Turkish Premier and Army Clash over Iran Links, London Daily Telegraph, June 11  

TURKEY'S powerful, pro-secular military and the country's first Islamist prime minister, Necmettin Erbakan, are locked in a fresh battle over relations with neighbouring Iran.

The crisis deepened yesterday as the generals, who accuse Mr Erbakan of being too friendly with the mullahs, attacked Teheran over its support for separatist rebels of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) during a special briefing for reporters, the civil service and non-governmental organisations on the threat posed by Islamic radicalism…

On Friday, a senior Turkish general accused the Islamist-led government of withholding millions of dollars in supplementary funding for the operation, while repeating claims that Iran was providing bases, weapons and medical treatment for the PKK.

Women Fined, Jailed for Infractions of Mullahs' Dress Code, Reuter, June 11  

Forget pictures of women covered head to toe in shapeless black chadors -- the image, more than any other, of the Islamic revolution that toppled the monarchy and ended the Shah's attempt to Westernise Iranian women by forcing them into European costume.

In public [Pari Mayel-Afshar] must wear the hejab -- a form of Islamic dress comprising a headscarf and long dark coat. But she does so under protest.

"When I put the rubbish out I don't wear hejab, to show I don't approve. But I must wear a headscarf and coat in public, even in my office," she explained…

Morality police known as the Guidance Patrol arrest women in the street or in cars for violating revolutionary Islamic dress codes by revealing too much hair or wearing make-up.

The fine for wearing nail varnish, for example, is 80,000 rials ($26.66), for eyeshadow 40,000.

Even weddings have their price by way of a "fine" if the newly-wed couple want their families and friends to celebrate without hindrance from the Guidance Patrol.

The average wedding party brings in 50 million rials, Tehran residents said.

A new law enforced last July dropped punishment of 74 lashes for women breaking the Islamic dress code but set a jail term of up to two months and a fine of up to 500,000 rials. Some women were concerned that conservatives were trying to toughen the dress code by making the veil mandatory, however.

Men in short-sleeve shirts are turned away from government offices in case their bare arms should "excite the sisters" working there.

And women have been physically attacked for cycling in a Tehran park, while some ayatollahs have denounced such female activities as running and horse-riding as sexually provocative….

Women like Afshar want more than a mere lifting of the veil, however. "The election was run on social issues. Unless Khatami is very successful we're going to have very serious problems. He must somehow give some leniency to people's everyday lives," she said.

"'Moderate Cleric' an Oxymoron," Congressional Record, June 10 

Mr. CUNNINGHAM. Mr. Chairman, …There is part of a bigger problem that I would like to speak to my colleagues about… there is a much larger, bigger problem of the terrorist activity.

It was recently stated that in Iran there was a moderate cleric appointed and that possibly our negotiations with Iran might be easier. I think that is an oxymoron, a moderate cleric. Because if you look around the world between Iraq, Iran, and Libya, where most of the fundamentalist Islamic groups come out of are those three countries.

Just like in France and England and Germany and, yes, even on our World Trade Center, these are all symptoms of the same despicable disease called bigotry and Islamic fundamentalism.

Death Sentence on Israeli Embassy Bomb Suspect Upheld, Agence France Presse, June 10

BANGKOK - Thailand's court of appeal has upheld a death sentence against an Iranian suspected of plotting to blow up the Israeli embassy in Bangkok with a massive truck bomb, a court official said Tuesday.

The court backed the ruling of a lower court which last July sentenced Hossein Dasgari to death after finding him guilty of murder, possession of explosives with intent to endanger life and property, and attempted sabotage.

Dasgari, 30, was arrested in southern Thailand in June 1994, three months after police in Bangkok stumbled across a massive bomb hidden in a truck involved in a minor traffic accident two blocks from the Israeli embassy here…

Explosive experts who defused the device said the explosive mixture was powerful enough to have destroyed a large building and was similar in design to the one that badly damaged the World Trade Centre in New York in 1993….

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