News on Iran

No. 60

Dec. 18, 1995

A Publication of

National Council of Resistance of Iran

Foreign Affairs Committee

17, rue des Gords, 95430 Auvers-sur-Oise, France

Tel: (1) 34 38 07 28

DOMESTIC

Strikes, protests

Voice of Mojahed, Dec. 13 - Reports from Neyshabour say that workers at the city's Binalood factory with over 1,300 workers have staged a strike, protesting pressures exerted on them by the factory's owner. Security forces have been stationed outside t he factory to prevent the spread of the protest.

Iran Zamin, Dec. 11 - The strike begun on December 5, at Isfahan's Aali brick factory continues. Despite promises to address the grievances of the workers, the province's governor has failed to respond to the workers' demands, including the paym ent of their wages.

Iran Zamin, Dec. 11 - The soccer match between Isfahan's Sepahan and Mazandaran's Shamoshak football teams, played in Isfahan, turned into an antigovernment protest when the fans began chanting slogans against the regime's leaders. Police immedi ately intervened to disperse the crowd.

Iran Zamin, Dec. 11 - Workers at Alborz lumber factory in Qazvin, west of Tehran, staged a protest gathering for the non-payment of their wages.

Iran Zamin, Dec. 11 - Beet growers in Qazvin held a protest rally after officials of Qazvin sugar factory refused to pay for the beet purchased from the farmers. Fearing further protests, authorities paid some of the money owed to the growers. Teenagers Thwart hezbollahis

Iran Zamin, Dec. 11 - Teenagers challenged a number of hezbollahi hooligans who were harassing a few women in Tehran's Mossadeq street last week. After a scuffle, during which many youth clashed with the thugs, the latter fled the scene.

Floods cause death, destruction

Reuters, Dec. 15 - Floods in southern Iran this week have killed seven people and caused damage amounting to over $35 million, an Iranian official said on Friday. Rasoul Zargar, head of Iran's Natural Disasters Headquarters, said the provinces of Fars, Kerman, Hormuzgan and Sistan-Baluchestan suffered most in the floods which also killed 7,445 head of livestock.

He put the damage in the worst-hit areas at 110 billion rials ($36.7 million at the official exchange rate).

The floods caused by torrential rains and bulging rivers partially or fully destroyed 5,605 houses and damaged 24,000 hectares (59,000 acres) of farmland, he said.

Imports drop drastically

Reuters, Dec. 17 - Iran has slashed by nearly a quarter its imports of hard-currency goods from its main Gulf trading partner Dubai, latest trade statistics from the emirate's customs department showed on Sunday...

Re-exports of goods from Dubai to Iran fell to 2.50 billion dirhams ($681 million) in the first nine months of 1995, 23 percent down from the same period last year, Dubai officials told Reuters...

Evidence of lower re-exports from Dubai agrees with estimates by Tehran-based diplomats who say that Iran's imports from its main trading partners of Germany, Japan, Britain, Italy and France have fallen by up to half this year...

By limiting its hard-currency imports, Tehran hopes to be able to meet an annual debt obligation of between $5 billion and $6 billion, diplomats say.

Iran's total financial obligations to foreign countries in the context of its second five-year plan are $33 billion, of which $17 billion is rescheduled, according to Central Bank governor Mohsen Nourbakhsh...

97% decline in production

Iran Zamin, Dec. 11 - The agricultural equipment factory in Tabriz, northwest Iran, has a supply of only 520 tractors. The factory used to have a capacity producing 20,000 tractors annually. The main reason for such a drop in production is the s hortage of raw materials that need to be imported. Libya is one of the very few customers of the equipment sold for $13,000, far below the manufactured cost.

FOREIGN

Maryam Rajavi, Cheysson meet

Iran Zamin, Dec. 11 - Mr. Claude Cheysson, former French foreign minister met Mrs. Maryam Rajavi, the Iranian Resistance's President-elect, at her residence in Auvers-sur-Oise, France. Mr. Cheysson said: "For some time now, I have been saying th at the best answer to fundamentalist Islam is the genuine Islam which you represent." He added: The extensive presence of women in the Resistance's army is a very important and extraordinary phenomenon. Mrs. Rajavi noted that the true Islam was diametrica lly opposed to the thinking and conduct of the mullahs' regime in every respect, including the treatment of women. It promotes tolerance, fraternity and mercy, and advocates equal rights for citizens, Mrs. Rajavi added.

U.N. committee condemns rights abuses

AP, Dec. 13 - A U.N. committee called on Iran to permit a human rights monitor to visit as soon as possible and expressed concern Wednesday that executions and torture were being carried out in the country.

The U.N. committee on human rights voted 74 to 26 for the proposal. Forty-nine countries abstained.

The U.N. special representative for Iran, Maurice Danby Copithorne, has been invited to the country, and the proposal called on Tehran to permit the visit as soon as possible and without conditions.

Iran allowed Copithorne's predecessor into the country to compile previous reports but later barred his entry. The proposal cites a large number of executions, cases of torture and inhuman treatment of prisoners in Iran.

