The Foreign Affairs Committee of the National Council of Resistance of Iran published a new book entitled: "Legacy of A Misguided Policy: U.S. State Department's 'good-will gesture' to Iran's mullahs at Resistance's expense."

The book's back cover reads: "This book is an attempt to explain the political background and motives that led to the U.S. State Department's inclusion of the Mojahedin in its list of "foreign terrorist organizations." The move fits into a pattern of attempts to mollify the ruling mullahs in Iran, an appeasement that is itself the legacy of a misguided policy that has haunted the U.S. approach to Iran for four decades. It is time for the U.S. to abandon this failed policy and adopt a firm and resolute Iran policy. The United States must recognize the right of the Iranian people to overthrow the theocratic dictatorship and establish peace and democracy in their country."

 
More Executions in Iran, Iran Zamin News Agency, March 18

The Geneva office of the National Council of Resistance of Iran issued a statement today indicating that four men were hanged in public in Sari, northern Iran. The executions took place in the beginning of March under the pretext of punishing drug traffickers.

According to the statement, a few days earlier, the clerical regime's Prosecutor General had announced that the punishment for drug traffickers had increased between two to ten-fold.

While the highest officials are directly involved in consumption, trade and distribution of drugs, the mullahs seek to step up repression by widespread arrests and executions under the pretext of drug trafficking in a bid to curb social protests.

The NCR said that the clerical regime has announced at least 20 executions in the state-run press since the beginning of 1998.

 
Kinkel Vows To Deal Personally With Iran Over Jailed German Convicted To Death, Agence France Presse, March 18

BONN—German Foreign Minister Klaus Kinkel said in an interview published Wednesday that he would take charge personally of the case involving a German man found guilty in Iran of having an "illicit" relationship with an Iranian Moslem woman.

The court said the conviction of businessman Helmut Hofer, 56, was justified because he was not a Moslem. According to Bonn, Hofer was sentenced to death in January. Tehran has implicitly confirmed the death sentence.

The Iranian human rights commission on Tuesday, said the judgement was "unassailable" and "conforms fully to the judicial standards" of Iran.

Hofer is being held at Evin prison in Tehran.

 
Punch-Up in Iranian Parliament, BBC, March 18

Two deputies in the Iranian parliament, the Majlis, have been involved in a fight in the parliamentary chamber, throwing the session into chaos for several minutes.

The trouble broke out when a deputy started chanting slogans and advancing towards the Interior Minister, Abdollah Nuri, who had been explaining why he had allowed a rally by the Freedom Movement to go ahead.

Another deputy then intervened and blows were exchanged before order was restored.

[In a report today, Reuter said that Khatami's Interior Ministry, "which does not have control over the police, has been unable to protect the meetings, which it has authorized, from attacks by hardline militants. The attacks have drawn little reaction from police forces, which are under supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei's command.]

 
Iranian Rial Continues To Falter Against Dollar, Reuter, March 18

The value of the Iranian rial on Tehran's illegal but active currency market has continued to lose ground against the U.S. dollar.

The Persian-language Farda newspaper on Wednesday reported the rial had weakened to 5,250 rials to the dollar, compared to the official rate of 3,000 offered by state banks and 1,750 used to calculate state budgets.

In early January, street currency traders were quoting a rate of 4,800 rials to the dollar.

The rial is now at its softest level since 1995 when U.S. President Bill Clinton announced unilateral sanctions against Iran.

The rial has come under pressure from oil prices which are at their lowest level in nine years, threatening to undermine the Iranian economy which relies on petroleum exports for more than 80 percent of its hard currency earnings.

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