani as the number two figure is without basis. Would the future elected president accept to be the number three figure? What Price Reductions?, Kayhan, March 27 The claim that the price of consumer goods has declined by 25% is unrealistic. The public only sees price hikes and such claims undermine the credibility of the official media and statistics. High Prices Force People to Stay Home During Holidays, Kayhan, March 25 Many Tehran residents preferred to stay in the capital during the Nowrooz holidays due to the heavy cost of travel. A man from southwest Tehran said that the cost of a four-day trip for our family of five is about one million rials.