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• 260 public hangings
• Hundreds of secretly executed political prisoners
• Seven stoned to death in public
• More than 170 forms of physical and psychological torture practiced systematically in jails across Iran
• Ex-political prisoners re-arrested across the country
• Mass demonstrations by thousands of anti-government protesters suppressed in bloody crackdowns in Tehran and several provinces
• 28 Iranian dissidents assassinated abroad
• 14 terrorist attacks such as car bombs and mortar attacks on Iranian Resistance
• 270 million dollars paid to mullahs' terrorist surrogates in Arab countries
• Test firing of Shahab 3 mid-range missile....

Praising Lajevardi, "the butcher" of Evin prison
"One of the hard working soldiers of the revolution and a servant of the people and the regime was martyred."
IRNA, August 23, 1998

Defending clerical rule and velayat-e faqih
"In the Islamic Republic defending the law means defending the velayat-e-faqih"
State television, November 18, 1997

"The main axis and the central pillar of this regime is the great leader and the vali-e-faqih, around whom other institutions and organs are formed."
State television, May 23, 1998

"I work under the auspices of the leadership, and His Eminence is considered the central pillar of the regime."
State television, April 22, 1998

"We tell the world that our Imam's (Khomeini's) path is alive. We shall press hard to continue this path."
State television, January 19, 1998

Suppression
In a meeting with the deputies, advisors and directors general of the Ministry of Intelligence, President Khatami stressed the vital role of the Ministry of Intelligence in establishing security and stability in society, adding: "Those who are pursuing the overthrow of our regime should be treated differently and talked to in a different language.'"
State radio and television, December 30, 1997

"Today, the government, the Guards Corps and the Armed Forces are alongside one another around the revolution's supreme leader in the path to elevate the revolution, and defend the dignity and independence of the nation," Khatami said. "With our body and soul, we are all proud of the Guards Corps."
State television, May 24, 1998

Defending crackdown on the people of Isfahan
"The heroic people of Isfahan responded to the message sent by our generous leader,... the population showed their love for the regime and the leadership by their presence and at the same time they demoralized the ill wishers and the enemies "
State television, May 23, 1998

On freedom
"If by freedom one means confronting the aspirations of this nations and the foundations of the Islamic Revolution and Islam, Iran's revolutionary people cannot accept it and will not allow it..."
Kayhan, June 10, 1986

Freedom of expression
"In Iran, only those adhere to Islam and the Leadership have the right to engage in political activity and existence."
State television, November. 18, 1997

Video, music
"We consider videos to be much more dangerous than drugs.... The Ministry of Islamic Culture and Guidance is one of the most adamant opponents of legalizing the use of video sets in society."
Ettela'at, July 10, 1991

"As the country's chief authority on culture and art, I say: Music is allowed in this country but improper music is banned."
Ettela'at, July 10, 1991

Foreign policy
"Wherever they see their interests endangered, they resort to sanctions and try to enforce their sanctions on the world... Not only they pressure Iran, but they pressure Europe, Asia, they even pressure Japan".
State television, 19 January 1998

Khatami's speech at Khomeini's grave: "We have suffered more than any other (nation) from the oppressive policies of the United States... If we are seen to have turned away from our revolution and given up our identity, no matter what they would give us, we shall lose."
State television, January 19, 1998

On American people
"The bullying attitude of America is a source of dual disaster. The American people have the shallowest culture in the entire world. They are a bunch of bullies and knife toting adventurers... "The worst of Europe gathered together and went there [to the United States] to find money. It is a culture without roots; it is based on the technology of force... Now the Americans, a nation without the least culture, have most of the world's resources at their disposal. This represents a dual catastrophe for humanity."
Ettela'at, July 7, 1991

Export of fundamentalism
"What could we do in order to enter the world scene? We need a force which the enemy does not possess, and this is the force which is superior to technology and to arms. What we need as a balancing force is the newly born, fully alert, and ready to sacrifice Islamic force . If the Islamic Republic is supported by such a force , the same force as in Algeria, then its movement would be taken seriously. Like Sudan is taken seriously. New centers of power are being formed in the Islamic world...This is an issue which should be dealt with seriously."
Ressalat, June 5, 1991

"By setting up 30 cultural centers in 17 countries around the world, the Islamic Republic has transferred the first nuclei of Islamic revolution so well that today despite lack of resources, the voice of the Islamic revolution is being heard in the most remote regions of the globe."
Kayhan, August 30, 1986

 

Who are Khatami's allies and associates?

