A Momentary Hope!, Dutch Daily Trouw, May 26

Mohammad Khatami won the presidential elections… Before the European Union happily sends its ambassadors off to Tehran, or The Hugh decides to return Iranian asylum seekers, it must be noted that first: we absolutely cannot speak of a free elections since, according to clerical leaders, out of 238 candidate only four were qualified. Second: Rafsanjani was viewed as a moderate, but ,in recent years, he and his supporters have killed political opponents. The murders took place not only inside, but also outside Iran… Third: Khamenei, who as the religious leader has the veto power, is still in his position…

The election of Khatami as president will not cause any significant change in Iran and it is just a momentary hope.

No Change of Foreign Policy, The New York Times, May 27 

[Excerpts from column by A.M. Rosenthal]

The elections in Iran show how strongly Iranians resent their Government's suffocating control of their lives. But there is no expectation that Iran's new President will change its foreign policy, which relies on terrorism and hatred of America, or would be allowed to keep office if he tried. Power remains with the ayatollahs who have constructed the policy and live by it.

Iran is making more progress at building up its chemical and biological warfare power -- and its missile strength and nuclear potential -- than any other nation in the developing world. It has more than 2,000 tons of mustard gas, blister gas and probably nerve gas. It has chemical bombs and artillery shells. It has loaded warheads, on missiles with the range to reach American forces now in the Mideast.

French Group Appeals to Iran on Journalist, Reuters, May 28  

PARIS–A French media rights watchdog urged Iran's incoming President Mohammad Khatemi on Wednesday to release an Iranian editor arrested last month for trying to leave the country illegally.

Faraj Sarkuhi, editor of the monthly Adineh (Friday), alleged in a letter smuggled out of Iran that he was held for six weeks and tortured by the Iranian secret service in Tehran late last year to force him to confess to spying for Germany….

"During the presidential election campaign, you committed yourself to freedom of expression and human rights in your country," Robert Menard, secretary general of Reporters Sans Frontieres (Reporters Without Borders) wrote in an open letter to Khatemi.

"Following your election, Reporters Sans Frontieres urges you to use your influence and prerogatives to ensure the immediate and unconditional release of Faraj Sarkuhi, and to guarantee his safety," the letter said.

Sarkuhi's wife, Farideh Zebarjad, who lives in Germany, had expressed her concern that he is being held as a bargaining chip to put pressure on German authorities.

A German court verdict has implicated the Islamic republic's top leadership in the assassination of Kurdish dissidents in Berlin's Mykonos restaurant in 1992.

In Iran, Beating the System, with Bribes and the Big Lie, The New York Times, May 27

TEHRAN—… "We live a double life in this country," said a middle-aged mother who voted for Khatami. "My children know that when their schoolteachers ask whether we drink at home, they have to say no. If they are asked whether we dance or play cards, they have to say no. "But the fact is that we do drink, dance and play cards, and the kids know it. So they are growing up as liars, knowing that their parents are also liars and knowing that to survive in this country we have to lie. That's a terrible thing, and I want it to change…"

Nonetheless, social control is still tight. Squads of policemen and religious vigilantes patrol the streets at night listening for the forbidden sound of Western music. If they hear it, they knock at the offender's door. Depending on the seriousness of the offense and the officers' inclination, the matter is resolved with a payoff or with an arrest.

Iranian women must wear head scarves and cover their bodies with loose and shapeless garments so that they will remain, in the words of one religious exhortation, "as a pearl in its shell."

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