The National Council of Resistance of Iran reported on Thursday that hundreds of workers at Chitsazi textile factory in Behshahr, northern Iran, stopped work last week to protest non-payment of their wages and New Year bonuses. They gathered in front of the governor's office. The protesters also blocked the Behshahr-Gorgan transit road and prevented all traffic.

The statement said that concurrently, workers at Persan factory in Rasht, northern Iran, staged a protest on March 17 against non-payment of their salaries. They burnt a large number of tires on Rasht-Fouman road and halted the traffic. It is six months since Persan workers were last paid their wages. The factory did not pay them any New Year bonus. Workers have threatened to stage a march and commit suicide en masse if their delayed wages and bonuses are not paid within a week.

The NCR called for condemnation of the anti-labor policies of the medieval dictatorship ruling Iran and drew the attention of human rights organizations as well as the labor unions and syndicates to the violation of the most fundamental rights of Iranian workers.

 
Iran Rejects German Appeal in Case of Detained German National, Agence France Presse, March 26

The Iranian foreign ministry on Thursday rejected an appeal by German Foreign Minister Klaus Kinkel in the case of a German man sentenced to death for having sexual relations with an Iranian Moslem woman.

The official Iranian news agency IRNA quoted foreign ministry spokesman Mahmoud Mohammadi as saying that the case was a purely legal matter.

"As we have already told German officials, the question of the offenses committed by the said person in Iran is a purely legal matter and will be examined by the legal authorities in the context of Iranian law," he said.

German Foreign Minister Klaus Kinkel said last week that he would personally take charge of the case of German businessman, Helmut Hofer.

Relations took a sour turn in January after Bonn announced the arrest and death sentence for Hofer for an alleged sexual relationship with an Iranian Moslem woman.

Iranian authorities have implicitly confirmed the death sentence.

Bonn has warned that ties with Tehran could suffer if Hofer is executed.

The two countries have just recovered from a diplomatic storm over ruling by a German court in April of last year that the Tehran regime was behind the 1992 murder of Iranian Kurdish dissidents in Berlin.

 
Tehran's Deputy Mayor Tortured, Fundamentalist Gangs Continue Repressive Measures, The Sunday Times, March 22

As deputy mayor of Tehran, Gholamreza Ghobeh thought he was untouchable. He did not count on the power of the mullahs. After being arrested by their armed security agents last year and accused of diverting public money to the presidential election campaign of their leading opponent, Ghobeh went to jail.

In the cells of the Evin prison, he and a dozen other officials were forced to sleep in coffins. Some were handcuffed to a corpse.

Several months later, however, Ghobeh and the others have defied their torturers by testifying to a closed session of parliament. The accounts of their ordeal may bring down Ayatollah Muhammad Yazdi, head of Iran's judiciary and one of the country's most conservative mullahs, who is regarded by many as a "dinosaur"….

…Gangs of fundamentalist Islamic youths called komiteh (semi-official Islamic police) sometimes comb Tehran's streets looking for "un-Islamic" behavior. To drive at night with a member of the opposite sex is to court trouble. Women found showing hair or liberally applied make-up are fined. Persistent offenders face the lash.

The Ansar-e Hizbollah, a pro-Islamic street gang protected by hardline clerics, intimidates anybody it considers a threat….

 
Another Fatal Crash in Iran's Roads, Reuter, March 26

Eight members of one family burned to death when their car collided head-on with a bus during Iranian new year holidays, the official IRNA news agency said on Thursday.

All eight occupants of the car died in flames before rescue workers arrived at the scene on a road to Kashan, south of Tehran. The bus also caught fire, but passengers managed to escape unhurt, the agency said.

IRNA said the accident occurred this week. Many Iranians travel during new year holidays which started on Saturday.

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