The top security adviser of Helmut Kohl, the German Chancellor, has opened contacts with Iran in a last-minute attempt to rescue a Hamburg businessman from being stoned to death for adultery….

Last Sunday [German businessman Helmut] Hofer lodged an appeal and some of Germany's senior politicians —including Bernd Schmidbauer, the security adviser, and Klaus Kinkel, the Foreign Minister— are trying to salvage relations between Germany and Iran.

"It would severely strain relations with Iran if this conviction is enforced," the Foreign Ministry said. "The ruling violates all principles of human rights and justice." The Iranian chargé d'affaires in Bonn has been called to the Foreign Ministry.

The German public is outraged….

According to the National Council of Resistance of Iran, adulterers and other offenders against Islamic law are often stoned in a group. A film smuggled out of Iran in January showed one victim being whipped and then being stoned along with four other men. About 200 people were executed in 1997, according to Tehran authorities….

The last publicly announced stoning was in Afghanistan where the Taleban Islamic movement last year ordered the execution of a young woman….

Iran is the only other country where stonings are regularly reported. The National Council of Resistance of Iran said that at least 60 people had been killed this manner since the Iranian revolution in 1979….

 
Mercy Appeals for Iranian Journalist Sentenced to Death, Agence France Presse, February 11

A human rights group and an international press association urged Iranian President Mohammad Khatami Wednesday to intervene to save an Iranian journalist sentenced to death for alleged espionage.

The Vienna-based International Press Institute (IPI) said Morteza Firuzi, a former editor-in-chief of the English-language daily Iran News, could be hanged in the next few days, and feared he had not been given a proper trial….

The Paris-based Human Rights League also demanded more information about Firuzi's case….

It said that… "silence and indifference could not serve as a response when the world learns of constant violation of the law in Iran."

IPI said it feared that Firuzi's conviction "may be an attempt to silence both him and other members of Iran's press."…

The Human Rights League called on similar organizations in the European Union and the United Nations to intervene on Firuzi's behalf.

 
False Amnesty Claims Amid Antigovernment Protests And Widespread Arrests, Iran Zamin News Agency, February 11

In a deceptive gesture, Ali Khamenei, the clerical regime's leader, approved of amnesty offers for a number of prisoners, according to statement issued by the National Council of Resistance of Iran.

The statement said: Khamenei's decree for prisoners' release clearly stated that political prisoners, mentioned as "counterrevolutionary groups", were not included in the amnesty.

The hollow show of amnesty comes at a time when popular uprisings, student protests and workers' strikes and Resistance activities inside the country are on the rise. The mullahs' regime has unleashed a new drive to arrest antigovernment workers and students. At the same time, the Intelligence Ministry has re-arrested a considerable number of former political prisoners.
 

"Death To America Is Still Our Slogan", The Associated Press, February 12

Khatami marked Wednesday's anniversary of the 1979 Islamic revolution by condemning the American military buildup in the Persian Gulf as an insult to the region….

On Wednesday, Khatami upheld the long-held position that the Persian Gulf is Iran's domain and any foreign forces are to be condemned….

"Death to America is still our slogan, and we consider any thoughts of a dialogue with The Great Satan as futile," one unidentified speaker said, as the crowd chimed in with the revolutionary war cry, "Death to America."…

The president of the Washington-based National Council of Resistance to Iran also noted the anniversary of the revolution, releasing a statement in the United States calling on Khatami to "allow a whiff of an open political environment."

"If that were to happen, the Iranian people would sweep aside the (religious) dictatorship much quicker than they did the shah's regime," Massoud Rajavi said.
 

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