Back to Brief on Iran
GENEVA - The U.N. Commission on Human Rights called on Iran Wednesday to halt torture, amputations and stonings and expressed concern over the "large number of executions."
The Commission renewed the mandate of its special investigator on Iran, Maurice Copithorne, a Canadian jurist. His annual report this month criticized Iran for carrying out 199 executions last year and also condemned stoning and amputations.
The National Council of Resistance of Iran, in a statement issued in Geneva, welcomed passage of the resolution as a "minimum response" by the international community despite what it called a "major campaign" by Iran to defeat the motion.
[In a statement, the NCR President Massoud Rajavi said the Commission's condemnation of the clerical regime, despite its extensive conspiracies and political dealings with some western countries, is a testament to the vigilant conscience of the human community.
[Mr. Rajavi described Khatami’s record during his eight months in office, as one of increasing executions at home and assassination of Iranian dissidents abroad.
[He said: Under such circumstances, the claims about the "rule of law," "civil society," "significant improvements in the area of freedom of expression" and "prospects for fundamental change" have no basis in reality and are only designed to justify economic ties with this anti-human regime. The mullahs’ regime lacks any popular base; an escalating internal power struggle have tolled the death bells for this regime. Those who invest politically or economically in this faltering regime stand to lose and be disgraced.]
State Lists Hill's Heroes as Terrorists, The Washington Times, April 22
The State Department has put it on every list of terrorist groups since 1973. More than 200 congressmen have signed a statement that calls its members "advocates of democracy" in Iran.
The media know them as a well organized and persistence group whose reports are often but not always reliable.
They are members of the People's Mojahedin, or Mojahedin Khalq - an Iranian exile group that got its start in the 1970s by helping to overthrow the U.S.-backed Shah Reza Pahlavi…
Today, it is the best organized external opposition group to Iran's ruling mullahs, running a sophisticated public relations operation from offices in Washington, Paris and other cities, a parliament-in-exile and a 30,000-man army along the Iranian border in Iraq.
But attention was focused on the Mojahedin when the State Department included it along with organizations like the Kurdistan Workers' Party and the Tamil Tigers on a congressionally mandated list of terrorist organizations in October.
Just three months earlier, 224 members of Congress had signed a statement urging the United States to support the group. The statement was circulated by Reps. Gary L. Ackerman, New York Democrat, and Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, Florida Republican.
The Iranian group is now fighting in federal court to get off the terrorist list - a designation that could earn a 10-year jail term for any American who gives money to the organization.
Shortly after the list appeared, Mr. Ackerman and Mrs. Ros-Lehtinen wrote a letter to President Clinton with all 224 names attached, saying the Mojahedin is "a legitimate resistance" against Iran's clerical regime…
The congressional statement released in July said, "Support for the advocates of democracy such as the Iranian Resistance … would contribute to peace and stability in the region…
Mr. Ackerman said the Mojahedin are the only credible force that might replace the mullahs in Tehran, arguing that a recent offer from Iranian President Mohammed Khatami to improve relations with the United States cannot be trusted.
"One man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter," he said in a recent interview.
A senior White House official rejected the charge that the Mojahedin was put on the terror list for political reasons. "Those groups that have directly threatened Americans in the past or have the potential to threaten Americans are put on the terrorism list. We make the judgement on that basis alone," he said. "There are no external political factors involved."
The Mojahedin is represented in the Untied States by the NCR, which runs a highly effective public relations campaign from its offices in Washington and Paris. News organizations routinely receive phone calls and faxes calling their attention to the group's operations…
Mr. Ackerman, one of the group's strongest defenders, acknowledges that he receives campaign contributions from Iranian-Americans in his district… There are an estimated 1 million Iranian-American in the United States, some of whom contribute to other legislators.
"Yes, Iranian-Americans do give funds. I hope so," Mr. Ackerman said in an interview. "So do Irish-Americans, and Jewish-Americans. They give because I happen to champion the overthrow of the government in Iran..."