The Cabinet
The cabinet announced by Khatami on August 12 was remarkable in the sheer number of former or active members of the Revolutionary Guards it contained. Nearly two thirds of the ministers belong to the Line of the Imam faction, the closest tendency to Khomeini's views which in 1979 took part in the hostage taking of U.S. embassy in Tehran. The rest belong to previous governments. 15 out of 22 ministers were in the Guards Corps and related agencies and five of the ministers were directly involved in exporting fundamentalism and terrorism.
 

• Hossein Mozzaffar, Minister of Education: Forcefully dispatched tens of thousands of school children to the war fronts.
• Gholamreza Shafei, Minister of Industries: He was the head of Tehran's fourth district Komiteh which covered a wide area of Tehran. Under Shafei's direction, this Komiteh was responsible for the arrest and murder of thousands of dissidents in the 1980s.
• Mohammad Shariatmadar, Minister of Commerce: He was one of the main organizers of the Intelligence Directorate of the Prime Minister's office and the Islamic Revolutionary Komitehs. A founder of the Ministry of Intelligence and State Security and a senior member of the Ministry. For many years Deputy Minister of Intelligence.
• Ali Abdol-Ali Zadeh, Minister of Housing: Was among the founders of Komitehs in East Azerbaijan Province.
• Kamal Kharrazi, Minister of Foreign Affairs: He coordinated the mullahs' domestic and international war propaganda through the slogan of Liberating Qods (Jerusalem) via Karbala (in Iraq)
• Ata'ollah Mohajerani, Minister of Culture and Islamic Guidance: Since 1990, by Khamenei's decree, he has headed the "Committee for supporting the Islamic Revolution in Palestine." He attended a meeting in late 1993 in Tehran where plans to assassinate Yasser Arafat were discussed.
• Mahmoud Hojjati, Minister of Transportation: Between 1989 and 1994 served as governor general of Sistan and Baluchistan province. In this capacity he was directly responsible for organizing a series of terrorist assaults against Iranian dissidents in neighboring Pakistan with the assistance of Qods Force, the Guards Corps' special branch for extra-territorial operations.

Mohammad Soltanifar, managing editor of Iran News daily, was head of the Guards Corps' para-military Basin force in Tehran province; Mullah Mohammad Moussavi Kho'einiha, managing editor of Salaam daily, was the Chief Prosecutor in the 1980s and responsible for the massacre of 30,000 political prisoners in 1988; Hossein Shari'atmadari, editor of Kayhan; Massih Mohajeri, managing editor of Jomhouri Islami; and Mehdi Nassiri, manager of Sobh weekly, are former commanders of the Guards Corps. Ali Larijani, head of the state radio and television organization, was also a GC Brigadier General and a GC commander.

Executions and massacres until 1997
Khatami must answer:
Khatami was Khomeini's Minister of Guidance (propaganda) for ten years. According to the Iranian law, the cabinet members have joint responsibility in all issues. So Khatami should answer before anyone else in the mullahs' hierarchy why:

• 120000 people have been executed since 20 June 1981 on political grounds?
• More than 150000 people have been imprisoned by the regime as political prisoners without their least rights being respected, and have been subjected to more than 170 forms of torture recorded by international bodies.

• One million Iranians were killed or maimed during the eight year war with Iraq; a war which according to all arbiters could have been stopped only two years after it started.
• According to figures published by the regime itself, the country suffered more than 1,000 billion dollars worth of war
• damages during the eighth year war with Iraq.
• Recruitment and dispatch of hundreds of thousands of Iranian schoolchildren and youth to the war fronts to clear minefields.
• More than 300 opponents have been assassinated by the regime's hit squads abroad.
• The mullahs' regime has been condemned 42 times by different organs of the United Nations for violating the most primitive rights of Iranian citizens.

