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In a detailed statement on the 50th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Mrs. Maryam Rajavi, the Iranian Resistance's President-elect, congratulated all those endeavoring for freedom and advocating human rights the world over. She expressed the hope that with the overthrow of the mullahs' anti-human regime, the articles of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights be put in practice in her fettered homeland.
The Iranian Resistance's President-elect said: With its countless crimes -- executions, torture and imprisonment of 500,000 dissidents, sending one million people to their deaths in an anti-patriotic war, and ruthless discrimination against women and ethnic and religious minorities over the past two decades -- the theocratic regime ruling Iran is doubtless the worst violator of the articles of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
Mrs. Rajavi enumerated the regime's crimes during Khatami's tenure, which includes the continuation and escalation of on-the-spot executions and stoning. She emphasized that any political or economic concession to the clerical regime, by anyone and under any pretext, is a blatant disregard for the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the by-product of the struggles of billions of people against oppression and injustice in the past centuries and millenniums.
Mrs. Rajavi pointed out: The time has come for the world community to recognize the Iranian people's just resistance against the mullahs' medieval regime. For according to the articles of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the only recourse in the face of such tyrannical regimes is to try to overthrow them.
Another Dissident Author Missing, Reuter, December 10
TEHRAN - An Iranian dissident author has gone missing in the latest disappearance of secular opposition intellectuals, his relatives said on Thursday.
They said Mohammad Jafar Pouyandeh, a 45-year-old translator and author had gone missing after he left his Tehran office on Wednesday afternoon.
Pouyandeh is the third author who has disappeared in the past month.
Pouyandeh was reported missing on the day the body of dissident poet Mohammad Mokhtari was found after he had disappeared in Tehran last week.
The cause of Mokhtari's death was unknown, but a newspaper quoted a relative saying his body bore bruises around the neck.
Pouyandeh, like Mokhtari, was among six prominent writers and secular intellectuals questioned in October by an Islamic revolutionary court for their activities. The authors were trying to re-launch a banned association of writers.
Javad Sharif, a former exiled dissident who had returned to Iran a few years ago, was found dead after disappearing last month.
Opposition groups and the Paris-based press watchdog Reporters Sans Frontieres (Reporters Without Borders) earlier expressed concern over the fate of Pirouz Davani, a dissident who has been missing since August.
Americans Warned To Stay Out Of Iran, Agence France Presse, December 10
TEHRAN - Islamic conservatives stepped up criticism of the Iranian government Thursday for allowing a group of Americans to visit last month with a fundamentalist group threatening to teach US officials a "lesson" if they dare travel here again. The foreign affairs committee of the conservative-dominated parliament summoned Foreign Minister Kamal Kharazi to a closed-door session Sunday to demand an explanation for the mid-November visit by 13 Americans.
The group came under attack from Islamic extremists, who accused them of working for the US government and being "CIA spies."
Conservative MP Abdol-Hamid Rastad told Resalat newspaper on Thursday that the group was a "political delegation coming here under the guise of tourists."
Rastad said Kharazi was grilled by the committee with questions over "who were the Americans, why and by whom they were invited and why did they get to meet with Iranian officials if they were ordinary tourists."
He said the minister provided "weak answers and failed to convince the deputies."
The fundamentalist group, Ansar-e-Hezbollah, threatened Thursday to teach the United States a "lesson" if US officials dare visit again.
"Relying on the infinite powers of God and undefeatable Hezbollah, we are ready to counter the Great Satan's new political offensive and (to) yank the mask of deception off the face of (Iranian) traitors," it said in a statement published in Toseeh newspaper.
"We warn explicitly that if American criminals and spies dare again to enter the land of sacrifice and martyrdom, we will teach US leaders a lesson that will turn their dream of renewed hegemony on Iran into a horrible nightmare," the group added.
"Next time (American) mercenaries will not even have a chance for a shameful getaway," it warned.