Back to Brief on Iran
More than 10,000 workers of the Melli Industrial Group, which includes the Melli Shoe Factory, the largest shoe maker in Iran, have been on strike since January to protest insufficient salaries and terrible working and safety conditions at the factory.
The regime's Intelligence Ministry raided the homes of many workers, taking them to the Ministry's secret detention centers for interrogation and torture, reports from Iran say.
Journalist on Trial for Expressing View, BBC, February 24
The trial of a prominent Iranian journalist, Akbar Ganji, on charges of insulting the supreme leader, Ayatollah Khamenei, is likely to be an important test for President Khatami….
Mr. Ganji has been in detention since last December after he accused a militant Islamic group, Ansar-e-Hezbollah (Supporters of the Party of God) of being fascists….
Conservative newspapers have accused Mr. Ganji of rejecting the concept of Velayat-e-Faqih….Mr. Ganji said that he was a political prisoner and he was detained only for expressing his views….
Before his detention, Mr. Ganji edited a monthly magazine, Rah-e-No (New Way) reflecting the views of Islamic reformists.
Kazakh Police Arrest Alleged Iranian Spies, Agence France Presse, February 24
MOSCOW—Police in Kazakhstan Tuesday arrested several Iranian intelligence agents in Almaty as they were collecting documents from a Kazakh informer, Interfax said, citing a report on local state television.
Rakhat Tilebaldinov, deputy head of the Kazakh security service, told Khabar television that the Iranian agents had been under surveillance for a long time…
The Iranians' activities will be investigated by Kazakh law enforcement bodies, since they do not have diplomatic immunity, Interfax reported.
Iran's Missile Threat, The Associated Press, February 23
The United States is "seriously addressing" a threat by Iran to develop a medium-range missile that could strike Israel and other Mideast targets, says the head of the Ballistic Missile Defense Organization.
"They may actually have a capability a lot earlier than our intelligence estimates originally predicted," Lt. Gen. Lester Lyles said of Iran. "They may have this capability within the next three to four years."…
Iran Remains "Real Threat to Mideast Peace Process",
United Press International, February 22
Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu has warned that international preoccupation with Iraq's defiance of United Nations weapons inspectors is diverting attention from the growth of nuclear arms in neighboring Iran.
Appearing on "Fox News Sunday," Netanyahu said Iran was developing, "undisturbed and unfettered," a stockpile of ballistic missiles with nuclear warheads….
The prime minister said…the real threat to the Mideast peace process remains Iranian-inspired Palestinian terrorism….
EU Thaw on Iran Likely To Anger US,
The Australian, February 25
The European Union has decided to resume ministerial contacts with Iran, ending a 10-month freeze imposed after the Islamic regime was implicated in terrorism in Germany….
The initiative is bound to exacerbate long-running differences between the EU and Washington over how to deal with Iran.
The US has pursued a policy of isolating the regime and is weighing possible sanctions on French oil group Total for investing in Iran under legislation the EU opposes.
The EU's decision to suspend ministerial contacts and its "critical dialogue" with Iran followed a German court ruling last April that senior Iranian officials had been involved in the organization of the 1992 assassination of four Kurdish dissidents in a Berlin restaurant….
German Foreign Minister Klaus Kinkel
said the resumption of warm relations between Iran and Bonn would depend
on the fate of Helmut Hofer, a German engineer awaiting death by stoning
in Iran for sleeping with an Iranian woman….