The findings were included in a report prepared for President Clinton and Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright by the Advisory Committee on Religious Freedom Abroad....

 In one section, the report cited Iran as a country where "severe and sustained discriminatory practices" have had a devastating effect on the Baha'i faith. Iran has taken steps to eliminate the Baha'i adherents by denying them the right to assemble and confiscating their property, the report said. It said more than 200 Baha'is have been killed since the 1979 revolution in Iran.

 "The climate of intimidation in Iran has also . . . affected certain Christian, Jewish and Zoroastrian communities, whose members have been victims of harassment, persecution and extrajudicial killing," the study said.
 
 
Iranian Leaders Intensify Attack on Israel on "Jerusalem Day", Agence France Presse, January 23
 
 TEHRAN - Iranian leaders intensified their hostile line against Israel as demonstrations were held throughout the country on Friday to mark International Qods (Jerusalem) Day'.

 President Mohammad Khatami, who took office in August promising to ease tension with other countries, personally attended a large rally in Tehran and marched among people.

 Former president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani delivered an acerbic speech against Israel at Tehran University, criticizing Arab
leaders for seeking peace with the Jewish state.  He said Iran would take their place in carrying "the sacred banner" of the fight against Israel, and voiced regret over "the deception, lethargy and feebleness which marks the Arab world" with respect to Israel.

 "The Arab world should risk its wealth and lives for this cause, as Iran has. Don't let the Americans and Western countries
deceive you," he said referring to the US-sponsored Middle East peace process.

 "It is a pity that some Arab countries feel closer to the enemy than to Iran," said Rafsanjani, who is a top adviser to supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

 The stepped-up attack against the West came amid pressure on Khatami to stick to the principal guidelines of the 1979 revolution, notably hostility towards arch-enemies Israel and the United States.
 

EU  Urged to Uphold Iran Sanction, Reuter, January 23
 
BONN - An exiled Iranian opposition group on Friday urged the European Union not to soften its line against Iran, citing what it said was widespread human rights abuses in the Islamic republic.

 The National Resistance Council called on a meeting of EU foreign ministers in Brussels next Monday to impose sanctions on
Tehran and not to be deceived into thinking new Iranian President Mohammad Khatami was a moderate.

 Masoume Bolurchi, a group member, told a news conference Iran was run by a "mediaeval regime" that should be isolated
politically and economically.

 She said one example of brutality was the continuing practice of execution by public stoning, adding that there had been at least seven such cases reported last year.

 The group presented what it said the first video footage of a public stoning to be smuggled out of Iran.

 Bolurchi said the footage had been taken seven years ago at a barracks for Revolutionary Guards in northern Iran and sneaked out recently by a member of the Mujahideen Khalq.

 The video showed four men purported to be soldiers convicted by a military tribunal of crimes, including rape, refusal to obey a command and adultery, and condemned to death by stoning.

 The men were whipped until they fainted, then wrapped in white cloth, carried into the middle of a crowd of about 100 jeering
men, placed upright in holes and buried up to their waists to stop them escaping.

 Bolurchi said her group regretted German Foreign Minister Klaus Kinkel's recent comments that he saw potential for a new
beginning to relations with Tehran since President Khatami took office last August.

 Last year a German court concluded Iran's political leaders ordered political assassinations in Germany in 1992, when four
Kurdish dissident leaders were gunned down in a Berlin restaurant.

The verdict prompted EU members to recall their top envoys from Tehran and put their policy of "critical dialogue" with Iran on hold.

 The United Nations General Assembly in December passed a resolution expressing concern about the increasing numbers of
executions in Iran as well as cases of degrading treatment, including the stoning of women and amputations.

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