TEHRAN - Iranian police arrested around two dozen young women in a northern Tehran district on Monday after accusing them of dating young men or failing to observe the strict dress code mandatory in tIran.

In a small shopping mall in Vanak district, male police officers accompanied by veiled female colleagues forced around 20 girls and young women into a minibus to take them to a police station which fights social vice in Tehran.

They checked the identities of young couples sitting at a table in a restaurant and seized them after establishing that they were not related.

Others were rounded up for failing to conform to the Islamic dress code for women, implemented after the 1979 revolution requiring them to cover themselves from head to toe and not wear make up in public.

The authorities have stepped up a crackdown on loose dress and other "social vice" since the start of the mourning month of Moharram three weeks ago. Most of the women arrested face a fine or even lashes.
 

Hard-liners Attack Political Rally, Agence France Presse, May 18

TEHRAN - Around 30 members of an Islamic vigilante group attacked student activists who had gathered in a park here Monday to demonstrate support for President Mohammad Khatami, witnesses said.

Organizers had postponed the rally for one week for unspecified reasons, but witnesses said around 4,000 people appeared at Laleh park in central Tehran, which was under tight police security.

Police equipped with riot gear refrained from intervening, however, when the vigilantes attacked the participants, notably cameramen and photographers, the witnesses said.
 

Iran Sentences Four Customs Officials to Death, Reuter, May 16

TEHRAN - A Tehran court has sentenced four Iranian customs officials to death for financial misconduct, Iran's official news agency IRNA said on Saturday.

"Three customs appraisers and a middleman in customs affairs have received death sentences after being convicted of economic sabotage, announced Judge Seraj of public court's branch 180 stationed in Mehrabad International Airport here on Saturday," IRNA said.

It said the charges against the four included "forging export documents, registering sham firms, and illegal trafficking of foreign currencies, gold and antiques."
 

Argentina Could Sever Relations With Iran at Any Moment, Agence France Presse, May 18

BUENOS AIRES - Argentina could break off all diplomatic relations with Iran at any moment, a top foreign ministry official said Monday.

Ties between Buenos Aires and Tehran could be severed "today, tomorrow, within a week or 15 days," Daniel Castruccio, secretary for coordination and institutional relations, told Radio Mitre.

An Argentine judge has said that there are strong indications that the Iranian government is linked to the 1994 bombing at a Buenos Aires Jewish center that killed 86 people. Argentine officials also suspect Iranian involvement in an attack on the Israeli embassy in Buenos Aires in March 1992, which killed 29.

Judge Galeano is likely to announce a decision once he gets an official transcript of statements from a former Iranian intelligence operative currently in German custody.

The former Iranian spy allegedly said that the plan for the 1994 bombing was hatched in Teheran and carried out by Moshe Rabbani, the former Iranian cultural attaché in Buenos Aires.
 

ILSA Proponents Critical of Iran Waiver Decision, Dow Jones News, May 18

WASHINGTON - Proponents of the Iran and Libya Sanctions Act wasted no time Monday in criticizing the administration's decision to waive sanctions on three firms that violated the law.

President Clinton earlier announced that he would waive punitive trade sanctions on three firms for their $2 billion investment in Iran.

"The decision is a mistake," said Sen. Alfonse D'Amato, R-N.Y., who authored the law. "It (the decision) will send a signal to others that they can do business as usual with Iran at a time when Iran continues to pursue weapons of mass destruction and continues to sponsor terrorist acts," he said.

Sen. Sam Brownback, R-Kan., also said that Clinton's decision was a mistake.

[Reuter reported from Tehran that: Iranian state radio hailed the EU-U.S. deal as a great victory for the Islamic republic.

["Political analysts see this agreement, reached under European pressure, as a great victory for Europe and primarily for Iran, which was able to easily resist illegal American policies," the radio said.]
 

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