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Today, Mohammad Khatami, the mullahs' president, introduced to the Majlis Ali Younessi as his choice as the Minister of Intelligence. Younessi is one of the most criminal religious judges and officials of the clerical regime over the past 20 years.
Mr. Massoud Rajavi, President of the NCR, described the dismissal of Dorri Najafabadi and his replacement by Ali Younessi as the outcome of a dirty deal between Khatami and Khamenei.
Mr. Rajavi added: A notorious executioner like Younessi who has had an active role in the execution of tens of thousands of political prisoners… is a hundred times more criminal than Dorri Najafabadi.
Khamenei's confidants describe this change of posts as "a change for the better" particularly since the details of the murders will continue to remain concealed, NCR President noted.
Younessi's criminal record include the following:
1. At the outset of Khomeini's reign, Younessi was appointed as a religious judge in Qom.
2. Upon the invitation of Mohammad Hossein Beheshti, then the Minister of Justice, Younessi was subsequently appointed as head of Tehran's Revolutionary Court branch.
3. He then was appointed as the head of the second branch of the Revolutionary Court and the religious judge in the armed forces.
4. Simultaneously, he was in charge of the political-ideological bureau in the Revolutionary Komitehs, one of the main organs of suppression during the 1980s.
5. Younessi actively cooperated with mullah Mohammad Mohammadi Rayshahri, the regime's first Minister of Intelligence, in the founding of the ministry.
6. Younessi was involved in the planning and foundation of the Judicial Organization of the Armed Forces in 1986.
7. He was Khomeini's representative in the military's Counter-Intelligence Department in 1986.
8. As a religious judge, Younessi was directly involved in the so-called trial and execution of political prisoners during the massacre of 30,000 political prisoners in summer 1988. Along with other members of the "Death Commission" Younessi sent group after group of political prisoners before the firing squads in Evin and Gohardasht prisons.
9. He was Tehran's General Prosecutor from September 1988 to 1993.
10. Younessi was appointed as the Head
of the Judicial Organization of the Armed Forces since 1993. In this post,
he sentenced hundreds of dissident and pro-Mojahedin personnel to death.
Wave of Executions and Arrests in Iran, Iran Zamin News Agency, February 16
In recent weeks, the theocratic regime ruling Iran has resorted to a new wave of executions and arrests in different parts of the country to confront the spread of popular protests.
Reports indicate that a large number of Mojahedin sympathizers and former political prisoners in different cities have been arrested, imprisoned and put under torture. In Hamedan (western Iran), a large number of prisoners were arrested, among them two former political prisoners by the names of Sirati and Javadi.
The mullahs' regime executed eight
prisoners on February 14 in Tehran. The number of victims of executions
announced during Khatami's presidency thus exceeds 320.
Khamenei Urges Anti-U.S. Rallies At Saudi Haj, Reuter, February 17
TEHRAN - Iranian supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei called on Wednesday for rallies against the United States and Israel at the Moslem haj pilgrimage to Saudi Arabia, which falls in March this year, Iran's state television said.
"The Moslems' unity and resistance against enemies and the disavowal of infidels, headed by America and the cancerous tumor of Zionism (Israel), is Islam's greatest call during haj," the television quoted Khamenei as saying.
About two million people from around
the world flock to Islam's holiest shrine in Mecca every year for the haj
pilgrimage, a key pillar of Islam.
Despite Tough Laws, Drug Use on the Rise Among Young Iranians, Agence France Presse, February 17
TEHRAN - Drug use in Iran is on the rise, particularly among students despite government crackdowns, a newspaper here reported Wednesday.
"There are currently more than three million drug users in Iran, including 260,000 young students," conservative newspaper Resalat said, citing a government official.
Around half of Iran's 60 million population is under the age of 25.
Tehran adopted a tough anti-drug law in 1989 providing for the death penalty for anyone found with more than 30 grams (just over one ounce) of heroin or more than five kilos (11 pounds) of opium.