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WASHINGTON - Former hostage Terry Anderson filed a $100 million lawsuit against Iran on Monday for allegedly financing and directing the terrorists who kept him shackled and blindfolded for nearly seven years.
Anderson was taken captive in Beirut, Lebanon, on March 16, 1985, as he returned from a morning tennis game. His Hezbollah captors shuttled Anderson between stuffy rooms, beat and berated him and taunted him with the false hope of release, his lawsuit said.
"The Islamic Republic of Iran provides
material support and resources" to Hezbollah, and provided the group with
"funding, direction and training for its terrorist activities in Lebanon,"
the suit alleged.
Khatami According to Khatami
Defending Velayat-e Faqih Religious Dictatorship
State television, May 23, 1998: The main axis and the central pillar of this regime is the great leader and the vali-e-faqih, around whom other institutions and organs are formed.
State television, April 22, 1998: I work under the auspices of the leadership, and His Eminence is considered the central pillar of the regime."
State television, January 19, 1998: We tell the world that our Imam's (Khomeini's) path is alive. We shall press hard to continue this path."
State television, November 18, 1997: In the Islamic Republic defending the law means defending the velayat-e-faqih.
Mullah Regrets Protest against Khatami in Italy , Agence France Presse, March 19
TEHRAN - … Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati, who heads the Iranian constitutional council, congratulated Khatami on his "successful" visit to Italy but said he regretted the presence there of protesters from the main armed Iranian opposition group, the Mujahedeen.
Giving "permission to the group to
stage that kind of demonstration (in Rome) was not a token of goodwill
on the part of the Italian government," he said.
Authorities Shut Down New Year Celebrations, Associated Press, March 22
TEHRAN - Revelers heading to a Persian New Year's festival said they were turned away Monday, apparently because Iranian authorities believe the celebration evokes the country's pre-Islamic past.
Nowruz festivities at Takht-e-Jamshid attracted 3,000 people when they opened Sunday, the start of the new year.
Earlier, Tehran radio quoted Supreme leader Ali Khamenei as saying: "It is not an honor to attract the people to ruins that have no spiritual significance and contain vestiges of the deposed monarchy."
Since the Islamic revolution, authorities
have tried to discourage Iranians from celebrating Nowruz.
Iran Opposition Report Attack On Paramilitary HQ, Reuters, March 22
LONDON - The Iranian opposition group Mujahideen Khalq said on Monday its members had attacked the headquarters of the paramilitary Basij forces in Tehran with mortars last week.
A Mujahideen statement said its "operational units launched a major mortar attack...on Thursday, March 18, against the command headquarters of...Basij in Tehran's Afsarieh district."
The statement said a number of Basij members and commanders were killed or injured in the attack, which also damaged some buildings.
It said the attack was launched in
response to a crackdown on a demonstration in Iran's Kurdistan province
on February 22.
Protests in Canada Against Khatami's Upcoming Visit to France, Iran Zamin News Agency, March 22
Today, tens of Iranians of Toronto and Vancouver in Canada held a rally in front of the French consulates to protest the visit by the clerical regime's president Mohammad Khatami to France next month.
The protestors called on the French government to cancel this visit in light of continuing human rights violations and terrorism in Iran.
They also called on the French government "to take actions to dispatch an international fact-finding delegation to Iran to identify those responsible for the recent murders" of Iranian writers and dissidents.