Members of an Iranian opposition group have smuggled out a film showing graphic and horrific scenes of people being stoned to death for so-called moral offenses….

"Mohammed," a political opponent of the Iranian government, Doesn't want to be identified for fear of endangering the lives of his family in Iran. The film on view was shot at a police barrack in the Iranian capital, Teheran, in 1992. It was recently smuggled out of Iran by the Mojahedin's underground network.

The film shows one man being lashed and four other men being Stoned to death. Among those present at the scene are the chief religious judge of the armed forces and a number of commanders of the state security forces….

While the victims in the film are all men, the Iranian opponents say women too are savagely and viciously stoned to death, usually for adultery.

A group called "The National Council of Resistance of Iran" has Documented about 50 cases of stoning over the last 10 years. These have taken place in big cities. But, the Council says, many more cases of stoning in small villages throughout the country go undeclared….
 

Iran Opposition Says Khatami Reaffirms Regime's "Dictatorship", Agence France Presse, January 8
 

Iran's opposition in exile said Thursday that President Mohammad Khatami's address to the American people did not represent any change in the Islamic republic's hardline policies.

"He reiterated the usual positions of the mullahs' religious, terrorist dictatorship," the National Council of Resistance of Iran said in a statement received here….

NCRI spokesman Mohammad Mohaddessin said Khatami's remarks "reaffirmed that export of terrorism and fundamentalism are what the regime's internal factions all agree upon."

Mohaddessin said the interview, the first address to the American people by an Iranian leader since the 1979 revolution, put an end to the "propaganda blitz over his alleged inclination towards moderation."

"His statements reaffirmed the fact that there is no possibility for reform from within the clerical regime," Mohaddessin said in the statement.
 

Terrorism, Nuclear Weapon's Program Continues Under Khatami, The Associated Press, January 8

WASHINGTON—…[State Department Spokesman James] Rubin declined to answer a question on Iran's participation in terrorist incidents since Khatami took office last August. But other State Department officials said that Iran was responsible for the deaths of 11 Iranian dissidents outside Iran in 1997, eight since Khatami was sworn in.

There were eight such incidents in 1996.

The officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Iran continues to finance and train terrorist groups opposed to the Middle East peace process. Among these groups are Hezbollah, Hamas and the Palestine Islamic Jihad, they said…….

The administration is convinced that Iran is pursuing nuclear weapons, but officials say it is not clear just how far along the project is.

With such issues in mind, presidential press secretary Mike McCurry said Thursday the possibility of ending hostility "depends not just on what Iran says but what Iran does."…

 
And Tehran's Mass Destruction Weapons Program Continues, The New York Times, January 8

WASHINGTON—…The interview prompted government spokesmen to repeat longstanding American positions on Iran and the kind of dialogue that Washington is willing to hold. And it was an opportunity for an Iranian opposition group, the National Council of Resistance of Iran, to hold a news conference here to remind Americans of ongoing Iranian efforts to build ballistic missiles capable of reaching Israel, Saudi Arabia and Europe.

The resistance group said that Tehran has conducted some tests on a prototype surface-to-surface missile that could have a range of up to 875 miles. If so, it could theoretically threaten American allies including Israel and Saudi Arabia….

 
Rushdie Dismisses Iran Proposal, The Associated Press, January 8

LONDON—Speaking from somewhere in hiding, British author Salman Rushdie declared himself unimpressed today at the Iranian president's proposal of cultural relations with Americans.

Rushdie's short response, relayed through a spokeswoman in London: "Half-measures don't work."

Rushdie has been in hiding since 1989, when the late Iranian leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini declared that Rushdie had blasphemed Islam in the novel, "The Satanic Verses."…

[On December 17, 1997, in an interview with the Norwegian Ch. 2 TV, Khatami's Foreign Ministry spokesman reaffirmed the death decree against Rushdie. Earlier, Kamal Kharazi, Khatami's Foreign Minister had insisted that the fatwa was irreversible.]

Back to Brief on Iran