Back to Brief on Iran
On his return from New York, mullahs' Foreign Minister Kamal Kharazi told the state radio and television network today: "In my meeting with the British Foreign Secretary about the apostate Salman Rushdie, I did not take any new stance. My position was exactly what officials of the Islamic Republic of Iran had repeatedly underscored."
"In reality, the British government decided to elevate to the level of ambassador its ties with the Islamic Republic of Iran," Kharrazi said.
Mullahs' news agency, IRNA, reported on Thursday that in a meeting with leaders of a number of fundamentalist groups and parties in Britain, mullahs' charge d'affaires Gholamreza Ansari described the propaganda by the British media about the Cook-Kharrazi deal as "misleading." Underlining that the fatwa cannot be revoked, he said: "The British government accepted this after 10 years. The fatwa was not essentially raised in negotiations between Kharrazi and British Foreign Secretary, for it was obvious that it could not be rescinded."
Iranian MPs Assure World Muslims That Rushdie Fatwa is "Divine Order", Agence France Presse, October 4
TEHRAN - More than 150 members of the 270-seat Iranian parliament have signed a petition describing the fatwa, or religious decree, sentencing British author Salman Rushdie to death as a "divine order."
"The verdict against Rushdie the blasphemer is death, both today and tomorrow, and to burn in hell for eternity," the members of the conservative-dominated parliament said in a petition read out at the end of Sunday's session.
"We assure Moslems throughout the world that in Iran nothing commands more respect than the orders of God and the Imam," the MPs said in a reference to the late Iranian leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini who issued the fatwa against Rushdie for his book "The Satanic Verses."
In targeting the novel, which is deemed blasphemous by many Moslems, "Imam Khomeini fired the bullet which will one day pierce this Satan's throat and stop his pen making further insults."
"The policy of Iran and its foreign ministry has not changed," the petition said, adding that Foreign Minister Kamal Kharazi should have shown "greater vigilance" in "not allowing Britain, this former colonial power, to upset Moslems with this publicity stunt."
Mullahs Give Further Approval to Hospital Segregation, Agence France Presse, October 4
TEHRAN - Iranian parliament has given second-stage approval to a controversial law on the Islamicisation of medical services and the segregation of hospitals by sex, state radio said on Sunday.
The law aims to establish a higher council in the health ministry to oversee its application, in particular the treatment of women by female staff and men by male staff in hospital.
The measure received initial approval in April.
Iranian authorities launched a campaign several years ago to segregate the sexes in public arenas, including several hospitals, and buses were segregated by sex after the 1979 Islamic revolution.
Any physical contact between men and women who are not related is forbidden in the Islamic republic.
Officials will inaugurate this week a park built exclusively for women in a conservative city in southwestern Iran.
Iran Can Hit Israel From Lebanon: Top Lebanese Shiite
Leader, Agence France Presse, October 1
BEIRUT - "Iran is capable of bombarding Israel with sophisticated arms from Lebanon if Israel strikes (Iran) in any way," said Sheikh Mohammad Hussein Fadlallah, the pro-Iranian spiritual guide of Shiite fundamentalists in Lebanon.
"Everything that is prohibited today will be allowed in case of an aggression against Iran, and Israel knows that," he told London-based Asharq al-Awsat newspaper.
Fadlallah was referring to the April 1996 ceasefire agreement that bans the targeting of civilians or launching of attacks from civilian areas across the Lebanese-Israeli borders.
The Shiite fundamentalist Hezbollah organization, backed by Iran and Syria, spearheads the guerrilla war to force Israel out of Lebanon.