Biggest massacre of political prisoners
After the ceasefire in the Iran-Iraq war in summer 1988, a wave of mass executions swept Iran's prisons. Family visits to prisoners were canceled unprecedentally as a sign of the coming massacre, and news of the wave began circulating throughout the country. In a letter to Khomeini, Montazeri, his designated successor at the time, mentioned the "execution of several thousand people in a few days", and added that this approach did not help solving any problem. He protested against the killings in three consecutive letters, which only led to his own dismissal by Khomeini.

Assadollah Lajevardi, head of the State Prisons Organization who had served as revolutionary prosecutor and head of the notorious Evin prison since 1981 and was personally responsible for the torture of thousands of political prisoners and for sending them to the gallows, played a vital role in the massacre. According to estimates, nearly 30,000 political prisoners lost their lives during the few months of summer and fall of 1988 in prisons situated in Tehran and other cities across the country.

Mullahs' terrorism:
Change or more of status quo?

Over the years, terrorism has been the main pillar of the mullahs' foreign policy. Contrary to speculations in the West, the Tehran regime has intensified its terrorist activities and export of fundamentalism over the past year Since mid 1997, the regime has concentrated on training instructors on terrorism, who would be able to train in their own countries new agents for terrorist activities.

• In the second half of 1997, tens of agents from different countries in the Middle East including Egypt, United Arab Emirate and Lebanon, received their terrorist training in Iran. The training courses are given by the Qods Force (the organization for the extraterritorial operations of the Guards Corps) and the Ministry of Intelligence.
• The Tehran regime raised the budget allocated for fundamentalist groups to 270 million dollars in 1997.
• The Organization of Islamic Culture and Communications is now the main agency that recruits fundamentalist agents from different countries for terrorist operations. Under Khatami, the budget for this organization has been raised by 15%. This is fully in line with Khatami's views on the expansion of the Islamic revolution.
• The Arabic daily, Al-Hayat, reported: "Informed sources in a Western capital revealed that Iran, along with others, is playing a role in an attempt to unite two Egyptian organizations named "Gamaa al-Islamya' and "Al-Jihad' ". This was an attempt which led to the formation of "the International Islamic Front to wage a holy war against Jews and Christians'. These sources reiterate that power centers in Iran are directly involved in these attempts."
• According to a report by a special Republican investigative committee on terrorism and unconventional warfare in Congress, Ben Laden attended a meeting with intelligence officials in Tehran in the beginning of 1997 to discuss recruitment and strategy of logistics and intelligence.
• In connection with the bombings of the American embassies in Tanzania, it is worth noting that Ali Saghaian, the clerical regime's ambassador in Tanzania, is a diplomat-terrorist who worked in the Iranian embassy in Argentina in 1994 and was one of the terrorists behind the bombing of the Jewish community center in Buenos Aires.
• Kazem Tabatabai, the mullahs' current ambassador in Kenya, served in the regime's embassy in Baghdad, where he planned and organized many terrorist attacks against the Mojahedin.
• In its annual report, the German Department of Protection stated that it is not unlikely that the Iranian embassy in Germany to start its hostile activities against its opposition who are active in various cities in Germany. It seems that the Iranian Intelligence Ministry is not prepared to stop its operations against its opponents abroad. The report reiterates that the Department holds solid proofs indicating the use of non Iranians in terrorist operations in a way to avoid leaving traces of the Iranian involvement.
• According to a report by the German secret service, BND, the Iranian embassy in Bonn has opened 270 companies in Europe as cover for its activities. Suddeutsche Zeitung, August 23, 1998

Khatami's record in office:

