WASHINGTON - U.S. lawmakers Wednesday called for international pressure on Iran to halt its practice of execution by stoning, a practice they said continues under the government of President Mohammad Khatami.

Rep. Illeana Ros-Lehtinen, a Florida Republican, and Gary Ackerman, a New York Democrat, hosted the showing for lawmakers, journalists and the international diplomatic corps of a graphic videotaped execution by stoning of four prisoners in Iran in 1992.

Ros-Lehtinen said seven people, four women and three men, had been stoned to death in public during the tenure of the new Iranian president.

"This clearly shows that nothing has changed under Khatami's rule," she said.

Ackerman condemned as "savagery" the Iranian practice of execution by stoning and urged the Clinton administration to bear this in mind as it deals with Khatami.

"U.S. policy should be focused on such domestic deeds and their promotion of international terrorism, as well as their opposition to the Middle East peace process, rather than adhering to the vague words of reform coming from Khatami," he said.

The tape shows prisoners bound in sheets, buried to their waists and then stoned by a chanting crowd that the National Council of Resistance of Iran described as the Islamic government's Republican Guard. It said the person who read the verdicts and threw the first stone was Ali Razini, a senior clergyman at the time who now heads the Justice Department.

The exiled opposition group said the smuggled tape appeared to have been filmed by a government official since there was no attempt to stop the filming. In it, the prisoners are shown bloody and mutilated as they make futile attempts to free themselves from the semi-grave.

The group has been showing the tape around the world to highlight its concerns about the continued lack of human rights in Iran despite the stated commitment to reform of Khatami.

The State Department's annual human rights report issued in late January noted that Iran's human rights record remains poor despite Khatami's election. It charged that the Iranian government had engaged in summary executions, extrajudicial killings, disappearances and widespread use of torture.

At the same time, the European Union recently ended its freeze on high-level contacts with the Islamic republic and announced that Italian Foreign Minister Lamberto Dini will visit Iran next week.
 

NCR President Congratulates UN Secretary General, Iran Zamin News Agency, February 25

According to a statement from NCR, Mr. Massoud Rajavi, President of the National Council of Resistance of Iran, congratulated UN Secretary General, Mr. Kofi Annan, for his distinguished role in bringing about a peaceful resolution of the crisis in the region, describing it as the triumph for peace over war.

Mr. Rajavi said the Secretary General's bold initiative revived the United Nations' true status as the world's highest authority for resolving international conflicts.

Referring to the ruling mullahs' extensive abuse of the Iraqi crisis since 1991, the NCR President emphasized: The first winner of the outbreak of war and crisis in this part of the world is the mullahs' religious, terrorist dictatorship which is always poised to take advantage of any opportunity to export fundamentalism, terrorism, and crises to other countries in the region.

Mr. Rajavi also expressed hope that the memorandum of understanding would be the beginning of an end to the suffering and deprivation of the people of Iraq.

 
Iran-Europe Rapprochement Challenges U.S. Policy, Reuter, February 25

LONDON - Almost unnoticed in the shadow of the Iraq crisis, the European Union moved this week to normalize relations with Iran in an indirect challenge to a U.S. policy of containment of the Islamic Republic.

The 15-nation EU dropped the adjective "critical" from the official designation of its dialogue with Tehran

But the European thaw could be the prelude to a new transatlantic row over relations with Iran.

The State Department is due to announce soon whether a $2 billion gas development deal signed by France's Total SA is "sanctionable" under a U.S. law that seeks to punish foreign firms that invest more than $20 million a year in Iran's oil and gas sector.

Israel, which strongly influences Washington's view of the Middle East, has stepped up public warnings that Iran is a greater threat to regional security than Iraq.

Analysts say the European rapprochement with Tehran can still be stymied by hardliners in the Iranian justice system, security services and parliament who have taken or threatened action against Europeans.

Hardliners used the ninth anniversary of the late Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini's "fatwa" against British writer Salman Rushdie this month to reassert their determination to see him killed, causing indignation in Britain, which holds the EU's rotating presidency.
 

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