Back to Brief on Iran
Thousands of spectators staged a protest Monday, February 2, during a soccer match between Tehran's Esteqlal and Fat'h teams. They chanted anti-government slogans and clashed with the State Security Forces and the Guards Corps.
Demonstrating their anger at the mullahs' regime, enraged spectators threw bottles, dislodged the seats and inflicted other damages on the stadium,
Despite their intervention, the Guards Corps and Intelligence Ministry agents failed to stop the protest. The demonstration continued until the end of the game.
More Than 80 Arrested During Three-Day Clashes,
Iran Zamin News Agency, February 7
From Friday to Sunday, January 30 to February 1, the residents of Anar, in the southern Kerman Province, staged a city-wide protest against the repressive policies of the mullahs' regime and clashed with the Intelligence Ministry's anti-riot forces and the Guards Corps who tried to crush their protest.
The demonstrators occupied the governor's building. At least 84 persons were arrested in these clashes and three wounded.
In a statement, the NCR drew the attention of international human rights organizations to the suppression of the widespread demonstrations in the city of Anar and urged their intervention to save the lives and secure the release of those arrested.
German's Iranian Lawyer Refuses Appeal - Report,
Reuters, February 7
BONN - The Iranian lawyer of a Hamburg businessman condemned to death in Tehran has refused to appeal against the sentence because of pressure from Islamic hardliners, a German newspaper reported on Saturday.
The Berliner Morgenpost, citing German security sources, said Helmut Hofer's lawyer had been put under such pressure that he was worried about his own safety and that of his family.
The newspaper said the threats were
believed to come from "radical forces" hoping to torpedo the course adopted
by the new Iranian government under President Mohammad Khatami, who was
elected last May.
Commentary
[Excerpts from an article by Arnold
Beichman, a research fellow at the Hoover Institution, and a columnist
for the Washington Times.]
While President Clinton busied himself last week with sending conciliatory post-Ramadan messages to Iran, an exile group of Iranians has told a congressional subcommittee it has information linking the theocratic regime to one of the worst bombings in the Western Hemisphere...
In a letter to Rep. Elton Gallegly, California Republican, Soona Samsami, a member of the National Council of Resistance’s international committee, said her organization had obtained from sources within Iran that the July 1994 bombing of the Jewish community center in Buenos Aires, Argentina, had been ordered by the Iran’s Supreme National Security Council. The information has been sent off to the State Department for evaluation, according to Vincent Moreli, a staff member of the Subcommittee on Western Hemisphere, chaired by Mr. Gallegly. The subcommittee is part of the larger House Foreign Affairs Committee...
At the time of the 1994 bombing, Israeli intelligence officials told the Argentine government that the Lebanon-based Partisans of God had claimed responsibility for the bombing. That organization has been linked to the Iranian-backed Hezballah (Party of God).
The exiled National Council’s accusations against Iran are sure to have a sympathetic ear in the Congress. A majority--224--of House members, including Mr. Gallegly, in a letter sent last November to Mr. Clinton accused Iran of running "the most active terrorist network in the world." The same statement charged Iran with involvement in a car bombing of a U.S. military barracks in Saudi Arabia which resulted in the deaths of 19 American servicemen.
On the very day that Mr. Clinton was sending out a friendly feeler to Iran for "cultural exchanges," CIA Director George Tenet was warning the Senate Intelligence Committee that despite the election of a so-called moderate as president of Iran, the regime is still engaged in global terrorism. Even more dangerous, Russian technology transfers to Iran, Mr. Tent told the committee, have shortened the time needed before its medium-range missile program comes on line, perhaps within the next 18 months.
All the more reason to proceed with extreme caution before we transfer
Iran from the "enemy" column to the "maybe" column.