Back to Brief on Iran
Yesterday morning, simultaneous with the summit of the Organization of Islamic Conference in Tehran, terrorists dispatched by the mullahs' regime assassinated five members of the Kurdistan Democratic Party of Iran near the cities of Doukan and Kouysanjeq in Iraqi Kurdistan.
These killings bring to 24 the number of Iranian dissidents assassinated in Iraqi territory since Mohammad Khatami took office as President.
In a statement, the NCR President,
Massoud Rajavi said: "The simultaneity of these assassinations with the
Islamic Conference summit demonstrates that terrorism is indispensable
to this religious, terrorist dictatorship. Terrorism, Mr. Rajavi said,
will leave this part of the world only after this regime is overthrown."
Iranian Resistance Appeals to Islamic Summit, Reuter, December 9
PARIS - … Iranian exile groups appealed to the Islamic Conference (OIC) in Tehran on Tuesday to support their struggles against the governments in their home countries….
Massoud Rajavi, head of the Iranian dissident group, called on all Islamic countries "to raise their voice against flagrant violations, under the banner of Islam, of human rights and export of terrorism by the ruling theocracy," his statement said.
Rajavi's Mujahideen Khalq military group operates from heavily armed camps in Iraq against neighboring Iran, which regularly hits back.
In his statement, Rajavi said 14 Arab leaders had stayed away from the OIC summit to express their disapproval of what he called "the clerical regime's anti-Islamic policies."…
Iran Opens Islamic Summit with Attack on West,
Reuter, December 9
TEHRAN - Iran opened a world Islamic summit on Tuesday with a blistering attack on the West as materialistic, money-seeking, gluttonous and carnal.
Conservative supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei took center stage before leaders of Moslem states to deliver a tirade against the West in general, and the United States and Israel in particular, accusing them of a cultural and military invasion of the Islamic world.
"Western materialistic civilization is directing everyone towards materialism while money, gluttony and carnal desires are made the greatest aspirations.
"Sincerity, truthfulness, altruism and self-sacrifice have been replaced in many parts of the world by deception, conspiracy, avarice, jealousy and other indecent features," the Shi'ite Moslem clergyman said….
Khamenei, whose authority has recently been called into question by dissident clerics, aimed his tirade at the West in general and the United States and Israel in particular.
"The Zionists, the notorious global Zionist media and the agents of arrogance, in particular the Americans -- namely those who have sustained the greatest losses due to the (Iranian) revolution -- have been and are most active and vocal" in slandering the Islamic republic, Khamenei said….
Khamenei denounced the U.S.-brokered Arab-Israeli peace process as "unjust, arrogant, contemptuous and, finally, illogical" and a "losing transaction" for the Palestinians….
Ayatollahs Bow to Football's Fun Revolution,
The Sunday Telegraph, December 7
Yet last Monday night there were 5,000 women among the ecstatic crowd of 70,000 fans who gathered at the Azadi stadium to welcome back the Iranian team.
It was a terrible moment for the local authorities. Could they really allow the national football team to appear on the Azadi pitch for a triumphant lap of honor, showing their naked knees in front of women?
The team, who had just flown in from Dubai, were virtually held prisoner by the officials who had turned out to welcome them. No one could decide what to do, so the helicopter which was to take them to the stadium ran its engines and stayed on the ground.
No one is as sensitive to the question of crowds on the streets as politicians who have been swept to power by other crowds on the streets. So the team were helicoptered in. Everyone was happy except the conservative clergy, who no doubt thought it was the beginning of the end. Although that is probably an exaggeration, last week's events have given a lot of people in Iran a great deal to think about.
"There is," Ayatollah Khomeini once said gloomily, "no fun in Islam." For 18 years now, he and his successors have done their best to make that statement of faith come true. The other day, in the holy city of Mashhad, the host of a party and his 25 guests, male and female, were given 74 lashes each and fined for "debauchery, failing to respect the Islamic dress code and listening to illegal music". The Revolutionary Guards who raided the house also found a television satellite dish and Western videos - forbidden fruit.