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TEHRAN—Iran's army will launch on Saturday the main stage of major military exercises on the border with Afghanistan amid continued tension between the two countries, the Iranian news agency IRNA reported on Tuesday.
Iran has been massing troops near the Afghan border -- by its own account 200,000 army troops and 70,000 Revolutionary Guards -- since last month over the killings of Iranian diplomats by Taleban fighters in Afghanistan.
IRNA quoted Brigadier-General Abdolali Pourshasb, commander of army ground forces, as saying his troops, which have been holding preparatory exercises on the tense border for a month, would begin the main part of the war games on Saturday together with air force and navy units.
Iran does not recognize the Taleban government which controls more than 90 percent of Afghanistan. Tehran backs the Afghan opposition and sees ousted President Burhanuddin Rabbani as the war-shattered country's legitimate leader.
Mullahs' Legal System Plagued by Problems, Tehran's Hamshahri Daily, September 2
Head of Judiciary Organization of the Armed forces, Hojatoleslam Younesi, said: "The Judiciary has a long way to reach the optimum point." He added: "The judiciary suffers from two major problems, the absence of judicial strategy and the lack of real status of the judges."
Mohamad Saleh Nick Bakht, a lawyer member of the Bar Association said: "There are four elements to the problem of Judicial system; the first one is the lack of good lawyers, second is the lack of good law, the third is the problem of the administrative machinery of judicial system and the fourth one is to do with the lawyers and the experts whose activities need to be supervised."
Mir seraji, another member of the Bar Association said: "Contradictory laws and lack of an established judicial system and trained judges are the main problems of the Judiciary."
Mahdavi, the managing director of the Bar Association said: "The wrong method of training the judges, legislation without experts' involvement and the problem of judicial organization which has failed to materialize the rights of the public, have been the main problems of Judiciary."
Government Admits Exorbitant Addiction Levels, Qods Daily, October 12
The head of the State Prisons' Organization said: "There are 160 thousand prisoner in the country's prisons. 60% of the prisoners of the whole country which exceeds 96000, are drug related criminals."
He expressed his regrets for the poor state of accommodation of the prisoners and said that due to some economical limitations, we do not have Islamic prisons.
Bakhtiari said the segregation of drug related prisoners from the rest was essential and the treatment of criminals of different kinds should be different.
He added: "According to the law this classification should be made". He also said: "Only 5% of the prisoners are women whose charges are mostly related to drug offenses." He said that gradually all the detention centers will be moved to outside the 30 kilometer radius of the cities.
More Death Sentences, Hamshahri Daily, October 6
Leader and seven influential members of a gang called "Yaqout-e Sorkh", were sentenced to death by the first branch of Tehran's General Court. They were charged for committing 9 crimes and several armed and unarmed rubberies.
They have made an appeal and their case was referred to the High Court.
Arbitrary Arrest And Torture, French Radio (Persian Section), September 3
In a statement released on September 3, 1998, the executive committee of the Organization of Iranian Revolutionary workers, "Rahe Kargar", said: "According to a report by the Association of the Iranian Political Prisoners in exile, ex-political prisoners have been arrested in a wide scale following the assassination of Assadollah Lajevardi."
The report added: "Heshmatollah Palangi, Ahmad Reza Pouran, Mousavi, Saeed Mehdizadeh, Mehrdad Mehdizadeh, Rayollah Jaffari, Mansour Asemi, Kamal Baqeri and his wife Shirin Baqeri have been arrested and are under torture for collaborating in Lajevardi's assassination."