Back to Brief on Iran
TEHRAN - Tehran newspapers on Monday said President Mohammad Khatami should provide the people with more details on how to cure the "sick economy."
"For example, analysts warned that oil prices were falling to $10 per barrel, while the economic experts based the country's budget on $16 per barrel," Iran News said.
The newspaper was referring to growing concerns among economic analysts in Iran that the budgeted forecast price for oil at $16 per barrel for the Iranian year beginning March 21 is untenably high.
"Six months after the establishment of a new administration, a few of the economic officials of the country (the minister of economics, to name one) have yet to hold a public interview with respect to their past actions and future plans," Iran News said.
Growing dissatisfaction over the economy -- plagued by looming recession, inflation, and high unemployment -- is eclipsing most other issues now, Iranian analysts said.
[NCR in a statement said: Khatami's
remarks are but part of the catastrophic dimensions of the economy. 80%
of the people live below the poverty line, 16 million are unemployed, 25
million are homeless, and the national per capita income had fallen to
one-fifth of what it was in 1978, a year before the mullahs took power.
In these circumstances, the most of the country's assets are spent on repression,
purchase of conventional weapons, proliferation of weapons of mass destruction,
missiles, and export of terrorism and fundamentalism.]
Iran to Limit Dollar Sales to Iranians Traveling Abroad, Agence France Presse, March 15
TEHRAN - The government is to tighten restrictions on dollar sales to Iranians traveling abroad as the country's hard currency oil receipts have tumbled, Iranian newspapers reported Sunday.
The restrictions are due to go into effect with the start of the Iranian new year, March 21, but some state bank branches already are refusing to sell dollars to private individuals as they await the new rules, they said.
Some Iranian newspapers reported that banks could from now on sell currency to travelers at the rate of 4,720 rials to the dollar. That rate is already in use for certain commercial export transactions and is closer to the dollar's rate on the black market, where it runs higher than 5,000 rials to the dollar.
Clerics Protest Restrictions on Dissident Mullah,
Agence France Presse, March 16
TEHRAN - A group of Iranian theologians have protested at restrictions imposed on a senior dissident cleric, Hossein Ali Montazeri, who has been under house arrest for criticizing the Islamic leadership, a newspaper said Monday.
The clerics, including some of Montazeri's students, voiced their protest in a letter to several grand ayatollahs, who are revered here as religious sages, the daily Farda said.
"The signatories demand that he (Montazeri) return to his normal life and resume teaching and scholarly debate," they reportedly said.
The number of the protesters and their identity was not revealed, or the ayatollahs to whom the letter was addressed.
Montazeri has been under increased police surveillance in the holy city of Qom, central Iran, since November when he criticized Iran's supreme leader Ali Khamenei for dominating political affairs.
He urged President Mohammad Khatami to resign over what he called Khamenei's "interference."
Last week, shopkeepers in Najafabad, Montazeri's hometown in central Iran, went on a one-day strike to protest at the treatment against the ayatollah.
Anti-Graft Court Charges Tehran Mayor, Reuter, March 16
TEHRAN - An Iranian court has brought charges against Tehran's mayor, a close ally of President Mohammad Khatami, in the latest stage of graft trials targeting city officials, a newspaper said Monday.
The daily Kayhan said the court summoned Gholamhossein Karbaschi to appear April 4 to answer unspecified charges.
Khatami's opponents have accused municipal officials of using public funds and resources for political purposes during the elections.
A court last week sentenced a top Karbaschi aide to 25 years in jail and 322 lashes on corruption charges. Five other city officials received jail terms of up to seven years and up to 74 lashes each.
The trials prompted accusations that the officials were mistreated and held in long solitary confinement during detention. The reports have led to a rare public debate about torture in Iran.
Judicial authorities threatened to
bring defamation charges against a journalist from the pro-Khatami Salam
newspaper for asking judiciary head Ayatollah Mohammad Yazdi at a news
conference about the torture accusations.