WASHINGTON - In the US State Department annual 1999 report on human rights around the world… Iran came under criticism for committing "numerous human rights abuses based in part on religion."

"Although efforts within society to make the government accountable for its human rights policies intensified, serious problems remain," the report said.

It said, "systematic abuses include extra-judicial killings and summary executions, disappearances, widespread use of torture, rape, harsh prison conditions, arbitrary arrest and detention."

"The government infringes on citizens' privacy rights, and restricts freedom of speech, press, assembly and association," it added.

The report also cited what it described as discrimination against religious minorities, including Christians, Jews and Bahais. It cited the arrest of 13 Jews arrested in February and March last year on suspicion of spying for Israel, amid charges of anti-Semitism.
 

85th Terrorist Attack By Mullahs' Regime Against Iranian Resistance, Reuters, February 25

The Iranian opposition group Mujahideen Khalq said Friday that a landmine had exploded near one of its cars on a highway in southern Iraq, wounding two of its members.

It said in a statement that Iranian government agents had planted the mine in the central strip between the two lanes of the Basra-Baghdad highway, 55 miles north of Basra.

The explosion Thursday left a crater one-yard wide and 30 inches deep and the shrapnel damaged passing cars, including a Mujahideen vehicle whose two occupants were wounded, it said.

Farid Suleimani, a spokesman for the group, said he believed the attack was Iranian revenge for a series of assaults launched recently by Mujahideen fighters inside Iran.

Earlier this month the group claimed responsibility for a mortar attack in central Tehran which hit an area near the residence of Iran's supreme leader, Ali Khamenei.
 

News Bites

Iran Zamin News Agency, February 25: At the outset of clerical regime's election sham, all of the regime's factions, including Khamenei, Khatami and Rafsanjani's factions claimed that more than 32 million - or 83% of the electorate - had cast their ballots, describing the turnout as a sign of the regime's stability, unity and legitimacy. This morning, however, the Interior Ministry announced that 26.8 million people voted.

IRNA (State news agency), February 27: Head of the elections headquarters, Mostafa Tajzadeh, said here on Sunday that about 27 million people, 70 per cent of all eligible voters, took part in the nationwide sixth Majlis elections on 18th February. [In 1996, during the fifth Majlis elections, the regime claimed that more than 71% had taken part in the elections.]

Tajzadeh, added that in terms of voter turnout, the province of Tehran ranked last with 57.1 per cent.

Ressalat, (State-controlled daily), February 23: "Of those eligible to vote, 12 million did not go to the polls."

Ressalat (State-controlled daily), February 22: "Compared with the presidential elections, the number of ballot boxes had been reduced by 10% in the recent elections... so that voting lines would be longer to give the impression of a high turnout."

Iran Zamin News Agency, February 25: The governor of Tehran said on February 22 that "50,000 individuals" are counting the votes in the capital. If we accept the Interior Ministry's figure of 3.2 million voters at face value, each of the 50,000 voters only has had 64 ballots to count. Surely counting 64 votes cannot take a week!

The New York Times, February 24: … It would be a mistake to put too much stock in the ability of these reformers to transform Iran… the reformers themselves may be unable to stick together and agree on a common agenda… They are a loose coalition of 18 or so organizations with divergent interests and goals… These competing groups are not likely to come to a meeting of the minds anytime soon...

The Guardian, February 22: "I see names of winners who call themselves reformers but who are really conservatives," said one reformist candidate, Fariba Davoudi. "To be a reformer you have to believe in the rule of law and believe in citizens' rights, but some of the winners do not believe this in their hearts."

Among the demands of Iranian voters are improved rights for women... But many reformers believe the Islamic texts, which form the basis of the Iranian constitution, do not give women such freedoms.

The Los Angeles Times, February 24: The reformers say they have no intention of doing away with Islamic law... Their aim is to achieve a civil order based on democratic principles. But the incompatibility of those principles with theocratic rule is apparent to all. Authoritarianism, religious or secular, can't exist side by side with a free press, a pluralistic political system and guaranteed civil liberties. One or the other must give way.

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