• Number of public executions announced by the regime in the mass medial during Khatami's presidency: 260
• In February 1998, nine people were hanged in public in the city of Zahedan in south eastern Iran, and a 22-year-old man was hanged from a crane in the city of Ilam (western Iran).
• On 23 June, 1998, a 21-year-old dissident named Javid Ghanbari was hanged in public in Mokhaberat square in the city of Oroumieh (north western Iran).
• 15 people were hanged in public in the small city of Sarakhs in Khorassan province.
• On 7 June, 1998, the mullahs' regime hanged four people in public in the city of Ahvaz (southern Iran). The executions took place in Salman Farsi square, and the Pasdaran (Revolutionary Guards) left the bodies hanging in public for several hours in order to create a state of fear among the population.
• In March 1998, 4 people were hanged in public in Sari, northern Iran.
• 4 young men including an Iranian citizen from Armenian origin were executed in a Tehran prison. Agence France Presse, August 22, 1998
• On 22 July 1998, a Baha'i named Rouhollah Rohani was executed in the city of Mashad, north eastern Iran.

The test firing of a missile with a range of 1300 km by the mullahs' regime on July 22, 1998

• Despite the rapidly deteriorating state of the economy, the mullahs have been spending an average of 2 billion dollars a year on arms purchases.
• Only after the launch US officials let it be known that CIA's previous assessment that the mullahs' regime was still years away the point of producing such missiles had been a mistake.
• With their new mid-range missile, the mullahs now have the capability to strike at all the capitals in the region.
• Mullahs' determined drive to develop their stockpile of chemical and biological weapons, and their feverish attempts to acquire the ultimate A-bomb are continuing.
• Regardless of what the mullahs' claim, Shahab-3 missile has not been made for defensive purposes against a foreign enemy, but is in fact an instrument serving the warlike and aggressive goals of the theocratic regime.
• After the test firing, mullahs' President Mohammad Khatami, who also chairs the Supreme National Security Council, commended those involved in the missile project. Khatami was in fact among the key decision makers in the project.
• Defense Minister Ali Shamkhani pointed out that the regime plans to expand its armaments technology more than before.

• Decrease in the oil income from 16 billion dollars to 10 billion resulting from a decrease in world oil prices.
• Rate of inflation over 50%
• Rate of unemployment nearly 50%
• Government's latest actions to face the economic situation:
• 2.5-fold tax rise on goods needed by the people
• 2.5-fold rise in fuel prices
• Elimination of bread subsidies and raising its price 1.5 fold
• General price rise, for example reaching 50% for dried milk and 20% for vegetable ghee.
• Decrease in per capita income over the period of 1978 until 1997 to the equivalent of 1/5 of the figure
• 80% of the population under the poverty line
• Devaluation of Iran's currency from 3,800 rials to the dollar to 6.300 rials to the dollar.
• Number of the unemployed: 16 million people or the equivalent to half the work force (47%)

Tehran, Reuters, Aug. 3 - Iran's foreign currency earnings are expected to drop to $10.5 billion in the current Iranian year from around $16 billion a year earlier, a senior Central Bank official said in remarks published on Monday. Iran's economy has been hit hard by the slump in oil prices.
"In order to compensate for the shortages in earnings, we have sold $1.2 billion worth of oil in advance on the European market and we will sell another $1 billion in the next stage," Mojarrad said. On August 1, the Reuters, quoting another Iranian officials reported that "Exports of companies affiliated with Iran's Ministry of Industries dropped by more
than 25 percent in the first quarter of the Iranian year which began on March 21."

Social activities
During Khatami's first year in office:

• In one month, from June 20, 1998, to July 20, fifty three demonstrations and popular movements took place across the country.
• August 1997: The bloody demonstration of tens of thousands of people in Nayriz (south Iran)
• September 1997: The demonstration by 2,000 students in Mashad, Western Iran,
• November 1997: The demonstration by 2,500 students in Kazeroon, South Iran,
• January 1998: Demonstration and clash between thousands of people in Anar, Central Iran,
• January 1998: Strike by 1,000 workers of Melli Shoe Company,
• February 1998: Strike by 1,400 workers of "Baftnaz" factory in Isfahan,
• January 1998: Demonstration by 3,000 students at Tehran university compound. The demonstrators chanted "down with despotism",
• May 1998: Demonstration by 10,000 people of south Tehran district in protest against the death of a young peddler. People clashed with the security forces.
• In May, 419 organized activities and protest movements were carried out by the Resistance.