BRIEF ON IRAN
No. 1198
Friday, July 30, 1999
Representative Office of
The National Council of Resistance of Iran
Washington, DC

Khatami: Everyone Must Pledge Allegiance To Supreme Leader, Iran Zamin News Agency, July 29

The regime's state television broadcast Khatami's speech in the western city of Hamedan in its midday newscast today, saying that the mullahs' president "emphasized that velayat-e faqih (regime's Supreme Leader) is the central axis of the state and that anyone who accepts the Constitution must also pledge allegiance to the principle of velayat-e faqih ." Khatami said such a person "would be 'one of us' and a citizen of the Islamic Republic and our regime is duty-bound to protect his legitimate rights."

The clerical regime's president who in his Tuesday speech in Hamedan had declared the full obedience of himself and his government to "His Eminence the Supreme Leader" Ali Khamenei, made it clear today that those who refuse to accept the principle of velayat-e faqih are alien and deprived of their basic rights.
 
 

Iranian Resistance Sends List of 170 of Those Arrested in Tehran Uprising to UN, Iran Zamin News Agency, July 29

Mr. Mohammad Mohaddessin, chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the National Council of Resistance of Iran, sent a letter to Mrs. Mary Robinson, United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, providing her with a list of names and particulars of 170 individuals detained by the clerical regime's security forces during the recent uprising in Tehran. The list has been compiled by the Mojahedin Command Headquarters inside Iran and investigations to discover more names are continuing.

Mr. Mohaddessin emphasized that according to reports from Tehran, there are some 5,000 detainees in Evin Prison alone, being subjected to maltreatment and coercion under interrogation, without enjoying due processes of law.

On July 14, Hassan Rohani, Khatami's deputy in the Supreme National Security Council, told a government-organized counter-demonstration that the students and people who were arrested would be tried and punished "in the next few days on charges of waging war on God and spreading corruption on earth." Mohaddessin urged Mrs. Robinson to intervene immediately to save the lives of the detainees.
 
 

Pro-Khatami Student Group Strays From Dissident Students, The Wall Street Journal, July 28

TEHRAN - Iranian security officials are using recent student riots to crack down on dissidents opposed to the country's Islamic regime, and they are getting little protest from student groups that favor more-limited reforms.

Mainstream student activists, instead of planning more demonstrations, are trying to distance themselves from protesters who called for the resignation of Iran's supreme leader. Representatives of the largest student group met this week with Iran's intelligence ministry and Revolutionary Guards to discuss the violent protests of two weeks ago and have asked for a meeting with the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

"We're trying to keep a dialogue," said Akbar Atri, a top official of the largest student group, the Office for Fortifying Unity ...

... Yesterday, in his first speech since the riots, Mr. Khatami ... called the dormitory raid a "war on the president," but said he is in full accord with the more-conservative Ayatollah Khamenei.

Iran's security forces ... are continuing to arrest rioters, using photographs and films of the four days of street protests ...

The hard-liner-controlled television has made a media star of one arrested student named Manouchehr Mohammadi ... Students and followers of the student movement here describe Mr. Mohammadi ... as a simple villager who ... had little following on campus. They say it is suspicious that he was able to travel to the U.S. last fall, because most students have their passports held until they have completed military service.
 
 

From Mullah's Press, Iran Zamin News Agency, July 28

The state-controlled daily Arya reported, on Wednesday, that mullah's agents arrested two medical students who were involved in student protests in the city of Isfahan.

Arya also reported arrest of a reporter from hardline newspaper Jebhe in his office on Tuesday.

Official daily, Jomhuri-e Eslami reported that unemployment rate is on the rise in Iran and as regime's statistics mention it is up 4 percent from 1996.

Iran Daily quoted vice president and head of the department of environment as saying, on Wednesday, that a third of Iran's forests have been destroyed over the past 25 years or are in a critical condition.

Back to Brief on Iran