Back to Brief on Iran
TEHRAN - A crowd of people held a sit-in and many shops closed in an Iranian town to protest the placing of a senior cleric under house arrest, an Iranian newspaper reported Sunday.
Farda newspaper said the baazar in Najafabad, the hometown of the disgraced cleric Ayatollah Hossein-Ali Montazeri, was closed on Saturday.
Montazeri’s supporters also staged a sit-in to demand that the authorities "review their policy and attitude" towards Montazeri.
The paper implicitly said the police had intervened and "the crowd were dispersed," allowing "relative calm to return to the town in central Iran.
Monatzeri has been under increased
police surveillance in the holy city of Qom since November, when he challenged
Iran’s supreme leader Khamenei.
Commander of Guards Corps Bassij Killed, Iran Zamin News Agency, March 6
According to a statement by the People's Mojahedin Organization of Iran, in a confrontation between supporters of the organization and forces of the Guards Corps Bassij in Silvaneh, western Azerbaijan, Rahim Amiri Nasab, commander of the Bassij force in this town, was killed.
Amiri Nassab had an active role in the arrest, torture, and execution of supporters of the Mojahedin in this region. He was also actively involved in the suppression of protests and social uprisings, and harassment of women in this town.
The Ministry of Intelligence subsequently
arrested a large number of former political prisoners in western Azerbaijan.
No information is available on their fate.
Cleric Wants Book Doubting Holocaust Spread, Reuter, March 6
A senior Iranian cleric called on Friday for a book by a convicted French author questioning the Holocaust to be widely distributed in Moslem countries.
"I recommend that this book be translated and distributed in all Islamic countries, including Iran," Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati said in a Friday prayer sermon broadcast on Tehran radio.
He was referring to the book "The Founding
Myths of Israeli Politics" by French Moslem author Roger Garaudy which
disputes the numbers of Jews killed in the Holocaust and questions the
existence of gas chambers in Nazi death camps.
Against U.S. Wishes, Russia Will Sell Reactors to Iran, The New York Times, March 7
MOSCOW -- In a rebuff to the United States, Russia's Atomic Energy Ministry said on Friday that it plans to sell several additional nuclear reactors to Iran.
The disclosure came as the United States signed an agreement in Kiev under which Ukraine would withdraw from the Russian program to build a reactor at Bushehr.
American officials said that the Ukrainian accord would seriously delay the project. But Russian officials insisted that Moscow could complete the reactor on its own and had even dispatched a senior official to Iran to negotiate further sales...
US Senate to Vote on Iran Missile Bill by Easter,
Reuter, March 5
WASHINGTON - U.S. Senate Majority Trent Lott said on Thursday he will schedule a vote by April 3 on legislation to clamp sanctions on foreign entities that help Iran develop or acquire ballistic missiles.
The legislation has been cleared by the House of Representatives, and the Senate bill already has 80 co-sponsors, Lott said.
Ukraine Bows to U.S. Pressure, The Washington
Post, March 7
MOSCOW, March 6—Ukraine announced today that it would abandon plans to supply turbines for the completion of a Russian-built nuclear power plant in Iran after months of pressure from the United States. Russia announced separately that it would double the size of the Iranian atomic station from two to four.
Ukraine's decision to pull out of the $45 million turbine deal was announced by Foreign Minister Hennady Udovenko after a one-day visit to Kiev by Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright, who also met with President Leonid Kuchma....
Iran Condemns Ukraine for Scrapping Nuclear Deal,
Reuter, March 7
TEHRAN - Iran on Saturday sharply rebuked Ukraine for scrapping a nuclear cooperation deal with Tehran under US pressure.
"Ukraine is the biggest loser," the official news agency IRNA quoted state-run Iranian radio as saying.
Iranian radio commentaries are widely
seen as officially backed by Tehran's leaders.