U.N. must expel mullahs

NCR Secretariat, Dec. 13 - NCR President Massoud Rajavi, said that the Third Committee resolution was the 36th such document adopted by the United Nations during the past 14 years, condemning Khomeini's medieval regime for severely abusing the rights o f the Iranian people and exporting terrorism. It is yet another irrefutable evidence of the irreformability of the mullahs ruling Iran.

Rajavi stressed: This year's resolution, is particularly important because during the Third Committee deliberations on the situation of human rights in Iran, the mullahs' regime, resorting to political maneuvering and outright blackmail, tried desperat ely to dissuade the Committee from adopting a resolution of condemnation.

The NCR President said: The time has come for the General Assembly to refer the appalling record of the mullahs on human rights and terrorism to the U.N. Security Council to consider adopting practical and concrete punishments against this regime.

Mr. Rajavi emphasized: Experience has shown that although resolutions condemning this regime are quite necessary and effective, they are not at all sufficient to confront such a criminal regime. Thus, the clerical regime must be expelled from the Unite d Nations and Iran's seat at the U.N. be transferred to the National Council of Resistance, the Iranian Resistance's 560-member Parliament which encompasses all Iranian political, social, cultural, ethnic and religious sectors and tendencies.

Clerics lambaste U.N. resolution

Reuters, Dec. 13 - Iranian radio described Tuesday's US Senate Banking Committee's approval of tighter economic sanctions against Iran as a "symbolic political act." A radio commentary in English said US officials "were well aware that such moves would have little economic effect," according to a BBC monitoring service report of the broadcast. "However, political considerations and pressure exerted by the ruling Zionist faction on the US Congress and government has cornered Mr. Clinton, leaving him no way out," the commentary said.

Bosnia peace accord hailed

NCR Secretariat, December 15 - NCR President Massoud Rajavi congratulated all nations of the former Yugoslavia and presidents Alija Izetbegovic, Franjo Tudjman, and Slobodan Milosevic, on the signing of the historical peace accord in Paris which formal ly ended four years of bloodshed, pain and suffering in Bosnia-Herzegovina.

Mr. Rajavi described the development as "another victory for peace over war and intolerance" and expressed the hope that a lasting peace will ensure welfare, prosperity, human rights and democracy for all peoples of Bosnia.

In congratulating all international mediators, particularly President Bill Clinton and President Jacques Chirac, who helped put an end to the greatest political and military crisis of this era, Mr. Rajavi added: I am convinced that by replacing the pre sent dictatorship in Iran with a democratic, secular and pluralist government, my nation will also be able to contribute to global peace in an active, effective and constructive manner.

FEATURE

"Iran's moves toward nuclear capability cast ominous shadow," The San Diego Union-Tribune, December 9, 1995.
By: Stephen Green
Excerpts:

While the Clinton administration's foreign policy focuses on Bosnia, serious new trouble is brewing in an old source of international tensions--Iran. According to reliable information recently received in Washington, the Teheran regime has expanded its secret nuclear development program to the point where it has reached a highly dangerous stage.

Thanks to assistance form China, Iran is on the verge of acquiring the ability to produce enriched Uranium--the material used to construct atomic weapons.

Although China reportedly has told the administration that it no longer will help Iran in nuclear development, the flow of assistance continues, according to information smuggled out of Iran by people opposed to the current government in Teheran.

With China's help, a cyclotron -- a machine used to produce enriched uranium -- has been constructed at a nuclear facility in Karaj, some 25 miles south of Teheran.

The information about the cyclotron has been obtained by the National Council of Resistance of Iran, also known as the Iranian Mujahedeen. Information previously obtained by the organization about Iran's security decisions, support for terrorism, nucle ar development and military activity has proved accurate.

Indeed, many members of Congress consider the organization, which is the major Iranian resistance movement, to be the most credible source of information about what is happening in Iran...

Although a cyclotron can produce only a small amount of enriched uranium, it eventually can yield enough to build an atomic bomb. It is frightful to contemplate the possibility that such a weapon might end up in the hands of the fanatical terrorists sp onsored by Iran. If the administration accepts this information as valid and considers it profoundly grim implication, the U.S. relationship with China will be reappraized yet again.

But China is not the only power aiding the Iranian nuclear development program. Russia, too, continues to assist, most recently by sending 100 nuclear experts to Iran. In the coming months, additional Russian nuclear scientists are expected to arrive a t a site in southern Iran known as Bushehr...

The Clinton administration, like its predecessors, has recognized the menace posed by Iran and taken further steps to isolate her.

Obviously, this tactic has been partially successful in terms of hindering Iranian economic development. But U.S. policy has not prevented Iran's continued violations of human rights, its campaign to subvert Middle East peace, and its sponsorship of te rrorism.

The revelations about the new Chinese nuclear assistance to Iran suggest that tougher steps are necessary. Stiffening U.S. economic sanctions could be the first step. Bringing more pressure on France and other European nations to stop trading with Iran could be another.



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