No Prospect For Normalized Relations With Arab Countries, Iran Zamin News Agency, April 5

  In a recent article, Le Mond described the regime’s attempts to improve relations with Arab countries as hopeless.

The daily wrote that, "The regime’s relations with the Arabs have been influenced by its declared animosity towards the Arab states since its inception and the beginning of the war with Iraq."

Le Mond does not find the mullahs’ claim of good intentions in removing all obstacles towards establishing friendly relations with the Arab states as sufficient.

"This regime is as unpredictable as ever, and its various factions do not talk with a single voice. There is no guarantee that it has stopped the export of its revolution. Right or wrong, it is suspected of being bent on subverting the ruling Arab governments and even, the Palestine Authority," Le Mond wrote.

Citing "Experience," Envoy Insists on "Terrorist Attack" in Uruguay, Agence France Presse, April 6

  TEHRAN - Iran has summoned the Uruguay ambassador here over an alleged foiled terrorist attack on the Iranian embassy in Montevideo, Iran’s official news agency IRNA said Sunday...

Robert Suarez, assistant police chief in Montevideo, said in Saturday’s edition of the daily newspaper El Pais so far there was no strong evidence pointing to a terrorist plot.

Police sources and interior ministry sources described the incident as "confusing" and would not rule out the possibility that the suspects were common burglars.

But Saarmadi insisted the incident was a foiled attack, saying that "we now have enough experience in various parts of the world to know how terrorists behave."

Amnesty Says Executions Soared in 1996, Reuter, April 4 

GENEVA - Amnesty International said on Friday that the number of executions in the world hit a record high of more than 4,200 in 1996 and urged countries to join a U.N. human rights motion on scrapping capital punishment.

China led the way with more than 3,500 executions in 1996, followed by Ukraine, Russia and Iran, it said in a statement.

Amnesty said Ukraine executed 169 prisoners in 1996, Russia executed at least 140 and Iran some 110...

Amnesty Fears Imminent Execution of Iranian Lawyer, Reuter, April 4

  LONDON - Amnesty International said it feared that an Iranian lawyer reported to have been arrested in Iran in 1993 may be at risk of imminent execution…

"In March 1997 it was reported that he (Mohammad Assadi) had been sentenced to death and to confiscation of his property. He is said to be currently held in Evin Prison in Tehran," the statement said.

Iran Denounces U.N. Human Rights Report as Biased, Reuter, April 4

  DUBAI - Iran condemned as biased and unrealistic a United Nations report critical of the Islamic republic's human rights record.

In a report for the U.N. Human Rights Commission released in Geneva on Tuesday, Maurice Copithorne implicitly rebuked Iran for maintaining a high rate of death sentences, for prosecution of religious dissidents, for killings of dissenters abroad, and for new pressures on the press...

... the report, his third since he was appointed in 1995, revealed that he had been refused permission to go back to Iran late last year or early this year -- after a brief visit in February 1996 -- to gather fresh material for the new review.

Iran’s Human Rights Situation: Worse Than Ever, Sueddeutsche Zeitung, April 4

  The list of charges by the United Nations Special Representative is long. This is a heinous list which has a familiar ring from the past: In Iran, people are tortured and executed without a trial. In Iran, the media is muzzled. In Iran, religious minorities are prosecuted. In short, in Iran the situation of human rights is very dismal…

The finding of the U.N. Special Representative is that the human rights situation is worse than ever. This fact indicates that still, after eighteen years, the regime sees itself in danger from the populace…

There is only one test for rebuking such charges: Let the independent observers and foreign journalists travel to Tehran. Make it possible for them to visit the prisons and contact the dissidents.

If this is not carried out, then the charge is that their hands are bloody.

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