UN Rights Body Condemns Iran Killings, Reuter, April 15

GENEVA - The U.N. Human Rights Commission on Tuesday passed a resolution urging Iran to "refrain from violence against members of the Iranian opposition living abroad" and extending the mandate of its investigator for the country.

The 53-member forum also expressed concern about continuing violations of human rights, especially the "large number of executions," and cases of torture, including amputation.

A major Iranian exile group, the Paris-based National Council of Resistance (NCR), issued a statement praising the vote as "another irrefutable document underlining the need to reject the mullahs' regime from the international community."

The resolution extended by one year the mandate of U.N. special rapporteur for Iran, Canadian jurist Maurice Copithorne. In his annual speech to the Commission two weeks ago, he implicitly rebuked Iran for maintaining a high rate of death sentences, for persecution of religious dissidents, for killings of dissenters abroad and for new pressures on the press.

Refer Mullahs' Record of Atrocities and Terrorism To Security Council, Iran Zamin News Agency, April 15

Today, on the eve of the seventh anniversary of the assassination of Professor Kazem Rajavi, the 53^rd session of the UN Human Rights Commission in Geneva adopted its 40th resolution condemning the Khomeini regime for its violations of human rights and unbridled terrorism.

Mr. Massoud Rajavi, President of the NCR, said in a statement: Though it is very necessary to ratify resolutions in condemnation of the mullahs' regime, the time has now come to refer the issue of human rights violations by this outlaw regime and its state-sponsored terrorism to the UN Security Council for adoption of binding measures and imposition of an international embargo.

NCR Official Demands Full Boycott of Iran, Agence France Presse, April 14

OSLO - Western countries must cut off all ties with the Iranian regime to protest acts of terrorism, a foreign policy official in a Paris-based Iranian government in exile urged Monday….

"If the western countries over the last years had decided to operate in a neutral way between the regime and the resistance movement, we would have seen a democratic government in Tehran today. We are only demanding that such neutrality is exercised," Mohammad Mohaddessin said.

He defined neutrality as the end of the so-called "critical dialogue" with the regime and the severing of all trade and diplomatic cooperation….

Ukraine Decides Not To Provide Reactor Parts To Iran, The New York Times, April 15

MOSCOW -- Responding to American and Israeli appeals, Ukraine has decided against providing turbines for the nuclear reactor that Russia is selling to Iran.

The decision is a victory for Western efforts to curtail nuclear cooperation with Iran. American officials said they hoped it would delay the Russian project but did not expect it to prevent the sale of the reactor.

Armed Women of Iran, Time, April 21

(Continued from BOI 635)

The prominence of women in the rebel movement's most striking feature…

"Wanna take a ride?" shouts Moujila Nasferi, a tank driver who left a comfortable life in the U.S. seven years ago to join Rajavi's warriors. Her face and hands stained black from cleaning her Russian T-55 tank's gun barrel… In Washington, where she lived from 1977 to 1989, "I had my own house, a car and a job, but I kept listening to reports of how bad things were in my country," she said. So she decided she had to go home.

That she is one of thousands of women who joined the rebel movement is a measure of the degree to which Tehran has trampled women's rights, says Maryam Rajavi. "The worst and most savage of the regime's repression is directed toward women," she says. "So in our army, women have key roles."

Women-dressed in fatigues topped off with green scarves-not only drive tanks but also pilot attack helicopters and command mixed-sex battalions. "The women are for real," says Patrick Clawson, an Iran expert at the National Defense University in Washington. "They have a role in combat and a significant role in the organization."… The men have learned to respect the women's military skills. Says Ali Andelavi, 25, a defector from the Revolutionary Guards who is now an engineer in the rebel army: "In Iran I didn't recognize women even to speak to them. I thought they were subhuman. Here many of my commanders are women."…

… Commander Mehdi Madadi says he has seen a 500% rise in new recruits in the past year. "We are seeing young people come across the border in groups of 15 and 20," he says…

Back to Brief on Iran