Back to Brief on Iran
TEHRAN - The commander of Iran's Revolutionary Guards, General Yahya Rahim Safavi, has threatened to crack down on a wave of internal dissent and criticism saying it jeopardized the country's security, newspapers said Wednesday.
"Newspapers are published these days which are threatening our national security. They contain the same material as American newspapers," said Safavi in a public speech Monday in the holy city of Qom.
"Liberals have entered the foray with cultural artillery. They have taken over our universities and our youth are now shouting slogans against despotism," he was quoted as saying by Jameeh and Hamshahri.
"We are seeking to root out anti-revolutionaries wherever they are," the general added. "We have to behead some and cut off the tongues of others. Our language is our sword. We will expose these cowards."
He notably criticized Culture Minister Ataollah Mohajerani and the interior ministry.
"I spoke to Mohajerani and told him his way was threatening the national security. Do you know where you are going?" Safavi reportedly said.
The general also linked the interior ministry to a wave of strikes in a central Iranian town in recent weeks protesting against the house arrest of dissident cleric Ayatollah Hossein-Ali Montazeri.
The general also criticized Khatami for calling for dialogue with the West and for pledging to work ease tension with the outside world.
"Can we withstand American threats and domineering attitude with a policy of détente? Can we foil dangers coming from America through dialogue between civilizations?" he asked.
"Will we be able to protect the Islamic republic from international Zionism by signing conventions to ban proliferation of chemical and atomic weapons?" Safavi added.
An abridged version of his speech published in newspapers on Tuesday did not contain these attacks.
Salam did not publish Safavi's remarks, but warned that they amounted to "taking sides in the country's political developments."
The armed forces are banned under the constitution from interfering in politics.
But the general said the Revolutionary Guards had had a political and ideological agenda since its creation after the Islamic revolution to safeguard the regime.
[The National Council of Resistance
issued a statement from Paris, in which it said Safavi's comments signal
a new phase in the power struggle within the mullahs’ regime. This phase
is characterized by violence and physical elimination, the NCR said.]
Escalating Power Struggle Billed as "Sign of True Democracy", Reuter, April 29
KUWAIT - Iran's conservative parliament speaker Ali Akbar Nateq-Nouri dismissed on Wednesday reports of an internal struggle in Iran between moderates and conservatives which surfaced earlier this month in a dispute over a legal case involving Tehran's moderate mayor Ghlomahossein Karbachi.
He described the presence of various political schools of thought in Iran as a sign of true democracy and "a positive issue which is highly beneficial and proves that the society is alive."
But "we are all in essence linked to the revolution and its principles and we all live the life of the revolution."
Nateq-Nouri said that if the revolution
was threatened all of Iran's political groups would stand united like an
"obstructive dam" to defend it.
Strike By Montazeri Supporters Enters 4th Day, Reuter, April 29
Farda newspaper reported that the bazaar of Najaf Abad, near the central city of Isfahan, was closed on Tuesday for the fourth consecutive day in protest against limitations imposed on the dissident cleric Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri by security forces.
[Iran zamin news agency reported that the atmosphere in the city is very tense. Shopowners and bazaar merchants have continued their strike, despite attempts to intimidate them by the Ministry of Intelligence and Revolutionary Guards. One group of shop owners and clergy in the city were arrested.
World Should Not Drop Guard On Iran Too Early,
Reuter, April 29
LONDON - British Foreign Secretary Robin Cook said the world should not be lulled into a false sense of security by the more moderate tone coming out of Iran.
"It is important that we do not lower our guard too soon. There is more than one center of power in Iran," he told foreign ministers from the European Union and the six-nation Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC).
"And we have yet to see evidence that Iran has given up its plans to develop weapons of mass destruction, its support for terrorist organizations or the fatwa on the British author Salman Rushdie," he said.
Last week, Cook said Britain's foreign intelligence agencies had tracked Iran's nuclear program and disrupted Iranian attempts to acquire British technology, although he gave no details.