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LONDON - Iran's refusal to give a written guarantee not to kill Salman Rushdie is "a backward step," the head of the author's defense committee says.
Frances D'Souza, chair of the International Rushdie Defense Committee, was reacting to a report by the official Iranian news agency Saturday reiterating that Tehran would not seek to carry out a death order against Rushdie -- but would not give a written guarantee.
The Iranian Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance, quoted by the news agency IRNA, denied a British newspaper report that Tehran was ready to give written guarantees not to make any attempts on Rushdie's life.
Culture Minister Ataollah Mohajerani only reiterated that Khomeini's death order could not be revoked, although the Iranian government would not make any attempts on Rushdie's life, IRNA said….
European Union ambassadors have only
recently returned to Tehran, D'Souza noted. "Did the EU not insist before
returning there that the Iranians desist from state sponsored terrorism
in Europe?," she asked.
For Iranian Women, Lack of Power is the Culture They've
Inherited, The New York Times, December 20
TEHRAN - ... Because Islamic law forms the basis of the country's legal code, a man may take as many as four wives. He can divorce without cause, while a woman must provide a court with justification. To marry for a second, third or fourth time, a man must seek his first wife's consent. But if she is childless, a court may cite that as a reason for allowing a second marriage over her objections...
To outsiders, it is the strict dress code imposed on Iranian women since the 1979 revolution that remains the most glaring example of their inequality. No woman dares emerge in public without a head scarf and long coat, and those who show a bit of hair still risk at least public castigation.
But women seeking to promote change have focused their attention instead on legal inequities, of which the one that permits multiple marriage is only one glaring example.
Under the Islamic laws that form the basis of Iranian legal codes, for example, women are considered responsible for their criminal actions from the time they are 9 years old. Boys are not considered responsible until they are 15.
When blood money is ordered paid to the family of a murder victim, compensation for a woman's life is calculated at half the sum for a man's.
In civil law, the codes that govern divorce are similarly unequal. Not only is a man obliged to pay out only a small share of his worth, but fathers are also guaranteed custody of their children -- sons from the age of 2, daughters from the age of 7...
Interior Minister Questioned Over Hostile Rally, Agenec France Presse, December 21
TEHRAN - Iran’s Interior Minister
Abdollah Nuri was summoned to parliament on Sunday to explain why a student
group was allowed to hold a demonstration critical of supreme leader Ayatollah
Ali Khamenei.
Nuri was accused by a conservative deputy of "knowingly giving a green light" to the gathering of university students in October to question the supremacy of the leader.
During a speech at the rally, the leader of a university student association, Heshmatollah Tabarzadi, called for curbs on Khamenei’s all-encompassing powers and that he be elected by suffrage.
The conservative deputy, Mehdi Reza Darvish-Zadeh, also accused the interior minister of allowing "liberal circles" in universities to "foment a plot against the regime."
Since Khatami’s landslide election in May, there have been a growing number of challenges to Khamenei’s formerly undisputed rule with many calling for greater powers to the president.
But the conservatives have sought to suppress such calls and threatened to take tough action.
Judiciary chief Ayatollah Mohammad Yazdi warned Friday that the judicial system "will not remain silent before plots."