Just days ago, the world learned that agents of the clerical regime's Intelligence Ministry and members of the Revolutionary Guards Corps had brutally murdered the father of the Resistance movement's hero.

Sohrab Akbari, 61, father of Ali Akbar Akbari who carried out the military operation against Assadollah Lajevardi - Iran's Eichmann - was working on his farm when attacked by regime's agents, who crushed him under a tractor.

In protest to this abhorrent crime, Iranians in Washington, DC, and Los Angeles are holding demonstrations in front of the offices of Amnesty International on April 30, 1999, at 12 noon.

The demonstrators will call on international human rights organizations and the United States government to condemn this crime by the mullahs' regime.

Ali Akbar Akbari, 20, died under torture three days after his arrest on August 23, 1998.
 

TEHRAN FORMER MAYOR SUMMONED TO PRISON, REUTERS, APRIL 29

TEHRAN - Tehran's judiciary has issued a detention order against the capital's former mayor Gholamhossein Karbaschi, sentenced to two years in prison on embezzlement charges, the official IRNA news agency reported on Thursday.

Citing a "reliable source," it said the warrant had been issued on Wednesday, giving Karbaschi, an ally of Mohammad Khatami, seven days to report to a judicial complex for brief proceedings for the execution of his sentence.

His imprisonment will be a blow to Khatami's embattled government which had strongly backed Karbaschi against the charges raised by the conservative-led judiciary.

The source said the former mayor would serve his sentence at Tehran's Evin prison, where he was held for 11 days last April before his trial began.

Karbaschi, close to Khatami, has been sentenced to two years in jail, banned from executive office for 10 years and ordered to pay $533,000 in fines and restitution.

His lawyer has pulled all the stops to keep him from jail, but the supreme court and attorney general's office have declined Karbaschi's repeated appeals, leaving him with no hope except for possible amnesty from supreme leader.
 

ATTACK ON IRAN ''MORALS'' POLICE, REUTERS, APRIL 29

TEHRAN - Unidentified assailants threw a grenade at an Islamic morals patrol car in northern Iran, injuring three people, a newspaper reported on Thursday.

The conservative Resalat daily said the attack on the vehicle carrying police which enforce morals rules took place last week in Rasht, the main city in Gilan province on the Caspian Sea coast. It did not elaborate.

The "morals police" enforce Iran's Islamic rules of social behavior such as a strict dress code for women and a ban on close contacts between unrelated men and women.

Conservative newspapers have in recent weeks reported a growing number of physical attacks on members of the orthodox establishment in the Islamic republic.
 

SANCTIONS CHANGE SEEN AS U.S. GESTURE TO IRAN, REUTERS, APRIL 29

WASHINGTON - To hear Undersecretary of State Stuart Eizenstat tell it, the change in U.S. sanctions policy announced this week is not meant to send a signal to long-time adversaries Iran, Libya and Sudan.

But many U.S. officials and independent analysts say that is exactly what it is -- a concrete manifestation that America's hostile approach is dissipating in response to changing international circumstances, especially in Iran.

Practically speaking, experts say in the short term it will apply almost exclusively to Iran. [In a report from Tehran, Reuters said: Tehran radio on Thursday hailed a move by the United States to lift sanctions on food and medicine to Iran as a "surrender" by Washington.]

To Congressman Ben Gilman, a New York Republican and chairman of the House International Relations Committee, the decision was a "mistaken attempt to gain favor with regimes that do not deserve it."

He said the administration "is lurching from one concession to another while Iran continues to pursue policies that undermine our national security interests."

Some critics are skeptical of Eizenstat's pledge the U.S. government would not underwrite food and medicine sales to the three countries. They worry some dual use items, like chemicals in medicine, might be diverted to Iran's chemical or biological weapons
programs.

Until recently, some U.S. officials were insisting the United States was unlikely to approve the one pending food sale to Iran because Tehran had failed to make sufficient changes in its policies regarding terrorism.

Eizenstat acknowledged the administration sees little change in that country's support of terrorism.

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